The Danube; Alsace
2000 years ago the Baltic Sea was known to the Romans as the Mare Suebicum. The East Sea is the Baltic Sea or Middle Sea. In classical times this body of water was Mare Germanicum, meaning German Ocean. Tacitus referred to all Elbe-Germanics as Suebi. Some time before Caesar's governorship of Gaul (which began in 58 BC), the Gaulish Arverni and Sequani had enlisted Ariovistus's aid in their war against the Aedui. Ariovistus seized a third of the Aeduan territory, settling 120,000 Germans there. He later demanded a further third for his allies the Harudes. Howver, the Aedui were also allies of Rome, and in 58 BC Diviciacus, one of their senior magistrates, pleaded with Caesar to intervene on their behalf. King Ariovistus of the Suebi tribe countered that the lands were his by right of conquest, and immediately began bringing more Germans across the Rhine.
| The Danube is Europe's second longest river. As the Danube winds out of central Europe towards the Black Sea, it passes through a large basin to the Carpathian Basin. The basin formed during the later Tertiary as the Alpine, Carpathian, and Dinaric mountain chains folded up around it. Gradually it became inundated by the Tethys sea. The Danube originates in the Black Forest in Germany and has been an important international waterway for centuries other than the Rhine. Known to history as one of the long-standing frontiers of Transdanubia and the Roman Empire, the Danube river flows through—or forms a part of the borders of ten countries: Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. Although the headwaters of the Danube are relatively small today, geologically, the Danube is much older than the Rhine, since the Rhine is the only river rising in the Alps mountains which flows north towards the North Sea. Swabia (the name derives from the Suebi, a Germanic tribe that inhabited the region) was one of the original stem duchies of the German Kingdom, as it developed in the 9th and 10th centuries. Swabians live in most of present-day state of Baden-Württemberg as well as the Bavarian administrative district of Swabia. In the Middle Ages, Baden, Vorarlberg, the modern principality of Liechtenstein, modern German-speaking Switzerland, and Alsace (nowadays belonging to France) were also considered to be a part of Swabia; those close or originally part of the HRE |  |
The Sequani or (Seine), were a Celtic people who occupied the upper basin of the Arar (Saone), their territory corresponding to Franche-Comte and part of Burgundy. Before the arrival of Julius Caesar in Gaul, the Sequani had taken the part of the Arverni against their rivals the Aedui and hired the Germans under Ariovistus to cross the Rhine and help them (71 BC). Under Augustus, the district known as Sequania formed part of Belgica.
Diocletian added Helvetia, and part of Germania Superior to Sequania, which was now called Provincia Maxima Sequanorum, Vesontio receiving the title of Metropolis civitas Vesontiensium. Fifty years later Gaul was overrun by the barbarians, and Vesontio sacked (355). Under Julian, it recovered some of its importance as a fortified town, and was able to withstand the attacks of the Vandals. Later, when Rome was no longer able to afford protection to the inhabitants of Gaul, the Sequani became merged in the newly formed Kingdom of Burgundy. According to Herodotus (v. 9), they dwelt beyond the Danube, and their frontiers extended almost as far as the Eneti on the Adriatic.
The Sequani (Sigynnae) could indeed have been a part of the Iranian expansion, together with the Scythians and Sarmatians migrating west into the Ukraine in the early Iron Age context of the "Thraco-Cimmerian" migrations, attributing to them Persian customs, places them near the Caspian. The Ligurian language was spoken in pre-Roman times and into the Roman era by an ancient people of north-western Italy and south-eastern France known as the Ligures. Very little is known about this language (mainly place names and personal names remain) which is generally believed to have been Indo-European including other Indo-European languages, primarily Celtic (Gaulish) and Italic (Latin). As for the Alps... Many tribes (éthnę) occupy these mountains, all Celtic (Keltikà) except the Ligurians.
The Thracians and the Cimmerians refers to 8th to 7th century BC cultures that intruded into Eastern Central Europe from the area north of the Black Sea. The latter are known from historical records to have invaded Anatolia around this period, while the Thracians are mentioned as far back as the Iliad and Odyssey, where they participate in the Trojan War. It is sometimes assumed that the migration of the Cimmerians was triggered by an Iranian expansion, from the area of the former Srubna culture, into the steppes of what is now the Ukraine, other than Linear B. Virtually nothing is known about the Cimmerian language unless to belong to the Satem group. Thraco-Cimmerian" artefacts are metal (usually bronze) items. They appear rather to spread from the Koban culture of the Caucasus and northern Georgia, which together with the Srubna culture, blends into the 9th to 7th centuries pre-Scythian Chernogorovka and Novocherkassk cultures of the Iron Age steppes, centered between the Prut and the lower Don. The earlier Cimmerians including mercenaries (Khumri) lived between the Tyras (Dniester) and Tanais (Don) rivers. Several kings of the Cimmerians are mentioned in Greek and Mesopotamian sources. The Cimmerian commoners buried the bodies along the river Tyras and fled from the Scythian advance, across the Caucasus and into Anatolia and the Near East. The migrations of the Cimmerians were recorded by the Assyrians.
In 654 BC or 652 BC – the exact date is unclear – the Cimmerians attacked the kingdom of Lydia, killing the Lydian king Gyges and causing great destruction to the Lydian capital, Sardis. The fall of Sardis was a major shock to the powers of the region; the Greek poets Callinus and Archilochus recorded the fear that it inspired in the Greek colonies of Ionia, some of which were attacked by Cimmerian and Treres raiders. The term "Gimirri" was used about a century later in the Behistun inscription (ca. 515 BC) as a Babylonian equivalent of Persian Saka (Scythians), but otherwise Cimmerians are not heard of again in Asia. Frankish traditions would locate them at the mouth of the Danube (Sicambri).
Although the Cimmerians of historical record only appear on the stage of world history for a brief time (during the 7th century BC), numerous Celtic and Germanic peoples have traditions of being descended from the Cimmerians or Scythians, and some of their ethnic names seem to bear out this belief (e.g. Cymru, Cwmry or Cumbria, Cimbri). The Cimmerians are now often classified as an Iranian people, but based on ancient Greek historical sources, between Thracian and Iranian an association assumed is sometimes Celtic. The Thracians have been identified as a possible western branch of the Cimmerians. In the 2nd century BC eastern part of Taurica became part of the Bosporan Kingdom, before being incorporated into the Roman Empire in the 1st century BC. Taurica was inhabited by a variety of peoples. The inland regions were inhabited by Scythians and the mountainous south coast by the Tauri, an offshoot of the Cimmerians.
In prehistoric times, Alsace was inhabited by nomadic hunters, but by 1500 B.C. Celts began to settle in Alsace, clearing and cultivating the land. By 58 B.C., the Romans had invaded and established Alsace as a center of viticulture. To protect this highly valued industry, the Romans built fortifications and military camps that evolved into various communities which have been inhabited continuously to the present day. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Alsace became the territory of the Alamanni.