As promised recently, I will be continuing with a series of small posts which hope to shed some insight on the various ancient Welsh tribes.
Who Were the Ordovices?
Next, we arrive with the Ordovices. Undoubtedly, the Ordovices were the mightier of the Welsh tribes. As can be seen by the map (which, of course, could never be 100% accurate), they had the most land and this likely equated to having the most power, too, at least as far as the Welsh tribes are concerned (remember: there were only the ancient Britons back then, no Welsh, English or Scottish). They lived in hillforts, such as Dinas Dinorwig, Castell Odo and Dinas Dinlle, whilst also making use of farms.
From the Irish sea in the west and north of Cymru, to well into the heart of what is today England (namely Shropshire and other parts of the West-Midlands), the Ordovices roamed the lands. Unlike the Deceangli, covered yesterday, the Ordovices were also feared fighters who made use of the mountainous terrains they inhabited. In fact, the name itself can be translated to “hammer fighters” in a number of different Celtic languages, with the “ord” part of the name meaning “hammer” in each of Cymraeg (“gordd”), Brezhoneg (“horzh”) and Gaeilge (“ord”).
Whereas the Deceangli quickly folded to the invasive Romans in the first century AD, the Ordovices resisted mightily and did so for decades. The Romans invaded the British isles in AD 43 and yet didn’t succeed in their battles with the Ordovices until AD 77 or 78. This, in large, was down to the leadership of the ancient Briton warlord and King of the Britons, Caratacus (Caradog, in Welsh) who, though originally belonging to the Catuvellauni tribe of what is today the English southeast, ended up leading and fighting alongside the Silures and Ordovices, following the quick subjugation of his own tribe soon after the initial Roman invasion.
After his betrayal by the Brigantian queen, Cartimandua, in AD 50, Caratacus was captured and sent off to Rome. The Ordovices were without their heroic King and would be defeated by the Romans – definitively so by Roman governor Gnaeus Julius Agricolain AD 77-78.
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Niklas is the founder, owner, manager, editor, writer, video creator, voice over artist, and so forth, of Welsh Histories. He is passionate about the preservation of Welsh culture; the rejuvenation of the Welsh language and the promotion of Welsh history. Niklas currently resides in Pune, Maharashtra, with his beloved wife.