The Mediomatrici ( Gaulish: *Medio-māteres) were according to Caesar a Gaulish tribe at the frontier to the Belgicae dwelling in the present-day regions Lorraine, Upper Moselle during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
They are mentioned as Mediomatricorum and Mediomatricis (dat.) by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), [1] Mediomatrikoì (Μεδιοματρικοὶ ) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD), [2] Mediomatrici by Pliny (1st c. AD), [3] Mediomatricos (acc.) by Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD), [4] and as Mediomátrikes (Μεδιομάτρικες) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD). [5] [6]
The ethnonym Mediomatrici is a Latinized form of the Gaulish *Medio-māteres, which literally means 'Middle-Mothers'. It is formed with the stem medio- ('in the middle, central') attached to a plural form of mātīr ('mother'). The name could be interpreted as meaning 'those who live between the Matrona (Marne) and the Matra rivers' (i.e. the mother-rivers), or possibly as the 'Mothers of the Middle-World' (i.e. between the heaven and the underworld). [7]
The city of Metz, attested ca. 400 AD as civitas Mediomatricorum (' civitas of the Mediomatrici'), is named after the Celtic tribe. [8]
The territory of the Mediomatrici comprised the upper basins of the rivers Maas, Moselle and Saar, and extended eastwards as far as the Rhine in the mid-first century BC. [9] [10] Ptolemy places them south of the Treviri, between the Remi and the Leuci. [11]
Their chief town was Divodurum ('place of the gods, divine enclosure'), [note 1] mentioned by Tacitus in the early 1st century AD. [13] [12] [9]
A secondary agglomeration, whose original name is unknown, was located in Bliesbruck, in the eastern part of their civitas. [14] [15]
During the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), the Mediomatrici sent 5,000 men to support Vercingetorix who was besieged in Alesia in 52. [16] [9] In 69–70 of the Common Era, their capital Divodurum was sacked by the armies of Vitellius, and 4,000 of its inhabitants massacred. [16] The Romanization of the Metromatrici was apparently slower compared to their neighbours the Treviri. [17] [10]
Elements of the Mediomatrici may have settled near Novara, in northwestern Italy, where place-names allude to their presence, such as Mezzomerico, attested as Mediomadrigo in 980. [18]