Vangiones

The Vangiones (also Wangionen, latin Vangiones, further Ouargiones ) were a tribe of unclear language, culture and ethnicity, which was established in the area around Worms; they were attributed to either the Celts or the Germans.

First recorded in Caesar

The Vangiones appear in written sources for the first time in the report of the Roman general Julius Caesar on his wars in Gaul. Around the year 70 BC, various tribes under the leadership of the Germanic prince Ariovistus had penetrated into the territory of the Gauls in search of a new settlement area. The under the protectorate of the Roman Empire Gauls asked, as Caesar, Rome for help. Caesar calls the Vangiones in connection with the decisive battle of 14 September of the year 58 BC, when they fought in the army of Ariovistus against his Roman troops and documents.

Teutons or Celts

Although Caesar refers to the seven tribes of the Battle of the Rhine as the Germans, and in addition to the Vangiones in its war report even mentions the Haruder, Marcomanni, Nemeter, Sedusier, Suevi and Triboci, some strains probably of Celtic origin and neighbors were in Siedlingsgebiet the Vangiones on the Rhine. Thus, the Vangiones might have been of Celtic origin. About the ethnicity of tribes in the right bank of the Rhine in the run-up to the 1st century BC due to the so-called " Helvetian wasteland " little known. The settlement in the territory of the Reich was probably only take place during the reign of Augustus. Notes on Caesar himself among the " geographical digressions ", which were probably the earliest inserted in the Augustan period in the work. More likely, in addition to an indirect mention of the geographer Strabo 's own expressions of Caesar, after the defeat of Ariovistus all Suevi had fled across the Rhine.

Civitas Vangionum

As part of the consolidation of Roman rule after the battle in Alsace Vangiones of the Civitas Vangionum was established in the tribal area, a semi-autonomous administrative unit at the middle level.

Relationship with Worms

Even in a royal charter of 985 civitas, urbs of ecclesia and Worms were designated as " vangionisch ". During the Renaissance, the memory was revived at the Vangiones; the city of Worms referred to himself in the 17th century as a civitas libera vormatia metropolis Vangionum imperii. Possibly, the old tribal name in the name of Wonnegau, the area west of Worms obtained.