Tungri

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.

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, having come from Germany east of the Rhine. The Romans allies named them as having one collective contribution of men to the Belgic revolt against him, within which the Eburones were the most important. They were led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus. Also neighbouring these tribes where the Aduatuci, whose origin Caesar describes more specifically as having descended from the Cimbri and Teutones, against whom the Germani had been the only Gaulish tribe to successfully defend themselves. Their descendants, if there were any, presumably lived amongst the Tungri.