Germans tribes in III century: how did they look like?

**tomySVK** · January 23, 2012, 04:27 AM

@ demagogos nicator: It´s always good to meet fellow countryman

There are many surprises regarding local history. For example after moving to the village in south-west Slovakia, I read the article about Romans in Slovakia and I found that only few kilometers from my house is the site of the Roman marching camp from Marcomanni wars.

**Diocletianus** · May 09, 2013, 02:16 PM

Could we speak of a united Rhine-germanic culture group in the 3rd century ? The Franks,for example, did not developped a distinctive armament until the middle of the 5th Century with the apparition of the francisca and the angon. Before,tombs discovery of the 4th century revealed that there was a massive roman influence in the weaponry of the Franks as they were the ''allies'' of Rome. The germanics federations of the 3rd century like the Alamans and the Franks seem to originate from the Rhine-Weser germanic culture group. French historians think that the fédérations or germanic league had nothing to do with anthropologic or cultural différences with their neighbors : it was purely a form of loosely alliances. The différences begin to appear with the developpement of the Laeti and the massive recruitment in the middle of the 4th century. In game, we could represent the différents tribes with more or less roman influenced weapon units with few ''unique'' units like Frisians/Franks pirates or alamanic nobles.

**Diocle** · May 10, 2013, 01:20 PM

Two questions:

1- Is it possible distinguish between Franks and Alamans during the III century? I mean weapons, hairstyle, use of armor, swords? I've read your interesting post and I know that in this age angones and franziskas are out of place but can we distinguish the Northern Franks from the Alamans? (I've read that the Alamans or Suevi were part of the Marcomannic coalition or better they were mainly a Marcomannic group.)

2- The process of grouping of Usipeti, Bructerii, Tencterii etc. etc. is now complete? is there a difference in burials between the Franks belonging to the North Western bank of the Rhine and those living on the Eastern bank?

Waiting for news from the book you quoted in your post in the general discussion, thanks Diocletianus for your interesting post, the appearance of the Germanic warriors in the III century is still a mystery for my visual imagination...