Divodurum Mediomatricorum ('place of the gods, divine enclosure') was the main oppidum of the Mediomatrici (Gaulish: *Medio-mÃÂteres). Divodurum Mediomatricorum is mentioned by Tacitus in the early 1st century AD. The oldest settlement of the oppidum was located on a hill, at the confluence of the Moselle and Seille rivers, nowadays in France. The present-day city of Metz, attested c. 400 AD as civitas Mediomatricorum ('civitas of the Mediomatrici'), is named after the Celtic tribe.
The Mediomatrici were, according to Caesar, a Gaulish tribe at the frontier to the Belgicae dwelling in the present-day region Lorraine and Upper Moselle department during the Iron Age and the Roman period. They are mentioned as Mediomatricorum and Mediomatricis <small>(dat.)</small> by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), Mediomatrikoì (ÃÂõôùÿüñÃÂÃÂùúÿὶ ) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD), Mediomatrici by Pliny (1st c. AD), Mediomatricos <small>(acc.)</small> by Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD), and as Mediomátrikes (ÃÂõôùÿüìÃÂÃÂùúõÃÂ) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD).
During the Gallic Wars (58âÂÂ50 BC), the Mediomatrici sent 5,000 men to support Vercingetorix who was besieged in Alesia in 52. In 69âÂÂ70 of the Common Era, Divodurum was sacked by the armies of Vitellius, and 4,000 of its inhabitants massacred.
A secondary settlement, whose original name is unknown, was located in Bliesbruck, in the eastern part of their civitas.