Quadi

This article is about the Germanic tribe. For Muslim judges, see Qadi. For other uses, see Kadi.

The Roman empire under Hadrian (ruled 117–38), showing the location of the Quadi in the northern Carpathian mountains (now Slovakia)

The Quadi were an important Germanic people during the Roman era, in approximately the years 0-400 AD. They lived in a kingdom across the Roman border on the Middle Danube river, in present-day southwestern Slovakia, but also stretching into parts of Moravia, Lower Austria, and later into Hungary. They were the easternmost of a series of powerful Suebian kingdoms along the river frontier established after 9 BC. The Romans sought to control these kingdoms over several centuries, in coordination with their nobility. The most notable of these kingdoms at first was the powerful Marcomanni kingdom to the northwest, in the present-day Czech Republic, but the Quadi gradually became more important as a cultural bridge between the Suebian peoples of Germania on the one hand, and both the Romans and the Sarmatian peoples on the other. To the south of the Quadi was the Roman province of Pannonia, which was eventually split into several provinces, and to the east lay the Great Hungarian Plain, which Roman geographers considered to be outside of Germania. This part of the plain was at first inhabited by Dacians but the Sarmatian tribes entered the area over time, starting with the Iazyges. To the north of the Quadi, in the western Carpathian mountains, were many more Germanic peoples.

During the Marcomannic wars in the second century AD the Quadi and their neighbours went through several rounds of violent conflict with the Roman empire during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius and his co-emperors. By 180 when he died, there were new peace agreements between Rome and the Quadi, but these did not resolve the longer term problems which the region continued to face. Populations from more distant regions periodically wishing to move towards the Roman empire, or into it. This continued to play a role in smaller conflicts between the Quadi and Romans in the third and fourth centuries. During these periods the Quadi came to be most often allied with their eastern neighbours the Sarmatians, rather than their western neighbours.

Around 400 AD the Marcomanni and Quadi names suddenly disappeared from contemporary records, at the same time as their Middle Danubian homelands came under the domination of peoples who had migrated from eastern Europe, most notably the Huns, Alans and Goths. Already in the 4th century the Rugii, Heruli and Scirii appeared in the region, and in the 5th century they had their own small new kingdom in or near the old Marcomanni and Quadi kingdoms. In 395 however, Saint Jerome listed the Quadi and their neighbours the Sarmatians, Marcomanni and Vandals as peoples who had recently been ransacking the nearby Roman provinces together with Goths, Alans and Huns. In 409 he placed the Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Heruli, and even their Roman neighbours from Pannonia, in another list of peoples who had recently occupied parts of Gaul. These were the last clear mentions of the Quadi doing anything under their old name.

Although there had long been many Suebian tribes living in different parts of Europe, the Quadi and their Middle Danubian neighbours are candidates to be ancestors of the "Danube Suevi" who established a kingdom near the Heruli and Scirii during the 5th century in the Middle Danube region, within the northern part of what had been the Roman province of Pannonia Valeria. Given their presence in Gaul in 409 the Quadi are also considered likely to have been among the Suevi who founded the Kingdom of the Suebi in Gallaecia in north-western Hispania. The independent Danubian Suebian kingdom was defeated by Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia in 469, and under their king Hunimund many of them apparently moved westwards into present-day southern Germany. The Gallaecian Suevi lasted longer, but were defeated by the Visigoths and integrated into their kingdom in 585. Other Quadi are presumed to have remained in the Middle Danube region and adapted to the different waves of conquest. Like the Heruli, Rugii and Scirii some are also likely to have become followers of the large forces which successfully invaded Italy from the Middle Danube including Odoacer (476), Theoderic the Great (493), and the Lombards (starting in 568).

Name

According to the Germanische Altertumskunde Online, the etymologies proposed for the ethnonym are all fraught with difficulties:

• Since Jacob Grimm (d. 1863), it has often been assumed that this ethnonym is related to the Dutch adjective kwaad, which means "bad, evil, ugly, corrupt", and which is also found in medieval German. However, this would be a surprising choice of name, because it has such a negative meaning. It could therefore perhaps have started as a name given by their enemies, and it might have continued as a name intended to evoke fear.
• The name has also often been associated with Germanic verbs such as English "quoth", originally the past tense of medieval "quethe", which meant "say" or "declare" (preserved in the modern word "bequeath"). However, the precise meaning of this word as an ethnonym is unclear in this case.
• Wolfgang Krause proposed that the ethnonym might originally belong to Germanic hwatjan, meaning "to incite". However, the form of the ethnonym as it appears in ancient sources would then not show show the expected Germanic First Sound Shift.

First reports and location

The Quadi appear only in contemporary works after the time when the Marcomanni, their long-term neighbours to the west, had already settled in central Bohemia, at some point soon after their defeat during the Germania campaign of Drusus in 9 BC. Despite the lack of clear literary evidence it is generally assumed that those Suebi who later became known as the Quadi also took up residence in Moravia around the same time. Whether the Quadi had also moved from elsewhere, and if so when and from where, is unknown. Their material culture was from the beginning closely related to that of the Marcomanni and other people to the north of them.

The evidence indicates that the Quadi lived in southwestern Slovakia, southern Moravia, north-eastern Lower Austria. The archaeological remains of the earliest Quadi settlements indicates that these were mainly in the west, in Moravia and Lower Austria, although their population, perhaps divided into two distinct states, was later more concentrated to the east of the Little Carpathians, in what is now southwestern Slovakia, and they eventually extended as far as Vác in present-day Hungary. At its height, their kingdom possibly stretched as far west as present-day Bohemia. Over time the eastern Quadi appear to have become a cultural bridge between Romans, Sarmatians and the more distant Germanic peoples.

Strabo, writing about 23 AD, appears to have written the earliest surviving mention of the Quadi, although aspects of the text are somewhat doubtful. 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 "such as the tribes of the "Coldui" (κολδούων), in whose territory lies "Buiaimon" [Βουίαιμον, the original "Bohemia"], the royal seat of Maroboduus". King Maroboduus, he wrote, had led several peoples into this forested region, including his own people the Marcomanni. He therefore became ruler of Suevi peoples in this forested region, and also over other Suevi living outside it. Not only is Strabo's spelling of Quadi with an "L" unexpected when compared to later references, but also the implication that Maroboduus lived within Quadi territory. Errors are therefore suspected in the surviving text.

A contemporary of Strabo, Velleius Paterculus, didn't mention the Quadi by name but 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. Velleius also remarked that Maroboduus subjugated all his neighbours either by war or treaty. Hofenender 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.

The Quadi leader at the time when Maroboduus moved to Bohemia was apparently named Tudrus. He is mentioned only by Tacitus, who is also the first author to clearly mention the Quadi in ancient records:

The Marcomanni stand first in strength and renown, and their very territory, from which the Boii were driven in a former age, was won by valour.	praecipua Marcomanorum gloria viresque, atque ipsa etiam sedes pulsis olim Boiis virtute parta.
The Marcomanni and Quadi have, up to our time, been ruled by kings of their own nation, descended from the noble stock of Maroboduus and Tudrus. They now submit even to foreigners; but the strength and power of the monarch depend on Roman influence. He is occasionally supported by our arms, more frequently by our money, and his authority is none the less.	Marcomanis Quadisque usque ad nostram memoriam reges manserunt ex gente ipsorum, nobile Marobodui et Tudri genus (iam et externos patiuntur), sed vis et potentia regibus ex auctoritate Romana. raro armis nostris, saepius pecunia iuvantur, nec minus valent.

To the east of the Quadi Strabo mentioned that the Suevian neighbours of Maroboduus bordered upon the "Getae", which in this case refers to the Dacians. Later, Pliny the Elder mentioned that the Dacians had been pushed east to the Tisza, into the mountainous country (later referred to as Dacia) by the Sarmatian Iazyges. Plint expressed doubt about whether the boundary between the Iazyges on the one hand, and the Suevi and the kingdom of Vannius on the other, was the Morava river or else the "Duria", which is a river that is no longer clearly identifiable. The 2nd-century Greek geographer Ptolemy also placed the Quadi on the edge of Germania, making the Little Caucasus ("Sarmatian mountains", Σαρματικὰ ὄρη) the border, running from the bend in the Danube to the "head of the Vistula". He names some neighbouring tribes starting from the mountains and forests to the north, and going south to the Danube.

...under [south of] the Asciburgius mountains are the Korkontoi and the Lugian Buri ["Boupoi"] up to the head of the Vistula river; below these first are the Sidones, then the Cotini ["Cognoi"], then the Visburgii above the Hercynian valley.	...Λοῦγοι οἱ Βοῦποι μέχρι τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ Οὐιστούλα ποταμοῦ· ὑπὸ δὲ τούτους πρῶτοι Σίδωνες, εἶτα Κῶγνοι, εἶτα Οὐισβούργιοι ὑπὲρ τὸν Ὀπκύνιον Δρυμόν.
below the Hercynian Forest are the Quadi, below whom are the iron mines and the Luna Forest, under which is the large nation of the Baemi up to the Danube, and next to them along the river are the Rakatri and the Rakatai on the plains.	ὑπὸ δὲ τὸν Ὀρχύνιον Δρυμὸν Κούαδοι, ὑφ’ οὓς τὰ σιδηρωρυχεῖα καὶ Λοῦνα Ὓλη, ὑφ’ ἦν μέγα ἔθνος οἱ Βαῖμοι μέχρι τοῦ Δανουβίου, καὶ συνεχεῖς αὐτοῖς παρὰ τὸν ποταμὸν οἵ τε Ῥακατρίαι καὶ οἱ πρὸς ταῖς καμπαῖς Ῥακάται.

To the north of the Marcomanni and Quadi Tacitus names four peoples, the Marsigni, Cotini (or "Gotini"), Osi, and Buri, dwelling in a range of mountains running from west to east which separated them from the a large group of peoples named the Lugii. According to him the Osi and Cotini did not speak Germanic languages and worked the mines, paying the Quadi tribute.

First century AD

A sesterce of Antoninus Pius, 143 AD which says REX QUADIS DATUS (King given to Quadi)

In The Annals, Tacitus recounts that Maroboduus was deposed by an exiled noble named Catualda around 18 AD. Catualda was in turn defeated by the Hermunduri king, Vibilius.The subjects of Maroboduus and Catualda 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. The swampy zone between the Little Carpathians and Danube provided an obstacle for possible attacks from non-Roman Pannonia.

Geographically, Pliny the Elder saw the Quadi area as the edge of Germania, with the Iazyges sitting outside of it, and the kingdom of Vannius within it. In line with this, Ptolemy (2.11.11) mentions a "great nation" of Baimoi (Βαῖμοι) between the Quadi and the Danube, and these are likely to be the subjects of Vannius who originated from Bohemia.

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.

Quadi soldiers participated second battle of Bedriacum under Sido in 69 AD at Cremona. An influx of North Italian green-glazed ceramics into southwestern Slovakia might be a result of the troops in Italy.

The Quadi had a long and relatively stable relationship with the Romans as a client state but this was interrupted for the first time under emperor Domitian during the years 89-97. The relationship then stabilized again in the time of emperor Nerva.

Second century

See also: Marcomannic Wars

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

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 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.

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."

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.

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".

In the middle of the third century the Quadi seem to have rejected their client relationship with Rome, and they began a series of attacks which they organized together with their eastern neighbours the Sarmatians. Together they repeatedly attacked Illyricum. There was a Roman campaign against the Quadi in 283-284 AD, and as a result emperor Carinus (coemperor 283-285) and Numerian (coemperor 284-285) celebrated this as two personal triumphs in 283 and 284. Nevertheless the Quadi were again mentioned among attacking Germanic tribes in 285 AD. This situation seems to have been pacified in the time of Diocletian (reigned 284-305).

Fourth century

In the first part of the 4th century there is evidence that the Quadi had developed a better relationship with the Romans. Their region of influence spread down the Danube towards present-day Budapest and it seems that their economy support a wealthy Romanised nobility.

The so-called Heidentor in Carnuntum.

Restored head of Valentinian I

In 357 a new phase of confrontation began during the reign of Constantius II (reigned 337-361) which gives insight into the way in which the culture of the Quadi had changed. The Quadi and Sarmatians were making raids across the Danube into Roman Pannonia and Moesia. The account given by Ammianus Marcellinus shows that in this period the Quadi had become more accustomed to actions on horseback. He reported that the involved Quadi and Sarmatians "were neighbours and had like customs and armour", "better fitted for brigandage than for open warfare, have very long spears and cuirasses made from smooth and polished pieces of horn, fastened like scales to linen shirts". They had "swift and obedient horses" and they generally had more than one, "to the end that an exchange may keep up the strength of their mounts and that their freshness may be renewed by alternate periods of rest".

In 358 the emperor crossed the Danube and resistance quickly fell apart. The leaders who came to negotiate with the emperor represented different parts of the populations who had participated. An important one was prince Araharius, who ruled "a part of the Transiugitani and the Quadi". An inferior of his was Usafer, a prominent noble, who led "some of the Sarmatians". In the negotiations the emperor declared that the Sarmatians were Roman dependents and demanded hostages. He then learned that there had been social upheaval among the Sarmatians, and some of the nobility had even fled to other countries. He gave them a new king, Zizais, a young prince who was the first leader to surrender. He then met with Vitrodorus the son of Viduarius the King of the Quadi. They also gave hostages and they drew their swords "which they venerate as gods" in order to swear loyalty. As a next step he moved to the mouth of the Tisza and slaughtered or enslaved many of the Sarmatians who lived on the other side and had felt themselves protected by the river from the Romans. King Viduarius was probably king of the western Quadi. Constantius erected a triumphal arch in Carnuntium, today known as the Heidentor, but raids did not stop.

Some years after the death of Constantius, the new emperor Valentinian I (reigned 364-375) reinforced the borders. He fortified the northern and eastern banks of the Danube, and by 373 AD he ordered construction of a garrisoned fort within Quadi territory itself. In 374, when complaints from the Quadi delayed construction the Roman general charged with getting it done invited their king Gabinius to dinner and then murdered him. As Ammianus wrote "the Quadi, who had long been quiet, were suddenly aroused to an outbreak". Neighbouring tribes including the Sarmatians sprung into action and began raids across the Danube, repulsing the Roman military's first poorly coordinated attempts to confront them.

Valentinian moved to the Danube border and went first to Carnuntum, which was damaged and deserted, and then Aquincum (now part of Budapest). He sent one force north into the Quadi heartlands, and took another force across the Danube near present-day Budapest, where the enemies had settlements, and they slaughtered everyone they could find. He then made his winter quarters on the Roman side of the Danube in Bregetio (present-day Komárom). Here Quadi envoys came to plead for peace. However, when they maintained that the building of a barrier was begun "unjustly and without due occasion", which had roused rude spirits to anger, Valentinian was enraged, became sick, and died. This ended this round of conflict, and the Romans and Quadi were soon preoccupied with bigger problems in the Danubian region.

In 380 the Romans suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Adrianople, which was caused by a sudden movement of peoples including Goths, Alans and Huns coming from present-day Ukraine. According to Ammianus, the region of the Marcomanni and Quadi were the among the areas first affected by the "a savage horde of unknown peoples, driven from their abodes by sudden violence". Although there is no consensus about the details, the Romans tried new approaches to settling newcomers in large numbers. One of the armed groups responsible for the defeat, led by Alatheus and Saphrax, were settled into the Pannonian part of the Roman empire, near the Quadi homeland, and expected to do military service for Rome.

It is not clear how the Quadi reacted, but their name no longer appears in the records of this region. It is however likely that many crossed into Roman territory while others participated in the large movements of mixed peoples which were happening on both sides of the Danube. 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".

After the fourth century

Second letter of Saint Jerome

Saint Jerome Writing (c. 1605–1606). Oil on canvas, 112 x 157 cm (44 x 61.8 in). Galleria Borghese, Rome

The last contemporary mention of the Quadi as an identifiable people is in another letter by Saint Jerome from 409. He lists them first among the peoples who were occupying Gaul at that time: "Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemanni and—alas! for the commonweal!—even Pannonians". Scholars note that apart from the Saxons, Burgundians and Alemanni, who were already well-known near the Rhine, and the Alans who were newcomers from the Ukraine, the others appear to have been long-term neighbours from the Middle Danube area. The Vandals and Sarmatians listed next after the Quadi are generally understood to include the Hasdingi Vandals and Sarmatians who had been eastern neighbours of the Quadi for centuries. The Pannonians from within the empire were the Quadi's long-term neighbours to the south. The Cosmographia written by Julius Honorius, and Liber Generationis, indicate that the Heruli were already settled on the Danube near the Marcomanni and Quadi for some time. The Gepids had already settled somewhere near their future location in Dacia in the 3rd century, among the Quadi's eastern neighbours.

The chain of events which led to large numbers of Middle Danubian people to suddenly move west along the Danube, towards Gaul, are not well understood but several are frequently discussed.

• In 401, the poet Claudian described how Raetia was troubled by the local Vindelici there while Stilicho was preoccupied in Italy with the invasion of Alaric, a Gothic military leader from inside the empire. According to Claudian, "the peoples (gentes) broken their treaties (foedera, implying a pact with non-Romans) and, encouraged by the news of Latium's trouble, had seized upon the glades of Vindelicia and the fields of Noricum". The text says that Stilicho's victories forces were "Vandal spoils" (Vandalicis ... spoliis) and so many scholars believe Vandals were involved. Furthermore, there are proposals that they included the same groups who later went to Hispania, including both Silingi and Hasdingi. This would mean that Vandals had already moved and gather near the Rhine.
• In 406, the year of the Rhine crossing of the Vandals and Alans, Radagaisus, a Gothic leader from outside the empire, attacked Italy with a very large force from the Middle Danube itself. Modern scholars have proposed various connections between these events and the movement westwards of the Vandals and others.

Kingdom of the Suevi in Gallaecia

Hispania divided

Main article: Kingdom of the Suebi

Many scholars believe that the Quadi listed by Jerome in 409, and perhaps most of those listed, must have previously entered Gaul in a large and coordinated crossing of the Rhine involving Vandals and Alans, which is traditionally dated to 31 December 406 AD. According to this proposal the Quadi changed their name to Suevi, never used the old name anymore, and then coordinated with the Vandals and Alans to conquer Hispania. Because of the incomplete records, scholars take different positions about the proposal that significant numbers of Quadi moved to Hispania, but Castritius, for example, believed that the majority of the Quadi became Suevi and finished up in Spain. Not all scholars agree. Others propose that the Hispania Suevi were from other Suevian groups. For example, medieval historians such as Gregory of Tours understood them to be Alemanni. Reynolds proposed that the Spanish Suevi were from present-day northern Germany, and could have come by ship. Some modern scholars propose that the Quadi among the Spanish Suevi lost their name because this was a mixed group which included Quadi along with other types of Suevi.

There is no record which specifically connects Quadi with the crossing of 406, but there are two near-contemporary records which imply that Suevi were involved. Hydatius says that in the autumn of 409 when the Alans, and the Hasdingi and Silingi Vandals, entered Hispania they were together with Suevi. Orosius specified that they fought at the same crossing when the Franks attempted to defend Gaul against the Vandals. He even believed that the Suevi, Vandals, Alans and Burgundians were all part of a heretical movement driven by the Roman military leader Stilicho, whose father was a Vandal officer in the Roman army, and who wanted to destabilize Gaul for his own benefit. (Such accusations against Stilicho are not accepted by modern scholars.) On this basis many scholars therefore suggest that the Quadi in Gaul must have changed their name to "Suevi".

Arguing against the proposal that the Quadi changed name to Suevi and moved to Spain, Reynolds argued in 1957 that if the Suevi in Spain were Quadi, then it is inconceivable that they and others writing about them would give up and even forget this famous name after leaving Gaul. He also argued that Hydatius and Orosius are not reliable for the events involved. He noted for example that in disagreement with Hydatius, the Gallic Chronicle of 452 registered the Suevi as arriving in Hispania already in 408, before the letter of Jerome, and before the Vandals and Alans.

When the Vandals, Alans and Suevi arrived in Hispania, it was under the control of a rebel Roman general Gerontius who came to agreements with them as military allies in his struggle against Roman forces. The four groups proceeded to divide Hispania between themselves into four kingdoms, with the agreement of Gerontius. After the defeat of Gerontius, the Roman authorities rejected these agreements and the Visigoths began to work against the four kingdoms. After many of the Vandals and Alans moved to Carthage, the Suevi were the last of them to hold an independent kingdom, which they succeeded to hold until 585, when the kingdom was absorbed by the Visigothic kingdom.

The Kingdom of the "Danube Suevi"

4th-century Roman Pannonia

After about 400, the old cremation burials typical of Suebians like the Quadi disappear from the archaeological record.

By the early 5th century the Middle Danube region had come under the domination of the Huns and their allies, and Roman power was ineffective in this region. In 427 the chronicle of Marcellinus Comes says that the provinces of Pannonia, "which had been held by the Huns for fifty years, were reclaimed by the Romans". However, in 433 Flavius Aëtius effectively ceded Pannonia to Attila.

Although there is no direct contemporary evidence that the Quadi continued to exist and became subjects of Attila under their old name, centuries later Paulus Diaconus listed the subject peoples who Attila 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 Quadi 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 mentions these names anymore.

After the death of Attila in 453 the smaller peoples who had lived within under his hegemony begin to appear in more records. After the Battle of Nedao in 454, when the sons of Attila and their Ostrogothic allies were defeated, the victors were able to consolidate independent kingdoms north of the Middle Danube. The largest and longest lasting, the Gepids, was based in Dacia. To the west, north of the Danube where the Marcomanni and Quadi had been were the Rugii, Heruli, and Scirii. And on the south of that stretch of the Danube, in what used to be the northern part of Roman Pannonia Valeria, a Suevian kingdom also existed. As in the case of the Suevi in Hispania, many scholars believe that this group included Suevian peoples such as the Quadi who had previously gone by other names. Herwig Wolfram for example:

The Marcomanni and the Quadi gave up their special names after crossing the Danube, in fact both the emigrants and the groups remaining in Pannonia became Suebi again. The Pannonian Suebi became subjects of the Huns. After the battle at the Nadao they set up their kingdom, and when it fell, they came, successively under Herulian and Longobard rule, south of the Danube under Gothic rule, and eventually again under Longobard rule.

Writing in the 6th century, Jordanes reported a series of conflicts in the 460s between a Suevian king Hunimund and the Ostrogothic king Thiudimir, whose people had settled within the Roman empire just to the south. In 467 or 468, Hunimund led a campaign into Dalmatia. After stealing Gothic cattle, the Suevi were attacked near Lake Balaton by Thiudimir, and Hunimund was captured. He was subsequently released from Gothic captivity after he submitted and adopted as Thiudimir's "son by arms" (filius per arma).

However, in 468 or early 469, Hunimund plotted with the Sciri and attacked the Ostrogothic king Valamir. Valamir lost his life, but the Scirii and Suevi lost, and the Scirii were destroyed. In 469, at the Battle of Bolia, Hunimund and Alaric, apparently both kings of the Suevi, had called upon the Sarmatians, and the remnants of the Sciri, led by Edica and Hunwulf, and also the Gepids and Rugians. However, Thiudimir and his Goths won.

Later during a cold winter, Thiudimir attacked unexpectedly by crossing the frozen Danube. The Suavi were in together in a confederation with Allemanni, in an Alpine region with streams that flowed loudly into the Danube, Baiuvarii (early Bavarians) on the east, Franks on the west, Burgundians on the south, and Thuringians on the north. Thiudimir returned as victor to his own home in Pannonia.

It appears that Hunimund escaped the Goths and retreated upriver with followers. It has been speculated that Hunimund is also the person of that name mentioned in the biography of Saint Severinus of Noricum, by Eugippius. This Hunimund attacked Saint Severinus's community at Passau with "barbarians". This has been interpreted as evidence of a new Alemannic-Suebi ethnogenesis in the second half of the 5th century, which could explain the documented use of the Suevi name to refer to the Alemanni after about 500.

Allemanni, Lombards, and Bavarians and Slavs

In the Merovingian period, a new Suebian entity formed close to the Quadi homelands, the Bavarians, whose name references some type of ancestral connection to Bohemia. The "Upper German" dialects of German are today found along the old Danubian frontier of the Roman empire, although eventually replaced by a Slavic language in Moravia and Slovakia, and probably descend from the languages of the southern Suebi such as the Quadi. The western area, inhabited by the Alemanni in late classical times, is home to Alemannic dialects. Dialects of Bavaria and Austria are in the related linguistically Bavarian group, which is geographically closer to the Quadi homeland.

Sources

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External links

• J. B. Rives, Commentary on Tacitus' Germania.
• Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, English and Latin versions in the Perseus Digital Library
• Strabo, Geography, English and Greek versions in the Perseus Digital Library
• Tacitus, Germania, English and Latin versions in the Perseus Digital Library
• Tacitus, Annals, English and Latin versions in the Perseus Digital Library