Nemetes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Nemetes or Nemeti (German: Nemeter) were a Western Germanic tribe living at the Rhine between the Palatinate and Lake Bodensee where Ariovistus had lead them, the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. The Roman name Noviomagus Nemetum for the town of Speyer reflects this.
Caesar in De Bello Gallico writes in Book VI 25,1: The Hercynian Forest begins in the area of the Helveti, Nemeti and Rauraci and stretches along the Danube to the areas of the Daci and Anarti). Tacitus (in Annals XII 27) considers the Nemeti as allies of Rome.
Having lived in Eastern Europe or Northern Europe before their migration, the Nemeti might be related to the Slavic languages words for Germans in general (Nemet, Nemeth, Nemec, Nemecke etc., see Names for Germany), and/or their names for Neman River (Neman or Niemen).
After all, also the Baltic Sea was called Mare Suebicum, after the Suebi.
