Vosegus
- a chain of mountains in Gaul, the modern Vosges, Caes. B. G. 4, 10; Luc. 1, 397; Inscr. Orell. 2072.
VO´SEGUS (Vogesen, Vasgau, Vosges). The form Vosegus has better authority than Vogesus (Schneider's Caesar, B. G. 4.10); and the modern name also is in favour of the form Vosegus. Lucan is sometimes quoted as authority for the form Vogesus: Castraque quae Vogesi curvam super ardua rupemPugnaces pictis cohibebant Lingonas armis. (Pharsal. 1.397.)
The name is Βοσήκον in the Greek version of the Commentaries.
Caesar says that the Mosa (Maas) rises in the Vosegus, by which he means that the hills in which the Maas rises belong to the Vosges. But he says no more of this range. The battle with Ariovistus, B.C. 58, was fought between the southern extremity of the Vosges and the Rhine, but Caesar (B. G. 1.43, 48) gives no name to the range under which Ariovistus encamped in the great plain between the Vosges and the Rhine. D'Anville observes that an inscription in honour of the god Vosegus was found at Berg-Zabern on the confines of Alsace and the Palatinate, which proves that the name Vosegus extended as far as that place. It seems likely that the name was given to the whole range now called Vosges, which may be considered as extending from the depression in which is formed the canal of the Rhone and Rhine, between Béfort and Altkirch, to the bend of the Rhine between Mainz and Bingen, a distance of above 170 miles. The range of the Vosges is parallel to the Rhine. The hilly country of the Faucilles in which the Maas rises is west of the range to which the name of Vosges is now given. The Vosges are partly in France, and partly in Rhenish Bavaria and Hesse Darmstadt.
The territory of the Sequani originally extended to the Rhine, and the southern part of the Vosges was therefore included in their limits. North of the Sequani and west of the Vosges were the Leuci and Mediomatrici; and east of the Vosges and between the Vosges and the Rhine were the Rauraci, Triboci, Nemetes, Vangiones, and Caracates.
In the Table the Silva Vosagus is marked as a long forest on the west side of the Rhine. Pliny (Plin. Nat. 16.39) also speaks of the range of the Vosegus as containing timber.
[G.L]