Germanic Tribes

Not a state, and barely a category - a label Roman writers applied to peoples east of the Rhine and north of the Danube who did not think of themselves as one thing. Caesar drew the Rhine boundary between Gaul and Germania partly to justify stopping there, and Tacitus's Germania of 98 described these peoples largely to criticise Rome by contrast, which makes it a moralising text rather than an ethnography. The groups it names - Cherusci, Chatti, Suebi, Marcomanni and dozens more - formed, dissolved and renamed themselves constantly, and archaeology shows far more continuity of place than of people. Their decisive collective moment was the destruction of three Roman legions under Varus in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, organised by Arminius, a Cherusican who had served as a Roman officer; Rome never seriously attempted permanent conquest beyond the Rhine afterwards. Contact along that frontier then ran for four centuries in trade, recruitment and raiding, and Roman service reshaped the peoples involved far more than Roman conquest could have. By the fourth century larger confederations had formed - Franks, Alemanni, Saxons, Goths - and these are the groups that entered and succeeded the western empire. Runic writing appears from about the second century. Arminius was later recruited as a German national symbol under the name Hermann. The Rhine and the Danube formed the limes, fortified for four centuries. Bog bodies and weapon deposits are among the richest archaeological sources. The Elder Futhark runic alphabet has twenty-four characters. Tacitus never visited the region he described. The Kalkriese site in Germany is now the accepted location of the Varus battle.

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