Editing History of Germany (section)

===Early migrations, the Suebi and the Roman Republic===
{{Germanic tribes (750 BC – 1 AD)}}
{{Main|Germanic peoples|Germania}}
{{Further|List of Roman governors of Germania Inferior}}The [[ethnogenesis]] of the [[Germanic peoples|Germanic tribes]] remains debated. However, for author [[Averil Cameron]] "it is obvious that a steady process" occurred during the [[Nordic Bronze Age]], or at the latest during the [[Pre-Roman Iron Age]]<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1163/9789004289529_007 |chapter=The Debate about the Ethnogenesis of the Germanic Tribes |title=East and West in Late Antiquity |date=2015 |last1=Liebeschuetz |first1=Wolf |pages=85–100 |isbn=978-90-04-28952-9 }}</ref> (Jastorf culture). From their homes in southern Scandinavia and northern Germany the tribes began expanding south, east and west during the 1st century BC,{{Sfn|Kristinsson|2010|p=147|ps=: "In the 1st century BC it was the Suebic tribes who were expanding most conspicuously. [...] Originating from central Germania, they moved to the south and southwest. [...] As Rome was conquering the Gauls, Germans were expanding to meet them, and this was the threat from which Caesar claimed to be saving the Gauls. [...] For the next half-century the expansion concentrated on southern Germany and Bohemia, assimilating or driving out the previous Gallic or Celtic inhabitants. The oppida in this area fell and were abandoned one after another as simple, egalitarian Germanic societies replaced the complex, stratified Celtic ones."}} and came into contact with the [[Celt]]ic tribes of [[Gaul]], as well as with [[Iranian peoples|Iranic]],{{Sfn|Green|2003|p=29|ps=: "Greek may have followed the Persians in devising its terms for their military formations, but the Goths were dependent [...] on Iranians of the Pontic region for terms which followed the Iranian model more closely in using the cognate Gothic term for the second element of its compounds. (Gothic dependence on Iranian may have gone even further, affecting the numeral itself, if we recall that the two Iranian loanwords in Crimean Gothic are words for 'hundred' and 'thousand')."}} [[Balts|Baltic]],{{Sfn|Fortson|2011|p=433|ps=: "Baltic territory began to shrink shortly before the dawn of the Christian era due to the Gothic migrations into their southwestern territories [...]."}} and [[Slavic peoples|Slavic]] cultures in [[Central Europe|Central]]/[[Eastern Europe]].{{Sfn|Green|2000|pp=172–173|ps=: "Jordanes [...] mentions the Slavs (''Getica'' 119) and associates them more closely than the Balts with the center of Gothic power. [...] This location of the early Slavs partly at least in the region covered by the Cernjahov culture, together with their contacts (warlike or not) with the Goths under Ermanric and almost certainly before, explains their openness to Gothic loanword influence. That this may have begun early, before the expansion of the Slavs from their primeval habitat, is implied by the presence of individual loan-words in a wide range of Slavonic languages."}}

Factual and detailed knowledge about the early history of the Germanic tribes is rare. Researchers have to be content with the recordings of the tribes' affairs with the [[Ancient Rome|Romans]], linguistic conclusions, archaeological discoveries and the rather new yet auspicious results of [[Archaeogenetics|archaeogenetic]] study.{{Sfn|Claster|1982|p=35}} In the mid-1st century BC, [[Roman Republic|Republican Roman]] statesman [[Julius Caesar]] erected the [[Caesar's Rhine bridges|first known bridges across the Rhine]] during his [[Gallic Wars|campaign in Gaul]] and led a military contingent across and into the territories of the local Germanic tribes. After several days and having made no contact with Germanic troops (who had retreated inland) Caesar returned to the west of the river.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brown |first=Robert D. |date=2013 |title=Caesar's Description of Bridging the Rhine (Bellum Gallicum 4.16–19): A Literary Analysis |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_classical-philology_2013-01_108_1/page/41 |journal=Classical Philology |volume=108 |pages=41–53 |doi=10.1086/669789 |s2cid=162278924}}</ref> By 60 BC, the [[Suebi]] tribe under chieftain [[Ariovistus]], had conquered lands of the Gallic [[Aedui]] tribe to the west of the Rhine. Consequent plans to populate the region with Germanic settlers from the east were vehemently opposed by Caesar, who had already launched his [[Gallic Wars|ambitious campaign]] to subjugate all Gaul. Julius Caesar defeated the Suebi forces in 58 BC in the [[Battle of Vosges (58 BC)|Battle of Vosges]] and forced Ariovistus to retreat across the Rhine.<ref>[[Julius Caesar]], ''[[Commentarii de Bello Gallico]]'' [[s:The Gallic War (Caesar)/Book 1#31|1.31–53]]</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=C. Julius Caesar |title=C. Julius Caesar, Gallic War |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0001%3Abook%3D4%3Achapter%3D5 |access-date=20 March 2019 |publisher=Perseus Project}}</ref>