The Teutones, a Germanic-speaking tribe, originally inhabited the southern Jutland Peninsula in present-day Denmark. In the late second century b. c.e. they migrated southward throughout much of western Europe with their allies the Cimbri. The two tribes were the first known Germanics to invade territory held by the Romans.
ORIGINS
Despite their Scandinavian homeland, which indicates a connection to other Germanicspeaking peoples around them, cimbri and Teutones are thought to have been Celts by some scholars. The Greek philosopher Poseidonius of the second and first centuries b. c.e. indeed classified them and the Cimbri as Celts. But the Greek geographer Strabo of the first centuries b. c.e. and C. E., interpreting Poseidonius’s work, said that they were
Germanics who migrated from across the Rhine. They differed from the Celts to the west, he claimed, only in that they were larger and had yellower hair. The Romans who lived in Gaul called them Germani because they wanted to indicate that they were the authentic, that is, the real Celts. Germani means in their language “genuine” in the sense of “original.” In general the Romans labored under considerable confusion when trying to identify and classify those “barbarians” who lived in northern, central, and eastern Europe beyond the bounds of their empire. They may have seen the Teutones as Celts in the sense that their society and culture were in many ways similar to those of the Celts, particularly in having a prominent warrior class. The Germani across the Rhine, including the Teutones, were “genuine” and “original” in the sense that their societies had felt as yet little of that influence from the Greco-Roman world that had altered Celtic societies so greatly
HISTORY
In about 120 b. c.e. the Teutones and Cimbri dispersed out of Jutland. It has been theorized that an Atlantic high tide destroyed their coastal villages, forcing the departure of most families. According to ancient sources most migrants headed southward first through Moravia and Hungary and eventually reached the Middle Danube River, where they attacked the Celtic Scordisci. In 113 b. c.e. they invaded the territory of the Celtic Taurisci, allies of the Romans, south of present-day Vienna, Austria, in the province of Noricum. They defeated a Roman army sent to defend the Taurisci, then proceeded westward, gaining allies from among Germanic and Celtic peoples both. Although their defeat of the Roman army left Italy defenseless before them, causing fear and panic in Rome, for unknown reasons they continued westward and looped through Gaul. An alliance of Celtic Belgae in northern Gaul repelled them, but they generally were unimpeded as they moved southward again, through the province of Gallia
Teutones time line
TEUTONES
Location:
Jutland Peninsula in Denmark; Germany; France
Time period:
C. 120 to 102 B. C.E.
Ancestry:
Germanic
Language:
Teutonic (Germanic)
B. C.E.
C. 120 Teutones migrate out of Jutland with Cimbri.
113 Teutones and Cimbri defeat Romans in Austria.
102 The Romans under Gaius Marius defeat Teutones in southern France.
Transalpina, destroying town after town and again inflicting disastrous defeats on Roman armies sent against them in 109, 107, and 105 B. C.E. The continuing migration took some of them across the Pyrenees onto the Iberian Peninsula.
By 102 B. C.E. those tribal members who had been in Spain returned to join with tribal members in a two-pronged invasion of Italy— the first such Germanic invasion—most of the Teutones along the Mediterranean coastal route. The Cimbri meanwhile reached the Po valley in northern Italy by way of the Alps. The Roman consul Gaius Marius (c. 157-186 B. C.E.) defeated the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae (modern Aix-en-Provence) in southeastern France in 102 B. C.E. and the Cimbri near Vercellae (modern Vercelli) in northwestern Italy in 101 B. C.E.
So deep was Roman fear of the northern barbarians, of whom the Teutones and their allies were but the latest representatives whom they had faced, that Roman society embarked on a process of greater militarization, and when in the next century Julius Caesar determined on the conquest of Gaul, he had only to play on this fear in the Senate to have his way. It can be said that the Cimbri and their allies contributed greatly to the impetus that led to the creation of the Roman Empire.
According to the writings of Julius Caesar the Aduatuci of Belgium claimed to be descendants of the Teutones and Cimbri, although they are generally classified among Celtic-speaking peoples.
CULTURE (see also Germanics)
Little is known about the means by which the Teutones and the Cimbri marked their particular tribal identities. Germanic tribes were essentially groupings of clans, bound by shared histories, traditions, and institutions. As such commonalities inevitably changed through time so did tribes, splitting apart, expanding and absorbing new groups, or being themselves absorbed into larger groups. It has been said that the tribe was more process than stable structure; ethnogenesis, the birth of new tribal groupings, was constant. And under the contingencies of historical forces at certain times the process of ethnogenesis was accelerated. The Teutones and Cimbri may have become tribes as a direct result of the disaster that befell their homeland, as clans grouped together to face the dangerous course of migration through other tribal territories bristling with warriors eager to test themselves against the newcomers. It is likely that both had only a fleeting existence and that their eventual defeat by the Romans caused them to break up and disappear from history.
The history of the Teutones and Cimbri with regard to the Romans represents a foreshadowing of events over the next centuries, with Germanic tribes battling the Romans throughout Europe. The name of the Teutones is sometimes used to refer to all of the Germanic peoples, typically spelled Teutons; Teutonic is the adjective form, often appearing in the phrase “Teutonic tribes.” Teut is cognate with the German deutsch and the Swedish thjod, meaning “folk” or “people.”
World History
