Vienna
Vienna is the federal capital and largest city of Austria, one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primate city, with a population of about 1.9 million, its cultural and political centre. It is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union; until the beginning of the 20th century, it was the largest German-speaking city in the world, before the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, the city had 2 million inhabitants. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin. Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC; the city is located in the eastern part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic and Hungary. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region. Along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In July 2017 it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger.
Apart from being regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy, Vienna is said to be "The City of Dreams" because it was home to the world's first psychoanalyst – Sigmund Freud. The city's roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, the late-19th-century Ringstraße lined with grand buildings and parks. Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first for the world's most liveable cities. Between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne. In 2018, it replaced Melbourne as the number one spot. For ten consecutive years, the human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Vienna first in its annual "Quality of Living" survey of hundreds of cities around the world.
Monocle's 2015 "Quality of Life Survey" ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world "to make a base within."The UN-Habitat classified Vienna as the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. The city was ranked 1st globally for its culture of innovation in 2007 and 2008, sixth globally in the 2014 Innovation Cities Index, which analyzed 162 indicators in covering three areas: culture and markets. Vienna hosts urban planning conferences and is used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the world's number-one destination for international congresses and conventions, it attracts over 6.8 million tourists a year. The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the city's name or the French Vienne; the etymology of the city's name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning "forest stream", which subsequently produced the Old High German Uuenia, the New High German Wien and its dialectal variant Wean.
Others believe that the name comes from the Roman settlement name of Celtic extraction Vindobona meaning "fair village, white settlement" from Celtic roots, vindo-, meaning "bright" or "fair" – as in the Irish fionn and the Welsh gwyn –, -bona "village, settlement". The Celtic word Vindos may reflect a widespread prehistorical cult of a Celtic God. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech and Polish names of the city and in that of the city's district Wieden; the name of the city in Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian and Ottoman Turkish has a different Slavonic origin, referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic languages means the Danube River, on which the city stands. Evidence has been found of continuous habitation in the Vienna area since 500 BC, when Celts settled the site on the Danube River. In 15 BC the Romans fortified the frontier city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north.
Close ties with other Celtic peoples continued through the ages. The Irish monk Saint Colman is buried in Melk Abbey and Saint Fergil served as Bishop of Salzburg for forty years. Irish Benedictines founded twelfth-century monastic settlements. Evidence of these ties persists in the form of Vienna's great Schottenstift monastery, once home to many Irish monks. In 976 Leopold I of Babenberg became count of the Eastern March, a 60-mile district centering on the Danube on the eastern frontier of Bavaria; this initial district grew into the duchy of Austria. Each succeeding Babenberg ruler expanded the march east along the Danube encompassing Vienna and the lands east. In 1145 Duke Henry II Jasomirgott moved the Babenberg family residence from Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria to Vienna. From that time, Vienna remained the center of the Babenberg dynasty. In 1440 Vienna became the resident city of the Habsburg dynasty, it grew to become the de facto capital of the Holy Roman Empire in 1437 and a cultural centre for arts and science and fine cuisine.
Hungary occupied the city between 1485 and 1490. In the 16th and 1
Trajan's Dacian Wars
The Dacian Wars were two military campaigns fought between the Roman Empire and Dacia during Emperor Trajan's rule. The conflicts were triggered by the constant Dacian threat on the Danubian province of Moesia and by the increasing need for resources of the economy of the Empire. Trajan turned his attention to Dacia, an area north of Macedon and Greece and east of the Danube, on the Roman agenda since before the days of Caesar when the Dacians defeated a Roman army at the Battle of Histria. In AD 85, the Dacians swarmed over the Danube and pillaged Moesia and defeated the army that Emperor Domitian sent against them; the Romans were defeated in the Battle of Tapae in 88 and a truce was established. Emperor Trajan recommenced hostilities against Dacia and, following an uncertain number of battles, defeated the Dacian king Decebalus in the Second Battle of Tapae in 101. With Trajan's troops pressing towards the Dacian capital Sarmizegetusa Regia, Decebalus once more sought terms. Decebalus rebuilt his power over the following years and attacked Roman garrisons again in 105.
In response Trajan again marched into Dacia, besieging the Dacian capital in the Siege of Sarmizegetusa, razing it. With Dacia quelled, Trajan subsequently invaded the Parthian empire to the east, his conquests expanding the Roman Empire to its greatest extent. Rome's borders in the east were indirectly governed through a system of client states for some time, leading to less direct campaigning than in the west in this period. Since the reign of Burebista considered to be the greatest Dacian king—who ruled between 82 BC and 44 BC—the Dacians had represented a threat for the Roman Empire. Caesar himself had drawn up a plan to launch a campaign against Dacia; the threat was reduced when dynastic struggles in Dacia led to a division into four separately governed tribal states after Burebista's death in 44 BC. Augustus came into conflict with Dacia after it sent envoys offering its support against Mark Antony in exchange for "requests", the nature of which has not been recorded. Augustus rejected Dacia gave its support to Antony.
In 29 BC, Augustus sent several punitive expeditions into Dacia led by Marcus Licinius Crassus Dives, the consul of the prior year, that inflicted heavy casualties and killed three of their five kings. Although Dacian raids into Pannonia and Moesia continued for several years despite the defeat, the threat of Dacia had ended. After 116 years of relative peace along the Roman frontier, in the winter of 85 AD to 86 AD the army of King Duras led by general Diurpaneus attacked the Roman province of Moesia, killing its governor, Oppius Sabinus, a former consul; the emperor Domitian led legions into the ravaged province and reorganized the possession into Moesia Inferior and Moesia Superior, planning an attack into Dacia for the next campaign season. The next year, with the arrival of fresh legions in 87 AD, Domitian began what became the First Dacian War. General Diurpaneus sent an envoy to Domitian offering peace, he was rejected and the praetorian prefect Cornelius Fuscus crossed the Danube into Dacia with 5 or 6 legions on a bridge built on boats.
The Roman army was ambushed and defeated at the First Battle of Tapae by Diurpaneus, subsequently renamed Decebalus, who, as a consequence, was chosen to be the new king. Fuscus was killed and the legions lost their banners, adding to the humiliation. In 88, the Roman offensive continued, the Roman army, this time under the command of Tettius Julianus, defeated the Dacians at their outlying fortress of Sarmizegetusa at Tapae, near the current village of Bucova. After this battle Decebalus, now the king of the four reunited arms of the Dacians, asked for peace, again refused. Domitian accepted the offer because his legions were needed along the Rhine to put down the revolt of Lucius Antonius Saturninus, the Roman governor of Germania Superior who had allied with the Marcomanni and Sarmatian Yazgulyams against Domitian. Throughout the 1st century, Roman policy dictated that threats from neighbouring nations and provinces were to be contained promptly; the peace treaty following the First Battle of Tapae, followed by an indecisive and costly Roman victory on the same ground a year was unfavorable for the Empire.
Following the peace of 89 AD, Decebalus became a client of Rome, with acceptance of Decebalus as king. He received a lump sum of money, annual financial stipends, craftsmen in trades devoted to both peace and war, war machines to defend the empire's borders; the craftsmen were used by the Dacians to upgrade their own defences. Some historians believe this was an unfavorable peace and that it might have led to Domitian's assassination in September 96. Despite some co-operation on the diplomatic front with Domitian, Decebalus continued to oppose Rome. At the time, Rome was suffering from economic difficulties brought on by military campaigns throughout Europe and in part due to a low gold content in Roman money as directed by Emperor Nero. Confirmed rumors of Dacian gold and other valuable trade resources inflamed the conflict, as did the Dacians' defiant behavior, as they were "unbowed and unbroken". However, other pressing reasons motivated them to action. Researchers estimate that only ten percent of barbarians such as Spanish and Gallic warriors had access to swords the nobility.
By contrast Dacia were prolific metal workers. A large percentage of Dacians owned swords reducing Rome's military advantage. Dacia sported 250,000 potential combatants, it was allied to several of its neighbors and on friendly terms with ot
Amber Road
The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Prehistoric trade routes between Northern and Southern Europe were defined by the amber trade; as an important commodity, sometimes dubbed "the gold of the north", amber was transported from the North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts overland by way of the Vistula and Dnieper rivers to Italy, the Black Sea and Egypt over a period of thousands of years. From at least the 16th century BC, amber was moved from Northern Europe to the Mediterranean area; the breast ornament of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen contains large Baltic amber beads. Heinrich Schliemann found Baltic amber beads at Mycenae; the quantity of amber in the Royal Tomb of Qatna, Syria, is unparalleled for known second millennium BC sites in the Levant and the Ancient Near East. Amber was sent from the North Sea to the temple of Apollo at Delphi as an offering. From the Black Sea, trade could continue to Asia along another ancient trade route.
In Roman times, a main route ran south from the Baltic coast through the land of the Boii to the head of the Adriatic Sea. The Old Prussian towns of Kaup and Truso on the Baltic were the starting points of the route to the south. In Scandinavia the amber road gave rise to the thriving Nordic Bronze Age culture, bringing influences from the Mediterranean Sea to the northernmost countries of Europe. Kaliningrad Oblast is referred to in Russian as Янтарный край, which means "the amber area". Amber roads connect amber finding locations to customer sites in Europe, in the Middle East regions and in the Far East; the shortest road avoids alpine areas and led from the Baltic coastline, through Biskupin, Wrocław, passed the Moravian Gate, followed the river Morava, crossed the Danube near Carnuntum in the Noricum Province, headed southwest past Poetovio, Emona and reached Patavium and Aquileia at the Adriatic coast. One of the oldest directions of the last stage of the Amber Road to the south of the Danube, noted in the myth about the Argonauts, used the Sava and Kupa rivers, ending with a short continental road from Nauportus to Tarsatica on the coast of the Adriatic.
Several roads connected the North Sea and Baltic Sea the city of Hamburg to the Brenner Pass, proceeding southwards to Brindisi and Ambracia. The Swiss region indicates a number of alpine roads, concentrating around the capital city Bern and originating from the borders of the Rhône River and the Rhine. A small section, including Baarn, Barneveld and Amerongen, connected the North Sea with the Lower Rhine. A small section led southwards from Antwerp and Bruges to the towns Braine-l’Alleud and Braine-le-Comte, both named "Brennia-Brenna"; the route continued by following the Meuse River towards Bern in Switzerland. Three routes may be identified leading from an amber finding region or delta at the mouth of the River Openia towards Bresse and Bern, crossing the Alps to Switzerland and Italy. Routes connected amber finding locations at Ambares, leading to the Pyrenees. Routes connecting the amber finding locations in northern Spain and in the Pyrenees were a trading route to the Mediterranean Sea.
There is a tourist route stretching along the Baltic coast from Kaliningrad to Latvia called "Amber Road". "Amber Road" sites are: Mizgiris Amber Gallery-Museum in Nida. In Poland a north–south motorway A1 is named Amber Highway. OWTRAD-scientific description of the amber road in Poland Old World Traditional Trade Routes Project Joannes Richter – "Die Bernsteinroute bei Backnang"
Galba
Servius Sulpicius Galba was Roman emperor from 68 to 69, the first emperor in the Year of the Four Emperors. He was known as Lucius Livius Galba Ocella prior to taking the throne as a result of his adoption by his stepmother, Livia Ocellina; the governor of Hispania at the time of the rebellion of Gaius Julius Vindex in Gaul, he seized the throne following Nero's suicide. Born into a wealthy family, Galba held at various times the offices of praetor and governor of the provinces Aquitania, Upper Germany, Africa during the first half of the first century AD, he retired during the latter part of Claudius' reign but Nero granted him the governorship of Hispania. Taking advantage of the defeat of Vindex's rebellion and Nero's suicide, he became emperor with the support of the Praetorian Guard, his physical weakness and general apathy led to his being dominated by favorites. Unable to gain popularity with the people or maintain the support of the Praetorian Guard, Galba was murdered by Otho, who became emperor.
Galba was not related to any of the emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, but he was a member of a distinguished noble family. The origin of the cognomen Galba is uncertain. Suetonius offers a number of possible explanations. One of Galba's ancestors had been consul in 200 BC, another of his ancestors was consul in 144 BC. Galba's grandfather was a historian and his son was a barrister whose first marriage was to Mummia Achaica, granddaughter of Quintus Lutatius Catulus and great-granddaughter of Lucius Mummius Achaicus. According to Suetonius, he fabricated a genealogy of paternal descent from the god Jupiter and maternal descent from the legendary Pasiphaë, wife of Minos. Servius Sulpicius Galba was born near Terracina on 24 December 3 BC, his elder brother Gaius fled from Rome and committed suicide because the emperor Tiberius would not allow him to control a Roman province. Livia Ocellina became the second wife of Galba's father, whom she may have married because of his wealth. Ocellina adopted Galba, he took the name Lucius Livius Galba Ocella.
Galba had a sexual appetite for males. He married a woman named Aemilia Lepida and had two sons. Aemilia and their sons died during the early years of the reign of Claudius. Galba would remain a widower for the rest of his life. Galba became praetor in about 30 governor of Aquitania for about a year consul in 33. In 39 the emperor Caligula learned of a plot against himself in which Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, the general of the Upper German legions, was an important figure; as commander of the legions of Upper Germany, Galba gained a reputation as a disciplinarian. Suetonius writes that Galba was advised to take the throne following the assassination of Caligula in 41, but loyally served Caligula's uncle and successor Claudius. Galba was appointed as governor of Africa in 44 or 45, he retired at an uncertain time during the reign of Claudius in 49. He was recalled in 60 by the emperor Nero to govern Hispania. A rebellion against Nero was orchestrated by Gaius Julius Vindex in Gaul on the anniversary of the death of Nero's mother, Agrippina the Younger, in 68.
Shortly afterwards Galba, in rebellion against Nero, rejected the title "General of Caesar" in favor of "General of the Senate and People of Rome". He was supported by the imperial official Tigellinus. On 8 June 68 another imperial official, Nymphidius Sabinus, falsely announced to the Praetorian Guard that Nero had fled to Egypt, the Senate proclaimed Galba emperor. Nero committed assisted suicide with help from his secretary. Upon becoming emperor Galba was faced by the rebellion of Nymphidius, who had his own aspirations for the imperial throne. However, he was killed by the Praetorians. While Galba was arriving to Rome with the Lusitanian governor Marcus Salvius Otho, his army was attacked by a legion, organized by Nero. Galba, who suffered from chronic gout by the time he came to the throne, was advised by a corrupt group which included the Spanish general Titus Vinius, the praetorian prefect Cornelius Laco, Icelus, a freedman of Galba. Galba seized the property of Roman citizens, disbanded the German legions, did not pay the Praetorians and the soldiers who fought against Vindex.
These actions caused him to become unpopular. On 1 January 69, the day Galba and Vinius took the office of consul, the fourth and twenty-second legions of Upper Germany refused to swear loyalty to Galba, they toppled his statues. On the following day, the soldiers of Lower Germany refused to swear their loyalty and proclaimed the governor of the province, Aulus Vitellius, as emperor. Galba tried to ensure his authority as emperor was recognized by adopting the nobleman Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus as his successor. Galba was killed by the Praetorians on 15 January, followed shortly by Vinius and Piso, their heads were placed on poles and Otho was acclaimed as emperor. Sulpicia Galba Donahue, Jo
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the emperors Tiberius, Claudius and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors; these two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus, in 14 AD, to the years of the First Jewish–Roman War, in 70 AD. There are substantial lacunae in the surviving texts, including a gap in the Annals, four books long. Tacitus' other writings discuss oratory and the life of his father-in-law, the general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain focusing on his campaign in Britannia. Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians, he lived in what has been called the Silver Age of Latin literature, is known for the brevity and compactness of his Latin prose, as well as for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics. Details about his personal life are scarce.
What little is known comes from scattered hints throughout his work, the letters of his friend and admirer Pliny the Younger, an inscription found at Mylasa in Caria. Tacitus was born in 57 to an equestrian family. One scholar's suggestion of Sextus has gained no approval. Most of the older aristocratic families failed to survive the proscriptions which took place at the end of the Republic, Tacitus makes it clear that he owed his rank to the Flavian emperors; the claim that he was descended from a freedman is derived from a speech in his writings which asserts that many senators and knights were descended from freedmen, but this is disputed. His father may have been the Cornelius Tacitus who served as procurator of Germania. There is no mention of Tacitus suffering such a condition, but it is possible that this refers to a brother—if Cornelius was indeed his father; the friendship between the younger Pliny and Tacitus leads some scholars to conclude that they were both the offspring of wealthy provincial families.
The province of his birth remains unknown, though various conjectures suggest Gallia Belgica, Gallia Narbonensis or Northern Italy. His marriage to the daughter of Narbonensian senator Gnaeus Julius Agricola implies that he came from Gallia Narbonensis. Tacitus' dedication to Lucius Fabius Justus in the Dialogus may indicate a connection with Spain, his friendship with Pliny suggests origins in northern Italy. No evidence exists, that Pliny's friends from northern Italy knew Tacitus, nor do Pliny's letters hint that the two men had a common background. Pliny Book 9, Letter 23 reports that, when he was asked if he was Italian or provincial, he gave an unclear answer, so was asked if he was Tacitus or Pliny. Since Pliny was from Italy, some infer that Tacitus was from the provinces Gallia Narbonensis, his ancestry, his skill in oratory, his sympathetic depiction of barbarians who resisted Roman rule have led some to suggest that he was a Celt. This belief stems from the fact that the Celts who had occupied Gaul prior to the Roman invasion were famous for their skill in oratory, had been subjugated by Rome.
As a young man, Tacitus studied rhetoric in Rome to prepare for a career in law and politics. In 77 or 78, he married daughter of the famous general Agricola. Little is known of their domestic life, save that Tacitus loved the outdoors, he started his career under Vespasian, but entered political life as a quaestor in 81 or 82 under Titus. He advanced through the cursus honorum, becoming praetor in 88 and a quindecimvir, a member of the priestly college in charge of the Sibylline Books and the Secular games, he gained acclaim as an orator. He served in the provinces from c. 89 to c. 93, either in command of a legion or in a civilian post. He and his property survived Domitian's reign of terror, but the experience left him jaded and ashamed at his own complicity, giving him the hatred of tyranny evident in his works; the Agricola, chs. 44–45, is illustrative: Agricola was spared those years during which Domitian, leaving now no interval or breathing space of time, but, as it were, with one continuous blow, drained the life-blood of the Commonwealth...
It was not long before our hands dragged Helvidius to prison, before we gazed on the dying looks of Mauricus and Rusticus, before we were steeped in Senecio's innocent blood. Nero turned his eyes away, did not gaze upon the atrocities which he ordered. From his seat in the Senate, he became suffect consul in 97 during the reign of Nerva, being the first of his family to do so. During his tenure, he reached the height of his fame as an orator when he delivered the funeral oration for the famous veteran soldier Lucius Verginius Rufus. In the following year, he wrote and published the Agricola and Germania, foreshadowing the literary endeav
Danube
The Danube is Europe's second longest river, after the Volga. It is located in Eastern Europe; the Danube was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, today flows through 10 countries, more than any other river in the world. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for 2,850 km, passing through or bordering Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Ukraine before draining into the Black Sea, its drainage basin extends into nine more countries. The Danube river basin is home to fish species such as pike, huchen, Wels catfish and tench, it is home to a large diversity of carp and sturgeon, as well as salmon and trout. A few species of euryhaline fish, such as European seabass and eel, inhabit the Danube Delta and the lower portion of the river. Since ancient times, the Danube has become a traditional trade route in Europe, nowadays 2,415 km of its total length being navigable; the river is an important source of energy and drinking water. Danube is an Old European river name derived from a Proto-Indo-European *dānu.
Other river names from the same root include the Dunaj, Dzvina/Daugava, Donets, Dniestr, Dysna and Tuoni. In Rigvedic Sanskrit, dānu means "fluid, drop", in Avestan, the same word means "river". In the Rigveda, Dānu once appears as the mother of Vrtra, "a dragon blocking the course of the rivers"; the Finnish word for Danube is Tonava, most derived from the word for the river in Swedish and German, Donau. Its Sámi name Deatnu means "Great River", it is possible that dānu in Scythian as in Avestan was a generic word for "river": Dnieper and Dniestr, from Danapris and Danastius, are presumed to continue Scythian *dānu apara "far river" and *dānu nazdya- "near river", respectively. The river was known to the ancient Greeks as the Istros a borrowing from a Daco-Thracian name meaning "strong, swift", from a root also encountered in the ancient name of the Dniester and akin to Iranic turos “swift” and Sanskrit iṣiras "swift", from the PIE *isro-, *sreu “to flow”. In the Middle Ages, the Greek Tiras was borrowed into Italian as Tyrlo and into Turkic languages as Tyrla, the latter further borrowed into Romanian as a regionalism.
The Thraco-Phrygian name was Matoas, "the bringer of luck". In Latin, the Danube was variously known as Ister; the Latin name is masculine, except Slovenian. The German Donau is feminine, as it has been re-interpreted as containing the suffix -ouwe "wetland". Romanian differs from other surrounding languages in designating the river with a feminine term, Dunărea; this form was not inherited from Latin. To explain the loss of the Latin name, scholars who suppose that Romanian developed near the large river propose that the Romanian name descends from a hypotetical Thracian *Donaris that shares the same PIE root with the Iranic don-/dan-, with the suffix -aris encountered in the ancient name of the Ialomița River, in the unidentified Miliare river mentioned by Jordanes in his Getica. Gábor Vékony says that this hypothesis is not plausible, because the Greeks borrowed the Istros form from the native Thracians, he proposes. The modern languages spoken in the Danube basin all use names related to Dānuvius: German: Donau.
Dunav. Dunai. Classified as an international waterway, it originates in the town of Donaueschingen, in the Black Forest of Germany, at the confluence of the rivers Brigach and Breg; the Danube flows southeast for about 2,730 km, passing through four capital cities before emptying into the Black Sea via the Danube Delta in Romania and Ukraine. Once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire, the river passes through or touches the borders of 10 countries: Romania, Serbia, Germany, Slovakia, Croatia and Moldova, its drainage basin extends into nine more. In addition to the bordering countries, the drainage basin includes parts of nine more countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Italy, North Macedonia and Albania, its total drainage basin is 801,463 km2. The highest point of the drainage basin is the summit of Piz Bernina at the Italy–Switzerland border, at 4,049 metres; the land drained by the Danube extends into many other countries. Many Danubian tributaries are important rivers in their own right, navigable by barges and other shallow-draught boats.
From its source to its outlet into the Black Sea, its main tribu
Germania
Germania was the Roman term for the geographical region in north-central Europe inhabited by Germanic peoples. It extended from the Danube and Main in the south to the Baltic Sea, from the Rhine in the west to the Vistula; the Roman portions formed two provinces of the Empire, Germania Inferior to the north, Germania Superior to the south. Germania was inhabited by Germanic tribes, but Celts, Scythians and on Early Slavs; the population mix changed over time by assimilation, by migration. The ancient Greeks were the first to mention the tribes in the area. Julius Caesar wrote about warlike Germanic tribesmen and their threat to Roman Gaul, there were military clashes between the Romans and the indigenous tribes. Tacitus wrote the most complete account of Germania; the origin of the term "Germania" is uncertain, but was known by Caesar's time, may be Gaulish in origin. The ethnonym Germani is most Gallic in origin. Jacob Grimm derived it from a Celtic term for "shouting. Johann Kaspar Zeuss derived the name from the Celtic word for "neighbour".
Germani enters into Latin use following Julius Caesar. Caesar in De Bello Gallico reports hearing from his Remi allies that the term Germani was for a group that had come from across the Rhine, named Germani Cisrhenani. By extension, Germani was understood to include similar tribes still living beyond the Rhine. Tacitus, writing in AD 98, reports that the Tungri of his time, who lived in the area, home to the Germani Cisrhenani, had changed their name, but had once been the original Germani: For the rest, they affirm Germania to be a recent word bestowed. For those who first passed the Rhine and expulsed the Gauls, are now named Tungrians, were called Germani, and thus by degrees the name of a tribe prevailed, not that of the nation. Names of Germany in English and some other languages are derived from "Germania", but German speakers call it "Deutschland", Dutch speakers call it "Duitsland", both from *þeudō "people or nation". Several modern languages use the name "Germania", including Hebrew, Albanian, Maltese, Romanian, Russian and Georgian.
Germania extended from the Rhine eastward to the Vistula river, from the Danube and Main river northward to the Baltic Sea. The areas west of the Rhine were Celtic and became part of the Roman Empire in the first century BC; the Roman parts of Germania, "Lesser Germania" formed two provinces of the empire, Germania Inferior, "Lower Germania" and Germania Superior. Important cities in Lesser Germania included Besançon, Strasbourg and Mainz; the geography of Magna Germania was comprehensively described in Ptolemy's Geography of around 150 AD via geographical coordinates of the main cities. By means of a geodetic deformation analysis carried out by the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation Science at the Technical University of Berlin as part of a project of the German Research Association under the direction of Dieter Lelgemann in 2007–2010, many historical place names have been localized and associated with place names of the present day. Germania was inhabited by different tribes, most of them Germanic but some Celtic, proto-Slavic and Scythian peoples.
The tribal and ethnic makeup changed over the centuries as a result of assimilation and, most migrations. The Germanic people spoke several different dialects. Classical records show little about the people who inhabited the north of Europe before the 2nd century BC. In the 5th century BC, the Greeks were aware of a group. Herodotus mentioned the Scythians but no other tribes. At around 320 BC, Pytheas of Massalia sailed around Britain and along the northern coast of Europe, what he found on his journeys was so strange that writers refused to believe him, he may have been the first Mediterranean to distinguish the Germanic people from the Celts. Contact between German tribes and the Roman Empire did was not always hostile. Recent excavations of the Waldgirmes Forum show signs that a civilian Roman town was established there, interpreted to mean that Romans and Germanic tribesmen were living in peace, at least for a while. Caesar described the cultural differences between the Germanic tribesmen, the Romans, the Gauls in his book Commentarii de Bello Gallico, where he recalls his defeat of the Suebi tribes at the Battle of Vosges.
He describes them at length at the beginning of Book IV and the middle of Book VI. He states that the Gauls, although warlike, had a functional society and could be civilized, but that the Germanic tribesmen were far more savage and were a threat to Roman Gaul and Rome itself. Caesar said the Germanic tribes were nomadic, with a primitive culture, he used this as one of his justifications for. Hi
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
