Meldi
The Meldi were a Gallic tribe living in the region of modern Meaux (Seine-et-Marne) during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
Name
[edit]They are attested as Meldi by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC).[1], as Méldoi (Μέλδοι) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD),[2] Meldi liberi by Pliny (1st c. AD),[3] Méldai (Μέλδαι; var. Μέλγαι) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD),[4] and as Ciuitas Melduorum (var. meldorum) in the Notitia Dignitatum (5th c. AD).[5][6]
The etymology of Meldi is unclear. Pierre-Yves Lambert compared it to Old Irish meld ('sweet, pleasant, agreeable'), with an u-stem meldu- possibly preserved in the late form Melduorum.[6] Alternatively, John T. Koch has proposed to derive it from a stem *meldh- ('lightning') attested in Welsh mellt ('lightning, thunderbolts'), and possibly in Gaulish Meldio, an epithet of Loucetios.[7] Depending on the interpretation, the ethnic name may be translated as the 'lightening people' or the 'sweet people'.[6]
The city of Meaux, attested as Meldorum civitas c. 400 AD (Meldis in the 7th c. AD, Miaux in 1275), is named after the tribe.[8]
Geography
[edit]The Meldi lived along the Marne river, east of Lutetia (modern Paris).[9]
They were likely clients of the most powerful Suessiones.[9]
History
[edit]During the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), Caesar had sixty ships built among them for the expedition to the island of Britain in 51 BC.[9]
References
[edit]Primary sources
[edit]- Caesar (1917). The Gallic War. Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Edwards, H. J. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-99080-7.
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Secondary sources
[edit]- Falileyev, Alexander (2010). Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-names: A Celtic Companion to the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. CMCS. ISBN 978-0955718236.
- Koch, John T. (2020). Celto-Germanic, Later Prehistory and Post-Proto-Indo-European vocabulary in the North and West. University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. ISBN 978-1-907029-32-5.
- Kruta, Venceslas (2000). Les Celtes, histoire et dictionnaire : des origines à la romanisation et au christianisme. Robert Laffont. ISBN 2-221-05690-6.
- Nègre, Ernest (1990). Toponymie générale de la France. Librairie Droz. ISBN 978-2-600-02883-7.
