Civitas Mattiacorum

The Civitas Mattiacorum was an administrative unit ( Civitas ) on the right bank of the Rhine in the Roman province of Germania superior (Upper Germany), the governor of which resided in Mogontiacum , today's Mainz.

The area of the Civitas Mattiacorum extended between the rivers Moenus ( Untermain ) and Rhenus ( Rhine ) as the presumed southern border and the Limes im Taunus, which forms the northern border . The stream Kriftel (today Schwarzbach ) is considered to be the eastern border to the Civitas Taunensium , whereby Emil Ritterling also considers the Nidda as the eastern border. The main town was Aquae Mattiacorum , today's Wiesbaden. The name comes from the Germanic tribe of the Mattiaker , probably a sub-tribe of the Chatti , who settled in the vicinity of Wiesbaden, in the Taunus and in the Wetterau .

When Emperor Trajan moved the Roman occupation troops from the forts in Wiesbaden , Hofheim , Nida-Heddernheim and Okarben to the Upper German Limes in Taunus and Wetterau around 110 AD , the occupied areas north of the Main to the south were divided into two administrative areas, the Civitas Mattiacorum and the Civitas Taunensium (Vordertaunus and Wetterau).

Even after Rome retreated to the left bank of the Rhine after the Germanic invasions of AD 259 and 260 and the Alamanni conquered the area ( Limesfall ), the district probably remained as an administrative unit. It was devastated by Roman troops in 357 and 358 during the punishment campaigns of Emperor Julian across the Rhine and again in 371 in a similar operation by Emperor Valentinian I.

After the Franconian conquest of the area in the 6th – 7th centuries In the 19th century the area became the property of the Franconian kings under the name Königssondergau .

literature

Dietwulf Baatz , Fritz-Rudolf Herrmann (ed.): The Romans in Hessen. Theiss, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-8062-0599-X .
Walter Czysz : Wiesbaden in Roman times. Theiss, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-8062-1088-8 .
Emil Ritterling : The Wiesbaden Castle. In: Ernst Fabricius , Felix Hettner , Oscar von Sarwey (ed.): The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roemerreiches Dept. B 2,3b No. 31 (1909).
Helmut Schoppa : Aquae Mattiacorum and Civitas Mattiacorum. In: Bonner Jahrbücher 172, 1972, pp. 228–237.

Individual evidence

^ Hartmut Galsterer : Communities and cities in Gaul and on the Rhine. In: Gundolf Precht (Ed.): Genesis, structure and development of Roman cities in the 1st century AD in Lower and Upper Germany. Colloquium from February 17th to 19th, 1998 in the regional museum Xanten (= Xantener reports , volume 9). Von Zabern, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-8053-2752-8 , p. 4.

[1] Hartmut Galsterer : Communities and cities in Gaul and on the Rhine. In: Gundolf Precht (Ed.): Genesis, structure and development of Roman cities in the 1st century AD in Lower and Upper Germany. Colloquium from February 17th to 19th, 1998 in the regional museum Xanten (= Xantener reports , volume 9). Von Zabern, Mainz 2001, ISBN 3-8053-2752-8 , p. 4.