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''Germani cisrhenani'' is a Latin term which refers to that portion of the tribal people known as ''Germani'' who lived during classical times to the west of the Rhine river. During the lifetime of Julius Caesar, it referred especially to those who had settled among the Belgic Gauls, before Roman intrusion into the area. Cisrhenane means "on this side of the Rhine". The opposite is transrhenane or "across the Rhine". The cisrhenane Germani are also sometimes referred to as "Left bank Germani".〔 Tribes who were certainly considered to be among the original ''Germani cisrhenani'' include the Eburones, the Condrusi, the Caeraesi, the Segni and the Paemani, who collectively form a group who apparently later came to be referred to as Tungri, in order to avoid confusion with other "Germani". The Romans frequently described the Rhine as an important natural border between Gaul on the west, which became part of the Roman empire, and the Germanic territories to the east. The ''Germani'' on the east side of the Rhine were considered to be living in their original homeland. So this land was referred to not only as "''Germania Transrhenana,''" but also, for example by Ptolemy and Strabo, as ''Germania magna'', "Greater Germany." It is also referred to as being outside of Roman control: ''Germania libera'', "Free Germany" or ''Germania barbara,'' indicating it was wild and uncivilized. In contrast, the cisrhenane ''Germani'' were sometimes referred to as living in ''Germania cisrhenana'', but this territory was considered to also be part of Gaul, and later part of the Roman empire. It is widely doubted today whether the Romans were correct in describing all the different peoples that they called ''Germani ''as belonging to one ethnic group. In modern analyses of cultural groups, languages are generally used as a means of classification, and the modern language family associated with the ''Germani'', at least such groups as the Suebi, including the Alemanni, is today called Germanic. But there is no consensus as to whether the pre-Roman imperial ''Germani'' all spoke the same language. In fact, the earliest reported ''Germani cisrhenani'' seem to have had tribal names based on Celtic languages, and they were clearly considered Gauls, or at least Belgae, in some contexts. Celtic naming even appears to have extended across the Rhine to such tribes as the Usipetes and Tencteri. ==Pre-Roman== The earliest surviving record referring to ''Germani'' is Julius Caesar's account of the ''Gallic War'', the "''Commentarii de Bello Gallico''". (The phrase "Bello Gallico" was probably used before him. There are classical citations of a lost work by Poseidonius which apparently mentioned the tribe.) Caesar may have been the first to differentiate between "cis" and "trans" ''Germani''. Compare Caesar's description to that of Tacitus in his ''De Origine et situ Germanorum'', written generations later, when the cisrhenane area was firmly within the Roman empire. In the build up to the Battle of the Sabis in 57 BCE, Caesar reports that he received information from Remi tribesman, who described a large part of the Belgae of northern France and Gaul as having "transrhenane" Germanic ancestry, but not all. At other times, Caesar more clearly divides Belgic Gaul into the Belgae and another smaller group called the ''Germani''.〔 page 12-13.〕 For example, he writes that his local informants claim "all the rest of the Belgae were in arms; and that the Germans, who dwell on this side of the Rhine (in armis esse, Germanosque qui cis Rhenum'' ), had joined themselves to them."〔"Gallic War" (2.3 )〕 The reference to the Cimbric migrations means that movements of people from east of the Rhine must have happened early enough for them already to be established west of the Rhine in the 2nd century BCE. But it remains unclear which Belgic Gauls were considered ''Germani'' ancestry and which, if any, might have spoken a Germanic language. In the list of Belgic nations given as being in arms are Bellovaci, Suessiones, Nervii, Atrebates, Ambiani, Morini, Menapii, Caleti, Velocasses, and Veromandui, who together make up a major part of all the Belgic nations. When it comes to tribes in the extreme northeast of Gaul, against the Rhine, the Condrusi, the Eburones, the Caeraesi, and the Paemani, "are called by the common name of Germans" (). These ''Germani'' provided one joint force to the alliance, and apparently the number of men they committed was uncertain to the Remi.〔 Caesar later added the Segni to the list of tribes among the Belgae who went by the name of the ''Germani''.〔"Gallic War" (6.32 )〕 There is another group living close to these tribes, in the northeast, called the Aduatuci, who descended from the above-mentioned Cimbri, but these are ''not'' referred to as Germani, even though their ancestry is clearly to the east of the Rhine also and "Germanic" in that sense.〔"Gallic War" (2.29 )〕 After the battle of the Sabis, which the Romans won, some Belgic tribes renewed fighting against the Romans in 54 BCE. Caesar clearly differentiates between two types of remaining rebel groups: "the Nervii, Aduatuci, and Menapii" and with them "the addition of all the Germans on this side of the Rhine." Within this last group were the Eburones, whose king Ambiorix had become a major rebel leader.〔"Gallic War" (6.2 )〕 When the Eburones were defeated, the Segni and Condrusi "of the nation and number of the Germans (), and who are between the Eburones and the Treviri, sent embassadors to Caesar to entreat that he would not regard them in the number of his enemies, nor consider that the cause of all the Germans on this side the Rhine (Germanorum, qui essent citra Rhenum'' ) was one and the same; that they had formed no plans of war, and had sent no auxiliaries to Ambiorix".〔 In the time of Tacitus, long after Caesar claimed to have annihilated the name of the Eburones, the area where the Eburones had lived was inhabited by the Tungri, but Tacitus claimed that this was not their original name:- Many historians read Caesar and Tacitus in combination to conclude that Caesar was knowingly using the term ''Germani'' in both a strict sense, for a tribal group who had crossed the Rhine very early and who were actually locally named this way, and in an extended sense, for tribal groups of similar ancestry, most clearly those on the east of the Rhine. Some believe he may have been the first to do so. Apart from the ''Germani'' in this strict sense then, it is unclear to what extent if any that Caesar believed the other Belgae to have similar transrhenane ancestry. But in any case it is clear that he, like Tacitus, apparently makes a distinction between two types of ''Germani'', as shown by the above quotations where the Nervii, Aduatuci, and Menapii are both contrasted with the cisrhenane ''Germani'' such as the Eburones and the Condrusi. So in the northern Belgic region of Gaul, at least some of the other Belgic nations, apart from the group containing the Eburones and Condrusi, might or might not have been considered ''Germani'' in a broad sense. Tacitus on the other hand certainly knew of such claims, but expressed doubt about them, writing of two of the tribes most geographically and politically close to the ''Germani'', that the "Treveri and Nervii are even eager in their claims of a German origin, thinking that the glory of this descent distinguishes them from the uniform level of Gallic effeminacy".〔"Germania" (chapter 28 )〕 The accounts of Caesar and Tacitus match to some extent, but both are doubted by some modern historians, because both men are considered to have been writing about this subject with Roman politics in mind. One of the reasons (or excuses) for Caesar's interventions in Gaul in the first place was an apparent increase in movements of tranrhenane peoples, attempting to enter Gaul, apparently due to major movements of people such as the Suevi deep in ''Germania''. Some of the ''Germani'' who Caesar mentions did stay in Gaul under its new Roman overlords. Apart from the Ubii, Sicambri and Tencteri and Usipetes in Germania inferior, some others had attempted to cross to the west of the Rhine further south, but in that region of the Rhine, such crossing were apparently a new thing in his time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Germani cisrhenani」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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