Editing Alemanni (section)

==First appearance in historical record==
[[File:Part of Tabula Peutingeriana centered around present day Black Forest.jpg|thumb|''Alamannia'' is shown beyond ''Silva Marciana'' (the [[Black Forest]]) in the [[Tabula Peutingeriana]]. ''Suevia'' is indicated separately, further downstream of the [[Rhine]], beyond ''[[Silva Vosagus]]''.]]
Early Roman writers did not mention the Alemanni, and it is likely that they had not yet come to exist. In his ''[[Germania (book)|Germania]]'' Tacitus (AD 90) does not mention the Alemanni.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Tacitus |author1-link=Tacitus |title=Tacitus: Germany Book 1 |url=https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/tac/g01040.htm |access-date=25 October 2022 |chapter=Chapter 42}}</ref> He uses the term [[Agri Decumates]] to describe the region between the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers. He says that it had once been the home of the [[Helvetians]], who had moved westwards into Gaul in the time of Julius Caesar. The people living there in Caesar's time are not Germanic. Instead, "Reckless adventurers from Gaul, emboldened by want, occupied this land of questionable ownership. After a while, our frontier having been advanced, and our military positions pushed forward, it was regarded as a remote nook of our empire and a part of a Roman province."<ref>[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0083%3Achapter%3D29 Tac. Ger. 29].</ref>

[[File:Alamannischi Girtelbschleg.jpg|thumb|Alemannic belt mountings, from a seventh-century grave in the [[Alemannic grave field|grave field]] at [[Weingarten (Württemberg)|Weingarten]]]]
The Alemanni were first mentioned by [[Cassius Dio]] describing the campaign of [[Caracalla]] in 213. At that time, they apparently dwelt in the basin of the [[Main (river)|Main]], to the south of the Chatti.<ref name="EB1911"/>

Cassius Dio portrays the Alemanni as victims of this treacherous emperor.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/78*.html | publisher=University of Chicago | title=Cassius Dio: Roman History}}</ref> They had asked for his help, according to Dio, but instead he colonized their country, changed their place names, and executed their warriors under a pretext of coming to their aid. When he became ill, the Alemanni claimed to have put a hex on him. Caracalla, it was claimed, tried to counter this influence by invoking his ancestral spirits.

In retribution, Caracalla then led the [[Legio II Traiana Fortis|Legio II ''Traiana Fortis'']] against the Alemanni, who lost and were pacified for a time. The legion was as a result honoured with the name ''Germanica.'' The fourth-century fictional [[Historia Augusta]], ''Life of Antoninus Caracalla'', relates (10.5) that Caracalla then assumed the name ''Alemannicus,'' at which [[Helvius Pertinax]] jested that he should really be called ''Geticus Maximus,'' because in the year before he had murdered his brother, [[Publius Septimius Geta|Geta]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Caracalla*.html | publisher=University of Chicago | title=Historia Augusta: The Life of Antoninus Caracalla}}</ref>

Through much of his short reign, Caracalla was known for unpredictable and arbitrary operations launched by surprise after a pretext of peace negotiations. If he had any reasons of state for such actions, they remained unknown to his contemporaries. Whether or not the Alemanni had been previously neutral, they were certainly further influenced by Caracalla to become thereafter notoriously implacable enemies of Rome.

This mutually antagonistic relationship is perhaps the reason why the Roman writers persisted in calling the Alemanni "barbari," meaning "savages." The archaeology, however, shows that they were largely Romanized, lived in Roman-style houses and used Roman artefacts, the Alemannic women having adopted the Roman fashion of the ''[[tunic]]a'' even earlier than the men.

Most of the Alemanni were probably at the time, in fact, resident in or close to the borders of [[Germania Superior]]. Although Dio is the earliest writer to mention them, [[Ammianus Marcellinus]] used the name to refer to Germans on the [[Limes Germanicus]] in the time of [[Trajan]]'s governorship of the province shortly after it was formed, around 98–99 AD. At that time, the entire frontier was being fortified for the first time. Trees from the earliest fortifications found in [[Germania Inferior]] are dated by [[dendrochronology]] to 99–100 AD.

Ammianus relates ([https://web.archive.org/web/20060211084122/http://www.gmu.edu/departments/fld/CLASSICS/ammianus17.html xvii.1.11]) that much later the Emperor [[Julian the Apostate|Julian]] undertook a [[punitive expedition]] against the Alemanni, who by then were in Alsace, and crossed the Main (Latin ''Menus''), entering the forest, where the trails were blocked by felled trees. As winter was upon them, they reoccupied a
"fortification which was founded on the soil of the Alemanni that Trajan wished to be called with his own name".<ref>''munimentum quod in Alamannorum solo conditum Traianus suo nomine voluit appellari.''</ref>

In this context, the use of Alemanni is possibly an anachronism, but it reveals that Ammianus believed they were the same people, which is consistent with the location of the Alemanni of Caracalla's campaigns.