Suebi / Alemanni

Suebi was a name Roman writers used for a very large group of peoples between the Rhine, the Danube and the Elbe, and it covers rather more than one nation: Tacitus says they occupied half of Germany, and the Baltic was called the Suebian Sea. Caesar met them first, when Ariovistus led a Suebian force into Gaul at the invitation of the Sequani in the 70s BC, took a third of their land and then more, and was destroyed by Caesar in 58 BC. Their distinguishing mark, Tacitus records, was a knot of hair twisted at the side of the head, worn by free men to distinguish them from slaves and by chiefs most elaborately of all. From the third century the confederation of the upper Rhine reorganised under a new name, Alemanni - all men, meaning a coalition of several peoples - and became the principal threat to the Rhine and Danube frontier, breaking through repeatedly and settling permanently in the Agri Decumates when Rome abandoned the limes around 260. Another body of Suebi crossed the Rhine in the great invasion of 406, walked the length of Gaul and into Spain, and founded a kingdom in Galicia that lasted until the Visigoths absorbed it in 585 - the first durable Germanic kingdom on former Roman soil. The Alemanni were conquered by Clovis around 496 and became a Frankish duchy. Their name is what French and Spanish still call Germany, and Swabia carries the older one. The Suebian knot has been found on preserved bog bodies. Ariovistus was the first Germanic ruler recognised as a friend of the Roman people. The Galician kingdom converted from Arianism to Catholicism before the Visigoths did. Its capital was Braga.

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