Cherusci. In the year 28 the Frisians revolted from the Romans, and though they submitted again in the year 47, Claudius immediately afterwards recalled the Roman troops to the left bank of the Rhine. In the year 50 Vannius, king of the Suebi, was driven from the throne by Vibilius, king of the Hermunduri, and his nephews Vangio and Sido obtained his kingdom. In the year 58 the Chatti suffered a serious disaster in a campaign against the Hermunduri. They seem, however, to have recovered very soon, and at the end of the 1st century had apparently extended their power at the expense of the Cherusci. During the latter part of the 1st century the Chauci seem to have been enlarging their territories: as early as the year 47 we find them raiding the Roman lands on the lower Rhine, and in 58 they expelled the Ampsivarii, who after several vain attempts to acquire new possessions were annihilated by the neighbouring tribes. During the last years of the 1st century the Angrivarii are found moving westwards, probably under pressure from the Chauci, and the power of the Bructeri was almost destroyed by their attack. In 69 the Roman territory on the lower Rhine was disturbed by the serious revolt of Claudius Civilis, a prince of the Batavi who had served in the Roman army. He was joined by the Bructeri and other neighbouring tribes, but being defeated by Petilius Cerealis (afterwards consular legate in Britain) at Vetera and in other engagements gave up the struggle and arranged a capitulation in A.D. 70. By the end of the 1st century the Chauci and Chatti seem to have become by far the most powerful tribes in western Germany, though the former are seldom mentioned after this time.
After the time of Tacitus our information regarding German affairs becomes extremely meagre. The next important conflict with the Romans was the Marcomannic War (166–180), in which all the Suebic tribes together with the Vandals (apparently the ancient Lugii) and the Sarmatian Iazyges seem to have taken part. Peace was made by the emperor Commodus in A.D. 180 on payment of large sums of money.
About the beginning of the 3rd century we find a forward
movement in south-west Germany among a group of tribes
known collectively as Alamanni (q.v.) who came in
conflict with the emperor Caracalla in the year 213.
About the same time the Goths also made their first
The Alamanni,
the Goths and
the Franks.
appearance in the south-east and soon became the
most formidable antagonists of Rome. In the year
251 they defeated and slew the emperor Decius, and in the
reign of Gallienus their fleets setting out from the north of the
Black Sea worked great havoc on the coast of the Aegean (see
Goths). It is not to be supposed, however, that they had quitted
their own lands on the Vistula by this time. In this connexion
we hear also of the Heruli (q.v.), who some twenty years later,
about 289, make their appearance in the western seas. In 286
we hear for the first time of maritime raids by the Saxons in
the same quarter. About the middle of the 3rd century the
name Franks (q.v.) makes its first appearance, apparently a
new collective term for the tribes of north-west Germany from
the Chatti to the mouth of the Rhine.
In the 4th century the chief powers in western Germany were the Franks and the Alamanni, both of whom were in constant conflict with the Romans. The former were pressed in their rear by the Saxons, who at some time before the middle of the 4th century appear to have invaded Arrival of the Huns. and conquered a considerable part of north-west Germany. About the same time great national movements seem to have been taking place farther east. The Burgundians made their appearance in the west shortly before the end of the 3rd century, settling in the basin of the Main, and it is probable that some portions of the north Suebic peoples, perhaps the ancient Semnones, had already moved westward. By the middle of the 4th century the Goths had become the dominant power in eastern Germany, and their King Hermanaric held a supremacy which seems to have stretched from the Black Sea to Holstein. At his death, however, the supremacy of eastern Germany passed to the Huns, an invading people from the east, whose arrival seems to have produced a complete displacement of population in this region. With regard to the course of events in eastern Germany we have no knowledge, but during the 5th century several of the peoples previously settled there appear to have made their way into the lands south of the Carpathians and Riesengebirge, amongst whom (besides the Goths) may be especially mentioned the Rugii and the Gepides, the latter perhaps originally a branch of the Goths. According to tradition the Vandals had been driven into Pannonia by the Goths in the time of Constantine. We do not know how far northward the Hunnish power reached in the time of Attila, but the invasion of this nation was soon followed by a great westward movement of the Slavs.
In the west the Alamanni and the descendants of the Marcomanni, now called Baiouarii (Bavarians), had broken through the frontiers of the Roman provinces of Vindelicia and Noricum at the beginning of the 5th century, while the Vandals together with some of the Suebi The Burgundians and other tribes. and the non-Teutonic Alani from the east crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul in 406. About 435–440 the Burgundians were overthrown by Attila, and their king Gunthacarius (Gundahar) killed. The remains of the nation shortly afterwards settled in Gaul. About the same time the Franks overran and occupied the modern Belgium, and in the course of the next half-century their dominions were enormously extended towards the south (see Franks). After the death of Attila in 453 the power of the Huns soon collapsed, but the political divisions of Germany in the ensuing period are far from clear.
In the 6th century the predominant peoples are the Franks,
Frisians, Saxons, Alamanni, Bavarians, Langobardi, Heruli
and Warni. By the beginning of this century the
Saxons seem to have penetrated almost, if not quite,
to the Rhine in the Netherlands. Farther south,
The Franks and others in the
6th century.
however, the old land of the Chatti was included in
the kingdom of Clovis. Northern Bavaria was occupied
by the Franks, whose king Clovis subdued the Alamanni in
495. To the east of the Franks between the Harz, the Elbe and
the Saale lay the kingdom of the Thuringi, the origin of whom
is not clear. The Heruli also had a powerful kingdom, probably
in the basin of the Elbe, and to the east of them were the Langobardi.
The Warni apparently now dwelt in the regions about
the mouth of the Elbe, while the whole coast from the mouth
of the Weser to the west Scheldt was in the hands of the Frisians.
By this time all the country east of the lower Elbe seems to
have been Slavonic. In the north, perhaps in the province of
Schleswig, we hear now for the first time of the Danes. Theodoric,
king of the Ostrogoths, endeavoured to form a confederacy
with the Thuringi, Heruli and Warni against Clovis in order
to protect the Visigoths in the early years of the 6th century,
but very shortly afterwards the king of the Heruli was slain
by the Langobardi and their existence as an independent power
came to an end. In 531 the Thuringian kingdom was destroyed
by the Frankish king Theodoric, son of Clovis, with whom the
Saxons were in alliance.
During the 6th and 7th centuries the Saxons were intermittently
under Frankish supremacy, but their conquest was not
complete until the time of Charlemagne. Shortly
after the middle of the 6th century the Franks were
The Saxons and
the Franks.
threatened with a new invasion by the Avars. In
567–568 the Langobardi, who by this time had moved
into the Danube basin, invaded Italy and were followed by those
of the Saxons who had settled in Thuringia. Their lands were
given by the Frankish king Sigeberht to the north Suebi and
other tribes who had come either from the Elbe basin or possibly
from the Netherlands. About the same time Sigeberht was
defeated by the Avars, and though the latter soon withdrew
from the Frankish frontiers, their course was followed by a
movement of the Slavs, who occupied the basin of the Elster
and penetrated to that of the Main.
By the end of the 6th century the whole basin of the Elbe except the Saxon territory near the mouth had probably become Slavonic. To the east of the Saale were the Sorbs (Sorabi), and beyond them the Daleminci and Siusli. To the east of the
