The Roman empire under Hadrian (ruled 117-138 AD), showing the location of the Lugii (Vandilii) tribes between the Viadua (Oder) and Vistula rivers
Ancient tribal confederation of Central Europe
The Lugii (or Lugi, Lygii, Ligii, Lugiones, Lygians, Ligians, Lugians, or Lougoi) were a group of tribes mentioned by Roman authors living in ca. 100 BC–300 AD in Central Europe, north of the Sudetes mountains in the basin of upper Oder and Vistula rivers, covering most of modern southern and middle Poland (regions of Silesia, Greater Poland, Mazovia and Lesser Poland).
Most archaeologists identify the Lugians with the Przeworsk culture, which is also associated with the Vandals, and it has been suggested that the Lugians and Vandals may have been closely related or even the same. While this culture was strongly Celtic-influenced in early Roman times, the Lugii are also sometimes regarded as Germanic, like the Vandals.
They played an important role on the middle part of the Amber Road from Sambia at the Baltic Sea to the provinces of Roman Empire: Pannonia, Noricum and Raetia.[1] The Lugii should not be confused with a tribe of the same name, usually spelled as Lugi, that inhabited the southern part of Sutherland in Scotland. The Lugii have been identified by many modern historians as the same people as the Vandals, with whom they must certainly have been strongly linked during Roman times.[1][2][3]
Etymology
The etymology of the name Lugii is uncertain. It could be related to the Celtic root *leug- ('swamp'), *lugiyo- ('oath'; cf. Gaulishluge, 'by the oath', OIr.luige 'oath'), *lugo- ('black', cf. Ir. loch), or possibly to the name of the god Lug.[4]
History
The Lugii are first mentioned in Strabo's Geographica. He writes that the Lugians were "a great people" and—together with other peoples like Semnones, Lombards and the otherwise unknown Zumi, Butones, Mugilones and Sibini—were part of a federation subjected to the rule of Maroboduus, ruler of the Marcomanni with their centre in modern Bohemia 9 BC–19 AD.[1][5] In 19 AD Maroboduus was overthrown with the help of Arminius of the Cherusci.[5]
The Lugii are not mentioned at all by Pliny the Elder, who instead mentions the Vandilii living in the same area as one of the most important peoples of Germania, including the tribes Burgundiones, Varines, Charines and Gutones.[6]
The next mention of Lugii are the times of the Roman emperor Claudius (41–54). According to Tacitus's Annales, in 50 'a great multitude' of Lugians and Hermunduri, led by the Hermundurian Vibilius, took part in the fall of Vannius, who the Romans had imposed as a ruler to replace Maroboduus. In the book Germania (43:3), Tacitus mentions the name Vandilii as a "genuine and ancient name", but does not mention the Vandilii in the list of peoples at all.[6] Tacitus however describes the Lugii, writing that they were divided into many tribes ('civitates'), of which he mentions the five most powerful: Harii, Helveconae, Manimi, Helisii and Nahanarvali.
The next information about the Lugians comes from Cassius Dio's work Roman History, in which he mentions events of 91–92 during the reign of emperor Domitian. The Lugii allied themselves with the Romans and asked them for help against some of the Suebi. Domitian sent 100 horsemen to support the Lugians. It is not known if these horsemen really arrived at their destination; if they did, it would be the first recorded presence of Roman soldiers on what is now Poland.[7] The 12th century Chronica Polonorum by Wincenty Kadlubek mentions the alliance between the Lugii and the Romans.[8]
Ptolemy mentions the Lugi Omani (Λοῦγοι οἱ Ὀμανοί), the Lugi Diduni (Λοῦγοι οἱ Διδοῦνοι) and the Lugi Buri (Λοῦγοι οἱ Βοῦροι) located on or near the upper Vistula in Germania Magna in what is now south Poland (Book 2, Chapter 10, 4th map of Europe). Ptolemy does not mention the Vandals at all.[6] The Buri, who according to Ptolemy were part of the Lugians, (Tacitus treated them separately, and as Suebian in language) took an important role during the Marcomannic Wars (166–180): the Romans were forced to organize a separate military campaign against them called 'Expeditio Burica' in 182-183 during the reign of emperor Commodus.
The later history of the Lugians is uncertain, but some historians assume that the Lugians can be identified with the 'Longiones' tribe mentioned in Zosimus's New History (Historia Nova), as being defeated by the Emperor Probus in year 279 in the province of Raetia near the Lygis river (usually identified with Lech river in modern Austria and Bavaria). Another mention might be a great people of 'Lupiones-Sarmatae' shown on the Latin map Tabula Peutingeriana generally dated to 2nd-4th century AD.
The Lugii were probably completely absorbed into the Vandals by the 3rd century.[1] While the two peoples are located by Roman authors as living in the same region, they are never mentioned simultaneously.[6] According to John Anderson, the "Lugii and Vandilii are designations of the same tribal group, the latter an extended ethnic name, the former probably a cult-title."[3]Herwig Wolfram notes that "In all likelihood the Lugians and the Vandals were one cultic community that lived in the same region of the Oder in Silesia, where it was first under Celtic and then under Germanic domination."[2]
The Burgundians were an early Germanic tribe or group of tribes. They appeared in the middle Rhine region, near the Roman Empire, and were later moved into the empire, in eastern Gaul. They were possibly mentioned much earlier in the time of the Roman Empire as living in part of the region of Germania that is now part of Poland.
The Marcomanni were a Germanic people that established a powerful kingdom north of the Danube, somewhere near modern Bohemia, during the peak of power of the nearby Roman Empire. According to Tacitus and Strabo, they were Suebian.
Maroboduus, also known as Marbod, was a king of the Marcomanni, who were a Germanic Suebian people. He spent part of his youth in Rome, and returning, found his people under pressure from invasions by the Roman Empire between the Rhine and Elbe. He led them into the forests of Bohemia, near to the Quadi who already lived nearby, and established a large alliance.
The Suebi or Suebians were a large group of Germanic peoples originally from the Elbe river region in what is now Germany and the Czech Republic. In the early Roman era they included many peoples with their own names such as the Marcomanni, Quadi, Hermunduri, Semnones, and Lombards. New groupings formed later, such as the Alamanni and Bavarians, and two kingdoms in the Migration Period were simply referred to as Suebian.
The Chatti were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (Visurgis) river. They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the valleys and mountains of the Eder and Fulda regions, a district approximately corresponding to Hesse-Kassel, though probably somewhat more extensive. They settled within the region in the first century BC. According to Tacitus, the Batavians and Cananefates of his time, tribes living within the Roman Empire, were descended from part of the Chatti, who left their homeland after an internal quarrel drove them out, to take up new lands at the mouth of the Rhine.
The Vandals were a Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century.
The Quadi were a Germanic people who lived approximately in the area of modern Moravia in the time of the Roman Empire. The only surviving contemporary reports about the Germanic tribe are those of the Romans, whose empire had its border on the River Danube just to the south of the Quadi. They associated the Quadi with their neighbours the Marcomanni, and described both groups as having entered the region after the Celtic Boii had left it deserted. The Quadi may later have contributed to the "Suebian" group who crossed the Rhine with the Vandals and Alans in 406, and later founded a kingdom in northwestern Iberia.
Germania, also called Magna Germania, Germania Libera, or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a historical region in north-central Europe during the Roman era, which was associated by Roman authors with the Germanic people. The region stretched roughly from the Middle and Lower Rhine in the west to the Vistula in the east. It also extended at some point as far south as the Upper and Middle Danube and Pannonia, and to the known parts of southern Scandinavia in the north. Archaeologically, these people correspond roughly to the Roman Iron Age of those regions. While dominated by Germanic people, Magna Germania was also inhabited by a few other Indo-European people.
This is a chronology of warfare between the Romans and various Germanic peoples. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings, later Germanic invasions of the Western Roman Empire that started in the late second century BC, and more. The series of conflicts was one factor which led to the ultimate downfall of the Western Roman Empire in particular and ancient Rome in general in 476.
The Angrivarii were a Germanic people of the early Roman Empire, who lived in what is now northwest Germany near the middle of the Weser river. They were mentioned by the Roman authors Tacitus and Ptolemy.
The Silings or Silingi were a Germanic tribe, part of the larger Vandal group. The Silingi at one point lived in Silesia, and the names Silesia and Silingi may be related.
The Helveconae, or Helvaeonae, or Helvecones, or Aelvaeones, or Ailouaiones were a Germanic tribe mentioned by Roman authors. They are possibly connected to the Hilleviones of Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder. The Helveconae as such are one of the tribal states of the Lugii mentioned by Tacitus in Germania. The Lugii were located in the Silesia area. Their ethnicity is speculative. Subsequent authors, such as Johann Jacob Hofmann, 1635-1706, identified the people of Tacitus with a people of Ptolemy, the Ailouaiones in Greek, which has been Latinized to Aelvaeones. Perhaps the scholars innovated Helvecones, which is not attested in classical times.
The 'Baenochaemae, Bainochaimai were a Germanic people recorded only in the Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, who described them as living near the Elbe.
The Buri were a Germanic tribe in the time of the Roman empire who lived in mountainous and forested lands north of the Danube, in an area near what is now the west of modern Slovakia.
The Gutones were a Germanic people who were reported by Roman era writers in the 1st and 2nd centuries to have lived in what is now Poland. The most accurate description of their location, by the geographer Ptolemy, placed them east of the Vistula River.
The Agri Decumates or Decumates Agri were a region of the Roman Empire's provinces of Germania Superior and Raetia, covering the Black Forest, Swabian Jura, and Franconian Jura areas between the Rhine, Main, and Danube rivers, in present southwestern Germany, including present Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Freiburg im Breisgau, and Weißenburg in Bayern. The only ancient reference to the name comes from Tacitus' book Germania. However, the later geographer Claudius Ptolemy does mention "the desert of the Helvetians" in this area.
The Nahanarvali, also known as the Nahavali, Naha-Narvali, and Nahanavali, were a Germanic tribe mentioned by the Roman scholar Tacitus in his Germania.
The Manimi were a Germanic tribe. They were mentioned by Tacitus, in his ethnographic book Germania, where he stated that the Manimi were one of the five most powerful tribes of the Lugii. They lived between the Oder and the Vistula.
The name of the Goths is one of the most discussed topics in Germanic philology. It is first recorded by Greco-Roman writers in the 3rd century AD, although names that are probably related appear earlier. Derived from Proto-Germanic *Gutōz ~ *Gutaniz, it is closely related to and probably means the same as the names of both the Geats of southern Sweden and Gutes of Gotland. The implications of these similarities, and the actual meaning of the Gothic name, are disputed in scholarship.
Concerning the origin of the Goths before the 3rd century, there is no consensus among scholars. It was in the 3rd century that the Goths began to be described by Roman writers as an increasingly important people north of the lower Danube and Black Sea, in the area of modern Romania, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine. They replaced other peoples who had been dominant in the region, such as especially the Carpi. However, while some scholars, such as Michael Kulikowski, believe there is insufficient evidence to come to strong conclusions about their earlier origins, the most commonly accepted proposal is that the Goths known to the Romans were a people whose traditions derived to some extent from the Gutones who lived near the delta of the Vistula in what is now Poland. More speculatively, the Gutones may have been culturally related to the similarly named Gutes of Gotland and the Geats of southern Scandinavia.
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