TheSemnones were aGermanic people, and more specifically aSuebi people, who lived near theElbe river in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, during the time of theRoman empire.
The 2nd century geographerClaudius Ptolemy places the Semnones between the Elbe and "Suebos" river. Modern scholars believe that the Suebos was the Oder. However, archaeological evidence suggests they stretched as far as theSpree andHavel rivers in the east, and not quite as far as the Oder. To their north was another part of the Havel, and to the south theFläming Heath. In present day terms they were therefore in the area between the modern cities ofMagdeburg andBerlin.[1]
During the reign ofAugustus (63 BC - 14 AD),Velleius Paterculus reported that the future emperorTiberius reached theElbe river which flows through the lands of the Semnones andHermunduri.[2] TheRes Gestae Divi Augusti reports that Augustus extended the Roman boundaries to theElbe river and that after he sailed a fleet to present day Denmark, theCimbri,Charydes andSemnones along with other Germanic peoples of that same region "through their envoys sought my friendship and that of the Roman people".[3]
They were described in the late 1st century byTacitus in hisGermania:
"The Semnones give themselves out to be the most ancient and renowned branch of the Suebi. Their antiquity is strongly attested by their religion. At a stated period, all the tribes of the same group assemble by their representatives in a grove consecrated by the auguries of their forefathers, and by immemorial associations of terror. Here, having publicly slaughtered a human victim, they celebrate the horrible beginning of their barbarous rite. Reverence also in other ways is paid to the grove. No one enters it except bound with a chain, as an inferior acknowledging the might of the local divinity. If he chance to fall, it is not lawful for him to be lifted up, or to rise to his feet; he must crawl out along the ground. All this superstition implies the belief that from this spot the nation took its origin, that here dwells the supreme and all-ruling deity, to whom all else is subject and obedient. The fortunate lot of the Semnones strengthens this belief; a hundred cantons are in their occupation, and the vastness of their community makes them regard themselves as the head of the Suebic tribe."[4]
The Semnones's own name is apparently etymologically similar or even the same as the one recorded by Roman authors as "Suebi" and during his own timeJulius Caesar, had mentioned Suebi but not Semnones, being a powerful tribal group with 100 cantons.
The king of the SemnonesMasyas and his priestessGanna are mentioned byCassius Dio. They worshipped asupreme god (Latin:regnator omnium deus) at asacred grove. Agrove of fetters is also mentioned in theeddic poemHelgakviða Hundingsbana II.Ptolemy's map of Germania mentions a forest called Semanus Silva, but a relation to the Semnones is unknown.
In the 3rd century, the Semnones shifted southwards and eventually ended up as part of theAlemanni people.
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