The Chauci were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Rivers Ems and Elbe , on both sides of the Weser and ranging as far inland as the upper Weser. Along the coast they lived on artificial mounds called terpen , built high enough to remain dry during the highest tide. A dense population of Chauci lived further inland, and they are presumed to have lived in a manner similar to the lives of the other Germanic peoples of the region.
169-646: Their ultimate origins are not well understood. In the Germanic pre- Migration Period (i.e., before c. 300 AD ) the Chauci and the related Frisians , Saxons , and Angles inhabited the Continental European coast from the Zuyder Zee to south Jutland . All of these peoples shared a common material culture, and so cannot be defined archaeologically. The Chauci originally centered on
338-460: A Germanic king, thus becoming the fourth and final Roman to gain this honor. Regardless of whether he was actually able to take them in combat, however, Drusus' untimely death would prevent him from ever going through with the official ceremony. Notably, after Drusus' death, Augustus deposited the laurels from his fasces not in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus as he had done in the past, but in
507-491: A Germanic language", are sometimes referred to as "Germanic-speaking peoples". Today, the term "Germanic" is widely applied to "phenomena including identities, social, cultural or political groups, to material cultural artefacts, languages and texts, and even specific chemical sequences found in human DNA". Several scholars continue to use the term to refer to a culture existing between the 1st to 4th centuries CE, but most historians and archaeologists researching Late Antiquity and
676-721: A Gothic group in modern Ukraine under the rule of Ermanaric , were among the first peoples attacked by the Huns, apparently facing Hunnic pressure for some years. Following Ermanaric's death, the Greuthungi's resistance broke and they moved toward the Dniester river. A second Gothic group, the Tervingi under King Athanaric , constructed a defensive earthwork against the Huns near the Dniester. However, these measures did not stop
845-726: A Gothic ruler of the Amal dynasty, seems to have consolidated power over a large part of the Goths in the Hunnic domain. For the next 20 years, the former subject peoples of the Huns would fight among each other for preeminence. The arrival of the Saxons in Britain is traditionally dated to 449, however, archaeology indicates they had begun arriving in Britain earlier. Latin sources used Saxon generically for seaborne raiders, meaning that not all of
1014-592: A Roman fleet (probably riverine, not ocean-going) was broken up by a storm, causing many casualties. Germanicus himself managed to survive by reaching the lands of the Chauci, who provided him with a safe haven. Germanicus' campaigns had resulted in recovery of two of three Aquila lost in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest defeat; the third legionary standard was recovered in AD ;41 by Publius Gabinius from
1183-971: A common language. Several ancient sources list subdivisions of the Germanic tribes. Writing in the first century CE, Pliny the Elder lists five Germanic subgroups: the Vandili, the Inguaeones, the Istuaeones (living near the Rhine), the Herminones (in the Germanic interior), and the Peucini Basternae (living on the lower Danube near the Dacians). In chapter 2 of the Germania , written about
1352-399: A completely new praenomen from a maternal ancestor, especially when said gentes were non-patrician. Scherberich is also sceptical of Simpson's explanation. Lindsay Powell believes that Drusus personally (despite his young age) may have changed his name directly after his father's death to preserve and honor his memory. In her opinion another motivation for the boy may have been the meaning of
1521-455: A daughter named Livilla ('little Livia') , and at least two others who did not survive childhood. After Drusus' death, Antonia never remarried, though she outlived him by nearly five decades. Three emperors were direct descendants of Drusus: his son Claudius , his grandson Caligula , and his great-grandson Nero . Augustus bestowed many honors on his stepsons. In 19 BC, Drusus was granted the ability to hold all public offices five years before
1690-500: A different group, and this is likely a different people). Tacitus , writing in AD 98, described the inland, non-coastal Chauci homeland as immense, densely populated, and well-stocked with horses. He was effusive in his praise of their character as a people , saying that they were the noblest of the Germans, preferring justice to violence, being neither aggressive nor predatory, but militarily capable and always prepared for war if
1859-467: A dominant military leader. Writing in AD 79, Pliny the Elder said that the Germanic tribes were members of separate groups of people, suggesting a distinction among them. He said that the Chauci, Cimbri and Teutoni —the people from the River Ems through Jutland and for some distance inland—were members of a group called Ingaevones (a "Cimbri" people were also given as members of
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#17327654336992028-450: A group of mutually intelligible dialects . They share distinctive characteristics which set them apart from other Indo-European sub-families of languages, such as Grimm's and Verner's law , the conservation of the PIE ablaut system in the Germanic verb system (notably in strong verbs ), or the merger of the vowels a and o qualities ( ə , a , o > a; ā , ō > ō ). During
2197-744: A half-century later, Tacitus lists only three subgroups: the Ingvaeones (near the sea), the Herminones (in the interior of Germania), and the Istvaeones (the remainder of the tribes); Tacitus says these groups each claimed descent from the god Mannus , son of Tuisto . Tacitus also mentions a second tradition that there were four sons of either Mannus or Tuisto from whom the groups of the Marsi, Gambrivi, Suebi, and Vandili claim descent. The Herminones are also mentioned by Pomponius Mela , but otherwise, these divisions do not appear in other ancient works on
2366-573: A high degree of Celtic-Germanic shared material culture and social organization. Some evidence of linguistic convergence between Germanic and Italic languages , whose Urheimat is supposed to have been situated north of the Alps before the 1st millennium BCE, have also been highlighted by scholars. Shared changes in their grammars also suggest early contacts between Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages ; however, some of these innovations are shared with Baltic only, which may point to linguistic contacts during
2535-426: A lancehead) and linguistic cognates attested in the later Old Norse , Old Saxon and Old High German languages: fremja , fremmian and fremmen all mean 'to carry out'. In the absence of earlier evidence, it must be assumed that Proto-Germanic speakers living in Germania were members of preliterate societies. The only pre-Roman inscriptions that could be interpreted as Proto-Germanic, written in
2704-494: A law dominated by the concepts of feuding and blood compensation . The precise details, nature and origin of what is still normally called " Germanic law " are now controversial. Roman sources state that the Germanic peoples made decisions in a popular assembly (the thing ) but that they also had kings and war leaders. The ancient Germanic-speaking peoples probably shared a common poetic tradition, alliterative verse , and later Germanic peoples also shared legends originating in
2873-481: A month later. Shortly before his death he wrote a letter to Tiberius complaining about the style in which Augustus ruled and discussed forcing him to restore the republic. Suetonius reports that he had refused to return to Rome just before his death. Drusus' body was brought back to the city, and his ashes were deposited in the Mausoleum of Augustus . He remained extremely popular with the legionaries , who erected
3042-653: A monument (the Drususstein ) in Mogontiacum (modern Mainz ) on his behalf. Remnants of this are still standing. The Senate raised an arch on the Appian Way in his memory (unrelated to the Arch of Drusus ) which read "DE GERM" and depicted his Elbe trophy as well as him fighting on horseback, a testament to his personal bravery. They also posthumously granted him the hereditary honorific title "Germanicus", which
3211-601: A policy of trying to prevent strong leaders from emerging among the barbarians, using treachery, kidnapping, and assassination, paying off rival tribes to attack them, or by supporting internal rivals. The Migration Period is traditionally cited by historians as beginning in 375 CE, under the assumption that the appearance of the Huns prompted the Visigoths to seek shelter within the Roman Empire in 376. The end of
3380-587: A relatively late period, at any rate after the initial breakup of Balto-Slavic into Baltic and Slavic languages , with the similarities to Slavic being seen as remnants of Indo-European archaisms or the result of secondary contacts. According to some authors the Bastarnae , or Peucini , were the first Germani to be encountered by the Greco-Roman world and thus to be mentioned in historical records. They appear in historical sources going as far back as
3549-742: A renewed political crisis in Rome, the Rhine frontier had collapsed, and in order to restore it, the Roman magister militum Flavius Aetius engineered the destruction of the Burgundian kingdom in 435/436, possibly with Hunnic mercenaries, and launched several successful campaigns against the Visigoths. In 439, the Vandals conquered Carthage , which served as an excellent base for further raids throughout
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#17327654336993718-567: A term corresponding to Germanic-speaking peoples, this new definition—which used the Germanic language as the main criterion—presented the Germani as a people or nation ( Volk ) with a stable group identity linked to language. As a result, some scholars treat the Germani (Latin) or Germanoi (Greek) of Roman-era sources as non-Germanic if they seemingly spoke non-Germanic languages. For clarity, Germanic peoples, when defined as "speakers of
3887-494: A territorial definition ("those living in Germania ") and an ethnic definition ("having Germanic ethnic characteristics"), and the two definitions did not always align. In the 3rd century, when Romans encountered Germanic-speaking peoples living north of the Lower Danube who fought on horseback, such as Goths and Gepids, they did not call them Germani . Instead, they connected them with non-Germanic-speaking peoples such as
4056-620: A territorial sense to refer to East Francia . In modern English, the adjective Germanic is distinct from German , which is generally used when referring to modern Germans only. Germanic relates to the ancient Germani or the broader Germanic group. In modern German, the ancient Germani are referred to as Germanen and Germania as Germanien , as distinct from modern Germans ( Deutsche ) and modern Germany ( Deutschland ). The direct equivalents in English are, however, Germans for Germani and Germany for Germania although
4225-640: A time in Lugdunum before the family returned to Rome, where Drusus reported to Augustus. Drusus was given the honor of an ovation , and for the third time, Augustus closed the doors of the Temple of Janus , signifying that the whole Roman world was then at peace. Drusus was granted the office of proconsul for the following year. In 10 BC, the Chatti joined with the Sicambri and attacked Drusus' camp, but they were driven back. Drusus pursued them, proceeding from
4394-648: A war-god or a mark of ownership engraved by its possessor. The inscription Fariarix ( * farjōn- 'ferry' + * rīk- 'ruler') carved on tetradrachms found in Bratislava (mid-1st c. BCE) may indicate the Germanic name of a Celtic ruler. By the time Germanic speakers entered written history, their linguistic territory had stretched farther south, since a Germanic dialect continuum (where neighbouring language varieties diverged only slightly between each other, but remote dialects were not necessarily mutually intelligible due to accumulated differences over
4563-478: Is equally inconsistent. Additionally, there is no linguistic or archaeological evidence for these subgroups. New archaeological finds have tended to show that the boundaries between Germanic peoples were very permeable, and scholars now assume that migration and the collapse and formation of cultural units were constant occurrences within Germania. Nevertheless, various aspects such as the alliteration of many of
4732-541: Is incompatible with Suetonius account as he cannot accept that Livia and Octavian (once married) would have allowed the adoption of the boy to take place at all, due to Gallius opposition of Octavian. Since Seutonius makes it clear that Tiberius did use Gallius name (although briefly) but dropped it out of respect for his step-father the adoption must have happened before Drusus was born. Jean Mottershead proposed in her commentary of Suetonius 's Divus Claudius that Drusus' praenomen derived from his father's maternal side of
4901-401: Is little evidence for a common Germanic identity. The Anglo-Saxonist Leonard Neidorf writes that historians of the continental-European Germanic peoples of the 5th and 6th centuries are "in agreement" that there was no pan-Germanic identity or solidarity. Whether a scholar favors the existence of a common Germanic identity or not is often related to their position on the nature of the end of
5070-816: Is possible to refer to Germanic languages from about 500 BCE. Archaeologists usually associate the earliest clearly identifiable Germanic speaking peoples with the Jastorf culture of the Pre-Roman Iron Age in central and northern Germany and southern Denmark from the 6th to 1st centuries BCE. This existed around the same time that the First Germanic Consonant Shift is theorized to have occurred, leading to recognizably Germanic languages. Germanic languages expanded south, east, and west, coming into contact with Celtic , Iranic , Baltic , and Slavic peoples before they were noted by
5239-416: Is related to a lack of stable frontiers in this area such as were maintained by Roman armies along the Rhine and Danube. The geographer Ptolemy (2nd century CE) applied the name Germania magna ("Greater Germania", Greek : Γερμανία Μεγάλη ) to this area, contrasting it with the Roman provinces of Germania Prima and Germania Secunda (on the west bank of the Rhine). In modern scholarship, Germania magna
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5408-569: Is related to the Old Irish word gair ('neighbours') or could be tied to the Celtic word for their war cries, gairm , which simplifies into 'the neighbours' or 'the screamers'. Regardless of its language of origin, the name was transmitted to the Romans via Celtic speakers. It is unclear that any people group ever referred to themselves as Germani . By late antiquity , only peoples near
5577-421: Is sometimes also called Germania libera ("free Germania"), a name coined by Jacob Grimm around 1835. Caesar and, following him, Tacitus, depicted the Germani as sharing elements of a common culture. A small number of passages by Tacitus and other Roman authors (Caesar, Suetonius) mention Germanic tribes or individuals speaking a language distinct from Gaulish. For Tacitus ( Germania 43, 45, 46), language
5746-604: Is thought to possibly reflect a Germanic and Slavic component. The identification of the Jastorf culture with the Germani has been criticized by Sebastian Brather , who notes that it seems to be missing areas such as southern Scandinavia and the Rhine-Weser area, which linguists argue to have been Germanic, while also not according with the Roman era definition of Germani , which included Celtic-speaking peoples further south and west. A category of evidence used to locate
5915-412: Is unknown, although several proposals have been put forward. Even the language from which it derives is a subject of dispute, with proposals of Germanic, Celtic , and Latin, and Illyrian origins. Herwig Wolfram , for example, thinks Germani must be Gaulish . The historian Wolfgang Pfeifer more or less concurs with Wolfram and surmises that the name Germani is likely of Celtic etymology and
6084-678: Is unlikely that Germanic populations spoke a single dialect, and traces of early linguistic varieties have been highlighted by scholars. Sister dialects of Proto-Germanic itself certainly existed, as evidenced by the absence of the First Germanic Sound Shift (Grimm's law) in some "Para-Germanic" recorded proper names, and the reconstructed Proto-Germanic language was only one among several dialects spoken at that time by peoples identified as "Germanic" by Roman sources or archeological data. Although Roman sources name various Germanic tribes such as Suevi, Alemanni, Bauivari , etc., it
6253-498: Is unlikely that the members of these tribes all spoke the same dialect. Definite and comprehensive evidence of Germanic lexical units only occurred after Caesar 's conquest of Gaul in the 1st century BCE, after which contacts with Proto-Germanic speakers began to intensify. The Alcis , a pair of brother gods worshipped by the Nahanarvali , are given by Tacitus as a Latinized form of * alhiz (a kind of ' stag '), and
6422-728: The Urheimat ('original homeland') of the Proto-Germanic language , the ancestral idiom of all attested Germanic dialects, existed in or near the archaeological culture known as the late Jastorf culture , of the central Elbe in present day Germany, stretching north into Jutland and east into present day Poland. If the Jastorf Culture is the origin of the Germanic peoples, then the Scandinavian peninsula would have become Germanic either via migration or assimilation over
6591-525: The Anglo-Saxons of Britain converted to Christianity, but the Saxons and Scandinavians converted only much later. The Germanic peoples shared a native script—known as runes —from around the first century or before, which was gradually replaced with the Latin script , although runes continued to be used for specialized purposes thereafter. Traditionally, the Germanic peoples have been seen as possessing
6760-580: The Cimbrian War (113–101 BCE) against the Romans, in which the Teutons and Cimbri were victorious over several Roman armies but were ultimately defeated. The first century BCE was a time of the expansion of Germanic-speaking peoples at the expense of Celtic-speaking polities in modern southern Germany and the Czech Republic. Before 60 BCE, Ariovistus , described by Caesar as king of
6929-609: The Corded Ware culture towards modern-day Denmark, resulting in cultural mixing with the earlier Funnelbeaker culture . The subsequent culture of the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 2000/1750 – c. 500 BCE) shows definite cultural and population continuities with later Germanic peoples, and is often supposed to have been the culture in which the Germanic Parent Language , the predecessor of
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7098-555: The Essex sites of Chelmsford , Billericay , Gestingthorpe , Braintree , Wickford , Kelvedon , Great Chesterford , and Harlow ). The perpetrators are unknown, but Chauci raiders are among the prime suspects. The Romans responded with defensive measures. Caistor-by-Norwich , Chelmsford and Forum Hadriani (present day Voorburg ) (the civitas of the Canninefates near The Hague ) were all fortified c. 200 , and
7267-599: The Etruscan alphabet , have not been found in Germania but rather in the Venetic region. The inscription harikastiteiva \\\ip , engraved on the Negau helmet in the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE, possibly by a Germanic-speaking warrior involved in combat in northern Italy, has been interpreted by some scholars as Harigasti Teiwǣ ( * harja-gastiz 'army-guest' + * teiwaz 'god, deity'), which could be an invocation to
7436-800: The Franks , Goths , Saxons , and Alemanni . During the Migration Period (375–568), such Germanic peoples entered the Roman Empire and eventually established their own " barbarian kingdoms " within the territory of the Western Roman empire itself. Over time, the Franks became the most powerful of them, conquering many of the others. Eventually, the Frankish king Charlemagne claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor for himself in 800. Archaeological finds suggest that Roman-era sources portrayed
7605-899: The Frisii , and defeating the Chauci near the mouth of the Weser. In 11 BC, he conquered the Usipetes and the Marsi , extending Roman control to the Upper Weser. In 10 BC, he launched a campaign against the Chatti and the resurgent Sicambri, subjugating both. The following year, while serving as consul , he conquered the Mattiaci and defeated the Marcomanni and the Cherusci , the latter near
7774-401: The Germani and Celtic peoples , usually identified with the archaeological La Tène culture , found in southern Germany and the modern Czech Republic. Early contacts probably occurred during the Pre-Germanic and Pre-Celtic periods, dated to the 2nd millennium BCE, and the Celts appear to have had a large amount of influence on Germanic culture from up until the first century CE, which led to
7943-414: The Germani as a large category of peoples distinct from the Gauls and Scythians was Julius Caesar , writing around 55 BCE during his governorship of Gaul. In Caesar's account, the clearest defining characteristic of the Germani people was that their homeland was east of the Rhine , opposite Gaul on the west side. Caesar sought to explain both why his legions stopped at the Rhine and also why
8112-461: The Germani were more dangerous than the Gauls to the empire. Explaining this threat he also classified the Cimbri and Teutons , who had previously invaded Italy, as Germani . Although Caesar described the Rhine as the border between Germani and Celts, he also describes the Germani cisrhenani on the west bank of the Rhine, who he believed had moved from the east. It is unclear if these Germani were actually Germanic speakers. According to
8281-420: The Germani , led a force including Suevi across the Rhine into Gaul near Besançon , successfully aiding the Sequani against their enemies the Aedui at the Battle of Magetobriga . Ariovistus was initially considered an ally of Rome. In 58 BCE, with increasing numbers of settlers crossing the Rhine to join Ariovistus, Julius Caesar went to war with them, defeating them at the Battle of Vosges . In
8450-444: The Germani , though they did not live in Germania, and they were beginning to look like Sarmatians through intermarriage. The Osi and Cotini lived in Germania, but were not Germani , because they had other languages and customs. The Aesti lived on the eastern shore of the Baltic and were like Suebi in their appearance and customs, although they spoke a different language. Ancient authors did not differentiate consistently between
8619-443: The Germani . There are a number of inconsistencies in the listing of Germanic subgroups by Tacitus and Pliny. While both Tacitus and Pliny mention some Scandinavian tribes, they are not integrated into the subdivisions. While Pliny lists the Suebi as part of the Herminones, Tacitus treats them as a separate group. Additionally, Tacitus's description of a group of tribes as united by the cult of Nerthus ( Germania 40) as well as
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#17327654336998788-418: The Huns , Sarmatians , and Alans , who shared a similar culture. Romans also called them "Gothic peoples", ( gentes Gothicae ) even if they did not speak a Germanic language, and they often referred to the Goths as " Getae ", equating them to a non-Germanic people residing in the same region. The writer Procopius described these new "Getic" peoples as sharing similar appearance, laws, Arian religion, and
8957-427: The Pre-Germanic linguistic period (2500–500 BCE), the proto-language was almost certainly influenced by an unknown non-Indo-European language , still noticeable in the Germanic phonology and lexicon . Although Proto-Germanic is reconstructed without dialects via the comparative method , it is almost certain that it never was a uniform proto-language. The late Jastorf culture occupied so much territory that it
9126-441: The Rhine and north of the Rivers Marne and Seine ), and the Chauci made inroads into the region that would later become the neighbouring Roman province of Germania Inferior , in the area of the Rhine delta in what is now the southern Netherlands. Corbulo was made the local Roman military commander. He successfully engaged the Germans on both land and water, occupied the Rhine with his triremes and sent his smaller vessels up
9295-468: The Saxon tribes towards modern-day England. The Germanic languages are traditionally divided between East , North and West Germanic branches. The modern prevailing view is that North and West Germanic were also encompassed in a larger subgroup called Northwest Germanic. Further internal classifications are still debated among scholars, as it is unclear whether the internal features shared by several branches are due to early common innovations or to
9464-408: The Temple of Jupiter Feretrius . J.W. Rich suggests that this action was done as an affirmation to Drusus' memory; had the young commander lived, he would have placed spolia opima in the temple himself. Drusus was returning from his advance to the Elbe when he fell from his horse , by which point Tiberius had joined him. Though he survived the initial accident, infection set in, and he died about
9633-463: The 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, migrations of East Germanic gentes from the Baltic Sea coast southeastwards into the hinterland led to their separation from the dialect continuum. By the late 3rd century CE, linguistic divergences like the West Germanic loss of the final consonant -z had already occurred within the "residual" Northwest dialect continuum. The latter definitely ended after the 5th- and 6th-century migrations of Angles , Jutes and part of
9802-504: The 3rd century BCE through the 4th century CE. Another eastern people known from about 200 BCE, and sometimes believed to be Germanic-speaking, are the Sciri (Greek: Skiroi ), who are recorded threatening the city of Olbia on the Black Sea. Late in the 2nd century BCE, Roman and Greek sources recount the migrations of the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones whom Caesar later classified as Germanic. The movements of these groups through parts of Gaul , Italy and Hispania resulted in
9971-434: The Bructeri, but, as it was now late in the campaign season, turned back for their winter quarters in Gaul, taking advantage of their new alliance with the Frisii to navigate through the difficult conditions on the North Sea . As a reward for the successes of his campaign in 12 BC, Drusus was made praetor urbanus for 11 BC when he returned to Rome for the winter. News of Drusus' achievements – navigating
10140-426: The Chauci as 'peaceful' in his Germania (AD 98), but this is in a passage describing the non-coastal, inland Chauci, whereas sea raiders are necessarily a coastal people. By the late second century Chauci raiding was ongoing and more serious than before, continuing in the English Channel until their last recorded raids c. 170 –175. While there are no historical sources to inform us one way or
10309-415: The Chauci during the reign of Claudius , brother of Germanicus. A parenthetical note concerns the Ampsivarii . They had not supported the German cause led by Arminius in 9 AD and had been ostracized as a result. The Chauci had suffered no such disaffection from the other Germanic tribes in the aftermath of Teutoburg Forest, nor had they alienated the Romans. Many years later, c. AD 58 ,
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#173276543369910478-408: The Chauci is from the Annals of Tacitus , written in 117. Many parts of his works have not survived, including an entire section covering the years AD 38–46, as well as the years after AD 69. The earliest mention of the Chauci is from 12 BC and suggests that they were assisting other Germanic tribes in a war against the Romans . Drusus campaigned against those Germans along
10647-408: The Chauci seized upon an opportunity to expel the Ampsivarii and occupy their lands at the mouth of the River Ems , whereby they gained a border with the Frisians to the west. In AD 47 (and perhaps for some time earlier), the Chauci along with the Frisians were led by a certain Gannascus of the Canninefates . They raided along the then-wealthy coast of Gallia Belgica (i.e., the land south of
10816-413: The Cherusci—initially an ally of Rome—drew a large Roman force into an ambush in northern Germany, and destroyed the three legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . Marboduus and Arminius went to war with each other in 17 CE; Arminius was victorious and Marboduus was forced to flee to the Romans. Following the Roman defeat at the Teutoburg Forest, Rome gave up on
10985-412: The Cimbri and the Charydes and the Semnones and the other Germans of the same territory sought by envoys the friendship of me and of the Roman people. Upon Claudius ' accession to the principate in 41 AD, his late father Drusus received new public honors, including annual games in the Circus Maximus on 14 January for Drusus' birthday, coin issues depicting Drusus' likeness and his commemorative arch, and
11154-600: The Early Middle Ages no longer use it. Apart from the designation of a language family (i.e., "Germanic languages"), the application of the term "Germanic" has become controversial in scholarship since 1990, especially among archaeologists and historians. Scholars have increasingly questioned the notion of ethnically defined people groups ( Völker ) as stable basic actors of history. The connection of archaeological assemblages to ethnicity has also been increasingly questioned. This has resulted in different disciplines developing different definitions of "Germanic". Beginning with
11323-530: The Elbe. His Germanic campaigns were cut short in the summer of 9 BC by his death after a riding accident. Drusus was a very able commander. His death slowed the northward expansion of the Roman Empire, and foreshadowed the disastrous Battle of the Teutoburg Forest . He was enormously popular among his men, who erected the Drususstein in his honor; his memory was elevated during the reign of his son Claudius. Drusus' accomplishments in battle were considerable. He fought numerous Germanic chiefs in single combat , and
11492-427: The Elder , was a Roman politician and military commander. He was a patrician Claudian but his mother was from a plebeian family. He was the son of Livia Drusilla and the stepson of her second husband, the Emperor Augustus . He was also brother of the Emperor Tiberius ; the father of the Emperor Claudius and general Germanicus ; paternal grandfather of the Emperor Caligula , and maternal great-grandfather of
11661-406: The Emperor Nero . Drusus launched the first major Roman campaigns across the Rhine and began the conquest of Germania , becoming the first Roman general to reach the Weser and Elbe rivers. In 12 BC, he led a successful campaign into Germania, subjugating the Sicambri . Later that year he led a naval expedition against Germanic tribes along the North Sea coast, conquering the Batavi and
11830-409: The Germanic frontier carefully, meddling in cross-border politics, and constructing a long fortified border, the Limes Germanicus . From 166 to 180 CE, Rome was embroiled in a conflict against the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi with their allies, which was known as the Marcomannic Wars . After this major disruption, new Germanic peoples appear for the first time in the historical record, such as
11999-428: The Germanic peoples divided and fractious. Rome established relationships with individual Germanic kings that are often discussed as being similar to client states ; however, the situation on the border was always unstable, with rebellions by the Frisians in 28 CE, and attacks by the Chauci and Chatti in the 60s CE. The most serious threat to the Roman order was the Revolt of the Batavi in 69 CE, during
12168-430: The Germanic way of life as more primitive than it actually was. Instead, archaeologists have unveiled evidence of a complex society and economy throughout Germania. Germanic-speaking peoples originally shared similar religious practices. Denoted by the term Germanic paganism , they varied throughout the territory occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples. Over the course of Late Antiquity , most continental Germanic peoples and
12337-628: The Germans in an effort to ease tensions, and the Romans withdrew to the Rhine. In AD 69 the Batavi and other tribes rose against Roman rule in the Revolt of the Batavi , becoming a general uprising by all the Germans in the region. Led by Civilis , they inflicted huge casualties on the Romans, including the destruction of a Roman fleet by a Germanic one off the North Sea coast. Led by Cerialis ,
12506-470: The Greuthungi. The Goths and their allies defeated the Romans first at Marcianople , then defeated and killed emperor Valens in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, destroying two-thirds of Valens' army. Following further fighting, peace was negotiated in 382, granting the Goths considerable autonomy within the Roman Empire. However, these Goths—who would be known as the Visigoths —revolted several more times, finally coming to be ruled by Alaric . In 397,
12675-580: The Huns and the majority of the Tervingi abandoned Athanaric; they subsequently fled—accompanied by a contingent of Greuthungi—to the Danube in 376, seeking asylum in the Roman Empire. The emperor Valens chose only to admit the Tervingi, who were settled in the Roman provinces of Thrace and Moesia . Due to mistreatment by the Romans, the Tervingi revolted in 377, starting the Gothic War , joined by
12844-676: The Huns had largely conquered them by 406. One Gothic group under Hunnic domination was ruled by the Amal dynasty , who would form the core of the Ostrogoths . The situation outside the Roman empire in 410s and 420s is poorly attested, but it is clear that the Huns continued to spread their influence onto the middle Danube. In 428, the Vandal leader Geiseric moved his forces across the strait of Gibraltar into north Africa. Within two years, they had conquered most of north Africa. By 434, following
13013-522: The Huns interfered in a Frankish succession dispute, leading in 451 to an invasion of Gaul. Aetius, by uniting a coalition of Visigoths, part of the Franks, and others, was able to defeat the Hunnic army at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains . In 453, Attila died unexpectedly, and an alliance led by Ardaric's Gepids rebelled against the rule of his sons, defeating them in the Battle of Nedao . Either before or after Attila's death, Valamer ,
13182-647: The Latin Germania is also used. To avoid ambiguity, the Germani may instead be called "ancient Germans" or Germani by using the Latin term in English. The modern definition of Germanic peoples developed in the 19th century, when the term Germanic was linked to the newly identified Germanic language family . Linguistics provided a new way of defining the Germanic peoples, which came to be used in historiography and archaeology. While Roman authors did not consistently exclude Celtic-speaking people or have
13351-568: The Marcomanni and Quadi, and Commodus forbid them to hold assemblies unless a Roman centurion was present. The period after the Marcomannic Wars saw the emergence of peoples with new names along the Roman frontiers, which were probably formed by the merger of smaller groups. These new confederacies or peoples tended to border the Roman imperial frontier. Many ethnic names from earlier periods disappear. The Alamanni emerged along
13520-771: The Mediterranean and became the basis for the Vandal Kingdom . The loss of Carthage forced Aetius to make peace with the Visigoths in 442, effectively recognizing their independence within the boundaries of the empire. During the resulting peace, Aetius resettled the Burgundians in Sapaudia in southern Gaul. In the 430s, Aetius negotiated peace with the Suevi in Spain, leading to a practical loss of Roman control in
13689-564: The Migration Period. The publishing of Tacitus 's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced the emerging idea of "Germanic peoples". Later scholars of the Romantic period , such as Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm , developed several theories about the nature of the Germanic peoples that were highly influenced by romantic nationalism . For those scholars, the "Germanic" and modern "German" were identical. Ideas about
13858-543: The North Sea, carrying the Roman eagles into new territory, and fixing new peoples into treaty relations with Rome – caused considerable excitement in Rome and were commemorated on coins. In the spring of his term as praetor urbanus , he set out for the German border once more. This time, he assembled a force consisting of all or part of five legions in addition to auxiliaries and, setting out from Vetera on
14027-769: The Proto-Germanic homeland is founded on traces of early linguistic contacts with neighbouring languages. Germanic loanwords in the Finnic and Sámi languages have preserved archaic forms (e.g. Finnic kuningas , from Proto-Germanic * kuningaz 'king'; rengas , from * hringaz 'ring'; etc.), with the older loan layers possibly dating back to an earlier period of intense contacts between pre-Germanic and Finno-Permic (i.e. Finno-Samic ) speakers. Shared lexical innovations between Celtic and Germanic languages, concentrated in certain semantic domains such as religion and warfare, indicates intensive contacts between
14196-457: The Proto-Germanic language, developed. However, it is unclear whether these earlier peoples possessed any ethnic continuity with the later Germanic peoples. Generally, scholars agree that it is possible to speak of Germanic-speaking peoples after 500 BCE, although the first attestation of the name Germani is not until much later. Between around 500 BCE and the beginning of the common era , archeological and linguistic evidence suggest that
14365-523: The Rhine as a border. Starting in 13 BCE, there were Roman campaigns across the Rhine for a 28-year period. First came the pacification of the Usipetes, Sicambri, and Frisians near the Rhine, then attacks increased further from the Rhine, on the Chauci , Cherusci , Chatti and Suevi (including the Marcomanni ). These campaigns eventually reached and even crossed the Elbe, and in 5 CE Tiberius
14534-793: The Rhine for an indeterminate distance, bounded by the Baltic Sea and the Hercynian Forest . Pliny the Elder and Tacitus placed the eastern border at the Vistula . The Upper Danube served as a southern border. Between there and the Vistula Tacitus sketched an unclear boundary, describing Germania as separated in the south and east from the Dacians and the Sarmatians by mutual fear or mountains. This undefined eastern border
14703-555: The Rhine frontier. As governor of Gaul, Drusus made his headquarters at Lugdunum, where he decided to establish the concilium Galliarum or ‘council of the Gaulish provinces’ sometime between 14 and 12 BC. This council would elect from its members a priest to celebrate games and venerate Rome and Augustus as deities every 1 August at the altar of the three Gauls that Drusus established at Condate in 10 BC. Drusus' son Tiberius—the future emperor Claudius —was born in Lugdunum on
14872-680: The Rhine, ascended the River Lippe . Here he encountered the Tencteri and Usipetes , whom he defeated in two separate engagements. He reached the Werra Valley before deciding to turn back for the season, as winter was coming on, supplies were dwindling, and the omens were unfavorable. While his forces were making their way back through the territory of the Cherusci , the latter tribe laid an ambush for them at Arbalo. The Cherusci failed to capitalize on their initial advantage, whereupon
15041-531: The Rhine, especially the Franks and sometimes the Alemanni, were called Germani or Germanoi by Latin and Greek writers respectively. Germani subsequently ceased to be used as a name for any group of people and was revived as such only by the humanists in the 16th century. Previously, scholars during the Carolingian period (8th–11th centuries) had already begun using Germania and Germanicus in
15210-594: The Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine , to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine . The term Germani is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from the 1st to 4th centuries CE. Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for
15379-473: The Roman Empire . Defenders of continued use of the term Germanic argue that the speakers of Germanic languages can be identified as Germanic people by language regardless of how they saw themselves. Linguists and philologists have generally reacted skeptically to claims that there was no Germanic identity or cultural unity, and they may view Germanic simply as a long-established and convenient term. Some archaeologists have also argued in favor of retaining
15548-629: The Roman emperor Flavius Constantius , the Visigoths were settled as Roman allies in Gaul between modern Toulouse and Bourdeaux. Other Goths, including those of Athanaric, continued to live outside the empire, with three groups crossing into the Roman territory after the Tervingi. The Huns gradually conquered Gothic groups north of the Danube, of which at least six are known, from 376 to 400. Those in Crimea may never have been conquered. The Gepids also formed an important Germanic people under Hunnic rule;
15717-693: The Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania (c. 98 CE), it was among this group, specifically the Tungri , that the name Germani first arose, before it spread to further groups. Tacitus reported that in his time many of the peoples west of the Rhine within Roman Gaul were still considered Germani . Caesar's division of the Germani from the Celts was not taken up by most writers in Greek. Caesar and authors following him regarded Germania as stretching east of
15886-609: The Roman territory. The revolt ended following several defeats, with Civilis claiming to have only supported the imperial claims of Vespasian , who was victorious in the civil war. The century after the Batavian Revolt saw mostly peace between the Germanic peoples and Rome. In 83 CE, Emperor Domitian of the Flavian dynasty attacked the Chatti north of Mainz (Mogontiacum). This war would last until 85 CE. Following
16055-528: The Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of the Roman empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths . Another term, ancient Germans , is considered problematic by many scholars since it suggests identity with present-day Germans . Although the first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of
16224-680: The Romans appear to have reserved the right to choose rulers among the barbarians on the frontier. Following sixty years of quiet on the frontier, 166 CE saw a major incursion of peoples from north of the Danube during the reign of Marcus Aurelius , beginning the Marcomannic Wars . By 168 (during the Antonine plague ), barbarian hosts consisting of Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatian Iazyges, attacked and pushed their way to Italy. They advanced as far as Upper Italy, destroyed Opitergium/Oderzo and besieged Aquileia. The Romans had finished
16393-458: The Romans began a defensive system of protection especially along the coasts of Britain and the Continent. This system would be continually maintained and improved upon, which the Romans would not have done unless there was a continuing threat to be addressed. The system would continue to evolve through the disappearance of Chauci raiders and their replacement by the Frankish and Saxon ones, up to
16562-410: The Romans blamed for their defeat. The Chauci were not among them, and were said to have promised aid, and were associated with the Romans in "military fellowship". However, in defeating Arminius' own tribe (the Cherusci ) the Romans were unable to capture or kill Arminius, who escaped. There were Chauci among the Roman auxiliaries, and they were rumored to have allowed the escape. In one of the campaigns
16731-590: The Romans broke through their lines, defeated the Germanic attackers, and acclaimed Drusus as imperator . To show his continued mastery of the ground, Drusus garrisoned a number of positions within Germania during the winter of 11–10 BC, including one somewhere in Hesse and one in Cheruscan territory, probably either the camp at Haltern or that at Bergkamen-Oberaden , both in present-day North Rhine–Westphalia . He rejoined his wife Antonia and two children for
16900-549: The Romans gave as good as they had gotten, ultimately forcing a humiliating peace on the Batavi and stationing a legion on their territory. Both the Chauci and the Frisians had auxiliaries serving under the Romans, and in a siege and assault by Civilis at Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensis (at modern Cologne ), a cohort of Chauci and Frisians had been trapped and burned. The Chauci had supported Civilis in their own name, providing him with reinforcements. The Chauci were one of
17069-429: The Romans. Roman authors first described the Germani near the Rhine in the 1st century BCE, while the Roman Empire was establishing its dominance in that region. Under Emperor Augustus (27 BCE – 14 CE), the Romans attempted to conquer a large part of Germania between the Rhine and Elbe , but withdrew after their shocking defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE. The Romans continued to manage
17238-564: The Salians, but then allowed the Salians "descended from the Franks" to settle in Toxandria in 358. According to Zosimus, this happened in response to an attack from the sea by the "Kouadoi" Saxons which affected both Romans and Salians, who had been living in the river delta. Beowulf is an Old English heroic poem where the hero (Beowulf) engages in battles with antagonists. Set in long-ago Scandinavia , it makes frequent references to
17407-585: The Saxons, a term used generically in Latin for Germanic-speaking pirates. A system of defenses on both sides of the English Channel , the Saxon Shore , was established to deal with their raids. From 250 onward, the Gothic peoples formed the "single most potent threat to the northern frontier of Rome". In 250 CE a Gothic king Cniva led Goths with Bastarnae, Carpi, Vandals, and Taifali into
17576-496: The Weser and Elbe, but in c. AD 58 they expanded to the River Ems by expelling the neighboring Ampsivarii , whereby they gained a border with the Frisians to the west. The Romans referred to the Chauci living between the Weser and Elbe as the 'Greater Chauci' and those living between the Ems and Weser as the 'Lesser Chauci'. The Chauci entered the historical record in descriptions of them by classical Roman sources late in
17745-486: The authority of a praetor) of the three Gaulish provinces. His contribution to the ongoing building and urban development in Gaul can be seen in the establishment of the pes Drusianus , or ‘Drusian foot ’, of about 33.3 cm (13.1 in), which was in use in Samarobriva (modern Amiens ) and among the Tungri . From 14 to 13 BC, Augustus himself was also active in Gaul, whether in Lugdunum (modern Lyon) or along
17914-621: The civil wars following the death of Nero known as the Year of the Four Emperors . The Batavi had long served as auxiliary troops in the Roman army as well as in the imperial bodyguard as the so-called Numerus Batavorum , often called the Germanic bodyguard. The uprising was led by Gaius Julius Civilis , a member of the Batavian royal family and Roman military officer, and attracted a large coalition of people both inside and outside of
18083-401: The coast) they had no cattle, and had nothing to drink except rainwater caught in ditches. They used a type of dried mud (i.e., "surface peat ") as fuel for cooking and heating. He also mentioned their spirit of independence, saying that even though they had nothing of value, they would deeply resent any attempt to conquer them. The record is incomplete. The bulk of historical information about
18252-419: The confrontation with Rome as things that could cause a sense of shared "Germanic" culture. Despite being cautious of the use of Germanic to refer to peoples, Sebastian Brather , Wilhelm Heizmann and Steffen Patzold nevertheless refer to further commonalities such as the widely attested worship of deities such as Odin , Thor and Frigg , and a shared legendary tradition . The first author to describe
18421-586: The course of the same period. Alternatively, Hermann Ament [ de ] has stressed that two other archaeological groups must have belonged to the Germani , one on either side of the Lower Rhine and reaching to the Weser , and another in Jutland and southern Scandinavia. These groups would thus show a "polycentric origin" for the Germanic peoples. The neighboring Przeworsk culture in modern Poland
18590-441: The crisis. From the later third century onward, the Roman army relied increasingly on troops of Barbarian origin, often recruited from Germanic peoples, with some functioning as senior commanders in the Roman army. In the 4th century, warfare along the Rhine frontier between the Romans and Franks and Alemanni seems to have mostly consisted of campaigns of plunder, during which major battles were avoided. The Romans generally followed
18759-802: The cult of the Alcis controlled by the Nahanarvali ( Germania 43) and Tacitus's account of the origin myth of the Semnones ( Germania 39) all suggest different subdivisions than the three mentioned in Germania chapter 2. The subdivisions found in Pliny and Tacitus have been very influential for scholarship on Germanic history and language up until recent times. However, outside of Tacitus and Pliny there are no other textual indications that these groups were important. The subgroups mentioned by Tacitus are not used by him elsewhere in his work, contradict other parts of his work, and cannot be reconciled with Pliny, who
18928-414: The date of 28 March as his most likely birthday , while Lindsay Powell interprets Ovid's Fasti as indicating a date of 13 January. Rumors arose that Augustus was the child's real father, although impossible as Livia was already pregnant when she met her future husband (Emperor Claudius nonetheless encouraged the rumor during his reign to create an impression of more direct lineage from Augustus). Drusus
19097-419: The death of her second son, took the advice of the philosopher Areus to put up many statues and images of Drusus and speak often about him. The surviving Latin work Consolatio ad Liviam is framed as an Ovidian message of consolation to Livia on this occasion, though it is generally considered a literary exercise "composed between the death of Livia [AD 29] and that of Tiberius [AD 37]". Augustus noted
19266-644: The distance) covered a region roughly located between the Rhine , the Vistula , the Danube , and southern Scandinavia during the first two centuries of the Common Era . East Germanic speakers dwelled on the Baltic sea coasts and islands, while speakers of the Northwestern dialects occupied territories in present-day Denmark and bordering parts of Germany at the earliest date when they can be identified. In
19435-488: The disunited eastern Empire submitted to some of his demands, possibly giving him control over Epirus . In the aftermath of the large-scale Gothic entries into the empire, the Franks and Alemanni became more secure in their positions in 395, when Stilicho , the barbarian generalissimo who held power in the western Empire, made agreements with them. In 401, Alaric invaded Italy, coming to an understanding with Stilicho in 404/5. This agreement allowed Stilicho to fight against
19604-573: The early Germans were also highly influential among members of the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later co-opted by the Nazis . During the second half of the 20th century, the controversial misuse of ancient Germanic history and archaeology was discredited and has since resulted in a backlash against many aspects of earlier scholarship. The etymology of the Latin word Germani , from which Latin Germania and English Germanic are derived,
19773-475: The empire, laying siege to Philippopolis . He followed his victory there with another on the marshy terrain at Abrittus , a battle which cost the life of Roman emperor Decius . In 253/254, further attacks occurred reaching Thessalonica and possibly Thrace . In 267/268 there were large raids led by the Herules in 267/268, and a mixed group of Goths and Herules in 269/270. Gothic attacks were abruptly ended in
19942-586: The end of the fourth century. By then it would be known as the Saxon Shore , a name given it by the Notitia Dignitatum . A passage written by Zosimus has been interpreted as one of the last mentions of the Chauci, and one where they are specifically mentioned as a Saxon group; but it depends upon whether we can equate them with the "Kouadoi" in Zosimus's Greek, a name he had apparently used wrongly. Julian fought against Saxons and Franks, including
20111-400: The end of the war with the Chatti, Domitian reduced the number of Roman soldiers on the upper Rhine and shifted the Roman military to guarding the Danube frontier, beginning the construction of the limes , the longest fortified border in the empire. The period afterwards was peaceful enough that the emperor Trajan reduced the number of soldiers on the frontier. According to Edward James ,
20280-437: The estuaries and canals. The Germanic flotilla was destroyed in a naval engagement, Gannascus was driven out, and Frisian territory was forcibly occupied. A negotiation between the Romans and Gannascus was arranged under the auspices of the 'Greater Chauci', which the Romans used as an opportunity to assassinate their opponent. The Chauci were outraged by the act of bad faith , so the emperor Claudius forbade further attacks on
20449-477: The event may even have happened before Drusus was born; he also rejected the point of death of their father as likely since it would have probably have brought attention to the circumstances surrounding Livia's divorce and remarriage, which had become a part of Mark Antony 's propaganda at the time. Simpson stated that in his opinion Livia chose the names Decimus and Drusus for her younger son to minimize association with her ex-husband after she married Octavian due to
20618-519: The family, possibly the Junii or Laelii as they were the only senatorial families who regularly used the praenomen "Decimus". She also believes that the name change happened when his father died and he moved into Octavian's household. Klaus Scherberich is critical of Mottershead's proposal, he argues that there are no examples of a conservative patrician family like the Claudii Nerones adopting
20787-469: The field, stopping to confer with his staff at Lugdunum and to dedicate a temple to Caesar Augustus at Andemantunnum , before rejoining his command at Mainz, from which the year's expedition departed in early spring. Drusus led the army via Rödgen through the territories of the Marsi and Cherusci until he even crossed the river Elbe . Here he is said to have seen an apparition of a Germanic woman who warned him against proceeding farther and that his death
20956-475: The first century Frisians and added that they were kings "as far as the Germans are under kings". Haywood ( Dark Age Naval Power , 1999) says the Chauci were originally neither highly centralised nor highly stratified, though they became more so after 100 AD. Barbara Yorke , speaking of the fifth century, describes the 'Continental Saxons' (which then included the Chauci) as having powerful local families and
21125-418: The first century BC in the context of Roman military campaigns and sea raiding. For the next 200 years the Chauci provided Roman auxiliaries through treaty obligations, but they also appear in their own right in concert with other Germanic tribes, opposing the Romans. Accounts of wars therefore mention the Chauci on both sides of the conflict, though the actions of troops under treaty obligation were separate from
21294-560: The first of them was Maroboduus of the Marcomanni, who had led his people away from the Roman activities into Bohemia , which was defended by forests and mountains, and had formed alliances with other peoples. In 6 CE, Rome planned an attack against him but the campaign was cut short when forces were needed for the Illyrian revolt in the Balkans. Just three years later (9 CE), the second of these Germanic figures, Arminius of
21463-450: The following years Caesar pursued a controversial campaign to conquer all of Gaul on behalf of Rome, establishing the Rhine as a border. In 55 BCE he crossed the Rhine into Germania near Cologne . Near modern Nijmegen he also massacred a large migrating group of Tencteri and Usipetes who had crossed the Rhine from the east. Throughout the reign of Augustus—from 27 BCE until 14 CE—the Roman empire expanded into Gaul, with
21632-554: The force of Radagaisus , who had crossed the Middle Danube in 405/6 and invaded Italy, only to be defeated outside Florence. That same year, a large force of Vandals, Suevi, Alans, and Burgundians crossed the Rhine , fighting the Franks but facing no Roman resistance. In 409, the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans crossing the Pyrenees into Spain, where they took possession of the northern part of the peninsula. The Burgundians seized
21801-466: The former's poor status at the time, but that several years after the man's death it was opportune to emphasize her younger son's connection with his elder brother and that the name change was probably done upon him assuming the toga virilis. Levick believed the adoption of Tiberius necessitated Drusus wearing the name of the Nerones. Simpson responded 1993 in that he believes that Levick's interpretation
21970-589: The invaders belonged to the continental Saxons. According to the British monk Gildas (c. 500 – c. 570), this group had been recruited to protect the Romano-British from the Picts , but had revolted. They quickly established themselves as rulers on the eastern part of the island. Nero Claudius Drusus Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus (38–9 BC), commonly known in English as Drusus
22139-523: The land around modern Speyer , Worms , and Strasbourg, territory that was recognized by the Roman Emperor Honorius . When Stilicho fell from power in 408, Alaric invaded Italy again and eventually sacked Rome in 410; Alaric died shortly thereafter. The Visigoths withdrew into Gaul where they faced a power struggle until the succession of Wallia in 415 and his son Theodoric I in 417/18. Following successful campaigns against them by
22308-660: The late Republic (especially for a patrician ). The eventual use of his father's cognomen Nero as a praenomen was highly unconventional as well. His full name given at his Dies lustricus is generally assumed to have been Decimus Claudius Drusus , but some historians such as Andrew Pettinger, Pierre Grimal , T. P. Wiseman , Greg Rowe, Barbara Levick and Eric D. Huntsman believe it may have been Decimus Claudius Nero , Decimus Claudius Nero Drusus or Decimus Claudius Drusus Nero instead. Livia may have passed down her father's cognomen to her son simply because, besides her adoptive brother Marcus Livius Drusus Libo , there
22477-480: The later diffusion of local dialectal innovations. The Germanic-speaking peoples speak an Indo-European language . The leading theory for the origin of Germanic languages, suggested by archaeological, linguistic and genetic evidence, postulates a diffusion of Indo-European languages from the Pontic–Caspian steppe towards Northern Europe during the third millennium BCE, via linguistic contacts and migrations from
22646-563: The lower Rhine, and after devastating the lands west and north of the Rhine he won over (or defeated or intimidated) the Frisians . He was in the process of attacking the Chauci when his vessels were trapped by an ebb tide . Drusus gave up the attack and withdrew. The Germans under Arminius had destroyed 3 Roman legions under Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9. The Romans recoiled at first but then Germanicus initiated destructive campaigns against those Germans whom
22815-680: The migration period is usually set at 568 when the Lombards invaded Italy. During this time period, numerous barbarian groups invaded the Roman Empire and established new kingdoms within its boundaries. These Germanic migrations traditionally mark the transition between antiquity and the beginning of the early Middle Ages . The reasons for the migrations of the period are unclear, but scholars have proposed overpopulation, climate change, bad harvests, famines, and adventurousness as possible reasons. Migrations were probably carried out by relatively small groups rather than entire peoples. The Greuthungi ,
22984-538: The minimum age. When Tiberius left Italy during his term as praetor in 16 BC, Drusus legislated in his place. He became quaestor the following year, fighting against Raetian bandits in the Alps . Drusus repelled them, gaining honors, but was unable to smash their forces, and required reinforcement from Tiberius. The brothers easily defeated the local Alpine tribes. Drusus arrived in Gaul in late 15 BC to serve as legatus Augusti pro praetore (governor on Augustus' behalf with
23153-563: The most able of the various Roman commanders who attempted to conquer Germania, as well as the most successful. While the furthest extent of territorial gains would be realized the year after his death, under Tiberius, Drusus' death marked a slowing of Roman expansion. Drusus' successors would prove unfit for the task of conquering Germania, with disastrous results. Drusus was succeeded as commander in Germania by Tiberius, but Tiberius fell out of imperial favor, and chose self exile in 6 BC. Command then fell to Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus . Ahenobarbus
23322-459: The most prominent early Germanic sea raiders. They are probable participants in the Germanic flotilla that was destroyed by Drusus in 12 BC. They were raiding the coasts of Roman Belgica in AD 41, long before they participated in further raids of the same coasts under Gannascus in AD 47. It is likely that their raiding was endemic over the years, as the few surviving accounts probably do not reflect all occurrences. Tacitus describes
23491-402: The name Nero , which in ancient Sabine (the language of the people which the Claudii descended from) meant "strong" or "valiant", a fitting name for a boy from such a distinguished clan. Drusus married Antonia Minor , the daughter of Mark Antony and Augustus' sister, Octavia Minor , and gained a reputation of being completely faithful to her. Their children were Germanicus , Claudius ,
23660-408: The need arose. Pliny (AD 23–79) had visited the coastal region and described the Chauci who lived there. He said that they were "wretched natives" living on a barren coast in small cottages (or huts) on hilltops, or on mounds of turf built high enough to stay dry during the highest tide (i.e., terpen ). They fished for food, and unlike their neighbors (i.e., those living inland, away from
23829-529: The other, it is likely that the Chauci continued their raiding and then played a role in the formation of the new Germanic powers, the Franks and Saxons who were raiders in the third century. There is archaeological evidence of destruction by raiders between 170–200, ranging along the Continental coast down to the Bay of Biscay , to northwest Belgica (e.g., fire destruction at Amiens , Thérouanne , Vendeuil-Caply , Beauvais , Bavai , Tournai , and Arras ), to coastal Britain (e.g., fire destruction at
23998-426: The peoples who are a part of the story, and efforts have been made to connect those peoples with peoples mentioned in ancient historical records. The "Hugas" of the poem are said to be a reference to the Chauci. Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages . In modern scholarship, they typically include not only
24167-405: The policies of the tribe. The Chauci lost their separate identity in the third century when they merged with the Saxons, after which time they were considered to be Saxons . The circumstances of the merger are an unsettled issue of scholarly research. The Germans of the region were not strongly hierarchical. This had been noted by Tacitus , for example when he mentioned the names of two kings of
24336-453: The possibility of fully integrating this region into the empire. Rome launched successful campaigns across the Rhine between 14 and 16 CE under Tiberius and Germanicus, but the effort of integrating Germania now seemed to outweigh its benefits. In the reign of Augustus's successor, Tiberius, it became state policy to expand the empire no further than the frontier based roughly upon the Rhine and Danube, recommendations that were specified in
24505-401: The province. Despite the peace, the Suevi expanded their territory by conquering Mérida in 439 and Seville in 441. By 440, Attila and the Huns had come to rule a multi-ethnic empire north of the Danube; two of the most important peoples within this empire were the Gepids and the Goths. The Gepid king Ardaric came to power around 440 and participated in various Hunnic campaigns. In 450,
24674-474: The restoration of a monument near the Ara Pacis Augustae that featured a statue of Drusus. Claudius also completed a road from Italy into Raetia that followed the route Drusus had taken and whose road-markers commemorated Drusus' achievements in the Alpine war. Such Claudian commemorations of Drusus' memory are thought to have become less prominent once Claudius had his own British triumph to celebrate. Historian Michael McNally considers Drusus to have been
24843-449: The same day that this altar was inaugurated. Starting in 14 BC, Drusus built a string of military bases along the Rhine—fifty according to Florus —and established an alliance with the Batavi in preparation for military action in Germania Libera. He is likely to have had seven legions under his command. In spring of 12 BC, he embarked an expeditionary force, perhaps consisting of the Legiones I Germanica and V Alaudae , by ship from
25012-541: The sites of present-day Mainz and Rödgen , where he set up a base of supply, to Hedemünden , where a strong new camp was established. Around this time, the canny Marcomannic king Maroboduus responded to the Roman incursion by relocating his people en masse to Bohemia . In summer of 10 BC, Drusus left the field in order to return to Lugdunum , where he inaugurated the sanctuary of the Three Gaulish provinces at Condate on 1 August. Augustus and Tiberius were in Lugdunum for this occasion (when Drusus' youngest son Claudius
25181-454: The successes of Drusus' campaigns—for which, as Drusus' superior, he took credit—in his Res Gestae Divi Augusti , written in 14 AD: I restored peace to the provinces of Gaul and Spain, likewise Germany, which includes the ocean from Cadiz to the mouth of the river Elbe. [...] I sailed my ships on the ocean from the mouth of the Rhine to the east region up to the borders of the Cimbri, where no Roman had gone before that time by land or sea, and
25350-444: The term Germanic due to its broad recognizability. Archaeologist Heiko Steuer defines his own work on the Germani in geographical terms (covering Germania ), rather than in ethnic terms. He nevertheless argues for some sense of shared identity between the Germani , noting the use of a common language, a common runic script , various common objects of material culture such as bracteates and gullgubber (small gold objects) and
25519-436: The term's total abandonment as a modern construct, since lumping "Germanic peoples" together implies a common group identity for which there is little evidence. Other scholars have defended the term's continued use and argue that a common Germanic language allows one to speak of "Germanic peoples", regardless of whether these ancient and medieval peoples saw themselves as having a common identity. Scholars generally agree that it
25688-410: The tribal names in Tacitus's account and the name of Mannus himself suggest that the descent from Mannus was an authentic Germanic tradition. All Germanic languages derive from the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), which is generally thought to have been spoken between 4500 and 2500 BCE. The ancestor of Germanic languages is referred to as Proto- or Common Germanic , and likely represented
25857-595: The upper Rhine and are mentioned in Roman sources from the third century onward. The Goths begin to be mentioned along the lower Danube, where they attacked the city of Histria in 238. The Franks are first mentioned occupying territory between the Rhine and Weser. The Lombards seem to have moved their center of power to the central Elbe. Groups such as the Alamanni, Goths, and Franks were not unified polities; they formed multiple, loosely associated groups, who often fought each other and some of whom sought Roman friendship. The Romans also begin to mention seaborne attacks by
26026-448: The vicinity of modern Nijmegen , making use of one or more canals he had built for the purpose. Drusus sailed to the mouth of the Ems and penetrated into the territory of the Chauci in present-day Lower Saxony . The Chauci concluded a treaty acknowledging Roman supremacy, and would remain allies of Rome for years to come. As they continued to ascend the Ems, the Romans were attacked by the Bructeri in boats. Drusus' forces defeated
26195-400: The war by 180, through a combination of Roman military victories, the resettling of some peoples on Roman territory, and by making alliances with others. Marcus Aurelius's successor Commodus chose not to permanently occupy any territory conquered north of the Danube, and the following decades saw an increase in the defenses at the limes . The Romans renewed their right to choose the kings of
26364-423: The will of Augustus and read aloud by Tiberius himself. Roman intervention in Germania led to a shifting and unstable political situation, in which pro- and anti-Roman parties vied for power. Arminius was murdered in 21 CE by his fellow Germanic tribesmen, due in part to these tensions and for his attempt to claim supreme kingly power for himself. In the wake of Arminius's death, Roman diplomats sought to keep
26533-462: The word sapo ('hair dye') is certainly borrowed from Proto-Germanic * saipwōn- (English soap ) , as evidenced by the parallel Finnish loanword saipio . The name of the framea , described by Tacitus as a short spear carried by Germanic warriors, most likely derives from the compound * fram-ij-an- ('forward-going one'), as suggested by comparable semantical structures found in early runes (e.g., raun-ij-az 'tester', on
26702-443: The work of the "Toronto School" around Walter Goffart , various scholars have denied that anything such as a common Germanic ethnic identity ever existed. Such scholars argue that most ideas about Germanic culture are taken from far later epochs and projected backwards to antiquity. Historians of the Vienna School, such as Walter Pohl , have also called for the term to be avoided or used with careful explanation, and argued that there
26871-423: The years after 270, after a Roman victory in which the Gothic king Cannabaudes was killed. The Roman limes largely collapsed in 259/260, during the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284), and Germanic raids penetrated as far as northern Italy. The limes on the Rhine and upper Danube was brought under control again in 270s, and by 300 the Romans had reestablished control over areas they had abandoned during
27040-423: Was a characteristic, but not defining feature of the Germanic peoples. Many of the ascribed ethnic characteristics of the Germani represented them as typically "barbarian", including the possession of stereotypical vices such as "wildness" and of virtues such as chastity. Tacitus was at times unsure whether a people were Germanic or not. He expressed uncertainty about the Peucini , who he says spoke and lived like
27209-462: Was able to show strength by having a Roman fleet enter the Elbe and meet the legions in the heart of Germania . Once Tiberius subdued the Germanic people between the Rhine and the Elbe, the region at least up to Weser —and possibly up to the Elbe —was made the Roman province Germania and provided soldiers to the Roman army. However, within this period two Germanic kings formed larger alliances. Both of them had spent some of their youth in Rome;
27378-457: Was born), and afterwards Drusus accompanied them back to Rome. Drusus easily won election as consul for the year 9 BC. Once more he left the city before assuming office. His consulship conferred the chance for Drusus to attain Rome's highest and rarest military honor, the spolia opima , or spoils of an enemy chieftain slain personally by an opposing Roman general who was fighting (as consuls did) under his own auspices. He quickly returned to
27547-460: Was given to his eldest son before passing to his youngest . It would be used by many members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty , including its last three emperors: his grandson Caligula , his son Claudius , and his great-grandson Nero . Augustus later wrote a biography of him which does not survive. By Augustus' decree, festivals were held in Mogontiacum at Drusus' death day and probably also on his birthday. Drusus' mother Livia , much affected by
27716-513: Was likely the fourth and final Roman to achieve the spolia opima (for taking the armor and weapons of an enemy king after defeating them in single combat), though he died before he could be honored for it. Drusus was the youngest son of Livia Drusilla from her marriage to Tiberius Claudius Nero , who was legally declared his father before the couple divorced. Drusus was born between mid-March and mid-April 38 BC, three months after Livia married Augustus on 17 January. Gerhard Radke has proposed
27885-404: Was near. Drusus turned back, erecting a trophy to commemorate his reaching the Elbe, perhaps on the site of Dresden or Magdeburg. Drusus had sought out multiple Germanic (at least three) chieftains during his campaigns in Germany (12 BC–9 BC), engaging them in "dazzling displays of single combat". The sources are ambiguous, but suggest that he could have potentially taken the spolia opima from
28054-436: Was no one else to pass it down for the future. In 1988 C.J. Simpson asserted that there are three moments in history where the name change is probable to have happened; when his brother Tiberius was adopted by Marcus Gallius , when their father died in 33 BC, or when he assumed the toga virilis . Simpson personally argued against the time of adoption of his brother as a plausible time for his name change since Simpson believed
28223-429: Was originally given the name Decimus as his praenomen , but his full name was later changed to Nero Claudius Drusus . It is not known when or why the change occurred. The names were unusual at the time, both putting heavy emphasis on his maternal ancestry by using Livia's father's cognomen instead of that of her husband; in his original name the use of the praenomen Decimus was also atypical for prevalent families of
28392-413: Was partly successful, becoming the first and last Roman general to cross the Elbe river, but was generally bogged down in suppressing revolts. Command then fell to Publius Quinctilius Varus , under whom the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (also called the Varian disaster) would occur. The destruction of Varus' entire army marked the end of northward Roman expansion. The Rhine became the de facto border of
28561-443: Was raised in Claudius Nero's house with his brother, the future emperor Tiberius , until his legal father's death. The two brothers developed a famously close relationship that would last the rest of their lives. Tiberius named his eldest son after his brother, although eldest sons were usually named after their father or grandfather. Drusus named his second son (future emperor Claudius) after Tiberius. According to Suetonius , Drusus
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