Documents for "Ancient History, Northern Europe":

• Aedui or Haedui , Gallic people, occupying in the 1st cent. BC a part of what later became Burgundy. Defeated by Ariovistus and at odds with their Gallic neighbors, they were allies of the Romans. The...

• Allobroges Celtic tribe in Gaul, inhabiting later Dauphiné and Savoy. They were conquered (121 BC) by Quintus Fabius Maximus, who was called Allobrogicus in commemoration of the victory. In the time of...

• Antiochia Margiana see Merv.

• Batavi ancient Germanic tribe that settled (1st cent. BC) in the Rhine delta. Batavian regiments served under Rome, although this relationship was interrupted in AD 70 by the anti-Roman conspiracy of Civilis...

• Belgae see Gaul.

• Bibracte former capital of the Aedui , site atop Mont Beuvray, central France. There Caesar defeated (58 BC) the Helvetii (see Gallic Wars ). Excavations on the site have revealed a Gallic town.

• Cimmerians ancient people of S Russia of whom little is actually known. They are mentioned in Homer, but they emerge into history only in the 8th cent. BC when they were driven by the Scythians from their...

• Dacia ancient name of the European region corresponding roughly to modern Romania (including Transylvania). It was inhabited before the Christian era by a people who were called Getae by the Greeks and...

• Eruli see Germans.

• Germans great ethnic complex of ancient Europe, a basic stock in the composition of the modern peoples of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, N Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium,...

• Getae see Dacia.

• Haedui see Aedui.

• Heruli see Germans.

• Iberia ancient country of Transcaucasia, roughly the eastern part of present-day Georgia. It was inhabited in earliest times by various tribes, collectively called Iberians by ancient historians,...

• Iberians ancient people of Spain. Some scholars have argued that they migrated from Africa in the Neolithic period and again at the end of the Bronze Age, while the archaeological evidence has been...

• Ilipa ancient town of Spain, near the modern Seville. Here Scipio Africanus Major defeated (206 BC) the Carthaginian forces after Hasdrubal had fled to Gaul. The overthrow of Carthaginian power in Spain...

• Illyria and Illyricum ancient region of the Balkan Peninsula. In prehistoric times a group of tribes speaking dialects of an Indo-European language swept down to the northern and eastern shores of the Adriatic and...

• Lasea ancient town of Crete, S of Candia. It was near the harbor called Fair Havens. The Acts of the Apostles reports that it is where Paul landed. Some ruins remain.

• Margiana see Merv.

• Moesia ancient region of SE Europe, south of the lower Danube River. Inhabited by Thracians, it was captured by the Romans in 29 BC It was later organized as a Roman province, comprising roughly what is...

• Nervii ancient people of Belgica, Gaul. They revolted against the Romans and were crushed by Julius Caesar (57 BC). Their capital was Bagacum, the present-day Bavay, France.

• Northmen see Norsemen.

• Numantia ancient settlement, Spain, near the Durius (now Douro) River and north of modern Soria. Numantia played a central role in the Celt-Iberian resistance to Roman conquest. Its inhabitants withstood...

• Sarmatia ancient district between the Vistula River and the Caspian Sea, occupied by the Sarmatians [Lat. Sarmatae ] from the 3d cent. BC through the 2d cent. AD The term is vague and is also used to refer to the territory along the Danube and across the Carpathians where the Sarmatians were later driven by the Huns. The Sarmatians, who until c.200 BC lived E of the Don River, spoke an Indo-Iranian language and were a nomadic pastoral people related to the Scythians (see Scythia ), whom they displaced in the Don region. The main divisions were the Rhoxolani, the Iazyges, and the Alans or Alani. They came into conflict with the Romans but later allied themselves with Rome,...

• Saxons Germanic people, first mentioned in the 2d cent. by Ptolemy as inhabiting the southern part of the Cimbric Peninsula (S Jutland). Holding the area at the mouth of the Elbe River and some of the...

• Scythia ancient region of Eurasia, extending from the Danube on the west to the borders of China on the east. The Scythians flourished from the 8th to the 4th cent. BC They spoke an Indo-Iranian language but had no system of writing. They were nomadic conquerors and skilled horsemen. They seem to be related to the Saka,...

• Senones name of two distinct groups of ancient people of Gaul. One settled in NE Italy S of the Po in the 4th cent. B.C; the other lived in the valley of the Seine.

• Sirmium ancient city of Pannonia. The site is near modern Sremska Mitrovica, NW Serbia. Sirmium was unimportant until occupied late in the 1st cent. BC by the Romans in the conquest of Pannonia. It was prominent later, especially...

• Thule name given by the ancients to the most northerly land of Europe. It was an island discovered and described (c.310 BC) by the Greek navigator Pytheas and variously identified with Iceland, Norway,...

• Vandals ancient Germanic tribe. They originated in N Jutland and, along with other Germanic peoples, settled in the valley of the Oder about the 5th cent. BC They appeared in Pannonia and Dacia in the 3d...

• Veneti Celtic people of ancient Gaul, who inhabited an area of NW France, now in Morbihan dept. Forming the most important of the Gallic maritime states, they rebelled in 57 BC against Roman rule. They...