bga_198567 - MEDIOMATRICI (Area of Metz) Bronze aux oiseaux

MEDIOMATRICI (Area of Metz)

(2nd - 1st century BC)

The Médiomatriques were a very powerful people of Belgian Gaul. They were strongly Romanized and owed their wealth to the salt trade. They were installed on the Moselle and controlled part of the Vosges and Alsace. They had for neighbors the Treveri, the Remi, the Lingones, the Leuci and the Sequani. They provided a contingent of five thousand men for the relief army intended to free Alesia. Their main oppidum was Divodurum (Metz). Caesar (BG. IV, 10; VII, 75).