the tungri (or tongri, or tungrians) were a tribe, or group of tribes, who lived in the belgic part of gaul, during the times of the roman empire. they were described by tacitus as being the same people who were first called "germani" (germanic), meaning that all other tribes who were later referred to this way, including those in germania east of the rhine river were named after them. their name is the source of several place names in belgium, germany and the netherlands, including tongeren, and several places called tongerloo, and tongelre.  ==origins== in a comment in his germania, tacitus remarks that germani was the original tribal name of the tungri with whom the gauls were in contact; among the gauls the term germani came to be widely applied.the passage, whose text is sound, has occasioned a huge literature of commentary; "some of the problems stem from the fact that people have wanted this section to provide more abundant and precise information than it in fact does," j.b. rives remarked (ribes, translator, cornelius tacitus: germania (oxford university press) 1999:117.the name germany, on the other hand, they say, is modern and newly introduced, from the fact that the tribes which first crossed the rhine and drove out the gauls, and are now called tungrians, were then called germans [germani]. thus what was the name of a tribe, and not of a race, gradually prevailed, till all called themselves by this self-invented name of germans, which the conquerors had first employed to inspire terror."germania" chapter 2. "ceterum germaniae vocabulum recens et nuper additum, quoniam qui primi rhenum transgressi gallos expulerint ac nunc tungri, tunc germani vocati sint: ita nationis nomen, non gentis, evaluisse paulatim, ut omnes primum a victore ob metum, mox et a se ipsis invento nomine germani vocarentur" some generations earlier, julius caesar, on the other hand, does not mention the tungri, but does say that the condrusi, the eburones, the caeroesi and the paemani, living in the same approximate area as the later tungri, were "called by the common name of germans (germani)" and had settled in gaul already before the cimbric wars, havi
Ancient_Germanic_peoples Auxiliary_infantry_units_of_ancient_Rome Late_Antiquity Migration_Period Tribes_of_pre-Roman_Gaul