The Aedui: Brothers and Kinsmen of Rome

Author: * Vortigern Aedui - 2 Posts on this thread out of 2,431 Posts sitewide.
Date: Jul 20, 2003 - 04:37

1st c. A.D. (Arles: Mus. Lapid).

While I may be a bit biased on this particular tribe, I do feel that the Aedui were one of the most prominent tribes of ancient Gaul. The history of this tribe goes back to the 6th-century BC where Livy claims that they took part in the expedition of Bellovesus into Italy. It may have been during this expedition that the Aedui became known to the Romans as 'fratres'.

The first reference we have of the tribe is found is in 58 BC in Caesar's De Bellum Gallicum with 'Aeduos fratres consanguineosque saepe numero a senatu appellatos'. It has been claimed that the reason that he stressed this brotherhood was to help Caesar to justify his campaign against Ariovistus, but the question of the source of the brotherhood remains a mystery.

Popular opinion is that the Aedui were recognized as brother and kinsmen because they were the first tribe in Gaul to enter into alliance with Rome. D.C. Braund refuses this explaination because '[N]o ancient authority supports this view and it is hardly sufficient to explain the notion of blood relationship implied in these titles' (420). And while Ariovistus is addorned with a similar title, 'rex socius et amicus populi Romani', there is definately not the same alliance as there is with the Aedui.

The answer to this terminology may be attributed to an ancient common ancestry of the Aedui and the Romans. Braund states 'that the notion of fraternitas in the relationship of the Aedui and Rome rests upon and is to be explained by a legendary common descent form the Trojans' (422). This theory is backed up by evidence from Ammanius Marcellinus who states that when Troy was sacked by the Greeks, many escaped and fled to Gaul.

Aiunt quidam paucos post excidium Troiae fugitantes Graecos dispersos loca haec occupasse tunc vacua (15.9.5).

Although much of this is purely speculation and since we do not know the extent of these claims by ancients, but it does provide at least a notion of a clue as to why Caesar referred to them as brothers and kinsmen. It of course would require extensive research in many ancient manuscripts along with many outside sources as well.