Ethnicity in the Roman Northwest 507Figure 33.3 Altar for theMatronae Boudunneihae, Cologne, second centuryAD. Römisch–
Germanisches Museum, no. 65,223. Photograph U. Rothe.
the inscriptions on which show that there were smaller, local worship communities,
each with a specialMatrona-epithet (Bauchhenss and Neumann 1987). TheMatronae
are depicted as seated women in native Ubian dress, identifying them as local deities
(see Figure 33.3).
Most intriguingly of all, and unlike, for example, the Batavi and Eravisci, who
throughout the Roman period kept their tribal name (see the preceding and following
text), the change fromara UbiorumtoColonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensiumappears
to have been completely taken on board by the local population. No inscriptions include
the phrasenatione Ubiusor the like after the end of the first centuryAD(for first-century
examples, see AE 1925, 70; 1929, 130), whileAgrippinensesbecomes the standard
ethnonym for people from Cologne, and perhaps also the Ubian area in general, from the
mid-first century onward (CIL 3, 10548; 13, 8091 [Bonn]; 8283 [Cologne]; AE 1973,
364; 2001, 1464 [Colijnsplaat]; 1988, 894; 1995, 1113 [provenance unknown]). In
other words, it was with an imposed Roman name for an imposed Roman structure—the
city—that the people of this region identified. How do we make sense of this in light
of the Roman and pre-Roman elements of the region’s culture, and the colorful
ethnic mix of its population? A passage in Tacitus’Historiesnarrating an episode from
the Batavian Revolt is perhaps helpful here: in it, the people of Cologne have been