Talk:Batavi (Germanic tribe)

message: Hi Rex_Germanus, you've editted Batavians a while ago. This sentence "The Batavians became regarded as the eponymous ancestors of the Dutch people." became "The Batavians falsely became regarded as the eponymous ancestors of the Dutch people.", can you explain why you added falsely? Even with the Migration Period, as far as I know there is no mentioning of the Belgae or Batavii moving out of the area. Thanks. ShotokanTuning 08:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, the Batavians were a relatively small group of people, living around the rhine. There are indeed no records of them leaving (although the men hired for the roman army often never returned) but they were simply too small to be regarded the sole ancestor of the Dutch. As the migration period progressed new, more powerfull and less romanized peoples (the batavians never fully gained controll of the Low Countries) entered the Low COuntries, the Franks quickly made it their new homeland, conquered the Frisians in the North and the Saxons on the North West and never gave up their dominant position again. Hence they are regarded as the main ancestors of the Dutch. The Batavians quite possibly might have contributed, but only margininally compared to others. Early modern Dutchmen however read about the heroic revolt of the Batavians against the all powerful Romans and saw a link to their own fight against Spain ... Rex 10:44, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your explanation. The Franks were a gathering of Germanic tribes including Chatti. The Batavii once were a part of the Chatti. The Franks moved west from central Germany and the Southern Netherlands, settling in northern Gaul. It seems logical the people in the conquered areas would be called Franks (a Germanic federation) no matter how many Batavii or Belgae lived there. This becomes more evident with the Frisians, who were ‘conquered’ much later and their name and people never disappeared. Since the Batavians build the first settlements and never stopped living there, while the Franks (gathering of various tribes) just moved in what are now various different countries (The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and France). The Franks added tribes to their gathering as they went. It’s not illogical to call Batavians ancestors of the Dutch people, better words would be that they are an important part of the ancestry. This also goes for the Belgae in Belgium. Naming only Batavians as ancestors is obviously not true, like they did at the time of war against Spain, this makes it easy to say it’s entirely false. Do you agree we explain "falsely", as that they were only a part of the ancestry of the Dutch people?ShotokanTuning 14:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree. The thing is that untill the 1960 it was taught to children that the Batavians were the sole Dutch ancestors, that the reason of the "falsely" comment really.Rex 14:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks a lot for the information. It's was nice to discuss this with you. May I paste this at the talk page Talk:Batavians? ShotokanTuning 15:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course.Rex 15:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  Small addition to the 1960 note of Rex;the original idea that the Batavii were the origin of the Dutch was a typical post-medieval era idea. With the start of nation states in the 18th century a common (proud) ancestry became more important, and at that time the Batavii were pulled forward as the ancestor tribe. And indeed the romanticised history has been taught as truth in Dutch schools untill fairly recently (of course actual history is much messier ;-) Arnoutf 23:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Even without reference to that rebellion (wich wasn't so succesfull after all) the Romans wrote quite a lot about the Batavians. They really liked them I guess. Krastain 10:38, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: falsely regarded as eponymous ancestors

message: In the Batavian_rebellion piece are several inaccuracies: this batavians article seems to be more generally  monitored and hopefully someone with more of an understanding of the rebellion than me can take a look at it; perhaps it should be merged back into this article?
I've searched for references on why the Batavians didn't have to pay taxes but I haven't found any and if anyone can reference material on why they were exempt I think that would make a valuable contribution in our understanding of the Roman Empire. They could field keen horsemen with locally bred horses; and the Betuwe area of the Rhine delta at the time flooded annually so the alluvium must have made the land a dependable source of crops, horses and cattle for the legions of Germania_Inferior.  It might have paid not to tax them.
In reference to the discussion on whether the Batavians are falsely seen as ancestors I think very interesting also is the discussion about the influence on Dutch literature, propaganda and nationalism of the Batavians ref   (in Dutch). To call the republic formed after the French revolutionary invasion the 'Bataafse Republiek' is a fine example of both early European nationalism and propaganda. Wikimam 19:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge batavian rebellion back in? 

message: Forgive my ignorance, but the reference to Drusus building a fortress is ambigous, and I don't know which Drusus it should resolve to. None of the articles that are listed in the disambiguation page tells about fortress building on a bank of the Waal, or building anything at all in Germania. Rootmoose (talk) 23:57, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Nero Claudius Drusus--Joostik (talk) 15:21, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which Drusus? 

message: Why is this article called "Batavians"? The normal Latin name for this tribe was the "Batavi" and this should be used. Batavians is confusing, as it could refer to the inhabitants of South Netherlands in later ages. EraNavigator (talk) 01:40, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. Should be moved, I'd say. Trigaranus (talk) 15:02, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we are supposed to use English words [not Latin] for page title names, sowever one translates the Latin Batavi into English, is what it should be. A disambiguation system can be setup if it can be confused. Goldenrowley (talk) 23:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

text: But on the other hand, this is not a strict rule, since we do speak of Saxons, Franks, Goths and Burgundians, not of Saxones, Franci, Gothi and Burgundiones. Iblardi (talk) 19:54, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd vote for whatever is more commonly used in English texts for each of those Latin tribes.Goldenrowley (talk) 02:13, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed title change 

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thread_title: File:Continental.coast.150AD.Germanic.peoples.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: It would be nice to have a better map. The one currently in the article shows the distribution of ancient tribes over present-day topography, including polders etc. While this is okay to get an idea of where they lived in modern terms, the Frisians really didn't occupy Flevoland, for instance. If anyone has such a map, please add it to the article. Radioflux (talk) 11:05, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: I removed the word "eponymous" from the sentence, "...  the Batavians came to be regarded as their eponymous ancestors." While it is true that the Dutch came to regard the ancient Batavians as their ancestors, the ancestors were not eponymous. 
The adjective eponymous means "of, relating to, or being the person or thing for whom or which something is named; of, relating to, or being an eponym." An eponym is "one for whom or which something is or is believed to be named." More explicitly, as noted in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, an eponym is "The person, real or mythical, from whom a family, race, city, or nation is supposed to have taken its name (as, Hellen is the eponym of the Hellenes)."
An inherent aspect of an eponym is the relationship of the names. Thus, the Batavi cannot be the eponym of the Dutch (or Netherlanders), as the names are not related. That said, the Batavi can be the eponym of the 17th- and subsequent-century "Batavians," as the Northern Netherlanders (Dutch) once called themselves. However, no groundwork was laid in the article for such a statement. PlaysInPeoria (talk) 17:26, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect use of "eponymous"