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The Menapii were a Belgic tribe of northern Gaul in pre-Roman and Roman times. According to descriptions in such authors as Strabo, Caesar, Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy their territory had stretched northwards to the mouth of the Rhine in the north, but more lastingly it stretched along the west of the Schelde river. In later geographical terms this territory corresponds roughly to the modern coast of Flanders, the Belgian provinces of East and West Vlaanderen. It also extended into neighbouring France and the river deltas of the southern Netherlands. ==Location== Their ''civitas'', or administrative capital, under the Roman empire was Cassel (northern France), and later this was moved nearer to a river in Tournai (in present-day Belgium). Both of these are near Thérouanne, which was the ''civitas'' of the neighbouring Morini tribe. This was then in the southern extreme of the Menapii lands. A pattern of placing Roman tribal capitals in the south is also found in the neighbouring Belgian tribal states, of the Nervii and Tungri. The positions of such Roman tribal capitals frequently didn't correspond to the centre of a tribe's territory in pre-Roman political geography. Similarly, in those neighbouring regions, the centre of Roman civilization was moved further south, and on to a major river, in late Roman times, after the area was threatened by Frankish tribes from outside the empire. To the north and east of the Menapii lay the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. In the time of Caesar, the Menapii had settlements throughout this region and over the Rhine into Germany. During Roman times these islands were under the frontier province of Germania Inferior, and inhabited partly by various groups of people who had moved there under Roman rule. Pliny the elder lists the people in these "Gallic Islands" as Batavi and Canninefates on the largest island, Frisii and the Chauci whose main lands were to the north of the deltas, and the Frisiavones, Sturii, and Marsacii.〔(Plin. Nat. 4.29 )〕 Of these last three, the Marsaci appear to be mentioned in another place by Pliny as having a presence on the coast south of the delta, neighbouring the Menapii, within Gaul itself.〔(Plin. Nat. 4.31 )〕 The Frisiavones are also mentioned within the listing for Belgian Gaul, but probably therefore lived in the part of the delta south of the Batavi, northeast of the Menapii. In one inscription, from Bulla Regia, the Tungri, Batavians and Frisiavones are grouped together, apparently confirming that the Frisiavones lived inland. It is suggested that the ''Marsaci'' and the ''Sturii'' could be "pagi" belonging to the civitas of either the Frisiavones or the Menapii.〔, pages 54 and 63.〕 South of the delta, east of the river Scheldt from the Menapii, and therefore apparently south of the Frisiavones, Pliny mentions the Toxandri, in a position apparently on the northern edge of Gaul. It is known that the Toxandri were associated with the civitases of both the Nervii and the Tungri, so they presumably had a presence in both. While in Pliny the Menapii do not stretch beyond the Scheldt, in Strabo's 1st-century ''Geographica'', they are situated north of the Nervii and still near the mouth of the Rhine.〔Strabo, ''Geographica'' (4:3.4 )〕 They are also referred to in Ptolemy's 2nd century ''Geographia'', situated "above" the Nervii, and near the Meuse river.〔Ptolemy, ''Geographia'' (2.8 )〕 While these authors make it clear that the Menapii still lay north of the Nervii in Roman times, it is not clear if they still bordered directly upon the former territory of the Eburones, as they had been in Caesar's time, and which in imperial times was within the Civitas Tungrorum, or civitas of the Tungri. In any case as mentioned above they bordered in Roman times upon the Toxandrians, who apparently lived in the north of the lands of the Nervii and Tungri.〔 South of the Menapii were the Atrebates in Artois, and south-west along the coast were the Morini. The boundary with the Morini in classical times appears to have been the River Aa.〔 In the later Roman empire, ''The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites'' reports that "Cassel was superseded as capital of the Menapii by Tournai after Gaul was reorganized under Diocletian and Constantine the Great. The ''civitas Menapiorum'' became the ''civitas Turnencensium''." By medieval times, when these Roman districts evolved into medieval Roman Catholic dioceses, Cassel had in fact become part of the diocese of Thérouanne, which had been the civitas of the Morini. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Menapii」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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