a powerful confederacy of ancient Germans, who were resident, as their name imports, on the borders. They are first mentioned in history by Caesar, and seem at that time to have dwelt upon the banks of the Rhine. From Tacitus, Paterculus, and Strabo, we learn that they soon afterwards moved westward, under their king Marobodus, drove the Boii out of Bohemia, and settled in that country. After organizing a government, Marobodus formed a league with the neighbouring tribes, for the purpose of defending Germany against the Romans. He was thus enabled to muster 70,000 disciplined soldiers, and to conclude an honourable treaty with the Emperor Tiberius, A.D. 6. Yet he was defeated by the Cherusci and their allies A.D. 17; and in two years afterwards he was expelled from his throne by the Goth Catulda, and forced to seek a refuge in Italy. The same fate soon afterwards befell his dethroner and successor, and the Marcomanni once more came under the sway of native kings. After this they gradually extended their dominions, until they had reached the Danube, and had provoked the jealousy of the Romans in the time of Domitian. Then began those hostilities between the Romans and the Marcomanni, which, after being checked by Trajan and Hadrian, and resumed with fresh animosity in the reign of M. Aurelius, issued, in 166, in the protracted struggle of the Marcomannic war, and were finally quelled by the peace of Commodus, in 180. Favoured, however, by the feeble rule of this last emperor, the Marcomanni continued their predatory inroads into the Roman provinces of Noricum and Rhaetia, and ventured sometimes as far as the defiles of the Alps. In 270, in the reign of Aurelian, they pushed forward into Italy, and penetrated even to Ancona, spreading consternation around them. After this period they disappear gradually from history, and are mentioned for the last time among the hordes of Attila.