The fall of its founder did not, however, affect the stability
of the Bohemian kingdom of the Suebi.
of the Bohemian kingdom of the Suebi.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
5.
CH, VII.
## p. 190 (#220) ############################################
190
The Bastarnae
[B. C. 182
tradition, which consistently represents the Teutoni as a people whose
original home was in the North. The simplest solution of the difficulty
is that the Mittenberg Toutoni were a fragment which split off from the
Teutonic peoples during their migration southward, and settled in this
district, just as in north-eastern Gaul a portion of the Cimbri and
Teutones maintained itself as the tribe of the Aduatuci.
The whole process of the expulsion of the Kelts from South Germany
must have been accomplished between B. c. 100 and 70, for Caesar knows
of no Gauls on the right bank of the upper Rhine, and the Helveti had
been living for a considerable time to the south of the head-waters of
the river which, as Caesar tells us, divides Helvetic from German
territory.
The first collision between the Teutons and the Graeco-Roman
world took place far to the east of Gaul. It resulted from a great
migration of the eastern Teutonic tribes in the neighbourhood of the
Vistula, which had carried some of them as far as the shore of the Black
Sea. The chief of these tribes was that of the Bastarnae. Settled, it
would seem, before their exodus near the head-waters of the Vistula they
appear, as early as the beginning of the second century B. C. , near the
estuary of the Danube. The whole region north of the Pruth, from the
Black Sea to the northern slope of the Carpathians, was in their
possession and remained so during all the time that they are known to
history. Another Germanic tribe, doubtless dependent upon them,
meets us in the same district, namely the Sciri from the lower Vistula.
The well known and much discussed “psephisma” of the town of Olbia
in honour of Protogenes mentions them as allied with the Galatai, and
there has been much debate as to what nation is to be understood by
these Talátat, and they have sometimes been conjectured to be Illyrian
Kelts (Scordisci), sometimes Thracian, sometimes the--also Keltic-
Britolages, or the Teutonic Bastarnae, or even the Goths. The majority
of scholars has however decided that these “Galatians” are the
Bastarnae', whose presence in the neighbourhood of Olbia in the year
B. C. 182 is attested by Polybius. There is, indeed, much in favour of
this hypothesis and nothing against it. The inscription then, which is
proved by the character of the writing to be one of the oldest found in
this locality, would have been written about the time of the arrival of
the Bastarnae at the estuary of the Danube, that is to say, about b. c. 200
-180, and would therefore be the earliest documentary evidence for the
entrance of the Germanic tribes on the field of general history.
As early as the year B. c. 182 we find the Bastarnae in negotiations
with Philip of Macedon. Philip's plan was to get rid of the Dardanians,
and after settling his allies on the territory thus vacated to use it as a
base for an expedition against Italy. After long negotiations, the
Bastarnae in 179 abandoned their lately-won territory, crossed the
i So Zeuss and Staehelin.
## p. 191 (#221) ############################################
B. C. 182–100]
Cimbri and Teutons
191
Danube and advanced into Thrace. At this point King Philip died, and
after an unsuccessful battle with the Thracians the Bastarnae began a
retreat to the settlement which they had abandoned; but a detachment of
a
some 30,000 men under Clondicus pressed on into Dardania. With the
aid of the Thracians and Scordiscans and with the connivance of Philip's
successor, Perseus, he pressed the Dardanians hard for a time, but at last
in the winter of 175 he also decided to retire. In Rome the intrigues
of the Macedonian kings had been watched with growing mistrust and
displeasure, which found expression in the despatch of a commission to
investigate the situation in Macedonia and especially on the Dardanian
border. This, therefore, is the first occasion on which the Roman State
had to concern itself with Teutonic affairs. At that time, it is true, the
racial difference between Kelts and Teutons was not yet recognised and
the Bastarnae were therefore supposed to be Gauls. Before very long
(168), we find the Bastarnae again in relations with the King of Macedon.
Twenty thousand men, again under the command of Clondicus, were to
join him in his struggle with the Romans in Paeonia. But Perseus was
blinded by avarice, and failed to keep his promises. Clondicus therefore,
who had already reached the country of the Maedi, promptly turned to
the right-about and marched home through Thrace. From this point
they disappear from history for a time, only to reappear in the
Mithradatic wars as allies of that King, and they consequently appear
also in the list of the nations over whom Pompey triumphed in the
year 61.
In the East, on the frontiers of Europe and Asia, the Germanic
race attracted little notice; but in the West, about the close of the
second century B. C. , it shook the edifice of the Roman State to its
foundations and spread the terror of its name over the whole of Western
Europe. It was the Cimbri, along with their allies the Teutones and
Ambrones, who for half a score of years kept the world in suspense. All
three peoples were doubtless of Germanic stock'. We may take it as
established that the original home of the Cimbri was on the Jutish
peninsula, that of the Teutones somewhere between the Ems and the
Weser, and that of the Ambrones in the same neighbourhood, also on
the North Sea coast. The cause of their migration was the constant
encroachment of the sea upon their coasts, the occasion being an
inundation which devastated their territory, great stretches of it being
engulfed by the sea. This is the account given by ancient writers and
I The arguments which have been alleged in favour of the Keltic origin of the
Teutones, and sometimes also of the Ambrones, and even of the Cimbri, are quite
untenable. Not only the unanimous witness of antiquity which always represents
the Cimbri and Teutones as having their original home on the German North Sea
coast, but also the very names of these peoples which, despite all the contrary
assertions of the Keltic enthusiasts, can be naturally and convincingly explained
from the Teutonic, put their Germanic character beyond doubt.
CH. VII.
## p. 192 (#222) ############################################
192
Cimbri and Teutons
[B. C. 115–100
4.
we have no reason to doubt its truth. The exodus of all three peoples
took place about the same time, and obviously in such a way that from
the first they went forward in close touch with one another. First they
turned southwards, probably following the line of the Elbe, crossed the
Erzgebirge and pressed on into Bohemia, the land of the Boii. Driven
back by the latter, they seem to have made their way along the valley of
the March, southwards to the Danube, and then through Pannonia into
the country of the Scordisci. Here, too, they encountered (in the year
114) such vigorous opposition that they preferred to turn westwards.
That brought them into contact with the Taurisci who had just (B. C.
115) formed a close alliance with the Romans. In the Carnic Alps was
stationed a Roman army under the command of the Consul Cn. Papirius
Carbo, which immediately advanced into Noricum. Carbo's attempt by
means of a treacherous attack to annihilate the Teutons ended in a
severe defeat. The way into Italy now lay open to the victors. But
so great was the awe in which they still held the Roman name, that they
promptly turned away towards the north. Their route led them to the
territory of the Helveti, which then extended from the Lake of Constance
as far as the Main. The Helveti do not seem to have offered any
resistance ; indeed a considerable section of the Helveti-- the Tigurini
and Toygeni-attached themselves to the Teutonic migrants. The
Germanic hosts then crossed the Rhine and pressed on southwards,
plundering as they went.
In s. c. 109 they halted in the valley of the Rhone, on the frontier
of the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, for the protection of
which a strong army under the Consul M. Junius Silanus had taken
the field. The Romans attacked, but were defeated for the second
time. Again the Germans shrank from invading Roman territory
and preferred to plunder and ravage the Gallic districts, which they
completely laid waste. Finally, in the year 105 they appeared once
more on the frontier of “the Province,” this time resolved to attack the
Romans. Of the three armies which opposed them that of the Legate
M. Aurelius Scaurus was first defeated in the territory of the Allobroges.
On 6 October followed the bloody battle of Arausio in which the other
two armies, under the Consul Cn. Mallius Maximus and the Proconsul
Q. Servilius Caepio, in all some 60,000 troops, were completely annihilated.
But instead of marching into Italy, the barbarians once again let the
favourable moment slip, and thus lost the fruits of their victory. They
divided their forces. The Cimbri marched away westwards, first into
the country of the Volcae, then on over the Pyrenees into Spain where
they carried on a desultory and indecisive struggle with the Celtiberi;
the Teutons and Helveti turned northwards to continue the work of
plundering Gaul. In 103 the Cimbrian hosts made their way back to
Gaul and reunited, in the territory of South-Belgic Veliocasses, with
their comrades who had remained behind.
1
## p. 193 (#223) ############################################
B. C. 102–60]
Teutonic Invasion of Gaul
193
Now at last they prepared a march upon Italy. In the spring of
102 the main mass of the united hordes began to move southwards.
Only one section, of about 6000 men—the nucleus of the later tribe
of the Aduatuci-remained behind in Belgica to guard the spoils.
Doubtless with a view to the difficulties of the passage of the Alps,
especially in the matter of supply, the invading host was before long
divided into three columns. The plan was that the Teutones and
Ambrones should make their way into the plain of the Po from the
western side, crossing the Maritime Alps, while the Cimbri and the
Tigurini should make a wide flanking movement and enter from the
north, the former by way of the Tridentine, the latter by way of the
Noric Alps. But the attempt was planned on too vast a scale, and was
wrecked by the military skill of Marius. The Ambrones and Teutones
were annihilated in the double battle near Aquae Sextiae (summer
102), while the fate of the Cimbri overtook them in the following year.
They had already reached the soil of Italy, into which they had forced
their way after a victorious encounter with Quintus Lutatius Catulus on
the Adige, when (30 July 101), on the plains of Vercellae, the so-called
Campi Raudii, they were utterly routed by the united forces of Marius
and Catulus. The Tigurini, who were to form the third invading force,
received the news of the defeat of the Cimbri when they were still on
the Noric Alps, and immediately turned round and retired to their
own country. Thus the great invasion of the northern barbarians was
defeated, and Western Europe could once more breathe freely.
We saw above that about s. c. 100, doubtless in connexion with the
appearance of the Cimbri and Teutones in South Germany, the line
of the Main was crossed by the Germanic peoples, and the settlement
of the territory between that and the Danube began. Less than a
generation later there was another attempt to extend the Germanic
sphere of influence westward over Gaul. About the year B. c. 71, on the
invitation of the powerful tribe of the Sequani, Ariovistus chief of the
Suebi crossed the Rhine with 15,000 warriors to serve as mercenaries to
the Sequani against their neighbours the Aedui. But after the victory
was won, the strangers did not return to their own land but remained
on the western side of the Rhine and established themselves in the
territory of their employers, taking possession of about a third of it,
presumably at its northern extremity. Strengthened by large accessions
from the home-land this Germanic settlement on Gaulish territory-it
consisted of the Vangiones, Nemetes and Tribocci, and finally extended
over the whole of the left side of the Rhine valley, eastward of the
Vosges—soon became a menace to all the surrounding tribes. A united
attempt, in which the Aedui took a leading part, to expel the intruders
by force of arms ended after months of indecisive fighting in a crushing
defeat of the Gauls (at Admagetobriga), apparently in the year B. c. 61. .
Gaul lay defenceless at the feet of the victors, and they did not fail to
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. VII.
13
## p. 194 (#224) ############################################
194
Ariovistus and Caesar
[B. C. 61–58
Thus the power
make the most of their success. The Aedui and all their adherents
were forced to give hostages and to pay a yearly tribute. None dared
to oppose the conquerors, who already regarded the whole of Gaul as
,
their prey. They pursued their work deliberately and systematically,
constantly bringing in new swarms of their compatriots, chiefly Suebi and
Marcomanni, and assigning them lands in the territories which they had
subjugated. Settlers came even from Jutland, Endusi and Harudes
24,000 strong, and on their arrival the Sequani were forced to give up
another third of their territory to the new-comers.
of Ariovistus became very formidable. The establishment of a great
Germanic Empire over the whole of Gaul seemed not far distant.
At other points also the Teutons were preparing to cross the Rhine.
It seemed as if the example set by Ariovistus would lead to a general
invasion of Gaul, flood the whole country with Germans, and overwhelm
the Gaulish race. The movement began on the upper Rhine, on the
Helvetic border. The Helveti had been obliged, as we have already
seen, to retire further and further before the pressure of the Germans,
until finally all the country north of the Lake of Constance was lost to
them, and the Rhine became their northern frontier. Even here they
were not allowed to rest. A short time after the appearance of
Ariovistus the Teutons had again endeavoured to enlarge their border
towards the south, and there ensued a long struggle upon the Rhine
frontier. It was only by their utmost efforts that the Helveti were able
to beat off the attacks of their opponents. Weary of the constant
struggle, they at last resolved (B. C. 61) to leave their territory. This,
as we have seen, they did three years later, when some smaller tribes,
among them the Germanic Tulingi (p. 189 sup. ), threw in their lot with
them. The Jura region, the entrance to southern Gaul, thus lay open
to the Teutons. In the same year there appeared on the middle Rhine,
probably in the Taunus region, a powerful Suebian army—a hundred
“gau's ” under the leadership of two brothers named Nasua (perhaps
Masua) and Cimberius—and threatened to invade from this point the
territory of the Treveri on the opposite bank. Finally, there was great
restlessness also on the lower Rhine, among the tribes inhabiting the
right bank, especially among the Usipetes and Tencteri, in consequence
especially of the repeated aggressions of the warlike Suebi.
This was the condition of affairs when Caesar (B. C. 58) took
up
his
command in Gaul. He was well aware of the danger to the Roman
occupation which lay in these wholesale immigrations of Germanic
hordes into Gaulish territory, and it was consequently his first care to
take prompt measures to meet the Teutonic peril
. It is well known
how he performed this task, how he removed the haunting dread of a
general irruption of the Germanic peoples into Keltic territory, and at
the same time established security and order upon the Rhine frontier.
The restoration of the conquered Helveti to their abandoned territory
## p. 195 (#225) ############################################
B. C. 60-A. D. 9]
Teutons and Romans
195
in order that they might continue to serve, but now in the Roman
interest, as a buffer-state, secured Gaul, and especially the valley of the
Rhone, against incursions from the direction of the upper Rhine. His
victory over Ariovistus destroyed the latter's vast levies and with them
his ascendancy, but not—and herein we see again the far-sighted policy
of the conqueror—the work of colonisation begun by the Germanic
ruler. The tribes of the Vangiones, Nemetes and Tribocci which he had
settled in Gaul were allowed to remain where they were, and, like the
Helveti, were placed under the Roman suzerainty while retaining their
racial independence—ut arcerent, non ut custodirentur. But while
Caesar allowed these settlements to remain, he repressed with all the
greater energy all further efforts of expansion on the part of the dwellers
on the upper Rhine. True, the Suebian bands which in 58 had mustered
on the right bank of the river, had retired on receiving news of the
defeat of Ariovistus, so that there was no fighting with them, but the
attempt of Usipetes and Tencteri, in the following year, to find a new
home for themselves in Gaul led to a battle, in which a large portion
of them perished, and the rest were flung back across the Rhine.
Augustus assumed the offensive against the Teutons. Even though
the extension of the Roman dominion as far as the Elbe effected by
the brilliant military successes of the two step-sons of the Emperor
was of short duration—the year A. D. 9 witnessed the loss of the territory
won by the expenditure of so much blood, of which it had been proposed
to make a new province of Germania Magna-yet the Rhine frontier
was secured for a considerable time to come by a belt of fortresses
garrisoned by an army of nearly 80,000 men. This frontier was not
seriously threatened for two hundred years thereafter. Throughout that
period, except for a few insignificant raids, Gaul's eastern neighbour
remained quiescent. It was only in the third century that unrest shewed
itself again, thereafter steadily increasing as time went on. And the
cause of this was the appearance of two powerful confederacies which
thenceforward dominated the history of the Rhineland—the Alemans
and the Franks.
While the expansion of the Teutons towards the west was thus
barred by the Romans, it proceeded the more vigorously in a southward
and south-eastward direction. It is true that but little certain informa-
tion has come down to us. The movements of population, implied by
the appearance of the Marcomanni in Bohemia, of the Quadi in Moravia,
of the Naristi between the Böhmer-Wald and the Danube, of the Buri,
Lacringi, Victovali in the north of the Hungarian lowlands, are all
more or less shrouded in obscurity, and it is but rarely possible to find a
clue to their relations. About B. C. 60 the Boii had been forced by the
advance of the Germanic races from the north to abandon their ancestral
possessions. A portion of them found a dwelling-place in Pannonia,
another portion, on its way from Noricum, joined the Helvetic migra-
CB. VII.
13-2
## p. 196 (#226) ############################################
196
Marbod
[A. D. 6–14
tion. The north of the country thus left unoccupied was immediately
taken up by Hermunduric, Semnonic and Vandalic bands, offshoots of
the three great tribes which flanked Bohemia on the north. From them
were doubtless sprung the peoples who at a later time are met with here
at the southern base of the Sudetes, the Sudini, Bativi and Corconti.
They were followed by the Marcomanni, who, doubtless in consequence
of the military successes of Drusus in Germany, made their way, under
the lead of their chief Marbod, to the further side of the Böhmer-Wald
and occupied the main portion of the former country of the Boii.
The powerful kingdom which this Germanic prince established by
bringing in further masses of settlers and by subjugating the surround-
ing tribes—even the powerful Semnones, the Langobards, the Goths and
the Lugi (Vandals) are said to have acknowledged his suzerainty-had
no rival in northern Europe, and with its trained army of 70,000
footmen and 4000 horse soon became a menace to the Roman Empire.
The importance which was attached to it, and to the commanding
personality of its ruler by the Romans themselves, is evident from the
extraordinary military preparations which Tiberius set on foot (A. D. 6).
As is well known, the intervention of the Roman arms was not in the
end called for. But what even they might not have been able to accom-
plish was effected by inner dissension. In the struggle for the supremacy
of Germany against Arminius at the head of the Cherusci, and of all the
other peoples who flocked to the standard of the liberator Germaniae,
Marbod was defeated, and the fate of his kingdom was thereby decided.
First the Semnones and Langobards ranged themselves on the side of his
adversaries, then one tribe after another, so that he found his dominions
in the end reduced to their original extent, the country of the Marco-
manni. With the ruin of his Empire his own fate overtook him.
.
Treachery in his own camp forced him to seek the protection of the
Romans.
The fall of its founder did not, however, affect the stability
of the Bohemian kingdom of the Suebi. Although the Marcomanni
were never afterwards able to regain their ascendancy, they held their
own far on into the decline of the ancient world, in the country which
they had occupied under Marbod's leadership. Indeed after a time their
power was so far revived that, in alliance with the Quadi, they were able
to dominate the upper Danube frontier for fully a century.
The earliest mention of the Quadi occurs in the geographer Strabo.
He names them among the Suebian tribes who settled within the
Hercynian Forest, the mountains which form the frontier of Bohemia.
The country which they inhabited is nearly the present Moravia. Its
eastern frontier was formed by the March, the ancient Marus. That
they were of Suebian origin is clear from the express testimony of
Strabo, as well as on linguistic grounds. The only point which remains
doubtful is whether even before their coming into Moravia they had
formed a political unit, or whether they were a migratory band sent
## p. 197 (#227) ############################################
B. C. 60–2]
The Marcomanni
197
a
out by one of the great Suebian peoples, perhaps the Semnones, which
only developed into a united and independent national community after
settling in Moravia. The former, however, is the more probable.
Like their western neighbours the Marcomanni, the Quadi were the
successors of a Keltic people. As the Boii had been settled in Bohemia,
so in Moravia, from a remote period and down to Caesar's day had been
settled the Volcae Tectosages. Seeing that about s. c. 60, the advance of
the Teutons from the north over the Erzgebirge and Sudetes caused the
Boii to leave their territory, it is probable that at the same time, or a
little later, the peoples further to the east became involved in a struggle
with the invaders. But whereas the Boii by their prompt retirement
escaped the danger, the Tectosages, it would appear, were utterly
destroyed. We find the Quadi soon after in possession of their territory,
and since we get no hint of the fate of the Moravian Tectosages, the
Romans cannot yet have been in possession of the neighbouring country
of Noricum. Their destruction must therefore have fallen before B. c. 15,
when Noricum passed under the dominion of Rome. If this hypothesis
is correct the irruption of the Quadi into Moravia took place shortly
after the Boii had left Bohemia; in any case a considerable time before
the occupation of that country by the Marcomanni.
To the west of the Marcomanni, between the Böhmer-Wald and the
Danube as far up as the river Naab, were settled the Naristi. It is
equally uncertain whence they came and when they appeared in this
region. It is possible, though that is the most that can be said, that like
their eastern neighbours they belonged to the Suebian confederacy-
Tacitus certainly counts them as members of it—and that they are to
be numbered among those peoples which, according to Strabo, Marbod
had settled in the region of the Hercynia Sylva.
Guarding the flanks, as it were, of the southern territories of the
Teutons lay two settlements planted by the Romans; in the west the
Hermunduri between the upper Main and the Danube, and in the east
the Vannianic kingdom of the Suebi. The former came into being
B. C. 6-2, the Roman general, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, having assigned
to a band of Hermunduri the eastern part of the territory left free by
the migration of the Marcomanni into Bohemia ; the latter was created
by the settlement of bands of Suebian warriors belonging to the following
of the fallen Suebian leaders, Marbod and Casvalda.
The Marus is of course the March, the Cusus, as this Suebian settle-
ment cannot have been very extensive, was probably the Waag, though
it may have been the Gran, which lies further to the east. The Balmou
of Ptolemy are probably identical with these Suebians of northern
Hungary, who come into notice several times in the course of the first
century. As they disappear later, they were probably absorbed by the
Quadi. Further towards the north-east, in the Hungarian Erzgebirge,
and beyond in the upper region of the Vistula, we find in the first
CH. VII.
## p. 198 (#228) ############################################
198
Germany in the First Century
[A. D. 14–167
4
century of our era the Buri and Sidones. The former, who are men-
tioned as early as Strabo, were probably of Bastarnian, and the latter
of Lugian origin; further still, abutting on the eastern flank of the
Sidones, were the Burgiones, Ambrones and Frugundiones, doubtless
also Bastarnian.
If we now review the ethnographic situation in ancient Germany
about the close of the first century A. D. , we find on its western frontier,
in the eastern basin of the lower Rhine, the Chamavi, the Bructeri,
the Usipii, the Tencteri, the Chattuarii and Tubantes ; further in the
interior, on both sides of the Weser, the great tribes of the Chatti and
Cherusci ; further to the north, the Angrivarii; and, on the North Sea
coast, the Chauci and Frisians. In the heart of the country three
powerful Suebian populations have their seat: on the western bank of
the middle Elbe, extending as far south as the Rhaetian frontier, the
Hermunduri ; north of them, on the western bank of the lower Elbe,
the Langobards, and beyond that river, in the basins of the Havel and
the Spree, the Semnones, who were held to be the primitive stock of the
Suebi. The eastern part of the country was mainly occupied by the
Lugii. The tribes too which appear later, in the wars of the Marco-
manni (the Victovali, Asdingi and Lacringi), were doubtless also Vandalic.
Northward in the region of the Wartha and Netze, dwelt the Bur-
gundiones or Burgundi ; further north still, on the Pomeranian Baltic
coast, the Rugii and Lemovi, next to whom on the western side came
(with some other smaller tribes) the Saxons. North of these again, on
the Jutish peninsula, lay the Anglii and Varini. Turning back to the
Vistula again, we find on its eastern bank the Goths, who, apparently by
the beginning of our era, had spread from the shores of its estuary to its
upper waters. In the south, the portion of the Hermunduri which had
its seat between the Main and the Danube formed the first link in
a long chain consisting of Naristi, Marcomanni, Quadi, Buri, and
finally, beyond the confinium Germanorum, the numerous branches of the
Bastarnae.
It was therefore a vast territory which the Germanic races claimed
for their own, and yet, as was soon to appear, it was too narrow for the
energies of these young and vigorous nations. On their north foamed
the sea, to the east yawned the desert steppes of southern Russia : thus
any further expansion could only take a westward or southward direction.
But on the one side as on the other lay the unbroken line of the Roman
frontier.
Any attempt at expansion in either of these directions
must inevitably lead to an immediate collision with the Roman
Empire.
The storm which lowered upon the Bohemian mountains was soon to
burst. Mighty forces were doubtless at work in the interior of Germany
which shortly after the accession of Marcus Aurelius stirred up the whole
mass of nations from the Böhmer-Wald to the Carpathians, and let loose
## p. 199 (#229) ############################################
A. D. 167–174]
Marcus Aurelius
199
a tempest such as the Roman Empire had never before encountered on
its frontiers. In the suminer of 167 hosts of barbarians mustered along
the line of the Danube, ready to make an inroad into Roman territory.
The Praetorian Praefect, Furius Victorinus, was defeated, and slain with
most of his troops ; and the invading food poured forward over the
unprotected provinces. Not until the two Emperors reached the seat of
war (spring 168) was the plundering and ravaging stopped. The bar-
barians then withdrew to the further side of the Danube and declared
their readiness to enter into negotiations? . There, in the winter of 168-9
the plague broke out with fearful violence in the Roman camp, and at
once the complexion of events changed for the worse. In the spring, in
the absence of the Emperors, who on the outbreak of the epidemic had
returned to the capital, the army, weakened and disorganised by disease,
suffered another severe defeat, and the Praetorian Praefect, Macrinius
Vindex, met his death. Following up their victory, the Teutons assumed
the offensive all along the line. A surging mass of peoples-Hermunduri,
Naristi, Marcomanni, Quadi, Lacringi, Buri, Victovali, Asdingi and other
tribes Germanic and lazygic-swept over the provinces of Rhaetia,
Noricum, Pannonia and Daeid. Some detached bands even pushed
their way into North Italy, laid siege to Aquileia, and destroyed Opiter-
LP P.
gium, further to the west.
But the danger passed as quickly as it had arisen. Effective
measures were instantly taken. The flood of invasion was stemmed, and
as it receded the Romans, led by the Emperor in person, took the
aggressive. All the Teutons and Iazyges who remained on the south
bank were forced back across the river. So successful were the Roman
arms that by the year 171 the Quadi sued for peace. In the following
year the Roman army crossed the Danube, and laid waste the country of
the Marcomanni. Thus the two most dangerous adversaries had been sub-
dued and the war seemed over. But by the year 174 the Emperor again
found himself obliged to return to Germany. Scarcely had he entered
the country of the Quadi, when the army was placed in a highly
dangerous position by an enveloping movement of the enemy, and by
want of water. Suddenly a torrent of rain descended”, and legionaries
saw in the “miracle” a proof of the favour of the gods, and were inspired
to fight with splendid valour, and gained a complete victory. This
broke the resistance of the Quadi, and the Marcomanni also were forced
1 I refer to the fragment of Petrus Patricius (6) which Mommsen, Ges.
Schriften, iv. p. 492 n. 1, assigns to the time of Pius.
? There is no reason to doubt either the event itself, or the fact that it appeared
to the minds of contemporaries, especially of Marcus Aurelius himself, as a miracle.
See Harnack, Sitzungsber. der Berl. Akad. 1894, p. 835, and Th. Mommsen, Hermes,
30 (1895), p. 90=Ges. Schriften, iv. p. 498 (against E. Petersen, Mitt. des Arch.
Inst. röm. Abt. 9 (1894), p. 78 and A. von Damaszewski, Rhein. Mus. f. Philol. 49
(1894), p. 612); cf. also J. Geffcken, N. Jahrbuch f. d. Klass. Altertum, 3 (1899),
p. 253. Further literature in Schanz, Gesch. d. röm. Literatur, 'ın? . § 644.
CH. VII.
## p. 200 (#230) ############################################
200
Commodus
(A. D. 176-235
to make peace. In 176 the Emperor returned to Rome, and there
celebrated, along with his son Commodus, a well-deserved triumph.
In 177 Marcus rejoined his army with the purpose of completing the
work of conquest. Two new provinces, Marcomania and Sarmatia, were
to be added to his Empire and were to round off his northern boundary.
The war began (apparently before the end of 177) with an attack upon
the Quadi, after which the Marcomanni were to be dealt with. In the
course of the three-years' war both peoples were so thoroughly exhausted
that when the Emperor suddenly died (17 March 180) their military
strength was already broken.
One of the first acts of Commodus, an unworthy successor of his father,
was to make peace which surrendered to the all but beaten enemy every
advantage that had been wrested from them. The struggle for the lands
to the north of the Danube was at an end. Meanwhile the Romans
were confronted, about the close of the century, with a new and dangerous
enemy in the west, in the angle between the Main and the frontier of
upper Germany and Rhaetia—by the Alemans. As their name indicates',
the Alemans were not a single tribe but a union of tribes—a confederacy.
We hear (somewhat later) the names of several of the component tribes,
the Juthungi, the Brisigavi, the Bucinobantes and the Lentienses.
Whence did they come? No doubt the nucleus of this confederacy was
formed by the southern divisions of the Hermunduri. To these there
may have attached themselves various fragments of peoples which had
split off before and after the Marcomannic war, just as later, towards the
middle of the third century, the Semnones, in the course of a migration
southward, probably joined this confederacy and were absorbed by it.
Before long—as early as 213—the new nation came in contact with
the Romans. So far as can be made out from the confused account
which is given us of their first appearance? they had invaded Rhaetia,
whereupon the Emperor Caracalla took the field against them, flung
them back across the frontier and advanced into their territory carrying all
before him? Before twenty years had passed the Teutons-presumably the
Alemans again-renewed the attack upon the Roman frontier defences.
So threatening was the situation that the Emperor Severus Alexander felt
1 Alemanni (Gothic alamans from the Old Teutonic *alamannez) means "all
people," "all men,” and therefore designates an aggregate of peoples. So the
historian Asinius Quadratus (in Agathias, 1. 6, p. 17): oi 'Alapavoi. . . Súvnavdés
εισιν άνθρωποι και μιγάδες, και τούτο δύναται αυτοίς ή επωνυμία.
: Dio, lxxvii. 13–15, on which see Bang, Hermes, 41 (1906), p. 623; cf. Herodian,
iv. 7. 2-3; Vita Carac. 5. 4. 6; 10. 6.
3 According to the records of the Arval College for the year 213 (C. I. L.
vi. 2086) the members made an offering on 11 August quod dominus n[oster). . .
per limitem Raetiae ad hostes extirpandos barbarorum (terram) introiturus est, ut ea
res ei prospere feliciterque cedat, and on 6 October ob salute[m] victoriamque
Germanicam of the sovereign. Ob victoriam Germanicam is also the cause of the setting
of the inscription in C. I. L. XII. 6459 and the same victoria Germanica appears on
the coins of the year 213 (Cohen, 1v2. 210 n. 645–6).
up
P.
## p. 201 (#231) ############################################
A. D. 235–258]
The Alemanni
201
a
himself obliged to break off his campaign against the Persians, and take
over in person the direction of the operations on the Rhine. Negotia-
tions had already begun before his assassination (March 235), but his
successor, the rough and soldierly Maximin, brought new life into the
campaign. Advancing by forced marches into the country of the
Alemans he drove the barbarians before him without serious resistance,
laid waste their fields and dwellings far and wide, and finally defeated
them far in the interior of their territory.
The result of this campaign, the last war of offence on a large scale
which the Romans waged on the Rhine, was the restoration of security
to the frontier for a period of twenty years. Under Gallienus-probably
about the year 258—the storm broke. With irresistible force the armies
of the Alemans broke through the great chain of frontier fortifications
between the Main and the Danube, and after overpowering the scattered
Roman garrisons, poured like a flood across the whole of the Agri
Decumates, and established themselves permanently in the conquered
territory. At the same time Rhaetia became a prey to them; nay more,
.
a strong force even crossed the Alps and penetrated as far as Ravenna.
The invaders were, it is true, defeated by Gallienus near Milan, and
forced to retreat, but the country at the northern base of the Alps was
lost, and its loss threw open to the Germanic hordes the gates of Italy.
In addition to the Alemans of the upper Rhine, there now appeared,
on the lower course of that river, another dangerous enemy, namely the
Franks. The frontier had scarcely ever been seriously threatened at this
point since the days of Augustus, but now under Gallienus the situation
was altered. Here also there had quietly grown up a confederacy which,
under the name of Franci, the Free, presumably comprised the tribes
formerly met with in these regions, the Chamavi, Sugambri and other
smaller clans. Their name, first heard in the time of Gallienus, was soon
to become even more terrible in the ears of the Romans than that of the
Alemans. The first attack of the new league of peoples upon the Rhine
.
frontier occurred in 253. The districts on the Gaulish bank of the
Rhine soon fell into the hands of the enemy. With great difficulty
Gallienus succeeded in forcing them back across the Rhine.
CH, VII.
## p. 190 (#220) ############################################
190
The Bastarnae
[B. C. 182
tradition, which consistently represents the Teutoni as a people whose
original home was in the North. The simplest solution of the difficulty
is that the Mittenberg Toutoni were a fragment which split off from the
Teutonic peoples during their migration southward, and settled in this
district, just as in north-eastern Gaul a portion of the Cimbri and
Teutones maintained itself as the tribe of the Aduatuci.
The whole process of the expulsion of the Kelts from South Germany
must have been accomplished between B. c. 100 and 70, for Caesar knows
of no Gauls on the right bank of the upper Rhine, and the Helveti had
been living for a considerable time to the south of the head-waters of
the river which, as Caesar tells us, divides Helvetic from German
territory.
The first collision between the Teutons and the Graeco-Roman
world took place far to the east of Gaul. It resulted from a great
migration of the eastern Teutonic tribes in the neighbourhood of the
Vistula, which had carried some of them as far as the shore of the Black
Sea. The chief of these tribes was that of the Bastarnae. Settled, it
would seem, before their exodus near the head-waters of the Vistula they
appear, as early as the beginning of the second century B. C. , near the
estuary of the Danube. The whole region north of the Pruth, from the
Black Sea to the northern slope of the Carpathians, was in their
possession and remained so during all the time that they are known to
history. Another Germanic tribe, doubtless dependent upon them,
meets us in the same district, namely the Sciri from the lower Vistula.
The well known and much discussed “psephisma” of the town of Olbia
in honour of Protogenes mentions them as allied with the Galatai, and
there has been much debate as to what nation is to be understood by
these Talátat, and they have sometimes been conjectured to be Illyrian
Kelts (Scordisci), sometimes Thracian, sometimes the--also Keltic-
Britolages, or the Teutonic Bastarnae, or even the Goths. The majority
of scholars has however decided that these “Galatians” are the
Bastarnae', whose presence in the neighbourhood of Olbia in the year
B. C. 182 is attested by Polybius. There is, indeed, much in favour of
this hypothesis and nothing against it. The inscription then, which is
proved by the character of the writing to be one of the oldest found in
this locality, would have been written about the time of the arrival of
the Bastarnae at the estuary of the Danube, that is to say, about b. c. 200
-180, and would therefore be the earliest documentary evidence for the
entrance of the Germanic tribes on the field of general history.
As early as the year B. c. 182 we find the Bastarnae in negotiations
with Philip of Macedon. Philip's plan was to get rid of the Dardanians,
and after settling his allies on the territory thus vacated to use it as a
base for an expedition against Italy. After long negotiations, the
Bastarnae in 179 abandoned their lately-won territory, crossed the
i So Zeuss and Staehelin.
## p. 191 (#221) ############################################
B. C. 182–100]
Cimbri and Teutons
191
Danube and advanced into Thrace. At this point King Philip died, and
after an unsuccessful battle with the Thracians the Bastarnae began a
retreat to the settlement which they had abandoned; but a detachment of
a
some 30,000 men under Clondicus pressed on into Dardania. With the
aid of the Thracians and Scordiscans and with the connivance of Philip's
successor, Perseus, he pressed the Dardanians hard for a time, but at last
in the winter of 175 he also decided to retire. In Rome the intrigues
of the Macedonian kings had been watched with growing mistrust and
displeasure, which found expression in the despatch of a commission to
investigate the situation in Macedonia and especially on the Dardanian
border. This, therefore, is the first occasion on which the Roman State
had to concern itself with Teutonic affairs. At that time, it is true, the
racial difference between Kelts and Teutons was not yet recognised and
the Bastarnae were therefore supposed to be Gauls. Before very long
(168), we find the Bastarnae again in relations with the King of Macedon.
Twenty thousand men, again under the command of Clondicus, were to
join him in his struggle with the Romans in Paeonia. But Perseus was
blinded by avarice, and failed to keep his promises. Clondicus therefore,
who had already reached the country of the Maedi, promptly turned to
the right-about and marched home through Thrace. From this point
they disappear from history for a time, only to reappear in the
Mithradatic wars as allies of that King, and they consequently appear
also in the list of the nations over whom Pompey triumphed in the
year 61.
In the East, on the frontiers of Europe and Asia, the Germanic
race attracted little notice; but in the West, about the close of the
second century B. C. , it shook the edifice of the Roman State to its
foundations and spread the terror of its name over the whole of Western
Europe. It was the Cimbri, along with their allies the Teutones and
Ambrones, who for half a score of years kept the world in suspense. All
three peoples were doubtless of Germanic stock'. We may take it as
established that the original home of the Cimbri was on the Jutish
peninsula, that of the Teutones somewhere between the Ems and the
Weser, and that of the Ambrones in the same neighbourhood, also on
the North Sea coast. The cause of their migration was the constant
encroachment of the sea upon their coasts, the occasion being an
inundation which devastated their territory, great stretches of it being
engulfed by the sea. This is the account given by ancient writers and
I The arguments which have been alleged in favour of the Keltic origin of the
Teutones, and sometimes also of the Ambrones, and even of the Cimbri, are quite
untenable. Not only the unanimous witness of antiquity which always represents
the Cimbri and Teutones as having their original home on the German North Sea
coast, but also the very names of these peoples which, despite all the contrary
assertions of the Keltic enthusiasts, can be naturally and convincingly explained
from the Teutonic, put their Germanic character beyond doubt.
CH. VII.
## p. 192 (#222) ############################################
192
Cimbri and Teutons
[B. C. 115–100
4.
we have no reason to doubt its truth. The exodus of all three peoples
took place about the same time, and obviously in such a way that from
the first they went forward in close touch with one another. First they
turned southwards, probably following the line of the Elbe, crossed the
Erzgebirge and pressed on into Bohemia, the land of the Boii. Driven
back by the latter, they seem to have made their way along the valley of
the March, southwards to the Danube, and then through Pannonia into
the country of the Scordisci. Here, too, they encountered (in the year
114) such vigorous opposition that they preferred to turn westwards.
That brought them into contact with the Taurisci who had just (B. C.
115) formed a close alliance with the Romans. In the Carnic Alps was
stationed a Roman army under the command of the Consul Cn. Papirius
Carbo, which immediately advanced into Noricum. Carbo's attempt by
means of a treacherous attack to annihilate the Teutons ended in a
severe defeat. The way into Italy now lay open to the victors. But
so great was the awe in which they still held the Roman name, that they
promptly turned away towards the north. Their route led them to the
territory of the Helveti, which then extended from the Lake of Constance
as far as the Main. The Helveti do not seem to have offered any
resistance ; indeed a considerable section of the Helveti-- the Tigurini
and Toygeni-attached themselves to the Teutonic migrants. The
Germanic hosts then crossed the Rhine and pressed on southwards,
plundering as they went.
In s. c. 109 they halted in the valley of the Rhone, on the frontier
of the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, for the protection of
which a strong army under the Consul M. Junius Silanus had taken
the field. The Romans attacked, but were defeated for the second
time. Again the Germans shrank from invading Roman territory
and preferred to plunder and ravage the Gallic districts, which they
completely laid waste. Finally, in the year 105 they appeared once
more on the frontier of “the Province,” this time resolved to attack the
Romans. Of the three armies which opposed them that of the Legate
M. Aurelius Scaurus was first defeated in the territory of the Allobroges.
On 6 October followed the bloody battle of Arausio in which the other
two armies, under the Consul Cn. Mallius Maximus and the Proconsul
Q. Servilius Caepio, in all some 60,000 troops, were completely annihilated.
But instead of marching into Italy, the barbarians once again let the
favourable moment slip, and thus lost the fruits of their victory. They
divided their forces. The Cimbri marched away westwards, first into
the country of the Volcae, then on over the Pyrenees into Spain where
they carried on a desultory and indecisive struggle with the Celtiberi;
the Teutons and Helveti turned northwards to continue the work of
plundering Gaul. In 103 the Cimbrian hosts made their way back to
Gaul and reunited, in the territory of South-Belgic Veliocasses, with
their comrades who had remained behind.
1
## p. 193 (#223) ############################################
B. C. 102–60]
Teutonic Invasion of Gaul
193
Now at last they prepared a march upon Italy. In the spring of
102 the main mass of the united hordes began to move southwards.
Only one section, of about 6000 men—the nucleus of the later tribe
of the Aduatuci-remained behind in Belgica to guard the spoils.
Doubtless with a view to the difficulties of the passage of the Alps,
especially in the matter of supply, the invading host was before long
divided into three columns. The plan was that the Teutones and
Ambrones should make their way into the plain of the Po from the
western side, crossing the Maritime Alps, while the Cimbri and the
Tigurini should make a wide flanking movement and enter from the
north, the former by way of the Tridentine, the latter by way of the
Noric Alps. But the attempt was planned on too vast a scale, and was
wrecked by the military skill of Marius. The Ambrones and Teutones
were annihilated in the double battle near Aquae Sextiae (summer
102), while the fate of the Cimbri overtook them in the following year.
They had already reached the soil of Italy, into which they had forced
their way after a victorious encounter with Quintus Lutatius Catulus on
the Adige, when (30 July 101), on the plains of Vercellae, the so-called
Campi Raudii, they were utterly routed by the united forces of Marius
and Catulus. The Tigurini, who were to form the third invading force,
received the news of the defeat of the Cimbri when they were still on
the Noric Alps, and immediately turned round and retired to their
own country. Thus the great invasion of the northern barbarians was
defeated, and Western Europe could once more breathe freely.
We saw above that about s. c. 100, doubtless in connexion with the
appearance of the Cimbri and Teutones in South Germany, the line
of the Main was crossed by the Germanic peoples, and the settlement
of the territory between that and the Danube began. Less than a
generation later there was another attempt to extend the Germanic
sphere of influence westward over Gaul. About the year B. c. 71, on the
invitation of the powerful tribe of the Sequani, Ariovistus chief of the
Suebi crossed the Rhine with 15,000 warriors to serve as mercenaries to
the Sequani against their neighbours the Aedui. But after the victory
was won, the strangers did not return to their own land but remained
on the western side of the Rhine and established themselves in the
territory of their employers, taking possession of about a third of it,
presumably at its northern extremity. Strengthened by large accessions
from the home-land this Germanic settlement on Gaulish territory-it
consisted of the Vangiones, Nemetes and Tribocci, and finally extended
over the whole of the left side of the Rhine valley, eastward of the
Vosges—soon became a menace to all the surrounding tribes. A united
attempt, in which the Aedui took a leading part, to expel the intruders
by force of arms ended after months of indecisive fighting in a crushing
defeat of the Gauls (at Admagetobriga), apparently in the year B. c. 61. .
Gaul lay defenceless at the feet of the victors, and they did not fail to
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. VII.
13
## p. 194 (#224) ############################################
194
Ariovistus and Caesar
[B. C. 61–58
Thus the power
make the most of their success. The Aedui and all their adherents
were forced to give hostages and to pay a yearly tribute. None dared
to oppose the conquerors, who already regarded the whole of Gaul as
,
their prey. They pursued their work deliberately and systematically,
constantly bringing in new swarms of their compatriots, chiefly Suebi and
Marcomanni, and assigning them lands in the territories which they had
subjugated. Settlers came even from Jutland, Endusi and Harudes
24,000 strong, and on their arrival the Sequani were forced to give up
another third of their territory to the new-comers.
of Ariovistus became very formidable. The establishment of a great
Germanic Empire over the whole of Gaul seemed not far distant.
At other points also the Teutons were preparing to cross the Rhine.
It seemed as if the example set by Ariovistus would lead to a general
invasion of Gaul, flood the whole country with Germans, and overwhelm
the Gaulish race. The movement began on the upper Rhine, on the
Helvetic border. The Helveti had been obliged, as we have already
seen, to retire further and further before the pressure of the Germans,
until finally all the country north of the Lake of Constance was lost to
them, and the Rhine became their northern frontier. Even here they
were not allowed to rest. A short time after the appearance of
Ariovistus the Teutons had again endeavoured to enlarge their border
towards the south, and there ensued a long struggle upon the Rhine
frontier. It was only by their utmost efforts that the Helveti were able
to beat off the attacks of their opponents. Weary of the constant
struggle, they at last resolved (B. C. 61) to leave their territory. This,
as we have seen, they did three years later, when some smaller tribes,
among them the Germanic Tulingi (p. 189 sup. ), threw in their lot with
them. The Jura region, the entrance to southern Gaul, thus lay open
to the Teutons. In the same year there appeared on the middle Rhine,
probably in the Taunus region, a powerful Suebian army—a hundred
“gau's ” under the leadership of two brothers named Nasua (perhaps
Masua) and Cimberius—and threatened to invade from this point the
territory of the Treveri on the opposite bank. Finally, there was great
restlessness also on the lower Rhine, among the tribes inhabiting the
right bank, especially among the Usipetes and Tencteri, in consequence
especially of the repeated aggressions of the warlike Suebi.
This was the condition of affairs when Caesar (B. C. 58) took
up
his
command in Gaul. He was well aware of the danger to the Roman
occupation which lay in these wholesale immigrations of Germanic
hordes into Gaulish territory, and it was consequently his first care to
take prompt measures to meet the Teutonic peril
. It is well known
how he performed this task, how he removed the haunting dread of a
general irruption of the Germanic peoples into Keltic territory, and at
the same time established security and order upon the Rhine frontier.
The restoration of the conquered Helveti to their abandoned territory
## p. 195 (#225) ############################################
B. C. 60-A. D. 9]
Teutons and Romans
195
in order that they might continue to serve, but now in the Roman
interest, as a buffer-state, secured Gaul, and especially the valley of the
Rhone, against incursions from the direction of the upper Rhine. His
victory over Ariovistus destroyed the latter's vast levies and with them
his ascendancy, but not—and herein we see again the far-sighted policy
of the conqueror—the work of colonisation begun by the Germanic
ruler. The tribes of the Vangiones, Nemetes and Tribocci which he had
settled in Gaul were allowed to remain where they were, and, like the
Helveti, were placed under the Roman suzerainty while retaining their
racial independence—ut arcerent, non ut custodirentur. But while
Caesar allowed these settlements to remain, he repressed with all the
greater energy all further efforts of expansion on the part of the dwellers
on the upper Rhine. True, the Suebian bands which in 58 had mustered
on the right bank of the river, had retired on receiving news of the
defeat of Ariovistus, so that there was no fighting with them, but the
attempt of Usipetes and Tencteri, in the following year, to find a new
home for themselves in Gaul led to a battle, in which a large portion
of them perished, and the rest were flung back across the Rhine.
Augustus assumed the offensive against the Teutons. Even though
the extension of the Roman dominion as far as the Elbe effected by
the brilliant military successes of the two step-sons of the Emperor
was of short duration—the year A. D. 9 witnessed the loss of the territory
won by the expenditure of so much blood, of which it had been proposed
to make a new province of Germania Magna-yet the Rhine frontier
was secured for a considerable time to come by a belt of fortresses
garrisoned by an army of nearly 80,000 men. This frontier was not
seriously threatened for two hundred years thereafter. Throughout that
period, except for a few insignificant raids, Gaul's eastern neighbour
remained quiescent. It was only in the third century that unrest shewed
itself again, thereafter steadily increasing as time went on. And the
cause of this was the appearance of two powerful confederacies which
thenceforward dominated the history of the Rhineland—the Alemans
and the Franks.
While the expansion of the Teutons towards the west was thus
barred by the Romans, it proceeded the more vigorously in a southward
and south-eastward direction. It is true that but little certain informa-
tion has come down to us. The movements of population, implied by
the appearance of the Marcomanni in Bohemia, of the Quadi in Moravia,
of the Naristi between the Böhmer-Wald and the Danube, of the Buri,
Lacringi, Victovali in the north of the Hungarian lowlands, are all
more or less shrouded in obscurity, and it is but rarely possible to find a
clue to their relations. About B. C. 60 the Boii had been forced by the
advance of the Germanic races from the north to abandon their ancestral
possessions. A portion of them found a dwelling-place in Pannonia,
another portion, on its way from Noricum, joined the Helvetic migra-
CB. VII.
13-2
## p. 196 (#226) ############################################
196
Marbod
[A. D. 6–14
tion. The north of the country thus left unoccupied was immediately
taken up by Hermunduric, Semnonic and Vandalic bands, offshoots of
the three great tribes which flanked Bohemia on the north. From them
were doubtless sprung the peoples who at a later time are met with here
at the southern base of the Sudetes, the Sudini, Bativi and Corconti.
They were followed by the Marcomanni, who, doubtless in consequence
of the military successes of Drusus in Germany, made their way, under
the lead of their chief Marbod, to the further side of the Böhmer-Wald
and occupied the main portion of the former country of the Boii.
The powerful kingdom which this Germanic prince established by
bringing in further masses of settlers and by subjugating the surround-
ing tribes—even the powerful Semnones, the Langobards, the Goths and
the Lugi (Vandals) are said to have acknowledged his suzerainty-had
no rival in northern Europe, and with its trained army of 70,000
footmen and 4000 horse soon became a menace to the Roman Empire.
The importance which was attached to it, and to the commanding
personality of its ruler by the Romans themselves, is evident from the
extraordinary military preparations which Tiberius set on foot (A. D. 6).
As is well known, the intervention of the Roman arms was not in the
end called for. But what even they might not have been able to accom-
plish was effected by inner dissension. In the struggle for the supremacy
of Germany against Arminius at the head of the Cherusci, and of all the
other peoples who flocked to the standard of the liberator Germaniae,
Marbod was defeated, and the fate of his kingdom was thereby decided.
First the Semnones and Langobards ranged themselves on the side of his
adversaries, then one tribe after another, so that he found his dominions
in the end reduced to their original extent, the country of the Marco-
manni. With the ruin of his Empire his own fate overtook him.
.
Treachery in his own camp forced him to seek the protection of the
Romans.
The fall of its founder did not, however, affect the stability
of the Bohemian kingdom of the Suebi. Although the Marcomanni
were never afterwards able to regain their ascendancy, they held their
own far on into the decline of the ancient world, in the country which
they had occupied under Marbod's leadership. Indeed after a time their
power was so far revived that, in alliance with the Quadi, they were able
to dominate the upper Danube frontier for fully a century.
The earliest mention of the Quadi occurs in the geographer Strabo.
He names them among the Suebian tribes who settled within the
Hercynian Forest, the mountains which form the frontier of Bohemia.
The country which they inhabited is nearly the present Moravia. Its
eastern frontier was formed by the March, the ancient Marus. That
they were of Suebian origin is clear from the express testimony of
Strabo, as well as on linguistic grounds. The only point which remains
doubtful is whether even before their coming into Moravia they had
formed a political unit, or whether they were a migratory band sent
## p. 197 (#227) ############################################
B. C. 60–2]
The Marcomanni
197
a
out by one of the great Suebian peoples, perhaps the Semnones, which
only developed into a united and independent national community after
settling in Moravia. The former, however, is the more probable.
Like their western neighbours the Marcomanni, the Quadi were the
successors of a Keltic people. As the Boii had been settled in Bohemia,
so in Moravia, from a remote period and down to Caesar's day had been
settled the Volcae Tectosages. Seeing that about s. c. 60, the advance of
the Teutons from the north over the Erzgebirge and Sudetes caused the
Boii to leave their territory, it is probable that at the same time, or a
little later, the peoples further to the east became involved in a struggle
with the invaders. But whereas the Boii by their prompt retirement
escaped the danger, the Tectosages, it would appear, were utterly
destroyed. We find the Quadi soon after in possession of their territory,
and since we get no hint of the fate of the Moravian Tectosages, the
Romans cannot yet have been in possession of the neighbouring country
of Noricum. Their destruction must therefore have fallen before B. c. 15,
when Noricum passed under the dominion of Rome. If this hypothesis
is correct the irruption of the Quadi into Moravia took place shortly
after the Boii had left Bohemia; in any case a considerable time before
the occupation of that country by the Marcomanni.
To the west of the Marcomanni, between the Böhmer-Wald and the
Danube as far up as the river Naab, were settled the Naristi. It is
equally uncertain whence they came and when they appeared in this
region. It is possible, though that is the most that can be said, that like
their eastern neighbours they belonged to the Suebian confederacy-
Tacitus certainly counts them as members of it—and that they are to
be numbered among those peoples which, according to Strabo, Marbod
had settled in the region of the Hercynia Sylva.
Guarding the flanks, as it were, of the southern territories of the
Teutons lay two settlements planted by the Romans; in the west the
Hermunduri between the upper Main and the Danube, and in the east
the Vannianic kingdom of the Suebi. The former came into being
B. C. 6-2, the Roman general, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, having assigned
to a band of Hermunduri the eastern part of the territory left free by
the migration of the Marcomanni into Bohemia ; the latter was created
by the settlement of bands of Suebian warriors belonging to the following
of the fallen Suebian leaders, Marbod and Casvalda.
The Marus is of course the March, the Cusus, as this Suebian settle-
ment cannot have been very extensive, was probably the Waag, though
it may have been the Gran, which lies further to the east. The Balmou
of Ptolemy are probably identical with these Suebians of northern
Hungary, who come into notice several times in the course of the first
century. As they disappear later, they were probably absorbed by the
Quadi. Further towards the north-east, in the Hungarian Erzgebirge,
and beyond in the upper region of the Vistula, we find in the first
CH. VII.
## p. 198 (#228) ############################################
198
Germany in the First Century
[A. D. 14–167
4
century of our era the Buri and Sidones. The former, who are men-
tioned as early as Strabo, were probably of Bastarnian, and the latter
of Lugian origin; further still, abutting on the eastern flank of the
Sidones, were the Burgiones, Ambrones and Frugundiones, doubtless
also Bastarnian.
If we now review the ethnographic situation in ancient Germany
about the close of the first century A. D. , we find on its western frontier,
in the eastern basin of the lower Rhine, the Chamavi, the Bructeri,
the Usipii, the Tencteri, the Chattuarii and Tubantes ; further in the
interior, on both sides of the Weser, the great tribes of the Chatti and
Cherusci ; further to the north, the Angrivarii; and, on the North Sea
coast, the Chauci and Frisians. In the heart of the country three
powerful Suebian populations have their seat: on the western bank of
the middle Elbe, extending as far south as the Rhaetian frontier, the
Hermunduri ; north of them, on the western bank of the lower Elbe,
the Langobards, and beyond that river, in the basins of the Havel and
the Spree, the Semnones, who were held to be the primitive stock of the
Suebi. The eastern part of the country was mainly occupied by the
Lugii. The tribes too which appear later, in the wars of the Marco-
manni (the Victovali, Asdingi and Lacringi), were doubtless also Vandalic.
Northward in the region of the Wartha and Netze, dwelt the Bur-
gundiones or Burgundi ; further north still, on the Pomeranian Baltic
coast, the Rugii and Lemovi, next to whom on the western side came
(with some other smaller tribes) the Saxons. North of these again, on
the Jutish peninsula, lay the Anglii and Varini. Turning back to the
Vistula again, we find on its eastern bank the Goths, who, apparently by
the beginning of our era, had spread from the shores of its estuary to its
upper waters. In the south, the portion of the Hermunduri which had
its seat between the Main and the Danube formed the first link in
a long chain consisting of Naristi, Marcomanni, Quadi, Buri, and
finally, beyond the confinium Germanorum, the numerous branches of the
Bastarnae.
It was therefore a vast territory which the Germanic races claimed
for their own, and yet, as was soon to appear, it was too narrow for the
energies of these young and vigorous nations. On their north foamed
the sea, to the east yawned the desert steppes of southern Russia : thus
any further expansion could only take a westward or southward direction.
But on the one side as on the other lay the unbroken line of the Roman
frontier.
Any attempt at expansion in either of these directions
must inevitably lead to an immediate collision with the Roman
Empire.
The storm which lowered upon the Bohemian mountains was soon to
burst. Mighty forces were doubtless at work in the interior of Germany
which shortly after the accession of Marcus Aurelius stirred up the whole
mass of nations from the Böhmer-Wald to the Carpathians, and let loose
## p. 199 (#229) ############################################
A. D. 167–174]
Marcus Aurelius
199
a tempest such as the Roman Empire had never before encountered on
its frontiers. In the suminer of 167 hosts of barbarians mustered along
the line of the Danube, ready to make an inroad into Roman territory.
The Praetorian Praefect, Furius Victorinus, was defeated, and slain with
most of his troops ; and the invading food poured forward over the
unprotected provinces. Not until the two Emperors reached the seat of
war (spring 168) was the plundering and ravaging stopped. The bar-
barians then withdrew to the further side of the Danube and declared
their readiness to enter into negotiations? . There, in the winter of 168-9
the plague broke out with fearful violence in the Roman camp, and at
once the complexion of events changed for the worse. In the spring, in
the absence of the Emperors, who on the outbreak of the epidemic had
returned to the capital, the army, weakened and disorganised by disease,
suffered another severe defeat, and the Praetorian Praefect, Macrinius
Vindex, met his death. Following up their victory, the Teutons assumed
the offensive all along the line. A surging mass of peoples-Hermunduri,
Naristi, Marcomanni, Quadi, Lacringi, Buri, Victovali, Asdingi and other
tribes Germanic and lazygic-swept over the provinces of Rhaetia,
Noricum, Pannonia and Daeid. Some detached bands even pushed
their way into North Italy, laid siege to Aquileia, and destroyed Opiter-
LP P.
gium, further to the west.
But the danger passed as quickly as it had arisen. Effective
measures were instantly taken. The flood of invasion was stemmed, and
as it receded the Romans, led by the Emperor in person, took the
aggressive. All the Teutons and Iazyges who remained on the south
bank were forced back across the river. So successful were the Roman
arms that by the year 171 the Quadi sued for peace. In the following
year the Roman army crossed the Danube, and laid waste the country of
the Marcomanni. Thus the two most dangerous adversaries had been sub-
dued and the war seemed over. But by the year 174 the Emperor again
found himself obliged to return to Germany. Scarcely had he entered
the country of the Quadi, when the army was placed in a highly
dangerous position by an enveloping movement of the enemy, and by
want of water. Suddenly a torrent of rain descended”, and legionaries
saw in the “miracle” a proof of the favour of the gods, and were inspired
to fight with splendid valour, and gained a complete victory. This
broke the resistance of the Quadi, and the Marcomanni also were forced
1 I refer to the fragment of Petrus Patricius (6) which Mommsen, Ges.
Schriften, iv. p. 492 n. 1, assigns to the time of Pius.
? There is no reason to doubt either the event itself, or the fact that it appeared
to the minds of contemporaries, especially of Marcus Aurelius himself, as a miracle.
See Harnack, Sitzungsber. der Berl. Akad. 1894, p. 835, and Th. Mommsen, Hermes,
30 (1895), p. 90=Ges. Schriften, iv. p. 498 (against E. Petersen, Mitt. des Arch.
Inst. röm. Abt. 9 (1894), p. 78 and A. von Damaszewski, Rhein. Mus. f. Philol. 49
(1894), p. 612); cf. also J. Geffcken, N. Jahrbuch f. d. Klass. Altertum, 3 (1899),
p. 253. Further literature in Schanz, Gesch. d. röm. Literatur, 'ın? . § 644.
CH. VII.
## p. 200 (#230) ############################################
200
Commodus
(A. D. 176-235
to make peace. In 176 the Emperor returned to Rome, and there
celebrated, along with his son Commodus, a well-deserved triumph.
In 177 Marcus rejoined his army with the purpose of completing the
work of conquest. Two new provinces, Marcomania and Sarmatia, were
to be added to his Empire and were to round off his northern boundary.
The war began (apparently before the end of 177) with an attack upon
the Quadi, after which the Marcomanni were to be dealt with. In the
course of the three-years' war both peoples were so thoroughly exhausted
that when the Emperor suddenly died (17 March 180) their military
strength was already broken.
One of the first acts of Commodus, an unworthy successor of his father,
was to make peace which surrendered to the all but beaten enemy every
advantage that had been wrested from them. The struggle for the lands
to the north of the Danube was at an end. Meanwhile the Romans
were confronted, about the close of the century, with a new and dangerous
enemy in the west, in the angle between the Main and the frontier of
upper Germany and Rhaetia—by the Alemans. As their name indicates',
the Alemans were not a single tribe but a union of tribes—a confederacy.
We hear (somewhat later) the names of several of the component tribes,
the Juthungi, the Brisigavi, the Bucinobantes and the Lentienses.
Whence did they come? No doubt the nucleus of this confederacy was
formed by the southern divisions of the Hermunduri. To these there
may have attached themselves various fragments of peoples which had
split off before and after the Marcomannic war, just as later, towards the
middle of the third century, the Semnones, in the course of a migration
southward, probably joined this confederacy and were absorbed by it.
Before long—as early as 213—the new nation came in contact with
the Romans. So far as can be made out from the confused account
which is given us of their first appearance? they had invaded Rhaetia,
whereupon the Emperor Caracalla took the field against them, flung
them back across the frontier and advanced into their territory carrying all
before him? Before twenty years had passed the Teutons-presumably the
Alemans again-renewed the attack upon the Roman frontier defences.
So threatening was the situation that the Emperor Severus Alexander felt
1 Alemanni (Gothic alamans from the Old Teutonic *alamannez) means "all
people," "all men,” and therefore designates an aggregate of peoples. So the
historian Asinius Quadratus (in Agathias, 1. 6, p. 17): oi 'Alapavoi. . . Súvnavdés
εισιν άνθρωποι και μιγάδες, και τούτο δύναται αυτοίς ή επωνυμία.
: Dio, lxxvii. 13–15, on which see Bang, Hermes, 41 (1906), p. 623; cf. Herodian,
iv. 7. 2-3; Vita Carac. 5. 4. 6; 10. 6.
3 According to the records of the Arval College for the year 213 (C. I. L.
vi. 2086) the members made an offering on 11 August quod dominus n[oster). . .
per limitem Raetiae ad hostes extirpandos barbarorum (terram) introiturus est, ut ea
res ei prospere feliciterque cedat, and on 6 October ob salute[m] victoriamque
Germanicam of the sovereign. Ob victoriam Germanicam is also the cause of the setting
of the inscription in C. I. L. XII. 6459 and the same victoria Germanica appears on
the coins of the year 213 (Cohen, 1v2. 210 n. 645–6).
up
P.
## p. 201 (#231) ############################################
A. D. 235–258]
The Alemanni
201
a
himself obliged to break off his campaign against the Persians, and take
over in person the direction of the operations on the Rhine. Negotia-
tions had already begun before his assassination (March 235), but his
successor, the rough and soldierly Maximin, brought new life into the
campaign. Advancing by forced marches into the country of the
Alemans he drove the barbarians before him without serious resistance,
laid waste their fields and dwellings far and wide, and finally defeated
them far in the interior of their territory.
The result of this campaign, the last war of offence on a large scale
which the Romans waged on the Rhine, was the restoration of security
to the frontier for a period of twenty years. Under Gallienus-probably
about the year 258—the storm broke. With irresistible force the armies
of the Alemans broke through the great chain of frontier fortifications
between the Main and the Danube, and after overpowering the scattered
Roman garrisons, poured like a flood across the whole of the Agri
Decumates, and established themselves permanently in the conquered
territory. At the same time Rhaetia became a prey to them; nay more,
.
a strong force even crossed the Alps and penetrated as far as Ravenna.
The invaders were, it is true, defeated by Gallienus near Milan, and
forced to retreat, but the country at the northern base of the Alps was
lost, and its loss threw open to the Germanic hordes the gates of Italy.
In addition to the Alemans of the upper Rhine, there now appeared,
on the lower course of that river, another dangerous enemy, namely the
Franks. The frontier had scarcely ever been seriously threatened at this
point since the days of Augustus, but now under Gallienus the situation
was altered. Here also there had quietly grown up a confederacy which,
under the name of Franci, the Free, presumably comprised the tribes
formerly met with in these regions, the Chamavi, Sugambri and other
smaller clans. Their name, first heard in the time of Gallienus, was soon
to become even more terrible in the ears of the Romans than that of the
Alemans. The first attack of the new league of peoples upon the Rhine
.
frontier occurred in 253. The districts on the Gaulish bank of the
Rhine soon fell into the hands of the enemy. With great difficulty
Gallienus succeeded in forcing them back across the Rhine.
