The proximity to, the ‘otherness’ of and the seemingly eternal conflict with the barbarian tribes across the Rhine stoked Imperial Rome’s interest in all matters German. To get a sense of the horror and fascination the Germans exerted on the Romans, think cowboys (Rome) and indians (Germany). One of the earliest ethnographic works was Tacitus’ Germania, dedicated entirely to those wild men on the other side of the river. The source for this map of Germania Magna (Greater Germany), however, is Ptolemaeus’ Geographia, which, while dealing with the whole known world and not specifically with Germany, gives very determinate coordinates for all the tribes, mountains, rivers and islands mentioned.

The Geographia is a compilation of what was known of all the world’s geography in the 2nd century AD. Although the knowledge of regions outside the Empire is sometimes quite sketchy, Ptolemy’s atlas (the original maps were lost, and reconstituted in later centuries based on the coordinates provided by Ptolemy for each locality) remained authoritative up until the age of Discovery.

This map is quite defective by modern standards: the course of the rivers, notably the Rhine, is oversimplified, the Jutland peninsula is the wrong shape, some of the islands appear fictional and there’s no sign of the Scandinavian peninsula.

Another issue rendering this map ‘unreadable’ to modern eyes is the proliferation of tribal names that more often than not have failed to make a lasting (or at least recognisable) mark on people and places today; many German tribes were exterminated, or were known by several names, or were absorbed by other tribes. Still, here follows an attempt to describe the map.

The neighbours

• Gallia – in Antiquity, the Rhine was the traditional border between Gaul and Germany – and by extension between the Roman Empire and the ‘barbarians’. Remarkably, later policy of the French kings was to establish natural borders between themselves and the Germans, often aiming for the Rhine.
• Raetia (often also Rhaetia) – united present-day eastern and central Switzerland with southern Bavaria, Upper Swabia, Voralberg, the better part of Tirol and part of Lombardy. In Roman times, it was bounded by the Limes Germanicus along the Danube in the north, by the Helvetii on the west, by Cisalpine Gaul in the south and by Noricum in the east. Little is known of the Raetians, apart from suggestions that they were related to the Etruscans and the fact that they probably were celtified to a large degree by the time of the Roman invasion. The mountain-dwelling Raetians subsisted on cattle-farming and timber-cutting, but some valleys also produced wine so good that Julius Caesar preferred Raetian to Italian wine. The name Raetia survives in Raeto-Roman, the name for Switzerland’s smallest and only native language.
• In between Gallia and Rhaetia is located the Fons Rheni, the source of the Rhine (nowadays, the Rhine is considered to have two sources: Lake Tuma near the Oberalp Pass, leading to the Vorderrhein; and the Paradies glacier near the Rheinquellhorn, both in present-day Switzerland.
• Noricum – Name of a Celtic federation of possibly 12 tribes, in 16 BC absorbed by Rome as a province, between Raetia in the west, the Danube on the north, Pannonia on the east and Italia and Dalmatia in the south, roughly corresponding to Styria and Carinthia, provinces of modern Austria, and other parts of Austria and Bavaria. Their area was fabled for its richness in gold, salt and iron ore. Noricum was the staging ground for almost all Celtic attacks on Italy. Before the Celts, Noricum was inhabited by the Illyrians and before that, as attested by the Hallstatt-culture relics, by a vigorous culture that made the transition from Bronze to Iron Age. The Achaeans referred to by Homer might even have originated here.
• Panonnia – the plains of central Europe in later times associated with Hungary. In ancient times inhabited by Panonnians, related to the Illyrians, in the 4th century BC invaded by Celts and around the beginning of the CE subdued by the Romans.
• Sarmatia – the region of Eastern Europe inhabited in Antiquity by the Sarmatians, a collection of tribes of Persian stock, in their greatest range around 100 BC occupying land from Barentsz Sea (north) to the Danube (south) and from the Vistula (west) to the Caspian Sea (east). The Sarmatians may be the origin of the centuries-old legends about women-warriors, as their females enjoyed an uncommon degree of participation in social life. The Sarmatians were related to the Scythians, allied themselves with the Huns in the 4th century and only disappeared from view at the time of the Gothic ascendancy in the Black Sea area. The modern-day Ossetians (in Georgia and Russia) might well be descendents of the Scythians/Sarmatians.

The Rivers

• Albis – the Elbe
• Amasius – unkown
• Chalusus – the Treve
• Danuvius – the Danube
• Rhenus – the Rhine
• Suebus – unknown
• Viadua – the Oder
• Vidrus – exact location unknown
• Vistula – the Vistula
• Visurgis – the Weser