The Marcomanni were a Germanic people who lived close to the border of the Roman empire , north of the River Danube . They were one of the most important members of the powerful cluster of related Suebian peoples in this region, which also included the Hermunduri , Varisti , and Quadi along the Danube, and the Semnones and Langobardi to their north, and they were particularly important to the Romans. They appear in Roman records from approximately 60 BC until about 400 AD.
176-604: The Fosi were a Germanic tribe . Tacitus , in his Germania mentions them as being neighbours of the Cherusci , and they suffered alongside the Cherusci in their downfall. He also noted that before their mutual downfall, the Fosi were less prosperous than the Cherusci. The two tribes, however, had been dependents in their prosperity, so they shared that same adversity on equal terms during their decline. The etymological origin of
352-732: A Germania campaign, and knew that Italy itself was threatened by these pressures, but were deliberately diplomatic while they were occupied with the Parthian campaign in the Middle East, and badly affected by the Antonine plague . However, the Historia Augusta especially blames the Marcomanni and Victohali for throwing everything into confusion while other tribes had been driven on by the more distant barbarians. Although
528-491: 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
704-721: 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
880-726: 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
1056-530: A Roman offensive could not start in 167 AD, two new legions were raised and in 168 AD the two emperors, Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius, set out to cross the alps. Either in 167 AD, before the Romans setting, or in 169 AD, after the Romans came to a stop when Verus died, the Marcomanni and Quadi led a crossing of the Danube, and an attack into Italy itself. They destroyed Opitergium (present-day Oderzo ) and put
1232-565: A buffer state with this settlement, but there is no consensus about this. The area where Vannius ruled over the Marcomanni exiles is generally considered to have been a state distinct from the old Quadi kingdom itself. Unfortunately the Cusus river has not been identified with certainty. However, Slovak archaeological research locates a core area of the Vannius kingdom was probably in the fertile southwestern Slovakian lowlands around Trnava , east of
1408-638: A common identity. Scholars generally agree that it 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
1584-971: 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
1760-522: 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 the Anglo-Saxons of Britain converted to Christianity, but the Saxons and Scandinavians converted only much later. The Germanic peoples shared
1936-613: A country where the Marcomanni had recently lived was settled by the Hermunduri in 7 BC with Roman permission, and this was apparently west of the Elbe, if we can assume that the events he described happened in one campaign. However this area is also not easy to identify. This is partly because the Hermunduri themselves were pushed east of the Elbe soon after, by the time of Strabo , who was writing around 20 AD. (Generations later, in
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#17327729633292112-505: 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
2288-744: 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
2464-573: 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
2640-426: 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
2816-642: A more remote area surrounded by mountains and forests. In the Res Gestae Divi Augusti which celebrates the reign of Augustus, it is boasted that among the many kings who took refuge with Augustus as suppliants, there was a king of the Marcomanni Suebi. The name of this king is no longer legible on the Monumentum Ancyranum , but it ended with "-rus". The Roman historians Florus , and Orosius reported that Drusus
2992-495: 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 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
3168-526: 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 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
3344-573: A new king named Maroboduus , who had grown up in Rome. He subsequently led his people and several others into a region surrounded by forests and mountains in the present day Czech Republic . Before 9 BC the homeland of the Marcomanni is not known, but archaeological evidence suggests that they lived near the central Elbe river and Saale , or possibly to the southwest of this region in Franconia . The Marcomanni were first reported by Julius Caesar among
3520-480: A peace mission to the governor of Roman Pannonia. Oaths were sworn and the envoys returned home. Some scholars think the Quadi may have been involved in this raid, or at least allowed it to happen. However the Quadi and their neighbours were facing their own problems with raiders from further north, and had been trying for some time to get more support from the empire. On their side, the Romans were apparently planning for
3696-743: A peace treaty between the Marcomanni and the western Roman military leader Stilicho . That was the last clear evidence of the Marcomanni having a polity, which was probably now on the Roman side of the Danube, in Pannonia. Soon afterward, the Pannonian and Danubian area went into a long period of turmoil, under the influence of peoples from the east including the Huns, Goths and Alans. Nevertheless, there are records indicating that Marcomanni continued to exist within Roman territory, where it seems that they were given initially responsibility for defence of parts of
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#17327729633293872-601: 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
4048-587: A powerful kingdom there that Augustus came to perceive as a threat to the Roman Empire . The archaeological evidence of this period, including both a number of cremation and inhumation burials, hints at a stratified society which gave special importance to its warrior class. Maroboduus built up a Rome-aligned Suebian empire. According to Strabo it included the Lugii , Semnones, and Hermunduri, and he also mentioned otherwise unknown peoples: Zumi, Butones (perhaps
4224-603: A previous homeland shortly before that year. According to the accounts of Tacitus , Velleius Paterculus , and Strabo the Marcomanni eventually moved into a part of the large area that had been occupied by the Boii , a region called Baiohaemum , where their allies and fellow Suevi lived, the Quadi . Scholars interpret this placename as clear early evidence of a Germanic language being used. Haemum corresponds to English "home" and German " Heim " ( Proto-Germanic *haimaz ), while
4400-587: 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
4576-639: 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
4752-476: A successful and decisive battle against them in 179 AD at Laugaricio (present-day Trenčín in Slovakia) under the command of legate and procurator Marcus Valerius Maximianus . By 180 AD the Quadi and Marcomanni were in a state of occupation, with Roman garrisons of 20,000 men each permanently stationed in both countries. The Romans even blocked the mountain passes so that they could not migrate north to live with
4928-567: 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
5104-494: 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
5280-679: A wall at the approach of the Roman commander Stilicho . He says that all the fertile lands between the Black Sea and Adriatic were subsequently like uninhabited deserts, specifically including Dalmatia and Pannonia. At the same time, the Gothic general Alaric I , who had loyally served with his Gothic troops under Theodosius I at the Battle of Frigidus only a few months early, was beginning his famous rebellion, and started leading his army south, first towards Constantinople, and later towards Greece. This
5456-648: 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
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5632-478: 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
5808-401: 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
5984-546: Is not clear what happened to the Marcomanni and other Suebi during Attila's time, after he died in 453 a Suebian kingdom appeared which was ruled by a man named Hunimund and existed in or near north-eastern Pannonia. This may have been made up of Quadi, or a mixture of Suebians. After being defeated by the Ostrogoths, Hunimund and some of his people seem to have moved west and joined the Alemanni . The record which mentions
6160-416: 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
6336-421: 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
6512-472: Is that it was closer to the Cherusci, in the area of northeastern Hesse and western Thuringia . There are also scholars who propose that the Suebi defeated in the 9 BC campaign were in fact the same as the Marcomanni. A later Roman historian, Cassius Dio , implies that the Romans settled the Hermunduri in a place where the Marcomanni had previously been living in 7 BC, suggesting that the Marcomanni had left
6688-656: Is that they came from the Mainfranken [ de ] region in northeastern Bavaria . It is generally accepted that they lived near to, or even among the Suebi, because later Roman writers connect them, and archaeological evidence indicates such Elbe Germanic peoples later entered the Bohemian area at the right time to match the Marcomanni. Caesar understood the country of the Suebi he faced to be in or near present day Hesse , Franconia , and Thuringia . Caesar himself made no mention of any special connection between
6864-446: 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 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),
7040-674: Is therefore considered very likely that the Baiuvarii included Marcomanni. Possibly distinct from the Suebi led by Hunimund, the Ravenna Cosmography , a much later document which used sources which are in many cases now lost, indicates that a Marcannori people ( Marcannorum gens ) lived in the mountainous southwest of Pannonia near the Sava river. A Sava or Suavia province between the Sava and Drava rivers, continued to exist during
7216-604: 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
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7392-678: 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
7568-498: 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
7744-728: 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
7920-605: The Battle of Adrianople in 380 AD. It seems that the Rugii and Heruli may have already moved into the Marcomanni's traditional region during this period. The Laterculus Veronensis shows that Heruli and Rugii were already present somewhere in western Europe in about 314. Similar listings from later in the 4th century, the Cosmographia of Julius Honorius , and probably also the Liber Generationis , both listed
8096-580: 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
8272-407: 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
8448-423: The Early Middle Ages . In modern scholarship, they typically include not only 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
8624-438: 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
8800-401: 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
8976-414: 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
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#17327729633299152-473: 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
9328-461: 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
9504-420: 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
9680-444: 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
9856-443: 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
10032-409: The Gutones ), Mugilones and Sibini. Velleius and Tacitus made it clear that by 5 AD it also included the Langobardi. According to Velleius he could call upon 70,000 experienced infantry and 4,000 cavalry, although these were probably not only Marcomanni. In 6 AD Augustus aimed to eliminate the last power center in Germania and sent two Roman army groups under Sentius Saturninus and Tiberius to attack
10208-418: 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
10384-581: The Iazyges , who lived in what is now Hungary. This revolt by Vibilius was coordinated with the nephews of Vannius, Vangio and Sido , who then divided his realm between themselves as loyal Roman client kings. Vannius was defeated and fled with his followers across the Danube, where they were assigned land in Roman Pannonia . This settlement is associated with Germanic finds from the 1st century AD in Burgenland , west of Lake Neusiedl . The Marcomanni are not specifically mentioned much in subsequent generations, possibly because they were now politically part of
10560-527: The Little Carpathians . On the other hand, at the same time there were similar increases in activity west of the Little Carpathians near the Morava. Vannius personally benefitted from the new situation and became very wealthy and unpopular. He was himself eventually also deposed by Vibilius and the Hermunduri, working together with the Lugii from the north, in 50/51 AD. Vannius's soldiers during this conflict are described here as infantry, but he also called for cavalry from his Sarmatian allies and neighbours,
10736-403: 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, is unknown, although several proposals have been put forward. Even
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#173277296332910912-402: The Ostrogoths recruited an army of these Suebi to launch an attack against areas held by the Eastern Roman empire. In 540 Ostrogothic rule in the Sava region came to an end, and the Suebi came under the authority of Eastern Roman emperor Justinian . In the 530s the Langobardi (Lombards), who had been moving southwards in steps over several generations, entered the Sava area, and in the 540s
11088-427: 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
11264-405: The Przeworsk culture from further east in present day Poland. The variant which subsequently developed in the old Boii lands is called the Plaňany-Group, and shows the influence of their older Celtic La Tène culture associated with earlier Celtic peoples of these regions, such as the Boii and Volcae Tectosages . The present day Czech region had itself already come under Przeworsk influence in
11440-617: The Rhine from what is now Germany, into what is now France. Caesar's report of his battles mentions the Marcomanni among them only once, in his account of his victory in 58 BC. Caesar wrote that he approached the Germanic camp and forced them to draw up their forces. They "arranged them by tribe ( generatim , by gens ), at equal distances, the Harudes , Marcomanni, Tribocci , Vangiones , Nemetes , Sedusii , Suebi ; and surrounded their whole army with their chariots and wagons, that no hope might be left in flight. On these they placed their women, who, with outstretched hand and in tears, entreated
11616-468: 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
11792-412: The Semnones . Marcus Aurelius was considering the creation of a new imperial province called Marcomannia when he died in 180. Commodus the son of Marcus Aurelius made peace soon after the death of his father in 180 AD, but he did not go ahead with plans to create a new Roman province. Some Marcomanni were subsequently settled in Italy and other parts of the empire, while others were forced to serve in
11968-414: The "enmity with the Vandili and the Marcomani, who had been friends, and in having executed Gaïobomarus". The centre of activity of the Suebians along the Danube shifted east during the third century, towards what is now the Slovakia-Hungary border. This apparently reflects the increased importance of the Quadi, and the decreased importance of the Marcomanni. During the reign of the Roman emperor Philip
12144-408: The 150s or 160s AD, 6000 Langobardi ( Lombards originally from present-day north Germany) and Obii (whose identity is uncertain ) crossed the Lower Danube into Roman territory where they were quickly defeated. Dio Cassius reports that these events worried several of the barbarian nations. A group of them selected Ballomarius, king of the Marcomanni, and ten other representatives of the other nations, in
12320-544: The 1st to 4th centuries CE. Different academic disciplines have their own definitions of what makes someone or something "Germanic". Some scholars call for 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
12496-463: 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
12672-608: 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
12848-472: The Arab (reigned 244-249 AD), who cut off gifts which were being paid to Ukrainian Goths under the rule of Ostrogotha , the 6th century writer Jordanes believed that the Marcomanni were also paying tribute to this same Gothic king, and the princes of the Quadi were effectively slaves of the Goths. During the reign of Valerian (253-260 AD) the historian Zosimus reported that the Marcomanni made excursions at
13024-675: 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 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
13200-541: 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
13376-668: 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
13552-616: The Eastern empire ceded control of it to them. The Suebi of the Sava region were among the peoples who were allowed to assimilate into Lombard society, if they accepted to live as Lombards under Lombard law. The Lombards, facing pressure from the arrival of the Avars into the area, moved into Italy and began taking control of it, bit by bit. There is a runic alphabet called the Marcomannic runes, but they are not believed to be related to
13728-681: The Germani, "urging them to complete the destruction of the now broken power of Maroboduus". This was all in line with the new foreign policy of the emperor Tiberius . Already in 19 AD, Maroboduus was deposed and exiled by Catualda , who was a prince who had been living in exile among the Gutones on the Baltic coast, in what is now northern Poland. Maroboduus went into exile among the Romans and lived another 18 years in Ravenna. Catualda's victory
13904-616: 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 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
14080-640: 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
14256-473: 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 the Migration Period. The publishing of Tacitus 's Germania by humanist scholars in the 1400s greatly influenced
14432-632: The Germanic peoples who were attempting to settle in Gaul in 58 BC under the leadership of Ariovistus , but he did not explain where their homeland was. From his base in Bohemia, Maroboduus built up a Rome-aligned Suebian empire, but the Langobardi and Semnones left when Maroboduus failed to support the rebellion of Arminius against Rome. The subsequent war among the Germanic peoples was damaging to both sides. This damaged Maroboduus's reputation, and he
14608-572: The Germanic population just north of the Danube after the fall of Vannius, in present day Lower Austria, Moravia and western Slovakia. At the same time this region also received increasing amounts of imports from within the empire. The organization of the Marcomanni and Quadi states into different kingdoms is not made clear by surviving evidence, but it is believed that by this time the Marcomanni kingdom now came to stretch into this Danubian area, probably including areas in Moravia and Lower Austria, west of
14784-470: 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,
14960-554: The Grossromstedter archaeological culture of the Middle Elbe and Saale river regions. The area of this culture expanded southwest into the region between the Rhine and Werra before the Roman empire entered the region. And after the Roman conquests began it can be found expanding southeast into the Bohemian region. It was influenced not only by the older Jastorf culture of the central Elbe region, but notably also by
15136-487: The Grossromstedter culture already began to have some influence in the Bohemian area after Caesar's victories, and before the Marcomanni defeat in 9 BC. In the time of Augustus (reigned 27 BC – 14 AD), major invasions of Germania were launched, giving the Romans effective control of the part between the Rhine and Elbe rivers, until the rebellion of Arminius in 9 AD. During this period the Marcomanni suffered at least one major defeat and subsequently moved themselves into
15312-614: The Heruli together with the Marcomanni and Quadi, in whose traditional region the Herule kingdom would later be found. The defeat at Adrianople had a major impact upon the Pannonian/Danubian region. Although there is no consensus about the details, the Romans now quickly tried new approaches to settling newcomers in large numbers. One of the armed groups responsible for the defeat, led by Alatheus and Saphrax , were settled into
15488-527: 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
15664-676: 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
15840-575: 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 ,
16016-522: The Langobardi who moved southwards into the Middle Danube region, replacing the short-lived kingdoms which arose after Attila's death, and subsequently moved into Italy under pressure from the arrival of the Avars from the east. Other Marcomanni are likely to have joined the Alemanni , and Bavarians to their west, or even to have left the region entirely with the Suebi who founded the Kingdom of
16192-625: The Little Carpathians. In 69 AD, the " Year of the Four Emperors ", two kings Sido and Italicus, the latter perhaps the son of Vangio, fought on the side of Vespasian in a Roman civil war. Tacitus described them as kings of the Suebians, and emphasized their loyalty to Rome. They were present at the second battle of Bedriacum in 69 AD at Cremona . The Quadi and Marcomanni had a long and relatively stable relationship with
16368-509: 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
16544-466: The Marcomanni by name: There are doubts, therefore, about the exact sequence of events, and also about the locations of the battles. Scholars are not unanimous about whether the victory over the Marcomanni happened in 9 BC, which was the year of the victory over the Cherusci, Suebi and Sugambri, and also the year that Drusus died after reaching the Elbe. The location of the Marcomanni battle is often assumed to be in Franconia but an alternative hypothesis
16720-473: The Marcomanni in a pincer movement starting from Roman camps or bases which were in or near in present day Marktbreit to the west and Carnuntum on the Danube. This did not go ahead because a major revolt started in Pannonia , south of the Danube, which had also only recently been conquered. Maroboduus remained neutral. In 9 AD, Arminius of the Cherusci began his major revolt against the Romans. He sent
16896-399: The Marcomanni, Naristae, and Quadi were forced to travel to the Middle East, and in 176 AD Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus held a triumph as victors over Germania and Sarmatia . The situation remained disturbed in subsequent years. The Romans declared a new war in 177 AD and set off in 178 AD, naming the Marcomanni, Hermunduri, Sarmatians, and Quadi as specific enemies. Rome executed
17072-422: The Marcomanni, Quadi and Sarmatians. The relationship then stabilized again in the time of emperor Nerva (reigned 96-98). The relationship between the Romans and the Quadi and their neighbours was far more seriously and permanently disrupted during the long series of conflicts called the Marcomannic or Germanic wars, which were fought mainly during the rule of emperor Marcus Aurelius (reigned 161-180 AD). In
17248-491: The Marcomanni, Quadi, Vandals and Sarmatians, together with several of the new eastern peoples causing devastation in the Roman provinces stretching from Constantinople to the Julian Alps , including Dalmatia, and all the provinces of Pannonia: "Goths and Sarmatians, Quadi and Alans, Huns and Vandals and Marcomanni". Claudian describes them crossing the frozen Danube with wagons, and then setting wagons around themselves like
17424-771: 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
17600-438: The Pannonian part of the Roman empire, near the Marcomanni homeland, and expected to do military service for Rome. In effect however, Rome seems to have lost effective control of the region. The Goths, Alans and Huns suddenly came to dominate several such regions, supposedly still within the empire, and also became massively important within the Roman military. After the death of emperor Theodosius I in 395, Saint Jerome listed
17776-769: 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
17952-457: 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
18128-453: The Quadi had rebelled again, and they expelled their Roman-approved king Furtius , replacing with Ariogaisos. In a major battle between 172 and 174 AD, a Roman force was almost defeated, until a sudden rainstorm allowed them to defeat the Quadi. The incident is well-known because of the account given by Dio Cassius , and on the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. By 175 AD the cavalry from
18304-530: 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
18480-793: 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
18656-473: 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
18832-629: 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;
19008-406: The Roman empire, and at least some of these had converted to Christianity. There are indications that a significant number apparently came to live to the south between the Sava and Drava rivers in what is now Slovenia and Croatia . More generally, although the details are now unclear, many Marcomanni and other Suebian communities from the region of the Elbe and Danube are believed to have joined
19184-453: The Roman empire, but the tensions behind this war were never resolved, and their neighbours such as the Quadi continued to come into conflict with Rome. This ended only when Goths, Alans and Huns moved from the east into the Middle Danube region and took effective control of it in the late 4th century. The region subsequently came under the rule of Attila , who died in 453. By this time many Marcomanni apparently already lived within Pannonia in
19360-693: 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
19536-491: The Roman province of Gallaecia . These Suevi were probably a mix of Suevian groups from the area north of Danube and Pannonian basin such as the Marcomanni, Quadi and Buri . In the Danubian area, Attila came to be acknowledged as ruler. There is no direct contemporary evidence that any Marcomanni or Quadi continued to exist as his subjects or allies under their old names. However, centuries later Paulus Diaconus listed
19712-609: 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
19888-559: 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
20064-478: 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 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
20240-414: The Romans but this was interrupted under emperor Domitian during the years 89-97 AD, after the Quadi and Marcomanni refused to assist in a conflict against the Dacians. In 89 AD, according to Dio Cassius, Domitian entered Pannonia to make war, killed the peace envoys sent to him, and was then defeated by the Marcomanni. This campaign was referred to as the war against the Suebi, or the Suebi and Sarmatians, or
20416-403: The Romans in Gaul in 58 BC, where both the Romans and the Marcomanni were foreigners. Their homeland up until that time, and therefore the frontier or march they originally lived near, is unknown. The Marcomanni first appear in historical records among the confederates of Ariovistus who fought against Julius Caesar in Gaul . Ariovistus led a large group of Germani settlers who had crossed
20592-406: The Romans reject him. According to Tacitus the Romans claimed that Maroboduus "had no right to invoke the aid of Roman arms against the Cherusci, when he had rendered no assistance to the Romans in their conflict with the same enemy". After an indecisive battle, Maroboduus withdrew into the hilly forests of Bohemia in 18 AD. According to Tacitus, the Romans reacted by deliberately sowing discord among
20768-584: 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
20944-538: The Suebi in what is now Portugal and Spain . It is believed that the name of the Marcomanni comes from a Germanic language . The first part derives from a Proto-Germanic word reconstructed as *markō meaning "border, boundary", which is also the origin of the English words march and mark , meaning "frontier", or "border", as for example in the term " Welsh marches ". They were therefore "border men". The Marcomanni already had this name before they encountered
21120-403: The Suebi and Marcomanni, because he only mentioned the Marcomanni once in a list. It is nevertheless possible the Marcomanni were already seen as a branch of the Suebi, although this categorization is only made explicit in much later authors such as Strabo and Tacitus . Alternatively, between Caesar and Strabo there may have been changes in the relationship between the Suebi and Marcomanni, or in
21296-458: The Suebi joining the Alemanni is also one of the first records mentioning the early Bavarians , or Baiuvarii , who were also living south of the Danube, to the east of the Alemanni, in what had been Roman territory. It is generally believed that their name is Germanic, and that it indicates an origin in the nearby regions to the east, including Roman Pannonia, which were once inhabited by the Boii. It
21472-663: The Upper Danube. The Notitia Dignitatum which describes the Roman military of around 420 AD also lists palatine auxiliaries (court troops) of the Marcomanni Honoriani seniores and iuniores for Italy, as well as the Equites Marcomanni for the mobile army in North Africa. Some of the Marcomanni may have been among the Suebi who invaded Iberia in about 409, and established the kingdom in
21648-579: The Vannian regime which was centred around the Quadian powerbases closer to the Danube. Archaeological and other evidence indicates that the Marcomanni population also more generally moved, or at least became more active, to the southeast near the Morava river, while the Quadi and the Vannian kingdom expanded further east in the direction of what is now Hungary. Archaeological evidence shows further increase in
21824-461: The actions of peoples living further from the Roman frontier. In the second century AD, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and his co-emperors, the Romans pursued a major series of bloody wars against the Marcomanni and their allies which are called the Marcomannic wars . At one point the Marcomanni and their allies invaded Italy itself. The Marcomanni were weakened, and many were moved into
22000-480: 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 the Latin Germania is also used. To avoid ambiguity,
22176-638: The autumn of 169. He established a Danubian headquarters in Carnuntum between present-day Vienna and Bratislava. From here he could receive embassies from the different peoples north of the Danube. Some were given the possibility to settle in the empire, others were recruited to fight on the Roman side. The Quadi were pacified, and in 171 AD they agreed to leave their coalition, and returned deserters, and 13,000 prisoners of war. They supplied horses and cattle as war contributions, and promised not to allow Marcomanni or Iazyges passage through their territory. By 173 AD
22352-477: The change from boi - to bai - corresponds to normal evolutions in Germanic languages. This ancient term is the origin of the modern regional name Bohemia , although the boundaries of this region were likely quite different from medieval and modern versions. These classical authors place the new settlement area of the Marcomanni within the Hercynian Forest , in an area near present day Bohemia and probably within it. By 6 BC, their king, Maroboduus , had established
22528-558: 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
22704-419: 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
22880-586: 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
23056-441: 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
23232-802: 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
23408-406: The details are not clear, the emperor Diocletian claimed a triumph over the Marcomanni in 299 AD. Although the Quadi and other allies continued to be mentioned by historians in the fourth century, the records say little about the Marcomanni until after the death of Valentinian I during a period of conflict with the Quadi in 375 AD, and after the great Roman defeat to the Goths, Alans and Huns at
23584-642: 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
23760-488: 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
23936-432: The elder almost wiped out the Marcomanni as part of a bloody and difficult campaign, and then erected a mound of Marcomanni spoils. This was during his campaigns of 12–9 BC, after he had defeated the Tencteri and Chatti , and before next turning to confront an alliance of the Cherusci , Suevi , and Sicambri . Another Roman source, Cassius Dio , describes the sequence of events somewhat differently, but does not mention
24112-455: 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 the early Germans were also highly influential among members of the nationalist and racist völkisch movement and later co-opted by
24288-420: 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
24464-400: 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 ,
24640-448: The first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of 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
24816-450: 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
24992-450: 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
25168-435: 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
25344-400: The generations before the Germanic influx. The name of the Marcomanni, which refers to a frontier, may echo an earlier demarcation somewhere between such Germanic and Celtic cultures. The Marcomanni are archaeologically difficult to distinguish among the various Suebian groups such as the Quadi and Hermunduri who were bringing the Grossromstedter culture southwards and westwards. Furthermore,
25520-473: The head of the defeated Roman general Publius Quinctilius Varus to Maroboduus, but Maroboduus sent it to Rome. The Langobardi and Semnones, Suebians living near to the Cherusci on the Elbe, defected from this kingdom in the name of freedom, both because Maroboduus did not support the revolt, and because he held royal power. In 17 AD war broke out among these two alliances of Germanic peoples, led by Arminius and Maroboduus. Maroboduus requested help from Rome but
25696-448: The important town of Aquileia under siege. Whatever the exact sequence of events, the Historia Augusta says that with the Romans in action several kings of the barbarians retreated, and some of the barbarians put anti-Roman leaders to death. In particular, the Quadi, having lost their king, announced they would not confirm an elected successor without approval from the emperors. Marcus Aurelius returned to Rome but headed north again in
25872-407: 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. Marcomanni After a major defeat to the Romans in about 9 BC, the Marcomanni somehow received
26048-448: 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
26224-425: 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 is related to the Old Irish word gair ('neighbours') or could be tied to
26400-424: 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
26576-624: 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 ,
26752-399: The military. Around 214/215 AD, Dio Cassius reports that because of raids into Pannonia, the emperor Caracalla invited the Quadi king Gaiobomarus to meet him, and then had him executed. According to this report Caracalla "claimed that he had overcome the recklessness, greed, and treachery of the Germans by deceit, since these qualities could not be conquered by force", and he was proud of
26928-453: The name Fosi is not known with certainty. The name may derive from the proto-Germanic * fuhsaz , signifying " fox ". This European history –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about an ethnic group in Europe is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Germanic peoples The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical Antiquity and
27104-431: The new non-Romans, the Goths. Unusually, they were legally permitted to marry the provincial residents, and could therefore become part of the land owning class. Some scholars believe these were descendants of the Christian Marcomanni of Queen Fritigil. During the time of Theoderic the Great a group of Alemanni crossed the alps with cattle and wagons to seek refuge with these antiqui barbari . Procopius noted that in 537,
27280-453: 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
27456-401: 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,
27632-408: The same time as " Scythians " (Goths and allied peoples from Ukraine), making inroads into all the countries adjacent to the empire, laying Thessalonica waste. Valerian's son Gallienus (reigned 253-268 AD) settled the Marcomanni within the Roman province of Pannonia Superior , south of the Danube. He also took Pipa or Pipara , the daughter of the Marcomanni king, Attalus, as a concubine. Although
27808-418: The soldiers, as they went forward to battle, not to deliver them into slavery to the Romans." According to Caesar the Tribocci, Vangiones and Nemetes came from homelands nearby on the Rhine itself, but the others apparently came from further east. The exact position of the Marcomanni homelands east of the Rhine at this time is not known. Although there is no scholarly consensus, one of the most common proposals
27984-520: The subject peoples who Attila could call upon, in addition to the better-known Goths and Gepids, and mentioned "Marcomanni, Suebi, Quadi", alongside the expected "Herules, Thuringi and Rugii". This implies that the Marcomanni might for example have been present at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451. However, modern scholars have doubts about whether the Marcomanni or Quadi would still have been identified under those names under Attila in 451, because contemporary sources don't mention them. While it
28160-444: 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
28336-556: The terminology that was used. Caesar described the Suebi he encountered as the largest and the most warlike Germanic people ( gens ), who were divided into 100 districts ( pagi ) which supplied 1000 men each during war. The forces of these pagi were distinct within the Suevi forces, and it is sometimes suggested that the Marcomanni could have been one of these pagi . The Suebi were also able to call upon other countries ( nationes ) to supply infantry and cavalry reinforcements. A later Roman historian, Cassius Dio , mentioned that part of
28512-421: 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 the Germanic way of life as more primitive than it actually was. Instead, archaeologists have unveiled evidence of
28688-468: The time of Tacitus around 100 AD, the Hermunduri were again friendly with Rome, and once again living west of the Elbe, stretching to the Danube in Raetia , apparently near present day Regensburg and Passau , to the "sources" of the Elbe, which may include the Vltava . However, it can't be assumed that this is the same region they settled in 7 BC.) In terms of archaeological evidence the Marcomanni and their Suebian neighbours are strongly associated with
28864-421: The time when the Ostrogoths ruled Italy, and may have been named after these Suebi (Suavi). It is possible that the Suebi moved into this more southern area after the defeat of Hunimund, or they may have been a separate group. During the Ostrogothic period, these Suebi were legally distinguished from the native populations under the term "old barbarians" ( antiqui barbari ), which also distinguished them legally from
29040-410: 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
29216-595: 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
29392-400: 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
29568-423: 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
29744-462: 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
29920-443: 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
30096-423: 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
30272-423: 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
30448-462: 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;
30624-485: Was eventually toppled from power, and died in exile in Ravenna . This suited the empire because despite their neutrality towards Rome, Roman rulers saw the Marcomanni as a potential threat to them, within striking distance of Italy. Over the centuries the Romans sought to control their leaders, and disrupt their relationships with neighbouring peoples. Despite long periods of peace and prosperity there were also several periods of intense warfare between them, often triggered by
30800-409: Was short-lived. He was in turn deposed by Vibilius of the Hermunduri that same year he came to power, 19 AD. The subjects of Maroboduus and Catualda, presumably mainly Marcomanni, were moved by the Romans to an area near the Danube, between the Morava and "Cusus" rivers, and placed under the control of the Quadian king Vannius . There are proposals that the Romans were deliberately trying to create
30976-418: Was triggered by internal Roman conflicts after the death of Theodosius. Claudian claimed that they were all incited by an Eastern Roman consul and enemy of Stilicho, Rufinus . The exact connection between Alaric and the groups who crossed the Danube at the same time remains unclear. Soon after this, Ambrose , bishop of Milan 374-397, corresponded with a Christian Marcomanni queen named Fritigil , initiating
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