History
Germania is inhabited by different tribes, most of them Germanic but also some Celtic, proto-Slavic, Baltic and Scythian peoples. The tribal and ethnic makeup change over the centuries as a result of assimilation and, most importantly, migrations. The Germanic people speak several different dialects.
Origins of Germanic tribes
Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia and Germany to the adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward (pushing the resident Celts west to the Rhine by about 200 BC) and moving into southern Germany up to the Roman province of Gaul by 100 BC, where they were stopped by Gaius Marius and Julius Caesar. A later wave of Germanic tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia between 600 and 300 BC to the opposite coast of the Baltic Sea, moving up the Vistula near the Carpathians. A period of federation and intermarriage resulted in the familiar groups known as the Alemanni, Franks, Saxons, Frisians and Thuringians.
Collision with Rome
By the late 2nd century BCE, Roman authors recount, Gaul, Italy and Hispania were invaded by migrating Germanic tribes. This culminated in military conflict with the armies of the Roman Republic, in particular those of the Roman Consul Gaius Marius. The Cimbri and Teutoni incursions into Roman Italy were thrust back in 101 BCE. These invasions were written up by Caesar and others as presaging of a Northern danger for the Roman Republic, a danger that should be controlled. Julius Caesar invoked the threat of expansions such as that by Ariovistus' Suebi as one justification for his annexation of Gaul to Rome.
As Rome expanded to the Rhine and Danube rivers, it incorporated many Celtic societies into the Empire. The tribal homelands to the north and east emerged collectively in the records as Germania. The peoples of this area were sometimes at war with Rome, but also engaged in complex and long-term trade relations, military alliances, and cultural exchanges with Rome as well. The initial purpose of the Roman campaigns is to protect Transalpine Gaul by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe.
Roman conquests
The Romans under Augustus began to conquer and defeat the peoples of Germania Magna in 12 BC, having the Legati (generals) Germanicus and Tiberius leading the Legions. By 6 AD, all of Germania up to the River Elbe is temporarily pacified by the Romans as well as being occupied by them. The Roman plan to complete the conquest and incorporate all of Magna Germania into the Roman Empire is frustrated when Rome is defeated by the German tribesmen in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. Augustus then ordered Roman withdrawal from Magna Germania (completed by AD 16) and established the boundary of the Roman Empire as being the Rhine and the Danube.
Roman Empire period
In the Augustean period there was—as a result of Roman activity as far as the Elbe River—a first definition of the "Germania magna": from Rhine and Danube in the West and South to the Vistula and the Baltic Sea in the East and North. In 9 CE, a revolt of their Germanic subjects headed by the supposed Roman ally, Arminius, (along with his decisive defeat of Publius Quinctilius Varus and the destruction of 3 Roman legions in the surprise attack on the Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest) ended in the withdrawal of the Roman frontier to the Rhine. Occupying Germany had proven too costly and with it, ended 28 years of Roman campaigning across the North European plains. At the end of the 1st century, two provinces west of the Rhine called Germania inferior and Germania superior were established by the Emperor Damitian, "so as to separate this more militarized zone from the civilian populations farther west and south".
The forebears of the Goths were settled on the southern Baltic shore by 100 CE.
The early Germanic tribes have spoken mutually intelligible dialects, in the sense that Germanic languages derive from a single earlier parent language, by the 5th century the Germanic languages will be already sufficiently different to render communication between the various peoples impossible.
In the absence of large-scale political unification, such as that imposed forcibly by the Romans upon the peoples of Italy, the various tribes remained free, led by their own hereditary or chosen leaders. Once Rome faced significant threats on its borders, some of the Germanic tribes who once guarded its periphery chose solace within the Roman empire itself, so enough assimilation and cross-cultural pollination will be occurred for their societies not only to cooperate, but to live together in some cases.
Migration Period
During the 5th century, as the Western Roman Empire lost military strength and political cohesion, numerous Germanic peoples, under pressure from population growth and invading Asian groups, begin migrating en masse in far and diverse directions, taking them to Britain and far south through present day Continental Europe to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. Over time, this wandering mean intrusions into other tribal territories, and the ensuing wars for land escalate with the dwindling amount of unoccupied territory. Wandering tribes then begin staking out permanent homes as a means of protection. Much of this resulted in fixed settlements from which many, under a powerful leader, expande outwards.
A direct result of the Roman retreat will be the disappearance of imported products like ceramics and coins, and a return to virtually unchanged local Iron Age production methods.
Role in the Fall of Rome
Germanic peoples don´t invade a decaying empire but they are been co-opted into helping defend territory the central government could no longer adequately administer. Individuals and small groups from Germanic tribes have long been recruited from the territories beyond the limes (i.e., the regions just outside the Roman Empire), and some of them have risen high in the command structure of the army. the Empire recruit entire tribal groups under their native leaders as officers. Assisting with defense eventually shifted into administration and then outright rule, as Roman government pass into the hands of Germanic leaders. Odoacer, who deposed Romulus Augustulus, is the ultimate example.
Germania is inhabited by different tribes, most of them Germanic but also some Celtic, proto-Slavic, Baltic and Scythian peoples. The tribal and ethnic makeup change over the centuries as a result of assimilation and, most importantly, migrations. The Germanic people speak several different dialects.
Origins of Germanic tribes
Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia and Germany to the adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward (pushing the resident Celts west to the Rhine by about 200 BC) and moving into southern Germany up to the Roman province of Gaul by 100 BC, where they were stopped by Gaius Marius and Julius Caesar. A later wave of Germanic tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia between 600 and 300 BC to the opposite coast of the Baltic Sea, moving up the Vistula near the Carpathians. A period of federation and intermarriage resulted in the familiar groups known as the Alemanni, Franks, Saxons, Frisians and Thuringians.
Collision with Rome
By the late 2nd century BCE, Roman authors recount, Gaul, Italy and Hispania were invaded by migrating Germanic tribes. This culminated in military conflict with the armies of the Roman Republic, in particular those of the Roman Consul Gaius Marius. The Cimbri and Teutoni incursions into Roman Italy were thrust back in 101 BCE. These invasions were written up by Caesar and others as presaging of a Northern danger for the Roman Republic, a danger that should be controlled. Julius Caesar invoked the threat of expansions such as that by Ariovistus' Suebi as one justification for his annexation of Gaul to Rome.
As Rome expanded to the Rhine and Danube rivers, it incorporated many Celtic societies into the Empire. The tribal homelands to the north and east emerged collectively in the records as Germania. The peoples of this area were sometimes at war with Rome, but also engaged in complex and long-term trade relations, military alliances, and cultural exchanges with Rome as well. The initial purpose of the Roman campaigns is to protect Transalpine Gaul by controlling the area between the Rhine and the Elbe.
Roman conquests
The Romans under Augustus began to conquer and defeat the peoples of Germania Magna in 12 BC, having the Legati (generals) Germanicus and Tiberius leading the Legions. By 6 AD, all of Germania up to the River Elbe is temporarily pacified by the Romans as well as being occupied by them. The Roman plan to complete the conquest and incorporate all of Magna Germania into the Roman Empire is frustrated when Rome is defeated by the German tribesmen in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. Augustus then ordered Roman withdrawal from Magna Germania (completed by AD 16) and established the boundary of the Roman Empire as being the Rhine and the Danube.
Roman Empire period
In the Augustean period there was—as a result of Roman activity as far as the Elbe River—a first definition of the "Germania magna": from Rhine and Danube in the West and South to the Vistula and the Baltic Sea in the East and North. In 9 CE, a revolt of their Germanic subjects headed by the supposed Roman ally, Arminius, (along with his decisive defeat of Publius Quinctilius Varus and the destruction of 3 Roman legions in the surprise attack on the Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest) ended in the withdrawal of the Roman frontier to the Rhine. Occupying Germany had proven too costly and with it, ended 28 years of Roman campaigning across the North European plains. At the end of the 1st century, two provinces west of the Rhine called Germania inferior and Germania superior were established by the Emperor Damitian, "so as to separate this more militarized zone from the civilian populations farther west and south".
The forebears of the Goths were settled on the southern Baltic shore by 100 CE.
The early Germanic tribes have spoken mutually intelligible dialects, in the sense that Germanic languages derive from a single earlier parent language, by the 5th century the Germanic languages will be already sufficiently different to render communication between the various peoples impossible.
In the absence of large-scale political unification, such as that imposed forcibly by the Romans upon the peoples of Italy, the various tribes remained free, led by their own hereditary or chosen leaders. Once Rome faced significant threats on its borders, some of the Germanic tribes who once guarded its periphery chose solace within the Roman empire itself, so enough assimilation and cross-cultural pollination will be occurred for their societies not only to cooperate, but to live together in some cases.
Migration Period
During the 5th century, as the Western Roman Empire lost military strength and political cohesion, numerous Germanic peoples, under pressure from population growth and invading Asian groups, begin migrating en masse in far and diverse directions, taking them to Britain and far south through present day Continental Europe to the Mediterranean and northern Africa. Over time, this wandering mean intrusions into other tribal territories, and the ensuing wars for land escalate with the dwindling amount of unoccupied territory. Wandering tribes then begin staking out permanent homes as a means of protection. Much of this resulted in fixed settlements from which many, under a powerful leader, expande outwards.
A direct result of the Roman retreat will be the disappearance of imported products like ceramics and coins, and a return to virtually unchanged local Iron Age production methods.
Role in the Fall of Rome
Germanic peoples don´t invade a decaying empire but they are been co-opted into helping defend territory the central government could no longer adequately administer. Individuals and small groups from Germanic tribes have long been recruited from the territories beyond the limes (i.e., the regions just outside the Roman Empire), and some of them have risen high in the command structure of the army. the Empire recruit entire tribal groups under their native leaders as officers. Assisting with defense eventually shifted into administration and then outright rule, as Roman government pass into the hands of Germanic leaders. Odoacer, who deposed Romulus Augustulus, is the ultimate example.