The Ptolemaic Sudovians along the Danube and the Vistula: In Search of Similarities

Abstract

Scholars interested in the study of the ancient Balts are undoubtedly informed that Ptolemy (c.100–170) mentions at least two tribes, the Galindians (Γαλίνδαι) and the Sudovians (Σουδινοί), on the northern bank of the Vistula River (Geogr. III, 5, 21), the presence of which is also recorded in the documents of the Teutonic Order from the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. What is much less well known is that he mentions the Sudovians (Σουδινοί/Σουδιανοί) on the northern bank of the Danube (Geogr. II, 11, 25), and that linguists also associate the Sudeten Mountains with this tribe of Sudovians (Geogr. II, 11, 7; II, 11, 23: Σούδητα ὄρη), the localisation of which is also problematic. Drawing on the knowledge of the south-eastern edge of Ptolemy’s Germania – the rivers, mountains, and the peoples he mentions – the paper attempts to locate more precisely these Sudovians along the Danube. By collecting and summarising all contemporary knowledge of their neighbours, the Marcomanni, the Varisci, etc. (Caesar, Strabo, Arrian, Pliny, Tacitus, etc.), an attempt is made to place them in the context of a more general history of the region of the first and second centuries. Finally, the hypothesis that  the Sudovians along the Danube could have been part of the Sudovians of the Vistula, who were involved in the migration of peoples of the time, is supported by geographical, linguistic, and archaeological arguments and by the more general patterns of movement of peoples in the Barbaricum area. The author identifies the Sudovians along the Vistula with the Bogaczew culture.