Re: Vandals

>
> "It is not clear whether the populations which Caesar consider to be
> Germanic also called themselves that. The Roman historian Tacitus
> suggests in his De origine et situ Germanorum (98 n.Chr.) [above
> footnote] that the name came from Caesar himself and only later was
> taken over by the local population: 'Some assure [...] that more
> [ancestors] have sprung from this god and that there are thus more
> original names: Marsi, Gambrivii, Suebi, Vandilii, and that those
> are the genuine old names; that besides the designation 'Germani'
> is of recent date and only came about a short time ago, since those
> who came first across the Rhine and drove off the Gauls and now
> (are called) Tongeren, then were called Germani ...' Tacitus refers
> in this passage very clearly to Caesar. In Tacitus' time the
> territory of the Eburones who had been exterminated by Caesar was
> inhabited by the Tongeren
> (Tungri)"
>

New proposal: 'Those who came first across the Rhine and drove off the
Gauls and now (are called) Tungri' and 'then were called Germani' are
the Cimbri/Teutones. That would counter your objection that Caesar
knew of a permanent presence (without Ariovistus) of the Germani: it
is another people, now called Tungri (and living in Aduatuci, now
Tongern).


Torsten