Marcomanni
The Marcomanni were a Germanic people who lived close to the border of the Roman Empire, north of the River Danube, and are mentioned in Roman records from approximately 60 BC until about 400 AD. They were one of the most important members of the powerful cluster of allied Suebian peoples in this region, which also included the Hermunduri, Varisti, and Quadi along the Danube, and the Semnones and Langobardi to their north.
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. After a major defeat to the Romans in about 9 BC, the Marcomanni somehow received 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 what is now the Czech Republic. Before 9 BC the homeland of the Marcomanni is not known, but archaeological evidence suggests that they lived near the central Elbe river and Saale, or possibly to the southwest of this region in Franconia.
From his base in Bohemia, Maroboduus built up a Rome-aligned Suebian empire, but the Langobardi and Semnones left when Maroboduus failed to support the rebellion of Arminius against Rome. The subsequent war among the Germanic peoples was damaging to both sides. This damaged Maroboduus's reputation, and he was eventually toppled from power, and died in exile in Ravenna. This suited the empire because despite their neutrality towards Rome, Roman rulers saw the Marcomanni as a potential threat to them, within striking distance of Italy. Over the centuries the Romans sought to control their leaders, and disrupt their relationships with neighbouring peoples. Despite long periods of peace and prosperity there were also several periods of intense warfare between them, often triggered by the actions of peoples living further from the Roman frontier.
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. Eventually defeated, the Marcomanni were weakened, and many were moved into the Roman empire, but the tensions behind this war were never resolved, and their neighbours such as the Quadi continued to come into conflict with Rome. This ended only when Goths, Alans and Huns moved from the east into the Middle Danube region and took effective control of it in the late 4th century. The region subsequently came under the rule of Attila, who died in 453. By this time many Marcomanni apparently already lived within Pannonia in the Roman empire, and at least some of these had converted to Christianity. There are indications that a significant number apparently came to live to the south between the Sava and Drava rivers in what is now Slovenia and Croatia. More generally, although the details are now unclear, many Marcomanni and other Suebian communities from the region of the Elbe and Danube are believed to have joined the Langobardi who moved southwards into the Middle Danube region, replacing the short-lived kingdoms which arose after Attila's death, and subsequently moved into Italy under pressure from the arrival of the Avars from the east. Other Marcomanni are likely to have joined the Alemanni, and Bavarians to their west, or even to have left the region entirely with the Suebi who founded the Kingdom of the Suebi in what is now Portugal and Spain.
Name
It is believed that the name of the Marcomanni comes from a Germanic language. The first part derives from a Proto-Germanic word reconstructed as *markō meaning "border, boundary", which is also 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.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, 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 to the Rhine itself, but the others apparently came from further east.The exact position of the Marcomanni homelands east of the Rhine at this time is not known. Although there is no scholarly consensus, one of the most common proposals is that they came from the region in northwestern Bavaria. It is generally accepted that they lived near to, or even among the Suebi, because later Roman writers connect the two peoples, and because of archaeological evidence showing Elbe Germanic peoples first entering present day central Germany and later entering the modern Bohemian area at the right time to match the Marcomanni. Caesar understood the country of the Suebi he faced to be in or near present day Hesse, Franconia, and Thuringia. Caesar himself made no mention of any special connection between the Suebi and Marcomanni, because he only mentioned the Marcomanni once in a list. It is nevertheless possible the Marcomanni were already seen as a branch of the Suebi, although this categorization is only made explicit in much later authors such as Strabo and Tacitus. Alternatively, between Caesar and Strabo there may have been 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, who were divided into 100 districts which 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 countries to supply infantry and cavalry reinforcements.
A later Roman historian, Cassius Dio, mentioned that part of a country where the Marcomanni had recently lived was settled by the Hermunduri in 7 BC with Roman permission, and this was apparently west of the Elbe, if we can assume that the events he described 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.
In terms of archaeological evidence the Marcomanni and their Suebian neighbours are strongly associated with the Grossromstedter archaeological culture of the Middle Elbe and Saale river regions. The area of this culture expanded 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 expanding southeast into the Bohemian region. It was influenced not only by the older Jastorf culture of the central Elbe 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 associated with earlier Celtic peoples of these regions, such as the Boii and Volcae Tectosages. The present day Czech region had itself already come under Przeworsk influence in the generations before the Germanic influx. The name of the Marcomanni, which refers to a frontier, may echo an earlier demarcation somewhere between such Germanic and Celtic cultures.
The Marcomanni are archaeologically difficult to distinguish among the various Suebian groups such as the Quadi and Hermunduri who were bringing the Grossromstedter culture southwards and westwards. Furthermore, the Grossromstedter culture already began to have some influence in the Bohemian area after Caesar's victories, and before the Marcomanni defeat in 9 BC.
Near extermination by the Romans (9 BC)
In the time of Augustus, 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, happening after he had defeated the Tencteri and Chatti, and before next turning to confront 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:
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 also the year that Drusus died after reaching the Elbe. 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 in fact the same as the Marcomanni.