SUE'VI. The collective designation of a great number of Germanic peoples, as mentioned in Cresar, De Bello Gallieo, iv. 1. They occupied a district of indefinite extent on the eastern side of the Rhine, and may have been the same tribes as those subsequently known as Chatti, Longo bardi, etc. Cwsar states that their territory comprised 100 cantons, and was densely wooded, that they had towns (with!), hut no strong holds, and that every year a part of the popula tion left their homes to seek employment in war. The Suevi of whom Tacitn; speaks (Germania, 3S. etc.) seem to have dwelt north and east of the country of the Suevi of Ca-sar, extending as far as the Elbe and the Baltic, which Tacitus calls the `Suevie sea: The peo pies united under the rule of Maroboduus, the Mareomannie ehief, were Suede, and hence the and Quadi who figure in the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Aurelian are often called Sued. After the name had fallen into
disuse as a collective designation. it reappeared in Amnnianun \1arcellinu,, an historian of the third century A.D., as tltc name of a people occupying the same territory as the Suevi of Caesar. We find them in alliance with the Burgundians, Alemanni, Alani, Vandals, etc. They arc among the most notable of the barbaric peoples that broke up the Roman Empire in the northwest and west. Bursting through the passes of the Pyrenees (A.p. 409), they, along with the Vandals, overran and wasted Spain (q.v.). Those who remained at home in Ger many seem to have spread during the fifth cen tury east of the Neckar and the Rauhe Alb, and south as far as Switzerland. The medieval Swabians were their direct descendants.