Suebi
The Suebi were a large group of Germanic peoples first reported by Julius Caesar in the 1st century BC. In different contexts over several centuries, peoples within this umbrella category were sometimes simply called the Suebi, although all or most Suebian peoples had their own names as well. They originated near the Elbe River in what is now Eastern Germany. From there, Suebian groups spread across Central Europe, and in the 5th and 6th centuries some took over parts of Spain, Portugal and Italy. Archaeologically, the forerunners of the Suebi before contact with Rome are associated with the Jastorf culture. During the Roman imperial period the Suebi are associated with the so-called "Elbe Germanic peoples" who brought Elbe material culture into new areas to the south and southwest. Linguistically, although contemporary evidence for Roman-era Suebian language is scarce, they spoke a Germanic language, which is believed to be the main predecessor of medieval Old High German, and the modern German language, with all its related dialects.
With the advent of Roman dominance in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, some Suebi moved into Roman controlled regions near the Neckar river, while a powerful Suebian alliance outside their control maintained a tense relationship with the Roman empire. This was led by the Marcomanni, who settled with other Suebi in remote forests and mountains north of the Roman border along the Danube river, and maintained connections with Suebian and non-Suebian peoples to their north. After their crushing defeat to the Romans in the Marcomannic Wars of the late 2nd century, many Suebi moved into the Roman Empire, or regrouped in areas near the Roman frontier. Notably, the diverse group who came to be known as the Alemanni, took control of Roman territory in what later became medieval Swabia - a cultural region in southern Germany that still bears a version of the Suebian name. During the 3rd and 4th centuries, the Romans were often raided by the Alemanni, Juthungi, Quadi and other Suebi, and attempts to subjugate them had limited success.
After the Battle of Adrianople in 378, the Suebi, Romans and other peoples of the Middle Danube were unsettled by the large-scale arrival of Huns, Goths, Alans, and other newcomers from eastern Europe. Around 406, many Middle Danubians, including many Quadi, moved far to the west, entering Roman Gaul, and disrupting it badly. A large group of "Suebi", probably including many Quadi and other Middle Danubians, entered Roman Hispania by 409, where a civil war was in progress. There they established the Kingdom of the Suebi in Gallaecia, which lasted from 409 to 585. This was eventually absorbed by the Visigoths, but its legacy survives in local place-names.
Many other Middle Danubians joined the Huns, and became part of the empire of Attila. After his death in 453 several kingdoms formed, and divided up the region. Among these, a short-lived Suebian kingdom was defeated by the Ostrogoths, and some of them travelled west to join the Alemanni, contributing to the ongoing ethnogenesis of the medieval Swabians. After the Ostrogoths left the region to conquer Italy in 493, the Langobards, filled the power vacuum in the Middle Danubian area and became dominant from around 500. They were a Suebian people who had moved southwards from the Elbe region, and they were willing to integrate other populations who agreed to follow their laws. In the still-Romanized areas between the Alemanni and Langobards, a new Germanic people called the Baiuvarii took control, who were the forerunners of the later Bavarians. Modern scholars categorize their language and material culture as Suebian, although they were not called Suebian. In 568 the Langobards entered Italy and established the Kingdom of the Lombards there. The Middle Danube was taken over by the Pannonian Avars, while Bavaria and Swabia became stem duchies of the Frankish empire.
Name
The spelling form "Suebi" is the dominant one in classical times, while the common variant "Suevi" also appears throughout history. Around 300-600 AD spellings such as Suaevi, Suavi, and Σούαβοι started to occur, because of a sound shift which occurred in West Germanic at this time. However, the classical spellings also continued to be used. The Proto-Germanic pronunciation is reconstructed as , .Throughout the 19th century, numerous attempts to propose a Germanic etymology for the name were made which are no longer accepted by scholars. The most widely accepted proposal today is that the word is related to a reconstructed Germanic adjective meaning “one’s own", which is also found in other ethnic names including the Germanic Suiones.
The similarity between the Suebian name and the reconstructed Germanic word meaning "clan", “related" or "family” is generally seen as indicating that the two words are related, and this is seen as relevant for attempts to explain the second part name. Notably, the name of the Semnones, who classical authors described as the most prestigious and original Suebians, may also have a similar etymology. Linguists generally believe that this name was pronounced as Sebnō, and derived from Proto Indo-European --n meaning “of one’s own kind”, with an n-suffix that expresses belonging. The Suebi would then be “those who are of their own kind”, while the Semnones would be “those who belong to those of their own kind”.
In contrast, Rübekeil argues that the relevant Proto Indo-European suffix to explain the Germanic name of the Suebi is not -bho-, which was a suffix used to create adverbs from adjectives. Instead he proposes it was a suffix *-bū- based on the verb to be,, with a syllabic lengthening which changed the meaning to “belonging to”. The Proto Indo-European root noun - would mean roughly “self-being”.
Alternatively, it has also been argued that it was borrowed from a Celtic word for "vagabond".
One people, or many peoples
In Caesar's first report about events in 58 BC, the Suebi were described as a single tribe, who lived in a specific place, between the Ubii and Cherusci, somewhere between the Rhine and Elbe. The Suebi tribe were described again in the following generation, when several classical sources describe their crushing defeat by Drusus the elder in 9 BC. Like Caesar, these authors mentioned the Marcomanni as a distinct allied people who were also defeated in the Roman campaigns of both 58 BC and 9 BC.After the many victories of Rome in Germania, first century authors such as Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and Tacitus began to perceive the Suebi as a group of tribes, rather than a single tribe. Writing in the early third century Dio Cassius claimed that many peoples had simply decided to call themselves Suebi over time. Modern scholars doubt this, and suggest that Romans may not have originally been aware that tribes such as the Marcomanni and Semnones saw themselves as Suebi.
Strabo, writing in about 23 AD, described the Suebi not only as the largest people of the region between Rhine and Elbe, stretching from the one river to the other, but also as an umbrella category including large, well-known tribes. The Semnones are described as one of the largest Suebian peoples, and are listed among the peoples now ruled by Maroboduus. Strabo says that this king settled his own people, the Marcomanni, along with some Suebian peoples and other peoples, in the Hercynian forest, but not all Suebi are in this forest. Other Suebi have moved to the eastern bank of the Rhine, forcing the original inhabitants to cross the river and enter the empire. The Hermunduri and Langobardi are also described as Suebi, and are described as living east of the Elbe.
Notably, Pliny did not explicitly describe the Suebi as an umbrella category, but reported instead that the Suebi, the Hermunduri, the Chatti, and the Cherusci were all in the same ancient race of the Germani called the Irminones, who all lived inland. In this account there were only five Germanic races.
Tacitus, writing around 100 AD, was very clear that the Suebi "are not one single people", and that "they occupy a larger part of Germania, and though still divided into distinct nations and names", they are collectively referred to as Suebi". He repeated the five names mentioned by Pliny, noting that they are celebrated in "old songs" which describe how they descend from an ancestor Mannus. However, he then adds that some people "taking the liberty allowed by antiquity", assert that other names of peoples, among which he lists the Suebi, "are also true and ancient names".
Tacitus noted that the Semnones, who lived on the Elbe, were believed to be the head, and origin of the Suebian people. Like the Suebi described by Caesar they lived in 100 pagi. Their reputation was reinforced by their sacred grove where "all the people of the same name and blood come together", referring to all Suebi, and not just all Semnones. Nevertheless, the Marcomanni "stand first in strength and renown".
Unlike Strabo Tacitus claimed to be able to describe the situation east of the Elbe. He believed nearly all the eastern Germanic peoples living between the Elbe and Vistula, and north into Scandinavia, were Suebi. In modern scholarship it has sometimes alternatively been proposed that the name Suebi may have even been the name which the Germanic peoples used to refer to themselves, as opposed to the Latin name Germani. In contrast, others propose that the Romans themselves popularized the use of the term Suebi as an umbrella category. Like the term Germani, it was a handy term for referring to northern tribes whose real names were not clear to Romans. It has even been claimed by Herwig Wolfram that in the first centuries AD, classical ethnography applied the name Suebi to so many Germanic tribes that it almost replaced the term Germani which Caesar had made popular.
Roman sources subsequently continued to use the term "Suebi", but they used it less for several centuries, probably because they were now better informed about the names of individual tribes. In the late fourth century, as the Quadi and Marcomanni disappear from the record, the more generic term Suebi once again became common in Roman records, and several new Suebian polities came into being. The Kingdom of the Suebi in Hispania was founded in the early 5th century, and at least one Suebian polity appeared near the Middle Danube after the death of Attila the Hun in 453.