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Sugambri


The Sicambri, also known as the Sugambri or Sicambrians, were a Germanic people who during Roman times lived on the right bank of the Rhine river, in what is now Germany, near the border with the Netherlands. They were first reported by Julius Caesar.

Whether or not the Sicambri spoke a Germanic or Celtic language, or something else, is not certain, because they lived in the so-called Nordwestblock zone where these two language families came into contact and were both influential.

By the 3rd century the region, in which they and their neighbours had lived, had become part of the territory of the Franks, which was a new name that possibly represented a new alliance of older tribes, possibly including the Sicambri. Many Sicambri had however been moved into the Roman empire by this time.

The Sicambri appear in history around 55 BC, during the time of conquests of Gaul by Julius Caesar and his expansion of the Roman Empire. Caesar wrote in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico that near the confluence of the Rhine and Meuse River a battle took place in the land of the Menapii with a large number of Tencteri and Usipetes, who then proceeded to move south. When these two peoples were routed by Caesar, their cavalry escaped and found asylum back across the river with the Sicambri. Caesar then built a bridge across the river to punish the Sicambri. In 53 BC, Caesar confronted a raiding army of Sicambri who had crossed the Rhine to take advantage of the Roman war with the Eburones.


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