Treveri

The Treveri occupied the Moselle valley on the frontier between Gaul and Germania and were, by Caesar's account, the strongest cavalry force in the whole of Gaul - a reputation that outlasted their independence, since Roman armies recruited Treveran horsemen for centuries afterwards. Their position made them ambivalent about everything: closely connected by kinship and trade to the Germanic peoples across the Rhine, and just as involved in Gaulish politics to the west. Their leadership split accordingly. Cingetorix favoured Rome and his father-in-law Indutiomarus led the party for revolt; in 54 BC Indutiomarus attacked Labienus's winter camp, was killed in the pursuit, and his kinsmen carried the war on into the following year with German help until they were beaten again. The Treveri joined the general revolt of 52 BC only marginally, being occupied nearer home. Under Roman rule the territory prospered enormously: Augusta Treverorum, founded around 16 BC and now Trier, became the largest Roman city north of the Alps, an imperial residence in the third and fourth centuries, and the seat of the praetorian prefecture of the Gauls. That is why polities.json runs the Treveri to 476 rather than to the conquest - the people and their city outlived the independence, and the Roman city outlived the western empire by very little. Constantine ruled from Trier for years and built the basilica and the imperial baths that still stand. The Porta Nigra is the largest Roman city gate surviving anywhere. Whether the Treveri considered themselves Gauls or Germans was disputed in antiquity, and Tacitus says they claimed German descent as a point of pride.

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