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Marbod
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marbod or Maroboduus (died in A.D. 37), was king of the Marcomanni. In his novel I, Claudius Robert Graves interprets the name 'Marbod' as meaning "he-who-walks-on-the-bottom-of-the-lake". If Graves' interpretation is correct it would suggest that Marbod was a devotee of a Germanic lake divinity, such as Nerthus. Marbod organized a confederation of several Germanic tribes in about 9 BC to deal with the threat of Roman expansion into the Rhine-Danube basin. The Marcomanni formed a confederation with neighboring Germanic tribes in what are now Silesia and Saxony. He was the first historical ruler of the area later known as Bohemia.
Rivalry between him and 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 A.D., prevented a concerted attack on Roman territory across the Rhine in the north (by Arminius) and in the Danube basin in the south (by Marbod).
However, according to the first century A.D. historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus Arminius sent Varus' head to Marbod ("caput eius abscisum latumque ad Maroboduum et ab eo missum ad Caesarem" - "Compendium of Roman History" II.CXIX).
In 17 A.D., after Arminius had successfully compelled the Romans to abandon their efforts at conquering northern Germany, war broke out between Arminius and Marbod, and Marbod withdrew into the area now known as Bohemia.