"Suebians" redirects here and is not to be confused with Swabians.
The approximate positions of some Germanic peoples reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 1st century. Suebian peoples in red, and other Irminones in purple.
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. 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.[1] The Lombards, facing pressure from the arrival of the Avars into the area, moved into Italy and began taking control of it, bit by bit.
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.[2]
Etymology
The spelling form "Suebi" is the dominant one in classical times, while the common variant "Suevi" also appears throughout history. Around 300-600 AD spellings such as Suaevi, Suavi, and Σούαβοι started to occur, because of a sound shift which occurred in West Germanic at this time. However, the classical spellings also continued to be used also.[3] The Proto-Germanic pronunciation is reconstructed as *Swēbōz.[4]
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).[4]
Concerning the second part of the word, the similarity between the Suebian name and the reconstructed Germanic word *sebjō meaning "clan", “related" or "family” is generally seen as a related word.[4] 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”.[5]
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 *-bū- “to be”.[4] 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”.[6]
Alternatively, it may be borrowed from a Celtic word for "vagabond".[7]
Mušov Cauldron, a Roman bronze cauldron found in 1988 in a Germanic chieftain's grave in Mušov, Czech Republic, dating to the 2nd century A.D. The cauldron is decorated by four cast heads of Germanic men wearing a Suebian knot hairstyle
Language
While there is uncertainty about whether all tribes identified by Romans as Germanic spoke a Germanic language, the Suebi are generally agreed to have spoken one or more Germanic languages. In particular, the Suebi are associated with the concept of an "Elbe Germanic" group of early dialects spoken by the Irminones, entering Germany from the east, and originating on the Baltic. In late classical times, these dialects experienced the High German consonant shift that defines modern High German languages, and in its most extreme form, Upper German.[8]
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.[10] 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[11] 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.
Classical ethnography
Roman bronze statuette of a Suebian captive. First to 3rd century AD.
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.[12] 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.
In a digression about the Suebi of his time, Caesar called them the largest and the most warlike nation (Latin: gens) 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 (Latin: pagi), each of which could supply a thousand men for military campaigns which were sent out every year.[13] They were powerful enough to force the peoples near them to keep a large swathe of lands around them unoccupied.[14]
Captive with Suebian knot National Museum of Romanian History
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.[15]
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.[15] However, "situated above" (Greek: ὑπέρκειμαι) 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".[16] 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".[15]
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 (Latin: genera).[17] 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.[18]
Still later, Tacitus, wrote a study of Germania around 100 AD. He specified that the Suevi "are not one single tribe (Latin: gens) like the Chatti or Tencteri; for they occupy a larger part of Germania, and though still divided into distinct nations and names (Latin: propriis adhuc nationibus nominibusque discreti), they are commonly referred to as Suebi".[19] 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.[20] 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 (Latin: caput), and origin of the Suebian nation (Latin: initia gentis). Like the Suebi described by Caesar they lived in 100 pagi. Their reputation was reinforced by their sacred grove where "all the tribes (Latin: populi) of the same name and blood come together", referring to all Suebi, and not just all Semnones.[21]
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.[22]
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.[23] 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.[24] 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.[23][25]
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.[26]
Historical events
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Marble bust of Julius Caesar, first century C.E.; recent discovery on the Island of Pantelleria.
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.
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.[27] Other Suebi appear among the peoples Caesar listed in the battle line-up of Ariovistus himself: "Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, and Suevi".[28] 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.[29]
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.[30] 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.[31]
The Germanic campaigns of Augustus
Shortly before 29 BC, the Suebi crossed the Rhine, and were defeated by the Roman governor of in Gaul Gaius Carrinas who, along with the young Octavian Caesar (the future Augustus), celebrated a triumph in 29 BC.[32] Shortly afterwards, captured Suebians fought as gladiators against captured Dacians at Rome.
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".[33]Suetonius reported that the Suebi and Sugambri "were taken into Gaul and settled in lands near the Rhine" while the other Germani were pushed "to the farther side of the river Albis" (Elbe).[34] 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.[35]
Orosius claimed that the Marcomanni were nearly wiped out after their defeat during this campaign.[36] 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".[37]
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.[38] 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.[39]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.[40]
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 Romans] 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.[41] 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 near the Marcomanni from 6-9 AD.[42]
No sooner had the Illyrian wars been ended in 9 AD when Rome's dominance of the land between Rhine and Elbe was severely checked by the rebellion of the Cherusci and their allies which 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.
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.[43]
In 17 AD war broke out among these two alliances of Germanic peoples, led by Arminius and Maroboduus. Maroboduus requested help from Rome but the Romans reject him. According to Tacitus the Romans claimed that Maroboduus "had no right to invoke the aid of Roman arms against the Cherusci, when he had rendered no assistance to the Romans in their conflict with the same enemy". After an indecisive battle, Maroboduus withdrew into the hilly forests of Bohemia in 18 AD.[44] The Romans urged the Germani "to complete the destruction of the now broken power of Maroboduus".[45] This was all in line with the new foreign policy of the emperor Tiberius.[46]
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.[46]
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. There are proposals that the Romans were deliberately trying to create a buffer state with this settlement, but there is no consensus about this.[47] 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.[48]
Vannius was himself eventually also deposed by Vibilius and the Hermunduri, working together with the Lugii from the north, in 50/51 AD. He personally benefitted from the new situation and became very wealthy and unpopular. 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.[49] 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.[48]
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.[50]
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).[51]
In the 2nd century AD, the Marcomanni entered into a confederation with other peoples including the Quadi, Vandals, and Sarmatians, against the Roman Empire. The war began in 166, when the Marcomanni overwhelmed the defences between Vindobona and Carnuntum, penetrated along the border between the provinces of Pannonia and Noricum, laid waste to Flavia Solva, and could be stopped only shortly before reaching Aquileia on the Adriatic sea. The war lasted until Marcus Aurelius' death in 180.
Third century
Alemanni expansion and Roman-Alemannic battle sites, 3rd to 5th century
Around 214/215 AD, Dio Cassius reports that because of raids into Pannonia, the emperor Caracalla invited the Quadi king Gaiobomarus to meet him, and then had him executed. According to this report Caracalla "claimed that he had overcome the recklessness, greed, and treachery of the Germans by deceit, since these qualities could not be conquered by force", and he was proud of the "enmity with the Vandili and the Marcomani, who had been friends, and in having executed Gaïobomarus".[52]
During the reign of the Roman emperor Philip the Arab (reigned 244-249 AD), who cut off gifts which were being paid to Ukrainian Goths under the rule of Ostrogotha, the 6th century writer Jordanes believed that the Marcomanni were also paying tribute to this same Gothic king, and the princes of the Quadi were effectively slaves of the Goths.
During the reign of Valerian (253-260 AD) the historian Zosimus reported that the Marcomanni made excursions at the same time as "Scythians" (Goths and allied peoples from Ukraine), making inroads into all the countries adjacent to the empire, laying Thessalonica waste.[53] Valerian's son Gallienus (reigned 253-268 AD) settled the Marcomanni within the Roman province of Pannonia Superior, south of the Danube. He also took Pipa or Pipara, the daughter of the Marcomanni king, Attalus, as a concubine.[54]
In 259/60, one or more groups of Suebi appear to have been the main element in the formation of a new tribal alliance known as the Alemanni who came to occupy the Roman frontier region known as the Agri Decumates, east of the Rhine and south of the Main. The Alamanni were sometimes simply referred to as Suebi by contemporaries, and the region came to be known as Swabia – a name which survives to this day. People in this region of Germany are still called Schwaben, a name derived from the Suebi. One specific group in the region in the 3rd century, sometimes distinguished from the Alamanni, were the Juthungi, which a monument found in Augsburg refers to as Semnones.
Although the details are not clear, the emperor Diocletian claimed a triumph over the Marcomanni in 299 AD.[54]
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.
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 Frankish 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.[55] The Marcomanni probably made up one significant part of these Suebi, who lived in at least two distinct areas.[56] Later, the Lombards, a Suebic group long known on the Elbe, came to dominate the Pannonian region before successfully invading Italy.
Suebi under king Hermeric, probably coming from the Alemanni, the Quadi, or both,[57] 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.
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 Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy or the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania, it reached a relative stability and prosperity—and even expanded military southwards—despite the occasional quarrels with the neighbouring Visigothic kingdom.
The Germanic invaders and immigrants settled mainly in rural areas, as Idacius clearly stated: "The Hispanic, spread over cities and oppida..." 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. Orosius, at that time resident in Hispania, shows a rather pacific initial settlement, the newcomers working their lands[58] or serving as bodyguards of the locals.[59] 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, in the area known as Terras de Bouro (Lands of the Buri), Portugal.[60]
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.[61] In Galicia, four parishes and six villages are named Suevos or Suegos, i.e. Sueves, after old Suebic settlements.
Establishment
Suebic sword. Conimbriga, Portugal
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 Rechila, who proved to be a notable general, defeating first Andevotus, Romanae militiae dux,[62] 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
The Suebic kingdom of Gallaecia (green), c. 550, (with borders of the former Roman provinces of Hispania)
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,[63] 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 Audeca, 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 Priscillianist until an Arian 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:
The minutes of the First Council of Braga—which met on 1 May 561—state explicitly that the synod was held at the orders of a king named Ariamir. Of the eight assistant bishops, just one bears a Suebic name: Hildemir. While the Catholicism of Ariamir is not in doubt, that he was the first Chalcedonian monarch of the Suebi since Rechiar has been contested on the grounds that his Catholicism is not explicitly stated.[clarification needed][64] He was, however, the first Suebic monarch to hold a Catholic synod, and when the Second Council of Braga was held at the request of king Miro, a Catholic himself,[65] in 572, of the twelve assistant bishops five bears Suebic names: Remisol of Viseu, Adoric of Idanha, Wittimer of Ourense, Nitigis of Lugo and Anila of Tui.
According to the Frankish historian Gregory of Tours, on the other hand, an otherwise unknown sovereign named Chararic, having heard of Martin of Tours, promised to accept the beliefs of the saint if only his son would be cured of leprosy. Through the relics and intercession of Saint Martin the son was healed; Chararic and the entire royal household converted to the Nicene faith.[67]
By 589, when the Third Council of Toledo was held, and the Visigoth Kingdom of Toledo converted officially from Arianism to Catholicism, king Reccared I stated in its minutes that also "an infinite number of Suebi have converted", together with the Goths, which implies that the earlier conversion was either superficial or partial. In the same council, four bishops from Gallaecia abjured of their Arianism. And so, the Suebic conversion is ascribed, not to a Suebe, but to a Visigoth by John of Biclarum, who puts their conversion alongside that of the Goths, occurring under Reccared I in 587–589.
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.[68][69] 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.[64] Dahn equated Chararic with Theodemir, even saying that the latter was the name he took upon baptism.[64] It has also been suggested that Theodemir and Ariamir were the same person and the son of Chararic.[64] In the opinion of some historians, Chararic is nothing more than an error on the part of Gregory of Tours and never existed.[70] 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.[67] 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.[71]
Suebic and Roman fibullae from Conimbriga, Portugal
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.[72]Sváfa, whose name means "Suebian",[73] was a Valkyrie who appears in the eddic poem Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar. The kingdom Sváfaland also appears in this poem and in the Þiðrekssaga.
↑ Schrijver, Peter (2003). "The etymology of Welsh chwith and the semantics and morphology of PIE *k(w)sweibh-". In Russell, Paul (ed.). Yr Hen Iaith: Studies in Early Welsh. Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications. ISBN978-1-891271-10-6.
1 2 Robinson, Orrin (1992), Old English and its Closest Relatives pages 194–5.
↑ Waldman & Mason, 2006, Encyclopedia of European Peoples, p. 784.
↑ Maurer, Friedrich (1952) [1942]. Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes – und Volkskunde. Bern, München: A. Franke Verlag, Leo Lehnen Verlag.
↑ Kossinna, Gustaf (1911). Die Herkunft der Germanen. Leipzig: Kabitsch.
↑ 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 barbarians, detesting their swords, turn them into ploughs", Historiarum Adversum Paganos, VII, 41, 6.
↑ "anyone wanting to leave or to depart, uses these barbarians as mercenaries, servers or defenders", Historiarum Adversum Paganos, VII, 41, 4.
↑ Domingos Maria da Silva, Os Búrios, Terras de Bouro, Câmara Municipal de Terras de Bouro, 2006. (in Portuguese)
↑ 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: 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"
↑ Peterson, Lena. "Swābaharjaz"(PDF). Lexikon över urnordiska personnamn. Institutet för språk och folkminnen, Sweden. p.16. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2011-05-18. Retrieved 2007-10-11. (Text in Swedish); for an alternative meaning, as "free, independent" see Room, Adrian (2006). "Swabia, Sweden". Placenames of the World: Origins and Meanings of the Names for 6,600 Countries, Cities, Territories, Natural Features and Historic Sites: Second Edition. Jefferson, North Carolina, and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. pp.363, 364. ISBN0786422483.; compare Suiones
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