The Ampsivarii: The Tragic Search for a Home

The Ampsivarii ("those of the Ems land") were a Germanic tribe on the Ems. Tacitus records their tragic fate in the 1st century AD.

A people on the Ems

"As the heaven is given to the gods, so the earth is given to the race of men."Boiocalus, after Tacitus, Annals 13 (public domain, own translation)

The Ampsivarii were a Germanic tribe on the Ems (Latin Amisia), whose name they bore. In the 1st century they belonged to the peoples of north-western Germania, bound into the dense web of alliances and feuds on the North Sea coast.

Driven out and homeless

In AD 58 a hard fate struck the Ampsivarii: driven from their land by the powerful Chauci, they wandered homeless and sought new settlement territory. They asked Rome for empty lands on the Rhine that lay fallow – and met with refusal.

The speech of Boiocalus

Their aged leader Boiocalus, a longtime ally of Rome, then made a moving speech that Tacitus records. He pointed to his lifelong alliance with Rome and, according to Tacitus, called heaven itself to witness: as heaven belongs to the gods, so the earth belongs to men – and empty land should surely not be denied to those who seek it.

Rome's harsh answer

Rome stayed hard: the land was denied to the Ampsivarii, and no alliance came about. Driven out and without support, the tribe scattered; its allies fell away one after another. It is one of the most poignant refugee stories of ancient tradition.

What remains

Of the Ampsivarii little more remained than the account of Tacitus and the name of the river on which they once sat. Their fate is emblematic of the many Germanic peoples that perished in the struggle for land and Rome.

Why this moves us

The speech of Boiocalus about land, right and home still moves us today. At GLANZ & GRAVUR we tell such stories because, behind the battles and kings, they show the human side of history – honestly from the sources.

The Ampsivarii show the dark side of the movements of peoples. Continue with the Chauci and Angrivarii.

Read more with us

The Chamavi · The Bructeri · The Chatti · The Cherusci & Arminius · The Angrivarii.

Sources & literature

• Image credit (header image): “Zwischen Herbrum und Rhede”, Hermann Schlömer, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
Tacitus, Annals 13; quote public domain (own translation).

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