The Victohali [A] were a people of Late Antiquity who lived north of the Lower Danube. In Greek their name is Biktoa or Biktoloi. They were possibly a Germanic people, and it has been suggested that they were one of the tribes of the Vandals. [1]
They crossed the Danube with the Marcomanni and Quadi during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161–180). According to the chapters attributed to "Julius Capitolinus" in the unreliable Historia Augusta :
. . . now not only were the Victuali and Marcomanni throwing everything into confusion, but other tribes, who had been driven on by the more distant barbarians and had retreated before them, were ready to attack Italy if not peaceably received. [2]
They also participated in the Marcomannic Wars, or, as Capitolinus calls it, the "German war" or "war of many nations". [3]
They participated in the barbarian conflict with the Roman Empire in 290, or earlier. According to Eutropius, writing around 360, nunc Taifali, Victohali et Tervingi habent ("the Taifali, Victohali, and Tervingi now possess") Dacia. [4] Claudius Mamertinus, in a speech praising Maximian, says of some year shortly after 291 Tervingi, pars alia Gothorum, adiuncta manu Taifalorum, adversum Vandalos Gipedesque concurrunt ("Tervingi, another part of the Goths, together with the Taifals, campaigned against the Vandals and Gepids"). Given the location of this fighting and the peoples involved, "Vandals" in this instance is possibly an error for Victohali, who are known to have inhabited the region of the Tisza and Somes rivers at this time (from Eutropius), or alternatively perhaps the Victohali were a part of the Vandals (Vandili), along with the Lacringi, Asdingi, Silingi, Helvecones, and Nahanarvali.
During the reign of Constantius II, the Sarmatian masters (the Arcaragantes) were defeated by their slaves (the Limagantes) during a revolt and fled to the Victohali for protection, as Ammianus Marcellinus writes:
And these native chiefs, losing all their wisdom in their fear, fled to the Victohali, whose settlements were at a great distance, thinking it better in the choice of evils to become subject to their protectors than slaves to their own slaves. [5]
The Bastarnae and Peucini were two ancient peoples who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited areas north of the Roman frontier on the Lower Danube. The Bastarnae lived in the region between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Dnieper, to the north and east of ancient Dacia. The Peucini occupied the region north of the Danube Delta.
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.
The Suebi 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 170s decade ran from January 1, 170, to December 31, 179.
The 370s decade ran from January 1, 370, to December 31, 379.
Marcus Aurelius Probus was Roman emperor from 276 to 282. Probus was an active and successful general as well as a conscientious administrator, and in his reign of six years he secured prosperity for the inner provinces while withstanding repeated invasions of barbarian tribes on almost every sector of the frontier.
The Quadi were a Germanic people who lived approximately in the area of modern Moravia in the time of the Roman Empire. The only known information about the Germanic tribe the Romans called them comes through reports 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 have been part of the "Suebian" group who crossed the Rhine with the Vandals and Alans in the 406 Crossing of the Rhine, and later founded a kingdom in northwestern Iberia.
The Iazyges were an ancient Sarmatian tribe that traveled westward in c. 200 BC from Central Asia to the steppes of modern Ukraine. In c. 44 BC, they moved into modern-day Hungary and Serbia near the Dacian steppe between the Danube and Tisza rivers, where they adopted a semi-sedentary lifestyle.
The Hermunduri, Hermanduri, Hermunduli, Hermonduri, or Hermonduli were an ancient Germanic tribe, who occupied an inland area near the source of the Elbe river, around what is now Bohemia from the first to the third century, though they have also been speculatively associate with Thuringia further north. According to an old proposal based on the similarty of the names, the Thuringii may have been the descendants of the Hermunduri. At times, they apparently moved to the Danube frontier with Rome. Claudius Ptolemy mentions neither tribe in his geography but instead the Teuriochaemae, who may also be connected to both.
This is a chronology of warfare between the Romans and various Germanic tribes between 113 BC and 596 AD. The nature of these wars varied through time between Roman conquest, Germanic uprisings and later Germanic invasions in the Roman Empire that started in the late second century BC. The series of conflicts was one factor which led to the ultimate downfall of the Western Roman Empire.
The Varisci were a Germanic tribe, the presumed prior inhabitants of a medieval district, Provincia Variscorum, the same as the Vogtland district of Saxony in Germany. They do not appear under that name exactly in ancient history, however, but rather come on stage boldly and abruptly in the Germania of Tacitus as the Naristi, with manuscript variants of Narisci and Varisti. Perhaps the historical name of the mediaeval province is to be regarded as the final authority, but there are other possibilities:
The Buri were a Germanic tribe mentioned in the Germania of Tacitus, where they initially "close the back" of the Marcomanni and Quadi of Bohemia and Moravia. It is said that their speech and customs were like those of the Suebi. Such a statement implies that the Buri had recently come from the direction of the Baltic Sea, as other Germanic settlers in Bohemia and Moravia were newcomers, having driven out the Celtic Boii, or more likely absorbing and incorporating them after defeating them in battle and establishing a new authority. In Tacitus, the Buri are not linked to the Lugii.
The Marcomannic Wars were a series of wars lasting from about 166 AD until 180. These wars pitted the Roman Empire against, principally, the Germanic Marcomanni and Quadi and the Sarmatian Iazyges; there were related conflicts with several other Germanic, Sarmatian and Gothic peoples along both sides of the whole length of the Roman Empire's northeastern European border, the river Danube.
The Thervingi, Tervingi, or Teruingi were a Gothic people of the plains north of the Lower Danube and west of the Dniester River in the 3rd and the 4th centuries.
The Greuthungi were a Gothic people who lived on the Pontic steppe between the Dniester and Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic people, who lived west of the Dniester River. To the east of the Greuthungi, living near the Don river, were the Alans.
The Taifals or Tayfals were a people group of Germanic or Sarmatian origin, first documented north of the lower Danube in the mid third century AD. They experienced an unsettled and fragmented history, for the most part in association with various Gothic peoples, and alternately fighting against or for the Romans. In the late fourth century some Taifali were settled within the Roman Empire, notably in western Gaul in the modern province of Poitou. They subsequently supplied mounted units to the Roman army and continued to be a significant source of cavalry for early Merovingian armies. By the sixth century their region of western Gaul had acquired a distinct identity as Thifalia.
Slovakia was partly occupied by Roman legions for a short period of time. Marcomannia was a proposed province of the Roman Empire that Emperor Marcus Aurelius planned to establish in this territory. It was inhabited by the Germanic tribes of Marcomanni and Quadi, and lay in the western parts of the modern states and Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Moravia). Part of the area was occupied by the Romans under Marcus Aurelius between 174 AD and 180 AD. His successors abandoned the project, but the people of the area became steadily Romanized during the next two centuries. The Roman influence was disrupted with the invasions of Attila starting around 434 AD and as Slavic people later began to move into the area.
Roman Dacia was a province of the Roman Empire from 106 to 271–275 AD. Its territory consisted of what are now the regions of Oltenia, Transylvania and Banat. During Roman rule, it was organized as an imperial province on the borders of the empire. It is estimated that the population of Roman Dacia ranged from 650,000 to 1,200,000. It was conquered by Trajan (98–117) after two campaigns that devastated the Dacian Kingdom of Decebalus. However, the Romans did not occupy its entirety; Crișana, Maramureș, and most of Moldavia remained under the Free Dacians.
The German and Sarmatian campaigns of Constantine were fought by the Roman Emperor Constantine I against the neighbouring Germanic peoples, including the Franks, Alemanni and Goths, as well as the Sarmatian Iazyges, along the whole Roman northern defensive system to protect the empire's borders, between 306 and 336.
The timeline of Hungarian history lists the important historical events that took place in the territory of Hungary or are closely connected to the history of the country.