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TEUTONES

Volume 20 · 211 words · 1815 Edition

or Teutoni, in Ancient Geography, a people always by historians joined with the Cimbri; both seated, according to Mela, beyond the Elbe, on the Sinus Codanus, or Baltic; and there it is supposed, lay the country of the Teutones, now Ditmarfb; diversity of dialects producing the different terms Teut, Tut, Dit, Tid, and Thod, which in the ancient German language signified people. Of these Teutones, Virgil is to be understood in the epithet Teutonicus, an appellation which more lately came to be applied to the Germans in general, and later still the appellation Alemanni.

The Teutones, in conjunction with the Cimbri and Ambrones, made war on the Romans, and marched towards Italy in the year 101 B. C. We are told, that the Teutones alone were so numerous, that they were fix whole days without intermission in passing by the Roman camp. In Transalpine Gaul they engaged the Roman consul Marius; but were defeated with incredible slaughter; 100,000 of them, according to the lowest calculations, being killed on the spot. According to others, the number of those killed and taken prisoners amounted to 290,000. The inhabitants made fences for vineyards of their bones. Their king Teutobochus, said to be a monstrous giant, was taken prisoner and carried to Rome. See GIANT.