Istvaeones

Article summary

dialect groups in Europe in around AD 1. The depiction of Jutland as a West Germanic area is typical within German scientific tradition. The Istvaeones, Istaevones or Istiaeones, whose name may originally have been Istriones, were a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine border of the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD, and who were understood on the basis of old Germanic "songs" ( ) to descend from an ancient common ancestor. According to Tacitus the old songs described three such groups, each descended from one of the three sons of their common ancestor who was named Mannus, and who was in turn the son of a god named Tuisco. The other two groups were the Ingaevones who lived on the North Sea coast, and the Herminones who lived further inland. Apart from this Mannus story, Tacitus noted there were claims that this god had more offspring, and that there were other tribal names as old as these three. In an earlier mention of these three peoples by Pliny the Elder it is explained that the Istvaeones lived near the Rhine. The surviving manuscripts of both Pliny and Tacitus lack any listing of specific Germanic peoples who were Istvaeones. Although the names of these three peoples did not appear again in Roman era literature, they were used again in learned medieval literature, although different nations were included in the medieval versions.…

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