Maroboduus

For the later bishop of Rennes, see Marbodius of Rennes.

Maroboduus (d. AD 37) was a king of the Marcomanni, who were a Germanic Suebian people. He spent part of his youth in Rome, and returning, found his people under pressure from invasions by the Roman empire between the Rhine and Elbe. He led them into the forests of Bohemia, near to the Quadi who already lived nearby, and established a large alliance.

Name

The name appears in Latin and Greek texts spelt variously: Maroboduus, Marobodus, Maraboduus, Meroboduus, Morobuduus, Moroboduus, Marbodus and Marabodus in Latin sources; Maroboudos and Baroboudos in Greek ones.

Different etymologies have been proposed, as follows:

1) The name is Celtic, specifically the compound name *Marobodwos, consisting of the stem *mar-o- ‘great’ (cf. Welsh mawr) and bodwos ‘raven, war god’ (cf. Old Irish bodb ‘idem’).

2) The name is Germanic, specifically the compound *Marabadwaz, consisting of the stem *mar-a- ‘great’ from Proto-Germanic *mēr-i/a- and a masculine form of *badwō ‘battle, fight’ (cf. Old English beadu ‘idem’). The actual forms found in the Graeco-Latin texts are then accounted for by assuming a Celtic intermediary who ‘translated’ the name.

3) The name is Germanic, specifically the compound *Marabodwaz, consisting of the stem *mar-a- ‘great’ from Proto-Germanic *mēr-i/a-, the onomastic element -bod- treated here as a -wa- stem. It is to be noted that the thematic vowel of the first element in Germanic compound names is often rendered as -o- in Graeco-Latin texts: e.g., Langobardi for *Langabard-, Theodoricus for *Þeudarīk-, etc. Moreover, the adjective stem *mēr-i/a- straddles two declensional classes. The element -bod- is found in other later Germanic names as well: Continental Germanic Mar(e)bod, Merebot, Meriboto, Merbodo, and preserved in the New High German name Meerbott. The -wa- suffix is also found, perhaps used as a kind of diminutive marker, in other early Germanic names: cf. the Latinized Suebian name Nasua (= Germanic *Nas-wan-, cf. the Old English name Naso and Continental Germanic Nasco), and the Latinized Herulian Suartuas (= Germanic *Swart-wa-).

Biography

Maroboduus was born into a noble family of the Marcomanni. As a young man, he lived in Italy and enjoyed the favour of the Emperor Augustus. The Marcomanni had been beaten utterly by the Romans in 10 BC. About 9 BC, Maroboduus returned to Germania and became ruler of his people. To deal with the threat of Roman expansion into the Rhine-Danube basin, he led the Marcomanni to the area later known as Bohemia to be outside the range of the Roman influence. There, he took the title of king and organized a confederation of several neighboring Germanic tribes. He was the first documented ruler of Bohemia with a government.

Augustus planned in 6 AD to destroy the kingdom of Maroboduus, which he considered to be too dangerous for the Romans. The future emperor Tiberius commanded 12 legions to attack the Marcomanni, but the outbreak of a revolt in Illyria, and the need for troops there, forced Tiberius to conclude a treaty with Maroboduus and to recognize him as king.

War with Arminius and death

His rivalry with Arminius, the Cheruscan leader who inflicted the devastating defeat at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest on the Romans under Publius Quinctilius Varus in 9 AD, prevented a concerted attack on Roman territory across the Rhine in the north (by Arminius) and in the Danube basin in the south (by Maroboduus).

However, according to the first-century AD historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Arminius sent Varus's head to Maroboduus, but the king of the Marcomanni sent it to Augustus. In the revenge war of Tiberius and Germanicus against the Cherusci, Maroboduus stayed neutral.

In 17 AD, war broke out between Arminius and Maroboduus, and after an indecisive battle, Maroboduus withdrew into the hilly forests of Bohemia in 18 AD. In the next year, Catualda, a young Marcomannic nobleman living in exile among the Gutones, returned, perhaps by a subversive Roman intervention, and defeated Maroboduus. The deposed king had to flee to Italy, and Tiberius detained him 18 years in Ravenna. There, Maroboduus died in 37 AD. Catualda was, in turn, defeated by the Hermunduri Vibilius, after which the realm was ruled by the Quadian Vannius. Vannius was himself also deposed by Vibilius, in coordination with his nephews Vangio and Sido, who then ruled as Roman client kings.

Further reading

• Peter Kehne: Marbod. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, vol. 19 (2001), p. 258-262.
• Tacitus, Annals, Book 1 & Book 2.

External links

• Gaulish English Dictionary