Cimbri - Descendants

Descendants

According to Julius Caesar, the Belgian tribe of the Atuatuci "was descended from the Cimbri and Teutoni, who, upon their march into our province and Italy, set down such of their stock and stuff as they could not drive or carry with them on the near (i.e. west) side of the Rhine, and left six thousand men of their company there with as guard and garrison" (Gall. 2.29, trans. Edwards). They founded the city of Atuatuca in the land of the Belgic Eburones, whom they dominated. Thus Ambiorix king of the Eburones paid tribute and gave his son and nephew as hostages to the Atuatuci (Gall. 6.27). In the first century AD, the Eburones were replaced or absorbed by the Germanic Tungri, and the city was known as Atuatuca Tungrorum, i.e. the modern city of Tongeren.

The population of modern-day Himmerland claims to be the heirs of the ancient Cimbri. The adventures of the Cimbri are described by the Danish nobel-prize-winning author, Johannes V. Jensen, himself born in Himmerland, in the novel Cimbrernes Tog (1922), included in the epic cycle Den lange Rejse (English The Long Journey, 1923). The so-called Cimbrian bull ("Cimbrertyren"), a sculpture by Anders Bundgaard, was erected 14 April 1937 on a central town square in Aalborg, the capital of the region of North Jutland.

A German ethnic minority have settled in the mountains between Vicenza, Verona and Trento in Italy (also known as Seven Communities) is also called the Cimbri (it:Cimbri (minoranza linguistica)). For hundreds of years this isolated population consisting now of 4.400 inhabitants, has claimed to be the direct descendant of the Cimbri retreating in this area after the Roman aftermath. However it was more probably settlers from Bavaria in the Middle Ages. Most linguists remains committed to the hypothesis of medieval (11th to 12th century) immigration, to explain the presence of small German-speaking communities in the north of Italy. Some genetic studies seem to prove a Celtic descendence of most inhabitants in the region, but not Germanic in fact, that is reinforced by the Gaulish toponyms such as those ending with the suffix -ago < Celtic -*ako(n) (f.e. Asiago is clearly the same place-name as the numerous Azay, Aisy, Azé, Ezy in France, all from *Asiacum < Gaulish *Asiāko(n)). The Cimbrian origin is a myth that was popularized by the humanists in the 14th century.

On one occasion in 1709, for instance, Frederick IV of Denmark, also paid them a visit and he was greeted as their King. The population which kept its independence during the Venice Republic was later severely hit by World War I. As a result, many Cimbri have left the mountain region and dispersed around the world, for places such as the Rio Grande do Sul state in Southern Brazil.