Editing Suebi (section)

====The Elbe====

Strabo does not say much about the Suebi east of the Elbe, saying that this region was still unknown to Romans,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D2 |title=''Geography'' 7.2 |publisher=Perseus.tufts.edu |access-date=2014-05-01}}</ref> but mentions that a part of the Suebi live there, naming only specifically the [[Hermunduri]] and the [[Langobardi]]. But he mentions these are there because of recent defeats at Roman hands which had forced them over the river. (Tacitus mentions that the Hermunduri were later welcomed on to the Roman border at the Danube.) In any case he says that the area near the Elbe itself is held by the Suebi.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0198%3Abook%3D7%3Achapter%3D3 |title=''Geography'' 7.3 |publisher=Perseus.tufts.edu |access-date=2014-05-01}}</ref>

From Tacitus and Ptolemy we can derive more details:
* The [[Semnones]] are described by Tacitus as "the oldest and noblest of the Suebi", and, like the Suebi described by Caesar, they have 100 cantons. Tacitus says that "the vastness of their community makes them regard themselves as the head of the Suevic race".<ref name="Section 39">''Germania'' Section 39.</ref> According to Ptolemy the "Suevi Semnones" live upon the Elbe and stretch as far east as a river apparently named after them, the Suevus, probably the [[Oder]]. South of them he places the [[Silingi]], and then, again upon the Elbe, the [[Calucones]]. To the southeast further up the upper Elbe he places not the Hermunduri mentioned by other authors (who had possibly moved westwards and become Ptolemy's "[[Teuriochaemai]]", and the later [[Thuringii]]), but the [[Baenochaemae]] (whose name appears to be somehow related to the modern name [[Bohemia]], and somehow derived from the older placename mentioned by Strabo and Tacitus as the capital of King [[Marobodus]] after he settled his Marcomanni in the [[Hercynian forest]]). A monument confirms that the [[Juthungi]], who fought the Romans in the 3rd century, and were associated with the Alamanni, were Semnones. 
* The [[Langobardi]] live a bit further from Rome's borders, in "scanty numbers" but "surrounded by a host of most powerful tribes" and kept safe "by daring the perils of war" according to Tacitus.<ref name=sect40>''Germania'' Section 40.</ref> 
* Tacitus names seven tribes who live "next" after the Langobardi, "fenced in by rivers or forests" stretching "into the remoter regions of Germany". These all worshiped [[Nertha]], or Mother Earth, whose sacred grove was on an island in the Ocean (presumably the Baltic Sea): [[Reudigni]], [[Aviones]], [[Anglii]], [[Varini]], [[Eudoses]], [[Suarini]] and [[Nuitones]].<ref name=sect40/> 
*At the mouth of the Elbe (and in the Danish peninsula), the classical authors do not place any Suevi, but rather the [[Chauci]] to the west of the Elbe, and the [[Saxons]] to the east, and in the "neck" of the peninsula.

Note that while various errors and confusions are possible, Ptolemy places the Angles and Langobardi west of the Elbe, where they may indeed have been present at some points in time, given that the Suebi were often mobile.