Netherlands in the Roman era

Perhaps the most evocative Roman ruin is the mysterious Brittenburg, which emerged from the sand at the beach in Katwijk several centuries ago, only to be buried again.

The Frisii were initially "won over" by Drusus, suggesting a Roman suzerainty was imposed by Augustus on the coastal areas north of the Rhine river.

But the Rhine was not a strong border, and he made it clear that there was a part of Belgic Gaul where many of the local tribes were "Germani cisrhenani", or in other cases, of mixed origin.

When Caesar arrived, various tribes were located in the area of the Netherlands, residing in the inhabitable higher parts, especially in the east and south.

These illiterate tribes did not leave behind written records, so all the information known about them during this pre-Roman period is based on what the Romans and Greeks wrote about them.

Julius Caesar himself, in his commentary Commentarii de Bello Gallico wrote in detail only about the southern area which he conquered.

The modern province of Limburg, with the Maas running through it, appears to have been inhabited by (from north to south) the Baetasii, the Catualini, the Sunuci and the Tungri.

Batavian culture was influenced by the Roman one, resulting among other things in Roman-style temples such as the one in Elst, dedicated to local gods.

[11] The Batavi may have merged into the Salian Frankish community, who first appear in the written record in the third century as a group who had been living in Batavia before being pushed southwards out of the delta.

[12] During their stay in Germania Inferior, the Romans established a number of towns and smaller settlements in the Netherlands and reinforced the Limes Germanicus with military forts.

[15]Modern scholars of the Migration Period are in agreement that the Frankish identity emerged at the first half of the 3rd century out of various earlier, smaller Germanic groups, including the Salii, Sicambri, Chamavi, Bructeri, Chatti, Chattuarii, Ampsivarii, Tencteri, Ubii, Batavi and the Tungri, who inhabited the lower and middle Rhine valley between the Zuyderzee and the river Lahn and extended eastwards as far as the Weser, but were the most densely settled around the IJssel and between the Lippe and the Sieg.

Around 310, the Franks had the region of the Scheldt river (present day west Flanders and southwest Netherlands) under control, and were raiding the Channel, disrupting transportation to Britain.

[20] At the beginning of the 5th century, the Franks became the most important ethnic group in the region, just before the end of the Western Roman Empire.