|
The Suevi, then Suebi and in the 6th century also Suavi (Jordanes, Procopius) were a large group of people who lived in Germania and were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign in Gaul, c. 58 BC. While Caesar treated them as one Germanic tribe, though the largest and most warlike, later authors such as Tacitus, Pliny and Strabo specified that the Suevi "do not, like the Chatti or Tencteri, constitute a single nation. They actually occupy more than half of Germany, and are divided into a number of distinct tribes under distinct names, though all generally are called Suebi".〔Tacitus ''Germania'' Section 8, translation by H. Mattingly.〕 "At one time, classical ethnography had applied the name "Suevi" to so many Germanic tribes that it appeared as though in the first centuries A.D. this native name would replace the foreign name "Germans". Classical authors noted that the Suevic tribes, compared to other Germanic tribes, were very mobile, and not reliant upon agriculture.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Caes. Gal. 4.1 )〕 Various Suevic groups moved from the direction of the Baltic sea and river Elbe, becoming a periodic threat to the Roman Empire on their Rhine and Danube frontiers. Toward the end of the empire, the Alamanni, also referred to as Suebi, first settled in the Agri Decumates and then crossed the Rhine and occupied Alsace. A pocket remained in the region now still called Swabia, an area in southwest Germany whose modern name derives from the Suebi. Others moved as far as Gallaecia (modern Galicia, in Spain, and Northern Portugal) and established a Suebic Kingdom of Gallaecia there which lasted for 170 years until its integration into the Visigothic Kingdom. The Suebi may not have been identical with the ''Suevi'' living in the Scheldt area in the 6th and 7th centuries, who are supposed to have given their name to the Dutch province of Zeeland.〔 (online ). Gysseling suggested that the name ''Suebi'' contaminated the older name '' *sawjas'' 'sea-dwellers' with the root '' *saiwi-'' 'sea-'〕 ==Etymology== Etymologists trace the name from Proto-Germanic, *''swēbaz'', either based on the Proto-Germanic root *''swē-'' meaning "one's own" people, or on the third-person reflexive pronoun;〔 (Text in Swedish); for an alternative meaning, as "free, independent" see ; compare Suiones 〕 or from an earlier Indo-European root *swe-.〔 (German language text); locate by searching the page number. (German language text); the etymology in English is in Some related English words are ''sibling, sister, swain, self''. 〕 The etymological sources list the following ethnic names as also from the same root: Suiones, Semnones, Samnites, Sabelli, Sabini, indicating the possibility of a prior more extended and common Indo-European ethnic name, "our own people". Alternatively, it may be borrowed from a Celtic word for "vagabond".〔 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Suebi」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|