Hungary and the Batavian Myth

van Lieburg, Fred (2004) Hungary and the Batavian Myth. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 49 (1-2). pp. 151-160. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

The Batavian myth was the idea that the Dutch people descended from the Batavians, a German tribe which settled in the Low Countries during the first century BC. Their revolt against the Roman rulers in AD 67, recorded in Tacitus' Historiae, remained an inspiration in Dutch historiography and politics up to the nineteenth century. This article focuses on two elements of the Batavian story in connection with Hungarian history. Firstly, the Batavians were soldiers in the Roman army, who encamped in the region of the Danube near Budapest, after having left the Rhine delta. Secondly, the early humanist Dutch chronicler Cornelius Aurelius introduced a Batavian ancestor, a Hungarian prince called Battus. The details of these two independent facts are discussed as part of the history of Dutch-Hungarian relationship.

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