Suavi

The Suebi or Suebians (also known as Suevi or Suavi) were a large and powerful group of Germanic peoples during the Roman era, who originated near the Elbe river region in what is now north-eastern Germany, but subsequently came to be a dominant influence in much of non-Roman Germania, stretching from Roman borders on the Rhine and Danube, to Scandinavia and the Vistula river. Although the Roman empire succeeded in imposing its hegemony over much of the region in the first century AD, a major alliance of Suebian peoples formed, based around the powerful Marcomanni and Quadi, who settled themselves in inaccessible regions near the Roman Danube frontier and existed in a tense but successful stand-off with them for several centuries. Suebian groups began establishing kingdoms within Roman empire starting in the third century, with the establishment of the Alamanni in what later came to be called Swabia, which is a cultural region in what is now southern Germany. Their name is also commemorated in numerous placenames found over much of continental Europe, including as far west as Portugal and Spain, where a major Suebian kingdom was created which lasted until 585. The original Suebian alliance of the imperial period was finally defeated in the long and destructive Marcomannic Wars of the late second century, and many Suebian groups moved away from the now Roman-oppressed Danubian region,. Some moved into the Roman empire itself, sometimes under the leadership of Roman administration. Other Suebi moved into positions where they could raid or even colonise Roman territories. The relatively lightly settled Agri Decumates region, which already had a historical connection to the Suebi, was out of Roman control by about 260, and the diverse Suebian groups who took over eventually came to be known as the Alamanni, and this is the region which eventually came to be called Swabia. In the crucial Middle Danubian frontier zone, near the present day Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria, Rome eventually lost control to Huns, Alans and Goths who arrived from the east after the Roman defeat at the Battle of Adrianople in 378, and it is in the ensuing period that Suebi and other peoples of this region moved westwards and entered first Gaul, and then Hispania, where a Suebian kingdom was founded. There are indications that many remaining Suebian groups were willing allies within the empire of Attila, which dominated the Middle Danubian region until his death in 453. Among the short-lived independent kingdoms which formed after his death, a Suebian kingdom was defeated by Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia in 469. Some of these Suebians apparently westwards under their king Hunimund, into present-day western Austria and southern Germany, where they became allies of the Alemanni and contributed to the ongoing ethnogenesis of the medieval Swabians. A Sava or Suavia province between the Sava and Drava rivers in present day Slovenia and Croatia existed during the time when the Ostrogoths ruled Italy, and may have been named after the Suebi (in this period commonly spelled "Suavi") who lived there. The Suebian Langobards (Lombards), whose raiding on the Danube had triggered the Marcomannic wars, moved from the Elbe to the Danube and conquered several of the post-Attila kingdoms. They entered the Sava area in the 530s, and in the 540s the Eastern empire ceded control of it to them. The Suebi of the Sava region were among the peoples who were allowed to assimilate into Lombard society, if they accepted to live as Lombards under Lombard law. The Lombards, facing pressure from the arrival of the Avars into the area, moved into Italy and began taking control of it, bit by bit. In between the medieval Swabians and Lombards, Suebi are also believed to have played a role in the ethnogenesis of the medieval Bavarians, although we lack any contemporary account of their origins. In archaeology the earliest Suebi from the Elbe are associated with the Jastorf culture, as well as influences from the related Przeworsk culture to its east. In linguistics they are believed to have been a major vector for the spread of early Germanic languages, notably including dialects ancestral to modern standard German. The Suebi were originally seen by Roman authors as a single large, mobile and militarized tribe who were pushing westwards and southwards towards the Rhine in 58 BC. However, during the first century AD Graeco-Roman writers came to see the word "Suebi" as an umbrella term which covered many large tribes with their own names, who shared cultural, economic and political connections which each other, and with the Roman empire. From a linguistic perspective, Suebian dialects are thought to be a main source of the later High German languages, especially the Upper-German dialects predominant in Southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria, which experienced the Second consonant shift some time after about 600 AD.