Nervii

The Nervii were an ancient Germanic tribe, and one of the most powerful Belgic tribes; living in the northeastern hinterlands of Gaul, they were known to trek long distances to engage in various wars and functions. During the 1st century BC Roman military campaign to cross the Sambre river, Caesar's native scouts from among the Remi stated that the Nervii were the most distant of the Belgae. The Romanized Greek Strabo wrote that the Nervii were of Germanic origin. Tacitus, in his book Germania, says that in his time the Nervii believed that their Germanic ancestry distinguished them from the weaknesses of the Gauls. Based on a few literary sources, few of which were first-hand accounts, 19th-century ethnographers and their intellectual heirs have attempted ethnographic mapping of the region now covered by northernmost France and Belgium. The scant late La Tène material culture of the region does not throw light on linguistic affiliations, but metalwork from Bavay, the chief town of the Nervii, in the immediately following Roman period, in examples where it is not imported or directly Roman in inspiration, is Gaulish.