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The Suebi or Suebians (also known as Suevi or Suavi) were a large and powerful group of Germanic peoples during the Roman era, who originated near the Elbe river region in what is now northeastern Germany, but subsequently came to be a dominant influence in much of Germania, which stretched from Roman borders on the Rhine and Danube, to Scandinavia and the Vistula river. In archaeology the earliest Suebi from the Elbe are associated with the Jastorf culture. In linguistics they are believed to have been a major vector for the spread of early Germanic languages, notably including dialects ancestral to modern standard German language. The Suebi were originally seen by Roman authors as a single large, mobile and militarized tribe who were pushing westwards and southwards towards the Rhine. However, during the first century Graeco-Roman writers came to see the word "Suebi" as an umbrella term which covered many large tribes with their own names, who shared cultural, economic and political connections which each other, and with the Roman empire. Particularly important were the cluster of Suebian peoples including the Marcomanni and Quadi who settled near present day Czech Republic and Slovakia, and played an important role in Roman history over several centuries.
After several periods of conflict against the Romans, the Marcomannic Wars broke out during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, in the late 2nd century AD. During these long and destructive wars the Marcomanni invaded Italy itself, but they were eventually defeated. A cycle of tension, cooperation and conflict continued between the Suebi and the Romans. During the Crisis of the Third Century, the Marcomanni were apparently involved in some of the largescale invasions and raids from the east, which the Goths led into Roman territories. In the meantime, new Suebian groups emerged in the west. Italy was invaded by the Juthungi, who were Semnones, and these in turn played a role in the ethnogenesis of the Alamanni who took control of an area between the Rhine and Danube. In the 4th century the Alamanni, like their neighbours the Franks, Burgundians, and Marcomanni, became frenemies of the empire, contributing to the Roman military, and sometimes coming into conflict with it.
The term "Suebi" came back into common use after the Roman defeat at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD, both the Romans and the Suebian tribes lost control of the Middle Danubian frontier region, when large numbers of Goths, Alans and Huns from eastern Europe were able to settle there. In 395 AD, Saint Jerome listed the Quadi and Marcomanni, together with their non-Suebian neighbours the Sarmatians and Vandals, as peoples who had recently been ransacking the nearby Roman provinces together with these newcomers. In 409 he placed the Quadi in another list of peoples from the Danubian region who had recently moved west, and occupied parts of Gaul. These were the last clear contemporary records of the Quadi. Given their presence in Gaul in 409 AD the Quadi are considered likely to have been prominent among the Suebi who moved further west into Iberia by 409 AD and founded the Kingdom of the Suebi in Gallaecia, in present day northern Spain and Portugal. This Gallaecian kingdom lasted for more than a century, until it was defeated by the Visigoths, and integrated into their kingdom in 585.
Meanwhile, until he died in 453, the empire of Attila controlled the Middle Danubian region, and a much later source claimed that the Quadi, Marcomanni and Suebi were among the peoples who contributed to his military. After Attila's death, smaller kingdoms were founded in or near the old Marcomanni and Quadi kingdoms, including one which was called Suebian. This short-lived independent kingdom was defeated by Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia in 469. Some of them apparently moved westwards under their king Hunimund, into present-day western Austria and southern Germany, where they became allies of the Alemanni and contributed to the ethnogenesis of the medieval Swabians.
Many Suebians, particularly the Marcomanni, are believed to have been integrated into Roman populations south of the Danube. A Sava or Suavia province between the Sava and Drava rivers in present day Slovenia and Croatia existed during the time when the Ostrogoths ruled Italy, and may have been named after these Suebi (now commonly spelled Suavi). The Suebian Langobards (Lombards), moved from the Elbe to the Danube and conquered several of the post-Attila kingdoms. They entered the Sava area in the 530s, and in the 540s 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 Pannonian Avars into the area, moved into Italy and began taking control of it, bit by bit.
Apart from the Swabians and Lombards, Suebi are also believed to have played a role in the ethnogenesis of the medieval Bavarians. More generally, Suebian dialects are thought to be a main source of the later High German languages, especially the Upper-German dialects predominant in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria, which experienced the Second consonant shift some time after about 600 AD.
Throughout the 19th century, numerous attempts to propose a Germanic etymology for the name were made which are no longer accepted by scholars. The most widely accepted proposal today is that the word is related to a reconstructed Germanic adjective *swēsa- meaning “one’s own", which is also found in other ethnic names including the Germanic Suiones (Swedes).
Concerning the second part of the word, the similarity between the Suebian name and the reconstructed Germanic word meaning "clan", “related" or "family” is generally seen as a related word. Notably, the name of the Semnones, who classical authors described as the most prestigious and original Suebians, may also have a similar etymology. Linguists generally believe that this name was pronounced as Sebnō, and derives from Proto Indo-European *swe-bh(o)- meaning “of one’s own kind”, but in this case with an n-suffix that expresses belonging. The Suebi would then be “those who are of their own kind”, while the Semnones would be “those who belong to those of their own kind”.
In contrast, Rübekeil argues that the relevant Proto Indo-European suffix is not -bho, which was a suffix used to create adverbs from adjectives, but “to be”. According to him, the most elegant solution, which would also explained the vowel length, would involve a Proto Indo-European root noun *swe-bhū- meaning roughly “self-being”, and a syllabic lengthening which changed the meaning to “belonging to”.
Alternatively, it may be borrowed from a Celtic languages word for "vagabond".
Modern Swabian German, and Alemannic German more broadly, are therefore "assumed to have evolved at least in part" from Suebian.Waldman & Mason, 2006, Encyclopedia of European Peoples, p. 784. However, Bavarian, the Thuringian dialect, the Lombardic language spoken by the Lombards of Italy, and standard German itself, are also at least partly derived from the dialects spoken by the Suebi. (The only non-Suebian name among the major groups of Upper Germanic dialects is High Franconian German, but this is on the transitional frontier with Central German, as is neighboring Thuringian.)
The modern term "Elbe Germanic" similarly covers a large grouping of Germanic peoples that at least overlaps with the classical terms "Suevi" and "Irminones". However, this term was developed mainly as an attempt to define the ancient peoples who must have spoken the Germanic dialects that led to modern Upper German dialects spoken in Austria, Bavaria, Thuringia, Alsace, Baden-Württemberg and German speaking Switzerland. This was proposed by Friedrich Maurer as one of five major Kulturkreise or "culture-groups" whose dialects developed in the southern German area from the first century BC through to the fourth century AD. Apart from his own linguistic work with modern dialects, he also referred to the archaeological and literary analysis of Germanic tribes done earlier by Gustaf Kossinna In terms of these proposed ancient dialects, the Vandals, Goths and Burgundians are generally referred to as members of the Eastern Germanic group, distinct from the Elbe Germanic.
In a digression about the Suebi of his time, Caesar called them the largest and the most warlike nation () of all the Germanic peoples. They were constantly engaged in war, animal husbandry, and hunting. They had little agriculture, with no private ownership of land, and a rule against living in one place for more than one year. They were divided into 100 countries (), each of which could supply a thousand men for military campaigns which were sent out every year.Caesar, Gallic Wars, 4.1 They were powerful enough to force the peoples near them to keep a large swathe of lands around them unoccupied.Caesar, Gallic Wars, 4.1
After the defeats of 9 BC the Suebi and some other defeated peoples moved and reorganized in a coordinated way under Maroboduus, the new leader of the defeated Marcomanni. After the revolt of Arminius started in 9 AD, he tried to keep this alliance or empire out of the war between Rome and the Germani allied with Arminius. Roman and Greek authors began to see the Suebi as a group of tribes, rather than a single tribe. Strabo, writing in about 23 AD, described the Suebi not only as the largest nation (ἔθνος) of the region between Rhine and Elbe, stretching from the one river to the other, but also as an umbrella category including large, well-known tribes with their own names. Strabo explicitly names the Semnones, Hermunduri, Langobardi, and Quadi as Suebi. The first three had been living on both sides of the Elbe, until they had, during this period, been pushed to the eastern side by the Romans. To their south, in the Hercynian forest in the mountains north of the Danube, he also names the "Coldui" (Quadi) as Suebi and it was in their lands that the Marcomanni had now settled.Strabo, 7.1
In his discussion of Gaul Strabo also noted that in his time the country along the whole eastern bank of the Rhine had been largely emptied in his time. However, "situated above" () the areas closest to the river, the Suebi now pressed, "who are also named Germani, but are superior both in power and number to the others, whom they drove out, and who have now taken refuge on this side the Rhine".Strabo, 4.3 Like Caesar, Strabo contrasted the Suebi with more settled and agricultural tribes such as the Chatti and Cherusci, saying that "they do not till the soil or even store up food, but live in small huts that are merely temporary structures; and they live for the most part off their flocks, as the Nomads do, so that, in imitation of the Nomads, they load their household belongings on their wagons and with their beasts turn whithersoever they think best".
A generation or two later, in his systematic description of the peoples of Europe written in the years before 79 AD, Pliny the Elder, divided the Germanic peoples into 5 races ().Pliny, 4.40(28) Latin, English He classified the Suebi within the Irminones (or Hermiones), "who dwell in the interior", together with the Hermunduri, the Chatti, and the Cherusci. He therefore distinguished them from the Germanic peoples of the other four genera, the Vandili and Peucini (or Bastarnae) further east, and the Ingaevones and Istvaeones to the north. One of Pliny's sources, Pomponius Mela, who wrote about 43 AD, had also mentioned the Hermiones, but described them as the furthest people of Germania who lived in the eastern part of the Codanus bay or Baltic Sea, east of the Elbe, and separated from the Sarmatians by the Vistula.Pomponius Mela, Book 3
Still later, Tacitus, wrote a study of Germania around 100 AD. He specified that the Suevi "are not one single tribe () like the Chatti or Tencteri; for they occupy a larger part of Germania, and though still divided into distinct nations and names (), they are commonly referred to as Suebi".Tacitus Germania Section 38 He did not explicitly state that the Suebi are Hermiones like Pliny, although like Pliny he describes the Hermiones as living in the interior. Instead he mentions that there are competing accounts about what the most ancient divisions of the Germani were. One account, the Mannus legend, divided the Germani up into Ingaevones, Istvaeones and Herminones, like Pliny. Tacitus however says that others believe that "Suebi" is a genuine old name.Tacitus Germania Section 2 Tacitus also described the very large part of Germania east and south of the Elbe as being within "Suebia", which stretched to Scandinavia in the north and the Vistula in the east. He referred to the Baltic sea as the Suebian sea.
Tacitus noted that the Semnones, who lived on the Elbe, were believed to be the leaders (), and origin of the Suebian nation (). Like the Suebi described by Caesar they lived in 100 pagi. Their reputation was reinforced by their sacred grove where "all the tribes () of the same name and blood come together", referring to all Suebi, and not just all Semnones. citing Tacitus Germania Section 39
Tacitus also associated the Suebi with the so-called "Suebian knot", the fashion of pulling back their hair, and tying it in a knot. According to Tacitus, this fashion was not restricted to the Suebi, but he believed that young people in other tribes had imitated them, and the fashion helped the Suebi distinguish themselves from both other Germani, and from their slaves. The nobles had taller and more elaborate knots in order to increase their stature and to strike fear. Modern historians do not think that these knots were a reliable indicator of ethnicity. citing Tacitus, Germania, Section 38
It has been proposed that the name "Suebi" may have been the name of the Germani for themselves, as opposed to the Latin name "Germani", while in contrast others have seen the popularity of the term as an umbrella category as a Roman-driven tendency. The term was handy for referring to tribes whose name was not clear., It has also been claimed by Herwig Wolfram that in the first centuries AD, classical ethnography applied the name Suevi to so many Germanic tribes that it almost replaced the term Germani which Caesar had made popular. By the second century however, Roman sources used the term less for several centuries, perhaps because they were now better informed about the names of individual tribes.
In the late fourth century, as the Quadi and Marcomanni disappear from the record, apparently participating in migrations into various parts of the Roman empire, or in some cases within the empire of Attila, the term Suevi makes a return in Roman documents, and several new Suevian polities came into being.
When Caesar arrived in the area, ambassadors from the Treviri, who lived further north near the Moselle, arrived to report that 100 pagi of Suebi had been led to the Rhine by two brothers, Nasuas and Cimberius. Caesar to move quickly in order to try to avoid the joining of forces. citing Caesar, Gallic War, 1.37 Other Suebi appear among the peoples Caesar listed in the battle line-up of Ariovistus himself: "Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, and Suevi". citing Caesar, Gallic War, 1.51 Caesar defeated Ariovistus in battle, forcing him to escape across the Rhine. When news of this spread, the fresh Suebian forces turned back in some panic, and the Ubii who lived on the east bank near modern Cologne took advantage of the situation to attack them.Caesar, Gallic War, 1.54
In 55 BC, having escalated his intervention into a conquest of all of Gaul for Rome, Caesar decided to confront the Suebi in their own country east of the Rhine. One reason is that the Ubii, who were neighbours of the Suebi, sent ambassadors and proposed such a crossing. Another reason was that the Tencteri and Usipetes, who were already forced from their homes, had tried to cross the Rhine and enter Gaul by force, but after coming into bloody conflict with Caesar many had now sought refuge among the Sugambri, north of the Ubii.Caesar, Gallic War, 4.16 Caesar bridged the Rhine, the first known to do so, with a pile bridge, which though considered a marvel, was dismantled after only eighteen days. The Suebi abandoned their towns closest to the Romans, retreated to the forest and assembled an army. Caesar moved back across the bridge and broke it down, stating that he had achieved his objective of warning the Suebi. They in turn supposedly stopped harassing the Ubii. In the time of Augustus the Ubii were later resettled on the west bank of the Rhine, in Roman territory.
In 53 BC Caesar found that the Treviri had received auxiliary forces from the Suebi, and he once again bridged the Rhine but this time established a fort. Ubian spies gave him updates about the movements of the Suebi.Caesar, Gallic War, 6.9
Archaeological evidence indicates that the older La Tène culture (Gaul-related) populations, who had lived east of the Rhine disappeared, consistent with the reports of disruption in these areas given by Caesar and Strabo. This may have already begun before his arrival in the area. Nearer to the Rhine, archaeological materials consistent with Elbe origins begin to appear already on the southern Main (river)\ river around 0 AD, and on the Neckar some decades later, and other communities between the Main, Rhine and Danube formed later. The exact nature of their relationship with the incoming Romans is unknown, but within generations these communities were using Roman technologies, and the Neckar Suebi, as they were known, were recognized as a Roman civitas.
In 9 BC, the Suebi were defeated by Drusus the Elder, who had already defeated several other peoples including the Marcomanni. Florus reported that the Cherusci, Suebi and Sicambri formed an alliance marked by the crucifixion of twenty Roman centurions. Drusus defeated them with great difficulty, and then confiscated their plunder and sold them into slavery so that "there was such peace in Germany that the inhabitants seemed changed", "the very climate milder and softer than it used to be". Suetonius reported that the Suebi and Sugambri "were taken into Gaul and settled in lands near the Rhine" while other Germani were pushed "to the farther side of the Elbe" (Elbe). Elsewhere Suetonius mentioned that in Germania the future emperor Tiberius settled 40,000 prisoners of war, possibly these ones, near the bank of the Rhine.
Orosius claimed that the Marcomanni were nearly wiped out after their defeat during this campaign.Orosius, 6.21.15-16 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". citing Monumentum Ancyranum 6
After these major defeats, the Marcomanni and many Suebi came under the leadership of King Maroboduus, a member of the Marcomanni royal family who had grown up in Rome. Tacitus even calls him a king of the Suebi.Tacitus, Annales, Book II section 26. Strabo described how he led his people into the Hercynian forest and established his royal capital at Buiaimon (somewhere in or near Bohemia, which still carries the name). He noted that Suebi lived both in the forest, and outside of it. citing Strabo, Geography 7.1.3 Velleius Paterculus described Boiohaemum, where Maroboduus and the Marcomanni lived, as "plains surrounded by the Hercynian forest", and he said this was the only part of Germania which the Romans did not control in the period before the Roman defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. citing Velleius, 2.108
Velleius said that Maroboduus drilled his Bohemian soldiers to almost Roman standards, and that although his policy was to avoid conflict with Rome, the Romans came to be concerned that he could invade Italy. "Races and individuals who revolted from us the found in him a refuge." From a Roman point of view he noted that the closest point of access for an attack upon Bohemia would be via Carnuntum.Velleius, 2.109 This was between present-day Vienna and Bratislava, where the Morava river enters the Danube. However, just when legions were being gathered for a two-pronged attack upon the Marcomanni the Great Illyrian revolt broke out, affecting the Roman provinces south of the Marcomanni from 6-9 AD.Velleius Paterculus, Compendium of Roman History 2.109; Cassius Dio, Roman History 55.28, 6–7
No sooner had the Illyrian wars been ended in 9 AD when Rome's dominance of the land northwest of the Marcomanni, between Rhine and Elbe, was also severely checked by the rebellion of the Cherusci and their allies. This began with the annihilation of three legions at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. The kingdom of the Marcomanni and their allies stayed out of the conflict, and when Maroboduus was sent the head of the defeated Roman leader Varus, he sent it on to Rome for burial. Augustus assigned Germanicus, the son of Drusus the Elder, to lead the Roman forces on the Rhine, but the emperor died in 14 AD.
In 17 AD war broke out among these two alliances of Germanic peoples, led by Arminius and Maroboduus. Maroboduus requested help from Rome but 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.Tacitus, Annals 2, 44-46 The Romans urged the Germani "to complete the destruction of the now broken power of Maroboduus".Tacitus Annals 2.63 This was all in line with the new foreign policy of the emperor Tiberius.
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 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. 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 the Little Carpathians.
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. 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. citing Tacitus, The Annals , , . 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.
In 69 AD, the "Year of the Four Emperors", two kings named 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 Suebi, and emphasized their loyalty to Rome. They were present at the second battle of Bedriacum in 69 AD at Cremona. citing Tacitus, History, 3.5
The relationship between the Suebi and Romans stabilized but 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 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 the Marcomanni, Quadi and Sarmatians. The relationship then stabilized again in the time of emperor Nerva (reigned 96-98).. See Dio Cassius 67 Writing in this period, Tacitus noted that both the Marcomanni and their neighbours the Quadi still had "kings of their own nation, descended from the noble stock of Maroboduus and Tudrus". However, he noted that they submit to foreigners, and their strength and power depend on Roman influence. Rome supports them by arms, and "more frequently by our money".Tacitus, Germania, 42 To the west of the Marcomanni, Tacitus placed two other powerful Suebian states, the Hermunduri, whose lands were concentrated in Bohemia near the sources of the Elbe, but they were also allowed to settle and trade as far as the Danubian border in Roman Raetia in present day Bavaria. Between the Hermunduri and Marcomanni north of the Danube were also the Naristi (also known as the Varisti).
The implications of these events worried several of the nations living north of the border. A group of them selected Ballomarius, king of the Marcomanni, and ten other representatives of the other nations, in a peace mission to the governor of Roman Pannonia. Oaths were sworn and the envoys returned home. citing Dio Cassius 72.3. Kehne remarks that the normal dating of 166/7 is based upon the fact that Iallius Bassus Fabius Valerianus was governor in upper Pannonia governorship between 166 and 168/69 AD. However he was also governor of lower Pannonia around 156-159 AD. The Romans were apparently planning for a Germania campaign, and knew that Italy itself was threatened by these peoples, but were deliberately diplomatic while they were occupied with the Parthian campaign in the Middle East, and badly affected by the Antonine plague.
Although 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 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 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 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 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 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 the Suebian Semnones, breaking a link between the Suebian peoples which had apparently remained important for centuries. Marcus Aurelius was considering the creation of a new imperial province called Marcomannia when he died in 180, but this never happened.
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 the military. After these wars the Marcomanni are mentioned much less in written records, and their western neighbours the fate of their previously powerful Suebian neighbours to the west, the Hermunduri and Varisti is unknown.
Around 214/215 AD, Dio Cassius reported that because of raids into Pannonia, 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 the "enmity with the Vandili and the Marcomani, who had been friends, and in having executed Gaïobomarus". citing Dio Cassius, Roman History, 78
In 233 the Germani on the Raetian border made major inroads across the Danube into the empire, which led indirectly to the death of the emperor Severus Alexander in 235, whose reaction was seen as insufficient. This initiated the 50-year period of Roman weakness and disunity known as the crisis of the third century. The new emperor Maximinus Thrax defeated these Germani and recover the borders, with great losses. Throughout the century however, the Rhine and Danube were crossed by Germani several times. However, this term covered not only the Alamanni but also the non-Suebian Franks.
Further east the Goths were a new and very large group of peoples in what is now Ukraine. Although never called Germani in Roman sources, they may have originated among the Gutones, who had once been a part of the Marcomannic alliance, based at the mouth of the Vistula. If so, then their transformation into a Scythian people of the eastern plains may have been influenced by the Marcomanni wars and the disruption of their trade roots to the Mediterranean. The Romans were paying off Goths under the rule of Ostrogotha, and the Roman emperor Philip the Arab (reigned 244-249 AD), attempted to cut these payments off. The 6th century writer Jordanes believed that the Marcomanni were also paying tribute to this same Gothic king, and said that the princes of the Quadi were effectively slaves of the Goths.
During the reign of Valerian (253-260 AD) the later historian Zosimus reported that the Marcomanni made excursions at the same time as "Scythian" Goths and their allies from the east, making inroads into all the countries adjacent to the empire, and laying Thessalonica waste. citing Zosimus 1.29 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 Pipara, the daughter of the Marcomanni king, Attalus, as a concubine.
In 260 the Romans recorded a victory over the Juthungi near modern Augsburg, south of the Danube, and a monument created to celebrate this described these Juthungi as Semnones. In the 4th century, Marcellinus Ammianus described the Juthungi as a part of the Alamanni.
By the middle of the third century the Quadi seem to have rejected their client relationship with Rome, and they began a series of attacks which they organized together with their eastern neighbours the Sarmatians. Together they repeatedly attacked Illyricum. There was a Roman campaign against the Quadi in 283-284 AD, and as a result emperor Carinus (co-emperor 283-285) and Numerian (co-emperor 284-285) celebrated this as two personal triumphs in 283 and 284. Nevertheless the Quadi were again mentioned among attacking Germanic tribes in 285 AD. This situation seems to have been pacified in the time of Diocletian (reigned 284-305). Although the details are not clear, the emperor Diocletian claimed a triumph over the Marcomanni in 299 AD.
Under Diocletian and his co-emperors, the so-called Tetrarchy, the Romans began to recover control of their borders. Their successes were celebrated in the Latin Panegyrics which are the first contemporary records which certainly refer to Franks and Alamanni using those terms. The Alamanni are mentioned in the "10th" panegyric of 289, which was dedicated to Maximian, and mentions that he defeated the Alamanni together with the Burgundians, who appear to have moved westwards from a region near the Vistula, to the Main river region. A few years later the 11th panegyric of 291, in a passage which celebrates the way in which non-Romans were now driven to fight each other, reports that the Burgundians had been defeated by the Goths, and taken land from the Alamanni, which the Alamanni now wanted to recover.
In 297/298, Maximian's successor in the tetrarchy Constantius Chlorus achieved major victories against the Alamanni, who had been making inroads into Gaul itself.
Other Suebi apparently remained in or near to the original homeland areas near the Elbe and the modern Czech Republic, occasionally still being referred to by this term. Another group of Suebi, the so-called "northern Suebi" were described as a part of the Saxons in 569 under the Franks king Sigebert I in areas of today's Saxony-Anhalt. An area known as Schwabengau or Suebengau existed at least until the 12th century.
Further south, a group of Suebi established a kingdom in parts of Pannonia, which appears in records after the Huns were defeated in 454 at the Battle of Nedao. Their king Hunimund fought against the Ostrogoths in the battle of Bolia in 469. The Suebian coalition lost the battle, and Hunimund appear to have migrated towards southern Germany.Geschichte der Goten. Entwurf einer historischen Ethnographie, C.H. Beck, 1. Aufl. (München 1979), 2. Aufl. (1980), unter dem Titel: Die Goten. Von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts. 4. Aufl. (2001) The Marcomanni probably made up one significant part of these Suebi, who lived in at least two distinct areas.See Friedrich Lotter on the "Donausueben". Later, the Lombards, a Suebic group long known on the Elbe, came to dominate the Pannonian region before successfully invading Italy.
Passing through the Basque country, they settled in the Roman province of Gallaecia, in north-western Hispania (modern Galicia, Asturias, and the northern half of Portugal), where, swearing fealty to Emperor Honorius, they were accepted as foederati and permitted to settle under their own autonomous governance. Contemporaneously with the self-governing province of Britannia, the kingdom of the Suebi in Gallaecia became the first of the sub-Roman kingdoms to be formed in the disintegrating territory of the Western Roman Empire. Suebic Gallaecia was the first kingdom separated from the Roman Empire to mint coins.
The Suebic kingdom in Gallaecia and northern Lusitania was established in 409 and lasted until 585. Smaller than the Ostrogoths kingdom of Italy or the Visigoths kingdom in Hispania, it reached a relative stability and prosperity—and even expanded military southwards—despite the occasional quarrels with the neighbouring Visigothic kingdom.
As the Suebi quickly adopted the local language, few traces were left of their Germanic tongue, but for some words and for their personal and land names, adopted by most of the Gallaeci.Medieval Galician records show more than 1500 different Germanic names in use for over 70% of the local population. Also, in Galicia, Northern and Central Portugal, there are more than 5.000 toponyms (villages and towns) based on personal Germanic names (Mondariz < *villa *Mundarici; Baltar < *villa *Baldarii; Gomesende < *villa *Gumesenþi; Gondomar < *villa *Gunþumari...); and several toponyms not based on personal names, mainly in Galicia (Malburgo, Samos < Samanos "Congregated", near a hundred Saa/Sá < *Sala "house, palace"...); and some lexical influence on the Galician language and Portuguese language, such as:
Most scholars have attempted to meld these stories. It has been alleged that Chararic and Theodemir must have been successors of Ariamir, since Ariamir was the first Suebic monarch to lift the ban on Catholic synods; Isidore therefore gets the chronology wrong.Thompson, 87.Ferreiro, 199. Reinhart suggested that Chararic was converted first through the relics of Saint Martin and that Theodemir was converted later through the preaching of Martin of Dumio.Thompson, 86. Dahn equated Chararic with Theodemir, even saying that the latter was the name he took upon baptism. It has also been suggested that Theodemir and Ariamir were the same person and the son of Chararic. In the opinion of some historians, Chararic is nothing more than an error on the part of Gregory of Tours and never existed.Thompson, 88. If, as Gregory relates, Martin of Dumio died about the year 580 and had been bishop for about thirty years, then the conversion of Chararic must have occurred around 550 at the latest. Finally, Ferreiro believes the conversion of the Suebi was progressive and stepwise and that Chararic's public conversion was only followed by the lifting of a ban on Catholic synods in the reign of his successor, which would have been Ariamir; Thoedemir was responsible for beginning a persecution of the Arians in his kingdom to root out their heresy.Ferreiro, 207.
Classical ethnography
In his account of the Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar first noted the important role of Suebian forces in the invasion of Gaul in 58 BC, which was led by king Ariovistus, whose wife was Suebian. According to Caesar, the Suebi were a tribe who had settled between the Ubii and Cherusci, somewhere between the Rhine and Elbe, and were pressing the Germanic tribes living near the Rhine, including the Ubii. The existence of a specific tribe called the Suebi living near the Cherusci is also reported in later generations by Florus, and much later by Cassius Dio, Orosius and Suetonius, who describe this tribe's crushing defeated by Drusus the elder in 9 BC. Like Caesar, these authors mentioned the Marcomanni as a distinct allied people who were also defeated in the Roman victories of both 58 BC and 9 BC.
Historical events
The Gaulish campaigns of Julius Caesar
In 58 BC Julius Caesar (100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) confronted a large army led by a king named Ariovistus. The population which he ruled had already been settled for some years in Gaul, having arrived at the invitation of a local tribe, the Sequani, who lived between the Saône and the Jura Mountains which now form the border between France and Switzerland. Ariovistus had helped fight against another local tribe, the Aedui, who lived west of the Saône. Ariovistus had already been recognized as a king by the Roman senate. Caesar on the other hand entered into the conflict to defend the Aedui. As part of his justification for intervention into Gaul Caesar was the first author to make a distinction between peoples from west of the Rhine in Gaul, and the Germani (or Germanic peoples) from east of the Rhine, who he argued to be a potential source of continuing invasions that would affect Italy.
The Germanic campaigns of Augustus
Shortly before 29 BC, the Suebi crossed the Rhine, and were defeated by the Roman governor in Gaul, Gaius Carrinas. Along with the young Octavian Caesar (the future Augustus), Carrinas celebrated a triumph in 29 BC. Shortly afterwards, captured Suebians fought as gladiators against captured at Rome.
Policy after Augustus
Germanicus fought for three years against the Cherusci and their allies. He defeated Arminius, but did not capture or kill him. The new emperor Tiberius however didn't seek to install a Roman administration in Germania, and Germanicus was recalled. Instead the Romans acted to sow discord between the Germani themselves. The Langobardi and Semnones, Suebi living on the Elbe, not far from the Cherusci, defected from the kingdom of Maroboduus in the name of freedom, both because Maroboduus did not support the revolt, and because he held royal power. citing Tacitus Annals 2.45-46, 2.62-63, 3.11.1
Marcomannic wars
The relationship between the Romans and the Quadi and their neighbours was seriously disrupted and permanently changed 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). It was triggered by a raid in the 150s or 160s AD, by Suebian Langobardi, together with Obii whose identity is uncertain.
Third century
After the heavy defeat of the Suebian alliance in the late 2nd century, there are fewer mentions of the Marcomanni, but the Quadi remained important. They worked in alliance with non-Suebian peoples to their east including Sarmatians. To the west of the Marcomanni, in what is now southern Germany, Suebi began settling and raiding into Roman areas, contributing to the creation of a new Suebian people who came to be known as the Alamanni. Archaeological evidence indicates a steady stream of new Germanic immigrants from both the Elbe and Danube regions entering into the previously Roman-controlled zone between Rhine and Danube, where Romanized Suebi had long been living. In 213, the emperor Caracalla defeated a group of Germani who lived near the border on the Danube west of the Marcomannic region. According to later citations of Dio Cassius, he described these Germani as Alamanni. If this is a correct report, then would be the first known use of this name.
Fifth century
A large group of Suebi, whose origins are unclear, breached the Roman frontier by crossing the Rhine, perhaps at Mainz, at about the same time as the Vandals and Alans (31 December 406), thus launching an invasion of northern Gaul. It is thought that this group probably contained a significant amount of Quadi, moving out of their homeland under pressure from Radagaisus. This group later invaded Spain and became rulers of Roman Gaellicia.
Suevian Kingdom of Gallaecia
Migration
Suebi under king Hermeric, probably coming from the Alemanni, the Quadi, or both, worked their way into the south of France, eventually crossing the Pyrenees and entering the Iberian Peninsula which was no longer under Imperial rule since the rebellion of Gerontius and Maximus in 409.
Settlement
The Germanic invaders and immigrants settled mainly in rural areas, as Idacius clearly stated: "The Hispanic, spread over cities and oppidum..." and the "Barbarians, govern over the provinces". According to Dan Stanislawski, the Portuguese way of living in Northern regions is mostly inherited from the Suebi, in which small farms prevail, distinct from the large properties of Southern Portugal. Bracara Augusta, the modern city of Braga and former capital of Roman Gallaecia, became the capital of the Suebi. Paulus Orosius, at that time resident in Hispania, shows a rather pacific initial settlement, the newcomers working their lands"the barbarians, detesting their swords, turn them into ploughs", Historiarum Adversum Paganos, VII, 41, 6. or serving as bodyguards of the locals."anyone wanting to leave or to depart, uses these barbarians as mercenaries, servers or defenders", Historiarum Adversum Paganos, VII, 41, 4. Another Germanic group that accompanied the Suebi and settled in Gallaecia were the Buri. They settled in the region between the rivers Cávado and Homem River, in the area known as Terras de Bouro (Lands of the Buri), Portugal.Domingos Maria da Silva, Os Búrios, Terras de Bouro, Câmara Municipal de Terras de Bouro, 2006. (in Portuguese)
laverca "lark" < protogermanic *laiwarikō "lark"
brasa "torch; ember" < protogermanic *blasōn "torch"
britar "to break" < protogermanic *breutan "to break"
lobio "vine gallery" < protogermanic *laubjōn "leaves"
ouva "elf" < protogermanic *albaz "elf"
trigar "to urge" < protogermanic *þreunhan "to urge"
maga "guts (of fish)" < protogermanic *magōn "stomach" In Galicia, four and six villages are named Suevos or Suegos, i.e. Sueves, after old Suebic settlements.
Establishment
The Visigoths were sent in 416 by the emperor Honorius to fight the Germanic invaders in Hispania, but they were re-settled in 417 by the Romans as foederati in Aquitania after completely defeating the Alans and the Silingi Vandals. The absence of competition permitted the Asdingi Vandals and, later, the Suebi, to expand south and east. After the departure of the Vandals for Africa in 429, Roman authority in the peninsula was reasserted for 10 years except in northwest where the Suevi were confined. In its heyday, Suebic Gallaecia extended as far south as Mérida and Seville, capitals of the Roman provinces of Lusitania and Baetica, while their expeditions reached Zaragoza and Lleida after taking the Roman capital, Mérida, in 439. In the previous year, Hermeric ratified the peace with the Gallaeci, the local and partially romanized rural population, and, weary of fighting, abdicated in favour of his son Requila, who proved to be a notable general, defeating first Andevotus, Romanae militiae dux,Isidorus Hispalensis, Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum, 85 and later Vitus magister utriusque militiae. In 448, Rechila died, leaving the crown to his son Rechiar who had converted to Roman Catholicism c. 447. Soon, he married a daughter of the Gothic king Theodoric I, and began a wave of attacks on the Tarraconense, still a Roman province. By 456 the campaigns of Rechiar clashed with the interests of the Visigoths, and a large army of Roman federates (Visigoths under the command of Theodoric II, Burgundians directed by kings Gundioc and Chilperic) crossed the Pyrenees into Hispania, and defeated the Suebi near modern-day Astorga. Rechiar was executed after being captured by his brother-in-law, the Visigothic king Theodoric II. In 459, the Roman emperor Majorian defeated the Suebi, briefly restoring Roman rule in northern Hispania. Nevertheless, the Suebi became free of Roman control forever after Majorian was assassinated two years later. The Suebic kingdom was confined in the northwest in Gallaecia and northern Lusitania where political division and civil war arose among several pretenders to the royal throne. After years of turmoil, Remismund was recognized as the sole king of the Suebi, bringing forth a politic of friendship with the Visigoths, and favoring the conversion of his people to Arianism.
Last years of the kingdom
In 561, king Ariamir called the catholic First Council of Braga, which dealt with the old problem of the Priscillianism heresy. Eight years after, in 569, king Theodemir called the First Council of Lugo,Ferreiro, 199 n11. in order to increase the number of dioceses within his kingdom. Its acts have been preserved through a medieval resume known as Parrochiale Suevorum or Divisio Theodemiri.
Defeat by the Visigoths
In 570, the Arian king of the Visigoths, Leovigild, made his first attack on the Suebi. Between 572 and 574, Leovigild invaded the valley of the Douro, pushing the Suebi west and northwards. In 575 the Suebic king, Miro, made a peace treaty with Leovigild in what seemed to be the beginning of a new period of stability. Yet, in 583, Miro supported the rebellion of the Catholic Gothic prince Hermenegild, engaging in military action against king Leovigild, although Miro was defeated in Seville when trying to break on through the blockade on the Catholic prince. As a result, he was forced to recognize Leovigild as friend and protector, for him and for his successors, dying back home just some months later. His son, king Eboric, confirmed the friendship with Leovigild, but he was deposed just a year later by his brother-in-law Andeca, giving Leovigild an excuse to attack the kingdom. In 585 AD, first Audeca and later Malaric, were defeated and the Suebic kingdom was incorporated into the Visigothic one as its sixth province. The Suebi were respected in their properties and freedom, and continued to dwell in Gallaecia, finally merging with the rest of the local population during the early Middle Ages.
Religion
Conversion to Arianism
The Suebi remained mostly pagan, and their subjects Priscillianism until an Arianism missionary named Ajax, sent by the Visigothic king Theodoric II at the request of the Suebic unifier Remismund, in 466 converted them and established a lasting Arian church which dominated the people until the conversion to Trinitarian Catholicism the 560s.
Conversion to Orthodox Trinitarianism
Mutually incompatible accounts of the conversion of the Suebi to Orthodox Catholic Trinitarian Christianity of the First and Second Ecumenical Councils are presented in the primary records:
Norse mythology
The name of the Suebi also appears in Norse mythology and in early Scandinavian sources. The earliest attestation is the Proto-Norse name Swabaharjaz ("Suebian warrior") on the Rö runestone and in the place name Svogerslev. (Text in Swedish language); for an alternative meaning, as "free, independent" see ; compare Suiones Sváfa, whose name means "Suebian", Peterson, Lena. (2002). Nordiskt runnamnslexikon, at Institutet för språk och folkminnen, Sweden. was a Valkyrie who appears in the eddic poem Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar. The kingdom Sváfaland also appears in this poem and in the Þiðrekssaga.
See also
Citations
General sources
External links
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