Geidumni

The Geidumni were a small Belgic tribe living in Gallia Belgica during the Iron Age. They were clients of the most powerful Nervii.

Name

They are attested as Geidumni by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC).^[1][2]

Jozef Van Loon has proposed emending the name to Geldumni, noting that confusion between ⟨i⟩ and ⟨l⟩ occurs elsewhere in the manuscript tradition of Caesar's De Bello Gallico.^[3] On this basis, the name Geidumni has be compared with the toponym Jodoigne (Dutch Geldenaken), attested as Geldonia in 1167 AD, and possibly deriving from an earlier Romance form *Geldumnia, borrowed from either Celtic or Germanic.^[4]

If of Germanic origin, the name Geldumni may combine the stem geld- with the Indo-European participial suffix -menos, yielding interpretations such as 'those who make themselves count' or 'those to whom payment is due'. However, since both elements also occur in Celtic, a Celtic derivation remains possible.^[5]

Geography

Based on Caesar's account, their territory was located somewhere in the vicinity of Nervian territory.^[2] On the basis of Van Loon's linguistic comparison with Jodoigne, they may have been located in this area.^[4]

History

During the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), they are cited by Caesar as clients of the Nervii in the context of the Eburonian revolt led by Ambiorix in 54 BC, when the Nervii summoned their dependent peoples, including the Geidumni, to support an attack on another Roman winter camp after the destruction of the Fourteenth Legion near Atuatuca.^[5]

They therefore immediately sent messengers to the Ceutrones, Grudii, Levaci, Pleumoxii, Geidumni, all of whom were held under their control, then collected the largest contingents they could and swooped unexpectedly on Cicero’s winter quarters

— Caesar, Gallic Wars, V 39

References

1. Caesar, V 39.
2. Kruta 2000, p. 636.
3. Van Loon & Wouters 1994, pp. 26–27.
4. Van Loon & Wouters 1994, pp. 27–28; Van Loon 2010, p. 327.
5. Van Loon 2010, p. 327.

Primary sources

• Caesar (1917). The Gallic War. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Edwards, H. J. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-99080-7.

Secondary sources

• Kruta, Venceslas (2000). Les Celtes, histoire et dictionnaire : des origines à la romanisation et au christianisme. Robert Laffont. ISBN 2-221-05690-6.
• Van Loon, Jozef; Wouters, Annelies (1994). "De stamnaam Geidumni (Caesar, De bello Gallico, 5, 39)". Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire. 72 (1): 25–34. doi:10.3406/rbph.1994.3925.
• Van Loon, Jozef (2010). "Neue Erkenntnisse und Hypothesen über die Germanenstellen bei Caesar und Tacitus". Handelingen van de Koninklijke Commissie voor Toponymie en Dialectologie. 82 (1). doi:10.21825/hctd.88708. ISSN 0774-8396.