The migrations of the Teutons and the Cimbri
The 'Cimbri' were a Celtic tribe who together with the
Teutones and the
Ambrones threatened the
Roman Republic in the late
2nd century BC. The ancient sources located their home of origin in the northern
Jutland.
Homeland and name
According to Greek and Roman sources, the Cimbri originated in
Jutland, which was called ''Chersonesus Cimbrica'' or after them. According to the
Res gestae of Augustus, the Cimbri were still found somewhere on the peninsula around the turn of our era (ch. 26):
The contemporary Greek geographer
Strabo testifies that the Cimbri still existed as a Germanic tribe, probably in the "Cimbric peninsula" (''Geogr.'' 7.2.1, trans. H.L. Jones):
On the map of
Ptolemaeus, the "Kimbroi" are the placed on the northernmost part of the peninsula of Jutland,
[1], i.e. in the modern landscape of
Himmerland (since
Vendsyssel-Thy was at that time a group of islands). ''Himmerland'' (Old Danish ''Himbersysel'') is generally thought to preserve their name,
[2] in an older form without
Grimm's law (
PIE ''k'' >
Germ. ''h''). Alternatively, Latin ''C-'' represents an attempt to render the unfamiliar Proto-Germanic , perhaps due to Celtic-speaking interpreters (a Celtic intermediary would also explain why Germ.
★ ''Þeuðanōz'' became Latin ''Teutones'').
The origin of the name is unknown. A reasonable etymology
[3] is PIE '' "inhabitant", from '' "home" (> Eng. ''home''), itself a derivation from '' "live" (> Greek , Latin ''sinō''); then, the Germanic
★ ''χimbra-'' finds an exact cognate in Slavic ''sębrъ'' "farmer" (> Croatian, Serbian ''sebar'', Russ. ''sjabër'').
Because of the similarity of the names, the Cimbri are often associated with
Cymry, the Welsh name for themselves
[4]. However, this word is generally derived from Celtic
★ ''Kombroges'', meaning ''The Compatriots'',
[5] and it is hardly conceivable that the Romans would have recorded such a form as ''Cimbri'' (the form ''Cambri'' is Neo-Latin). The name has also been related to the word ''kimme'' meaning "rim", i.e. the people of the coast,
[6] but this is incompatible with the association of ''Cimbri'' to ''Himmerland'' since ''kimme'' does not exhibit the effects of Grimm's law. Finally, since antiquity, the name has been related to that of the
Cimmerians.
[7]
Language of the Cimbri
A major problem is that at this time the Greeks and Romans tended to refer to all groups to the north of their sphere of influence as Gauls, Celts, or Germani rather indiscriminantly. Caesar seems to be one of the first authors to distinguish the two groups, and he has a political motive for doing that (it is an argument in favour of the Rhine border).
[8] Yet, one cannot always trust Caesar and Tacitus when they ascribe individuals and tribes to one or the other category.
If the Cimbri resided in the north of Jutland, it may be conjectured that their language was
Proto-Germanic. However, there are indications that the Cimbri did in fact speak a Celtic language. Thus, referring to the Northern Ocean (the
Baltic or the
North Sea),
Pliny the Elder (c. 77 AD) states:
[9]
The words for "sea" and "dead" are ''muir'' and ''marbh'' in Irish and ''mor'' and ''marw'' in Welsh.
[10] The same word for "sea" is also known from Germanic, but with an ''a'' (
★ ''mari-''), whereas the other word is unknown in all dialects of Germanic.
[11] Yet, given that Pliny has not got the word directly from a Cimbric informant, it cannot be ruled out that the word is in fact Gaulish instead,
[12] and it is at any rate more probably that the North Sea or the Baltic would be considered "dead" and "frozen" by Central Europeans than by Scandinavians living by and from the sea.
Markale (1976) wrote that the Cimbri, were associated with the Helvetii, and more especially with the indisputably Celtic Tiguri (p. 40). As will be seen later, these associations may link
to an ancestry in common, recalled from two hundred years previous. Also, all the
known Cimbri chiefs had Celtic names including, Boiorix (King of the Boii), Gaesorix
(King of the Gaesatae who were Alpine Celtic mercinaries), and Lugius (after the Celtic
god Lugh). Hubert (1934) states, All these names are Celtic, and they cannot be anything
else (Ch. IV, I). He provides much more information on this and other relevant matters
using a balanced and clearly unbiased approach. However some authors take a different
perspective. For example, Wells (1995) states, without any reference, that the Cimbri,
originally from Denmark, the Cimbric peninsula, are certainly not Celts, though their
personal names too are transmitted through classical writers in a Celtic form (p. 606).The Gundestrup Cauldron, discovered in a peat bog in Cimbri territory, is a testament to
Celtic life in every detail, including the bloodletting ceremony directly involving
priestesses and performed over a huge cauldron. Posidonius, an early chronicler of the
Cimbri, who was 22 years old when they appeared on the world’s stage in 113 BC, gives
verbal descriptions identical to the visual details on the Cauldron. The Cimbri also
venerated the cauldron (e.g., at the time of Augustus calling it their most “precious
possession”), which, along with the above, clearly indicate Celtic not Gemanic cultural
and behavioral characteristics.
Appian of Alexandria who wrote his “History of Rome: The Gallic Wars” about 130 AD. Here he discusses “Gauls”, “Celts” and “Germans”. Of the Cimbri he said they were a most numerous and warlike hoarde of Celtic tribes (Epit.2), whereas Ceasar overcame the Germans under Ariovistus (Epit.3).
Other evidence to the language of the Cimbri is circumstantial: Thus, we are told that the Romans enlisted Gaulish Celts to act as spies in the Cimbri camp prior to the final showdown with the Roman army in 101 BC. This is evidence in support of, "the Celtic rather than the German theory".
[13] Similarly, the kings of the Cimbri and Teutones carry what looks like Celtic names, viz. Boiorix and Teutobodus. On the other hand, the origin of a name need not say anything about the ethnicity or language of the individual carrying the name.
On the other hand, there is no positive evidence of Germanic words or names in connection with the Cimbri. The etymology given above (PIE '') would work just as well in a Celtic context (and the Latin form would be easier to explain). Yet, Roman sources are consistent in categorising the Cimbri as a Germanic tribe (e.g. Caesar, ''BG'' 1.33.3-4; Pliny, ''NH'' 4.100; Tacitus, ''Germ.'' 37, ''Hist.'' 4.73). Furthermore, since all classical sources unanimously locate the home of the Cimbri in Jutland, and there is no evidence of the presence of a Celtic-speaking population in Southern Scandinavia (linguists consider Jutland a Germanic coreland), there is some support of the Germanic theory after all.
At any rate, the evidence offers the following possibilities:
# The Cimbri were Germanic-speaking, and the information given about names and words in the ancient authors is inaccurate.
# The Cimbri were original Germanic-speaking, but having absorbed a large amount of Celtic-speaking individuals on their long journey down through Central and Western Europe, they adopted the Celtic language.
# The Cimbri were Germanic-speaking, but due to the importance of the Celtic culture, the elite of the Germanic tribes were bilingual (cf. Celtic loanwords like
★ ''rīkaz'' "noble",
★ ''ambahtaz "servant")
# The Cimbri spoke a Celtic language in their North Jutlandic homeland already
# The Cimbri were a Celtic tribe originating in central Europe, and they had only the name in common with the Cimbri of Jutland.
The journey
Moving south-east
Some time before
100 BC many of the Cimbri, as well as the
Teutones and
Ambrones migrated south-east. After several battles with the
Boii and other
Celtic tribes, they appeared ca
113 BC in
Noricum, where they invaded the lands of one of Rome's allies, the
Taurisci. At this time, if not before, they had picked up substantial Celtic elements, as allies and the majority of the migrating Cimbri may have been Gauls. Similarly, there is no consensus on the ethnic composition of the Ambrones, while the Teutons are usually taken to have been a Germanic or
Proto-Germanic tribe.
On the request of the Roman
consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, sent to defend the Taurisci, they retreated only to find themselves deceived and attacked at
Noreia. In a bloody battle, they defeated the Romans. Only a storm, which separated the combatants, saved them from complete annihilation.
Invading Gaul
Now the road to Italy was open, but they turned west towards
Gaul. They came into frequent conflict with the
Romans, who usually came out the losers. In
109 BC, they defeated a Roman army under the consul
Marcus Junius Silanus, who was the commander of
Gallia Narbonensis. The same year, they defeated another Roman army under the consul
Gaius Cassius Longinus, who was killed at Burdigala (modern day
Bordeaux). In
107 BC, the Romans once again lost against the
Tigurines, who were allies of the Cimbri.
The war against the Romans
Attacking the Roman Republic
It was not until
105 BC that they planned an attack on the Roman Republic itself. At the
Rhône River, the Cimbri clashed with the Roman armies. The Roman commanders, the proconsul
Quintus Servilius Caepio and the consul
Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, hindered Roman coordination and so the Cimbri succeeded in first defeating the legate
Marcus Aurelius Scaurus and later cause a devastating defeat on Caepio and Maximus at the
Battle of Arausio. The Romans lost as many as 80,000 men, excluding auxiliary cavalry and non-combatants who brought the total loss closer to 112,000.
Rome was in panic, and the ''terror cimbricus'' became proverbial. Everyone expected to soon see the ''new Gauls'' outside of the gates of Rome. Desperate measures were taken: contrary to the Roman constitution,
Gaius Marius, who had defeated
Jugurtha, was elected consul and supreme commander for five years in a row (
104 BC–
100 BC).
Defeat
In
103 BC, the Cimbri and their Proto-Germanic allies, the
Teutons, had turned to Spain where they pillaged far and wide. During this time C. Marius had the time to prepare and, in
102 BC, he was ready to meet the
Teutons and the
Ambrones at the
Rhône River. These two tribes intended to pass into Italy through the western passes, while the Cimbri and the Tigurines were to take the northern route across the
Rhine and later across the
Tyrolian
Alps.
At the estuary of the
Isère River, the Teutons and the Ambrones met Marius, whose well-defended camp they did not manage to overrun. Instead, they pursued their route, and Marius followed them. At
Aquae Sextiae, the Romans won two battles and took the Teuton king
Teutobod prisoner.
The Cimbri had penetrated through the Alps into northern Italy, The consul
Quintus Lutatius Catulus had not dared to fortify the passes, but instead he had retreated behind the
Po River, and so the land was open to the invaders. The Cimbri did not hurry, and the victors of Aquae Sextiae had the time to arrive with reinforcements. At the
Battle of Vercellae, at the confluence of the
Sesia River with the
Po River, in
101 BC, the long voyage of the Cimbri also came to an end.
It was a devastating defeat and both the chieftains
Lugius and
Boiorix died. The women killed both themselves and their children in order to avoid slavery. The Cimbri were annihilated, although some may have survived to return to the homeland where a population with this name was residing in northern
Jutland in the
1st century AD, according to the sources quoted above.
Culture
Gundestrup cauldron, Plate E
Strabo gives this vivid description of the Cimbric folklore (''Geogr.'' 7.2.3, trans. H.L. Jones):
The Cimbri are depicted as ferocious warriors who did not fear death. The host was followed by women and children on carts. Aged women dressed in white (cf. the Old Norse
völva) sacrificed the prisoners of war and sprinkled their blood (cf. the Old Norse
blót), the nature of which allowed them to see what was to come.
If the Cimbri did in fact come from Jutland, evidence that the they practised ritualistic sacrifice may be found in the
Haraldskær Woman discovered in Jutland in the year 1835. Noosemarks and skin piercing were evident and she had been thrown into a bog rather than buried or cremated. Furthermore, the
Gundestrup cauldron, found in Himmerland, may be a sacrificial vessel like the one described in Strabo's text. The work itself was, however, of Celtic or Thracian origin.
Descendants
The population of modern-day Himmerland claims to be the heirs of the ancient Cimbri. The adventures of the Cimbri are described by the Danish nobel-prize-winning author,
Johannes V. Jensen, himself born in Himmerland, in the novel ''Cimbrernes Tog'' (1922), included in the cycle ''Den lange Rejse'' (Eng.
The Long Journey, 1923). The so-called Cimbrian bull ("Cimbrertyren"), a sculpture made by the artist
Anders Bundgaard, was erected 14 April 1937 on a central town square in
Aalborg, the capital of the province.
In Northern Italy, a Germanic language traditionally called
Cimbrian is spoken in some villages near the cities of
Verona and
Vicenza. Since the 14th century, it was believed that the speakers were the direct descendants of the Cimbrians defeated at
Vercelli (some hundred kilometers to the west). However, this is most certainly not true.
[14] The language is in fact related to the
Austro-Bavarian dialects of
German like many other
Upper German dialects in Northern Italy, it is only more isolated and therefore less recognizable as German. The name was either indigenous (from ''Zimmer'' = "timber"?) or given to them by Italian humanists who wanted to find this "living fossil" of antiquity.
The Danish Vikings (and possibly some Jutes who arrived in Kent, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight circa 449 AD) who settled in the English Danelaw doubtless included Cimbri descendants from the Limfjord in Himmerland. In addition to providing detailed archaeological, historical and linguistic data to provide a chronological perspective relating to the Cimbri and their associates the Teutones, a recent study
[2] focuses on genetic data. The Y-chromosome "signatures" of some from the Danish speaking area of the Danelaw (but not elsewhere in England or in Ireland at all), as well as regions believed to be settled by the Cimbri in Iron Age times (e.g., southeastern Norway), possess the single nucleotide polymorphism marker S28. This marker, which defines the phylogenetic category 'R1b1c10' is found at highest concentration in the Alpine areas of Germany, Switzerland and Italy and fans out across the area of Central Europe, as far east as Greece, known to have been inhabited by the La Tene Celts.
Notes
1. Ptol. 2.11.7 "the Cimbri are more northern than all (of these tribes)"
2. Jan Katlev, ''Politikens etymologisk ordbog'', København 2000, p. 294; Kenneth W. Harl, ''Rome and the Barbarians'', The Teaching Company, 2004
3. Vasmer, ''Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'', 1958, vol. 3, p. 62.
4. C. Rawlinson, "On the Ethnography of the Cimbri", ''Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland'' 6 (1877)
150-158.
5. Onions, C. T., & Burchfield, R. W. eds. ''The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology'', 1966, s.v. ''Cymry''; Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary''. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 2002: 321
6. http://runeberg.org/nfbe/0183.html ''Nordisk familjebok''], Projekt Runeborg
7. Posidonius in Strabo, ''Geogr.'' 7.2.2.
8. A.A. Lund, ''Die ersten Germanen: Ethnizität und Ethnogenese'', Heidelberg 1998.
9. ''Naturalis Historia'', 4.95: ''Philemon Morimarusam a Cimbris vocari, hoc est mortuum mare, inde usque ad promunturium Rusbeas, ultra deinde Cronium''.
10. F. M. Ahl, "Amber, Avallon, and Apollo's Singing Swan", ''American Journal of Philology'' 103 (1982) 399.
11. Germanic has
★ ''murþ(r)a'' "murder" (with the verb
★ ''murþ(r) jan''), but uses
★ ''daujan'' and
★ ''dauða-'' for "die" and "dead".
12. Thus, Pokorny, ''Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'', 1959, p. 735, describes the word as Gaulish (with a question mark).
13. Rawlinson, ''Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland'' 6 (1877) 156.
14. Børglum, Vernesi, Jensen, Madsen, Haagerup & Barbujani: "No Signature of Y Chromosomal Resemblance Between Possible Descendants of the Cimbri in Denmark and Northern Italy", ''American Journal Of Physical Anthropology'' 132:278–284 (2007)[1]
See also
★
Cimmerians
★
Sugambri
★
Zimmern Chronicle
★
Haraldskær Woman
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
