Boii

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Boii (a Latin plural) is the Roman name of an ancient Celtic tribe, living in Transalpine Gaul (modern France) and Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy), and later in Pannonia (today Western Hungary), Bohemia, Moravia and western Slovakia. The European region of Bohemia owes its name to the Boii, via old German Boia-haim- = "home[land] of the Boii".

Historians in the 19th and earlier 20th centuries also sometimes linked the Boii to the origins of the Bavarians (Lat. Baioari), although that particular link is seldom accepted today[citation needed]; it may represent old German Baia- (for Boia-, as in old German the diphthong 'oi' was rare) plus the continental German equivalent of Anglo-Saxon -ware = "dwellers": "those who dwell where the Boii formerly dwelt".

Despite the derivation of the name, the ancient Boii should neither be confused with the present-day inhabitants of Bavaria in Germany, or those of Bohemia in the Czech Republic. An argument can be made for an early mixing with Etruscans from Italy; however, the same argument can also be made for the Celtic tribes in any area they inhabited.[citation needed]

Sometime between 205 BC and 184 BC, T. Maccius Plautus refers to the Boii in his work, Captivi:

At nunc Siculus non est, Boius est, Boiam terit
But now he is not a Sicilian — he is a Boian, he has got a Boian woman.

(There is a play on words: Boia means "woman of the Boii", also "convicted criminal's restraint collar".) [1]

In the 1st century BC, the Boii living in an oppidum of Bratislava (Slovakia) minted Biatecs, high-quality coins with inscriptions (probably the names of kings) in Latin letters.

Another Roman reference to Boii is dated sometime between 100 and 44 BC, when Julius Caesar refers to the Boii in his work about Gallic Wars, Commentarii de Bello Gallico. written c. 50 BC:

They persuade the Rauraci, and the Tulingi, and the Latobrigi, their neighbours, to adopt the same plan, and after burning down their towns and villages, to set out with them: and they admit to their party and unite to themselves as confederates the Boii, who had dwelt on the other side of the Rhine, and had crossed over into the Norican territory, and assaulted Noreia.

It seems quite clear that Caesar here refers to the historic Cimbrian War of c. 115 - 101 BC, during which the Cimbri and Teutones attacked the Roman frontier. The Cimbri were led by the king Boiorix whose name means "King of the Boii". Thus it appears we are dealing with a confederation of the Cimbri and Boii led by the Boii King as over lord. That the Boii survived until the time of Caesar (50 years after the Cimbrian War) indicates that, perhaps, the Roman propaganda of their crushing defeat against the barbarians may be overstated. The inferred motive is clear: Roman propaganda would not allow the barbarians to inflict two crushing defeats on their forces without returning the favor.

Sometime between 59 BC and AD 17, in volume 21 of his work Ab Urbe Condita, Livy says that it was a Boian man that offered to show Hannibal the way across the Alps.

When, after the action had thus occurred, his own men returned to each general, Scipio could adopt no fixed plan of proceeding, except that he should form his measures from the plans and undertakings of the enemy: and Hannibal, uncertain whether he should pursue the march he had commenced into Italy, or fight with the Roman army which had first presented itself, the arrival of ambassadors from the Boii, and of a petty prince called Magalus, diverted from an immediate engagement; who, declaring that they would be the guides of his journey and the companions of his dangers, gave it as their opinion, that Italy ought to be attacked with the entire force of the war, his strength having been nowhere previously impaired.

During these events, many Boii likely became slaves of the Romans, and their name may have come in some area to mean "slave": see boy#Etymology.

Some members of the Boyer family believe that their name (as well as Bayer, Bowyer, and others) reflects descent from the Boii. [2]

[edit] References

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