Marcomanni

The Roman Empire under Hadrian (ruled 117–138), showing the location of the Marcomanni in the region of the upper Danube (now northern Austria, part of Bavaria, Germany and Czech Republic)

The Marcomanni were a Germanic people who lived close to the border of the Roman empire, north of the River Danube. They were one of the most important members of the powerful cluster of related Suebian peoples in this region, which also included the Hermunduri, Quadi, Semnones and Langobardi, and they were particularly important to the Romans. They appear in Roman records from approximately 60 BC until about 400 AD.

After a major defeat to the Romans in about 9 BC, the Marcomanni got a new king named Maroboduus, who had grown up in Rome. He subsequently led his people and several others into a region surrounded by forests and mountains in the present day Czech Republic. From his base there, Maroboduus built up a Rome-aligned Suebian empire, but the Langobardi and Semnones left when Maroboduus took the Roman side during the rebellion of Arminius. In the subsequent war among the Germanic peoples, the Marcomanni won. Despite their support for Rome, Roman rulers saw the Marcomanni as a potential threat to the empire, within striking distance of Italy. Over the centuries the Romans sought to control their leaders, limit their power, and they often came into open conflict with them.

In the second century AD, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and his co-emperors, the Romans pursued a major series of bloody wars against the Marcomanni and their allies which are called the Marcomannic wars. At one point the Marcomanni and their allies invaded Italy itself. The tensions behind this war were never resolved, and ended only when Attila and his allies moved from the east into the Middle Danube region and took effective control of it in the 5th century. By this time many Marcomanni apparently already lived within Pannonia inside the Roman empire, and some of these subsequently converted to Christianity. A significant number apparently came to live to the south between the Sava and Drava rivers in what is now Slovenia and Croatia. Although the details are now unclear, many Marcomanni and other Suebian communities are believed to have joined the Langobardi who subsequently moved to Italy. Others may have joined the Suebi who helped establish the Alemanni, the Bavarians, or even the Kingdom of the Suebi in what is now Portugal and Spain.

Before 9 BC, the homeland of the Marcomanni is not known, but archaeological evidence suggests that they lived near the central Elbe river or Saale. The Marcomanni were first reported by Julius Caesar among the Germanic peoples who were attempting to settle in Gaul in 58 BC under the leadership of Ariovistus, but he did not explain where their homeland was.

Name and origins

It is believed that the name of the Marcomanni derives from a Proto-Germanic word reconstructed as *markō meaning "border, boundary", which is the origin of the English words "march and mark, meaning "frontier", or "border", as for example in the term "Welsh marches". They were therefore "border men".

The Marcomanni already had this name before they encountered the Romans in Gaul in 58 BC, where both the Romans and the Marcomanni were foreigners. Their homeland up until that time, and therefore the frontier or march they originally lived near, is unknown and discussed below.

The time of Caesar and Ariovistus (58 BC)

The Marcomanni first appear in historical records among the confederates of Ariovistus who fought against Julius Caesar in Gaul. Ariovistus led a large group of Germani settlers who had crossed the Rhine from what is now Germany, into what is now France. Caesar's report of his battles mentions the Marcomanni among them only once, in his account of his victory in 58 BC. Caesar wrote that he approached the Germanic camp and forced them to draw up their forces. They "arranged them by tribe (generatim, by gens), at equal distances, the Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, Suebi; and surrounded their whole army with their chariots and wagons, that no hope might be left in flight. On these they placed their women, who, with outstretched hand and in tears, entreated the soldiers, as they went forward to battle, not to deliver them into slavery to the Romans." According to Caesar the Tribocci, Vangiones and Nemetes came from homelands nearby on the Rhine itself, but the others were from further east.

The exact position of the Marcomanni homelands east of the Rhine at this time is not known, but it has been suggested that they lived near to, or even among the Suebi, because later writers describe Marcomanni as part of the Suebian group of peoples. Caesar understood the homeland of the Suebi he faced to be in or near present day Hesse, Franconia, and Thuringia. Caesar makes no mention of any special connection between the Suebi and Marcomanni, who he only mentions them in a list. The Marcomanni may therefore have already been seen as a branch of the Suebi, even this categorization is only found in much later authors such as Strabo and Tacitus. Between Caesar and Strabo there may have been subsequent changes in the relationship between the Suebi and Marcomanni, or in the terminology that was used. Caesar described the Suebi he encountered as the largest and the most warlike Germanic people (gens), who were divided into 100 districts (pagi) who supplied 1000 men each during war. The forces of these pagi were distinct within the Suevi forces, and it is sometimes suggested that the Marcomanni could have been one of these pagi. The Suebi were also able to call upon other peoples (nationes) to supply infantry and cavalry reinforcements.

A later Roman historian, Cassius Dio, mentioned that part of the country where the Marcomanni had been living previously was settled by the Hermunduri in 7 BC with Roman permission, and was apparently west of the Elbe, if we can assume that the events happened in one campaign. However this area is also not easy to identify. This is partly because the Hermunduri themselves were pushed east of the Elbe soon after, by the time of Strabo, who was writing around 20 AD. (Generations later, in the time of Tacitus around 100 AD, the Hermunduri were again friendly with Rome, and their lands were west of the Marcomanni, stretching from the Danube in Raetia, between present day Regensburg and Passau, to the sources of the Elbe, probably including the Vltava.)

On the other hand, archaeological evidence suggests that the Marcomanni and their Suebian neighbours can be strongly associated with the Grossromstedter archaeological culture of the Middle Elbe and Saale river regions. This culture was moving southwest into the region between the Rhine and Werra before the Roman empire entered the region. And after the Roman conquests began it can be found moving into the Bohemian region. It was influenced not only by the older Jastorf culture of this region, but notably also by the Przeworsk culture from further east in present day Poland. The variant which subsequently developed in the old Boii lands is called the Plaňany-Group, and shows the influence of their older Celtic La Tène culture of the Boii, which had itself already come under Przeworsk influence in the generations before the Germanic influx.

The Marcomanni are difficult to distinguish among the various Suebian groups who were bringing the Grossromstedter culture southwards and westwards, into regions that had been inhabited by carriers of the La Tène culture which is associated with Celtic peoples such as the Boii, Volcae Tectosages and Helvetii. This culture already began to influence the Bohemian area before the Roman period. The name of the Marcomanni, which refers to a frontier, may echo an earlier demarcation between such cultures.

Near extermination by the Romans (9 BC)

In the time of Augustus (reigned 27 BC – 14 AD), major invasions of Germania were launched, giving the Romans effective control of the part between the Rhine and Elbe rivers, until the rebellion of Arminius in 9 AD. During this period the Marcomanni suffered at least one major defeat and subsequently moved themselves into a more remote area surrounded by mountains and forests.

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".

The Roman historians Florus, and Orosius reported that Drusus the elder almost wiped out the Marcomanni as part of a bloody and difficult campaign, and then erected a mound of Marcomanni spoils. This was during his campaigns of 12–9 BC, after he had defeated the Tencteri and Chatti, and before next turning to an alliance of the Cherusci, Suevi, and Sicambri. Another Roman source, Cassius Dio, describes the sequence of events somewhat differently, but does not mention the Marcomanni by name:

Drusus, [...] invaded the country of the Chatti and advanced as far as that of the Suebi, conquering with difficulty the territory traversed and defeating the forces that attacked him only after considerable bloodshed. From there he proceeded to the country of the Cherusci, and crossing the Weser, advanced as far as the Elbe, pillaging everything on his way. [...] Drusus undertook to cross this river, but failing in the attempt, set up trophies and withdrew.

There are doubts, therefore, about the exact sequence of events, and also about the locations of the battles. Scholars are not unanimous about whether the victory over the Marcomanni happened in 9 BC, which was the year of the victory over the Cherusci, Suebi and Sugambri, and then the death of Drusus. The location of the Marcomanni battle is often assumed to be in Franconia but an alternative hypothesis is that it was closer to the Cherusci, in the area of northeastern Hesse and western Thuringia. There are also scholars who propose that the Suebi defeated in the 9 BC campaign were the Marcomanni.

The move to "Bohemia"

According to the accounts of Tacitus, Velleius Paterculus, and Strabo the Marcomanni eventually moved into a part of the large area that had been occupied by the Boii, a region called Baiohaemum, where their allies and fellow Suevi lived, the Quadi. Scholars interpret this placename as clear evidence of the Germanic language. Haemum corresponds to English "home" and German "heim" (Proto-Germanic *haimaz), while the change from boi- to bai- corresponds to normal evolutions in Germanic languages. This is the origin of the modern placename Bohemia although the boundaries may have been quite different. These classical authors place the new settlement area of the Marcomanni within the Hercynian Forest, in an area near present day Bohemia and probably within it. By 6 BC, their king, Maroboduus, had established a powerful kingdom there that Augustus came to perceive as a threat to the Roman Empire. A later Roman historian, Cassius Dio, implies that the Romans settled the Hermunduri in a place where the Marcomanni had previously been living in 7 BC, suggesting that the Marcomanni had left a previous homeland by that year.

• Strabo, writing about 23 AD, appears to have written the earliest surviving mention of the long-term neighbours of the Marcomanni, the Quadi. Strabo described a mountain range running north of the Danube, like a smaller version of the Alps which runs south of it. Within it is the Hercynian forest, and within this forest are tribes of Suebi "similar to (/such as) the tribes of the Coldui [καθάπερ τὰ τῶν κολδούων], in whose territory lies Buiaimon, the royal seat of Maroboduus". King Maroboduus, he wrote, led several peoples into this forested region, including his own people the Marcomanni. Having lived in Rome and been favoured by Augustus he became ruler of Suevi peoples in this forested region, and also over other Suevi living outside it bordering on the Dacians (who he calls Getae). Not only is Strabo's spelling of Quadi with an "L" unexpected when compared to later references, but some scholars also doubt that the Maroboduus lived within Quadi territory. Errors are suspected in the surviving text. He goes on to specify that the Hercynian forest is on the north side of the Suebi, and the Gabreta Forest is on the southern or Roman side.
• A contemporary of Strabo, Velleius Paterculus, also described "Boiohaemum", where Maroboduus and the Marcomanni lived. He said these "plains surrounded by the Hercynian forest" were 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. Velleius also remarked that Maroboduus subjugated all his neighbours either by war or treaty. Hofeneder notes that many modern scholars interpret this to mean that the Quadi were also under his overlordship. Although there is no consensus about this, it is in any case clear that the two peoples were always closely connected during the many centuries in which they appear in records. 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 to Bohemia was via Carnuntum. This was between present-day Vienna and Bratislava, and near the Quadi territory where the Morava river enters the Danube.
• Approximately 100 AD, Tacitus reflected upon the Marcomanni in his time and in the past, saying they "stand first in strength and renown, and their very territory, from which the Boii were driven in a former age, was won by valour", suggesting that they had to defeat the Boii. He also mentioned that both the Marcomanni and their neighbours the Quadi have "kings of their own nation, descended from the noble stock of Maroboduus and Tudrus". However, he noted that they submit to foreigners, and their strength and power depend on Roman influence. Rome supports them by arms, and "more frequently by our money".

The empire of Maroboduus

Maroboduus built up a Rome-aligned Suebian empire. According to Strabo it included the Lugii, Semnones , Hermunduri, and Velleius and Tacitus made it clear that by 5 AD it also included the Langobardi. According to Velleius he could call upon 70,000 experienced infantry and 4,000 cavalry, although these were probably not only Marcomanni.

In 6 AD Augustus aimed to eliminate the last power center in Germania and sent two Roman army groups under Sentius Saturninus and Tiberius to attack the Marcomanni in a pincer movement starting from Roman bases in present day Marktbreit to the west and Carnuntum on the Danube. This did not go ahead because a major revolt started in Pannonia, south of the Danube, which had also only recently been conquered. Maroboduus remained neutral.

In 9 AD, Arminius of the Cherusci began his major revolt against the Romans. He sent the head of the Roman general Varus to Maroboduus, but Maroboduus sent it to Rome. The Langobardi and Semnones, Suebians living near to the Cherusci on the Elbe, defected from this kingdom in the name of freedom, because Maroboduus did not support the revolt, and because he held royal power.

In 17 AD war broke out among these alliances of Germanic peoples, led by Arminius and Maroboduus. Maroboduus requested help from Rome but the Romans reject him. According to Tacitus "he 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. According to Tacitus, the Romans reacted by deliberately sowing discord among the Germani, "urging them to complete the destruction of the now broken power of Maroboduus". This was all in line with the new foreign policy of the emperor Tiberius.

Already 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 Poland. Maroboduus went into exile among the Romans and lived another 18 years in Ravenna.

The Vannius regime

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. The area where Vannius ruled over the Marcomanni exiles is generally considered to have been a distinct state to the Quadi kingdom itself. Unfortunately the Cusus river has not been identified with certainty. However, Slovak archaeological research locates the core area of the Vannius kingdom in the fertile southwestern Slovakian lowlands around Trnava, east of the Little Carpathians.

Vannius personally benefitted from the new situation and became very wealthy and unpopular. He was himself eventually also deposed by Vibilius and the Hermunduri, together with the neighbouring Lugii, in 50/51 AD. Vannius's soldiers during this conflict are described here as infantry, but he also called for cavalry from his Sarmatian allies, the Iazyges. This was coordinated with his nephews Vangio and Sido, who then divided his realm between themselves as loyal Roman client kings. Vannius was defeated and fled with his followers across the Danube, where they were assigned land in Roman Pannonia. This settlement is convincingly associated with Germanic finds from the 1st century AD in Burgenland, west of Lake Neusiedl, within Roman Pannonia.

The Marcomanni are not mentioned much in subsequent generations, possibly because they were now politically intermingled within the Vannian regime which was centred around the Quadian powerbases closer to the Danube. Archaeological and other evidence indicates that the Marcomanni population also more generally moved south-eastwards towards the Morava river, while the Quadi and the Vannian kingdom expanded towards the east in the direction of what is now Hungary.

In 69 AD, the "Year of the Four Emperors", Sido and Italicus, perhaps the son of Vangio, fought on the side of Vespasian in a Roman civil war. Tacitus described them as kings of the Suebians, and emphasized their loyalty to Rome. They were present at the second battle of Bedriacum in 69 AD at Cremona.

The Quadi and Marcomanni had a long and relatively stable relationship with the Romans as but this was interrupted under emperor Domitian during the years 89-97, after the Quadi and Marcomanni refused to assist in a conflict against the Dacians. In 89 AD, according to Dio Cassius, 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.

Marcomannic Wars

Main article: Marcomannic Wars

The "Miracle of the Rain" depicted on the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome

A monument found in Trenčín. "To the victory of emperor dedicated by 855 soldiers of II. Legion of an army stationed in Laugaricio. Made to order of Marcus Valerius Maximianus, a legate of the Second Auxiliary legion."

The light pink area north of the Danube was temporarily occupied by the Romans in 178–179 AD and was meant to become the new Roman province of Marcomannia

The relationship between the Romans and the Quadi and their neighbours was far more seriously and permanently disrupted during the long series of conflicts called the Marcomannic or Germanic wars, which were fought mainly during the rule of emperor Marcus Aurelius (reigned 161-180).

In the 150s or 160s, 6000 Langobardi (Lombards originally from present-day north Germany) and Obii (whose identity is uncertain) crossed the Lower Danube into Roman territory where they were quickly defeated. Dio Cassius reports that these events worried several of the barbarian nations. A group of them selected Ballomarius, king of the Marcomanni, and ten other representatives of the other nations, in a peace mission to the governor of Roman Pannonia. Oaths were sworn and the envoys returned home. Some scholars think the Quadi may have been involved in this raid, or at least allowed it to happen. However the Quadi and their neighbours were facing their own problems with raiders from further north, and had been trying for some time to get more support from the empire. On their side, the Romans were apparently planning for a Germania campaign, and knew that Italy itself was threatened by these pressures, but were deliberately diplomatic while they were occupied with the Parthian campaign in the Middle East, and badly affected by the Antonine plague. However, the Historia Augusta especially blames the Marcomanni and Victohali for throwing everything into confusion while other tribes had been driven on by the more distant barbarians.

Although a Roman offensive could not start in 167, two new legions were raised and in 168 the two emperors, Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius, set out to cross the alps. Either in 167, before the Romans setting, or in 169, after the Romans came to a stop when Verus died, the Marcomanni and Quadi led a crossing of the Danube, and an attack into Italy itself. They destroyed Opitergium (present-day Oderzo) and put the important town of Aquileia under siege. Whatever the exact sequence of events, the Historia Augusta says that with the Romans in action several kings of the barbarians retreated, and some of the barbarians put anti-Roman leaders to death. In particular, the Quadi, having lost their king, announced they would not confirm an elected successor without approval from the emperors.

Marcus Aurelius returned to Rome but headed north again in the autumn of 169. He established a Danubian headquarters in Carnuntum between present-day Vienna and Bratislava. From here he could receive embassies from the different peoples north of the Danube. Some were given the possibility to settle in the empire, others were recruited to fight on the Roman side. The Quadi were pacified, and in 171 they agreed to leave their coalition, and returned deserters and 13,000 prisoners of war. They supplied horses and cattle as war contributions, and promised not to allow Marcomanni or Jazyges passage through their territory. By 173 the Quadi had rebelled again, and they expelled their Roman-approved king Furtius, replaced by Ariogaisos. In a major battle between 172 and 174, a Roman force was almost defeated, until a sudden rainstorm allowed them to defeat the Quadi. The incident is well-known because of the account given by Dio Cassius, and on the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. By 175 the cavalry from the Marcomanni, Naristae, and Quadi were forced to travel to the Middle East, and in 176 Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus held a triumph as victors over Germania and Sarmatia.

The situation remained disturbed in subsequent years. The Romans declared a new war in 177 and set off in 178, against the Marcomanni, Hermunduri, Sarmatians, and Quadi as specific enemies. Rome executed a successful and decisive battle against them in 179 at Laugaricio (present-day Trenčín in Slovakia) under the command of legate and procurator Marcus Valerius Maximianus. By 180 AD the Quadi and Marcomanni were in a state of occupation, with Roman garrisons of 20,000 men each permanently stationed in both countries. The Romans even blocked the mountain passes so that they could not migrate north to live with the Semnones. Marcus Aurelius was considering the creation of a new imperial province called Marcomannia when he died in 180.

Commodus the son of Marcus Aurelius made peace soon after the death of his father in 180, but he did not go ahead with plans to create a new Roman province. Some Marcomanni were subsequently settled in Italy and other parts of the empire, while others were forced to serve in the military.

Third century

Caracalla: Museo Nazionale Napoli

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".

During the reign of Valerian (253-260) the historian Zosimus reported that the Marcomanni made excursions at the same time as "Scythians" (Goths and related peoples from the Ukraine), making inroads into all the countries adjacent to the empire, laying Thessalonica waste. Valerian's son Gallienus (reigned 253-268) settled the Marcomanni within the Roman province of Pannonia Superior, south of the Danube. He also took the daughter of the Marcomanni king, Attalus, as a concubine.

Although the details are not clear, the emperor Diocletian claimed a triumph over the Marcomanni in 299 AD.

Fourth century and later

4th-century Roman Pannonia

After the death of emperor Theodosius I in 395, Saint Jerome listed the Marcomanni and Quadi together with several of the eastern peoples causing devastation in the Roman provinces stretching from Constantinople to the Julian Alps, including Dalmatia, and all the provinces of Pannonia: "Goths and Sarmatians, Quadi and Alans, Huns and Vandals and Marcomanni". Claudian describes them crossing the frozen Danube with wagons, and then setting wagons around themselves like a wall at the approach of the Roman commander Stilicho. He says that all the fertile lands between the Black Sea and Adriatic were subsequently like uninhabited deserts, specifically including Dalmatia and Pannonia. At the same time, the Gothic general Alaric I, who had loyally served with his Gothic troops under Theodosius I at the Battle of Frigidus only a few months early, was beginning his famous rebellion, and started leading his army south, first towards Constantinople, and later towards Greece. This was triggered by internal Roman conflicts after the death of Theodosius. Claudian claimed that they were all incited by an Eastern Roman consul and enemy of Stilicho, Rufinus. The exact connection between Alaric and those who crossed the Danube remains unclear.

Soon after this, Ambrose, bishop of Milan 374-397, corresponded with a Christian Marcomanni queen named Fritigil, initiating a peace treaty between the Marcomanni and the Roman military leader Stilicho. That was the last clear evidence of the Marcomanni having a polity, which was probably now on the Roman side of the Danube, in Pannonia. Soon afterward, the Pannonian and Danubian area went into a long period of turmoil, under the influence of peoples from the east including the Huns, Goths and Alans.

Some of the Marcomanni may have been among the Suebi who invaded Iberia in about 409, and established the kingdom in the Roman province of Gallaecia. These Suevi were probably a mix of Suevian groups from the area north of Danube and Pannonian basin such as the Marcomanni, Quadi and Buri.

In the Danubian area, there is no direct contemporary evidence that any Marcomanni or Quadi continued to exist as subjects of Attila under their old names, centuries later Paulus Diaconus listed the subject peoples who he could call upon, in addition to the better-known Goths and Gepids. He listed "Marcomanni, Suebi, Quadi, and alongside them the Herules, Thuringi and Rugii". This implies that the Marcomanni might for example have been present at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451. However, modern scholars have doubts about whether the Marcomanni or Quadi would still have been identified under those names in 451, because more contemporary sources never mention these names anymore.

On the other hand there are records indicating that Marcomanni continued to exist within Roman territory, where it seems that they were given initially responsibility for defence of parts of the Upper Danube. The Notitia Dignitatum which describes the Roman military of around 420 AD also lists palatine auxiliaries (court troops) of the Marcomanni Honoriani seniores and iuniores for Italy, as well as the Equites Marcomanni for the mobile army in North Africa.

Within the Pannonian region, it is not clear what the status of the Marcomanni was under Attila. A Suebian kingdom ruled by a man named Hunimund is known to have existed in or near north-eastern Pannonia for some decades after the death of Attila in 453, but this may have been made up of Quadi, or a mixture of Suebians. After being defeated by the Ostrogoths, Hunimund and some of his people seem to have moved west and joined the Alemanni. Possibly distinct from the Suebi led by Hunimund, the Ravenna Cosmography, a much later document which used sources which are in many cases now lost, indicates that a Marcomanni people (Marcannorum gens) came to live further south in Pannonia near the Sava river. A Sava or Suavia province between the Sava and Drava rivers, continued to exist during the time when the Ostrogoths ruled Italy, and may have been named after these Suebi (Suavi). During the Ostrogothic period, these Suebi were legally distinguished from the native populations under the term "old barbarians" (antiqui barbari), which also distinguished them legally from the new non-Romans, the Goths. Unusually, they were legally permitted to marry the provincial residents, and could therefore to become part of the land owning class. Some scholars believes these were descendants of the Christian Marcomanni of Queen Fritigil. During the time of Theoderic the Great a group of Alemanni crossed the alps with cattle and wagons to seek refuge with these antiqui barbari. Procopius noted that in 537, the Ostrogoths recruited an army of these Suebi to launch an attack against areas held by the Eastern Roman empire. In 540 Ostrogothic rule in the Sava region came to an end, and the Suebi came under the authority of Eastern Roman emperor Justinian.

In the 530s the Langobardi (Lombards) entered the Sava area 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. 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.

Other

There is a runic alphabet called the Marcomannic runes, but they are not believed to be related to the Marcomanni.

See also

• Elbe Germanic peoples
• Irminones

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• Kehne, Peter (2001b), "Markomannenkrieg § 1. Historisches", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 19 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-017163-1
• Kehne, Peter (2001c), "Markomannis", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 19 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, pp. 322–323, ISBN 978-3-11-017163-1
• Kolník, Titus (2003), "Quaden § 3. Historische Angaben und archäologischer Hintergrund", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 23 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-017535-6
• Meier, Mischa (2010), "Alarich I.", Germanische Altertumskunde Online, De Gruyter
• Möller, Peter (1986), "Drusus", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 6 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-010468-4
• Scharf, Ralf (2005), "Sweben § 2-7", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 30 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-018385-6
• Steuer, Heiko (2021), „Germanen“ aus Sicht der Archäologie: Neue Thesen zu einem alten Thema, De Gruyter, doi:10.1515/9783110702675
• Tejral, Jaroslav (2001a), "Markomannen § 2. Archäologisches", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 19 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-017163-1
• Tejral, Jaroslav (2001b), "Markomannenkrieg § 2. Archäologisches", in Beck, Heinrich; Geuenich, Dieter; Steuer, Heiko (eds.), Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 19 (2 ed.), De Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-017163-1
• Wolfram, Herwig (1997), The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples (translation of 1990 German ed.), University of California Press

Classical sources

• Caesar De Bello Gallico, at The Latin Library
• Tacitus Germania, at The Latin Library
• Tacitus Annales, at The Latin Library

External links

• "Marcomanni" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.