The Dulgubnii are a Germanic tribe mentioned in Tacitus' '' Germania'' (Chapter 34) as living in what is today northwest Germany.

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...

describes them being to the north of the

Angrivarii The Angrivarii (or ''Angrivari'') were a Germanic people of the early Roman Empire, who lived in what is now northwest Germany near the middle of the Weser river. They were mentioned by the Roman authors Tacitus and Ptolemy. They were part of the ...

and

Chamavi The Chamavi, Chamãves or Chamaboe () were a Germanic tribe of Roman imperial times whose name survived into the Early Middle Ages. They first appear under that name in the 1st century AD '' Germania'' of Tacitus as a Germanic tribe that lived t ...

, and as having moved from the north into the area once belonging to the

Bructeri The Bructeri (from Latin; Greek: Βρούκτεροι, ''Broukteroi'', or Βουσάκτεροι, ''Bousakteroi''; Old English: ''Boruhtware'') were a Germanic tribe* * in Roman imperial times, located in northwestern Germany, in present-day ...

, between Ems,

Lippe Lippe () is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Neighboring districts are Herford, Minden-Lübbecke, Höxter, Paderborn, Gütersloh, and district-free Bielefeld, which forms the region Ostwestfalen-Lippe. The ...

, and

Weser The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...

. In this same area as the Dulgubnii, north of the Chamavi and

, were the

Chasuarii The Chasuarii were an ancient Germanic tribe known from the reports of authors writing in the time of the Roman Empire. They lived somewhere to the east and north of the Rhine, near the modern river Hase, which feeds into the Ems. This means they ...

, and north of these, on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

coast, where the Chauci. The Chasuarii's name is thought to derive from the

River Hase The Hase is a long river of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Ems, but part of its flow goes to the Else, that is part of the Weser basin. Its source is in the Teutoburg Forest, south-east of Osnabrück, on the north slope ...

which feeds into the middle of the Ems from the east, just northwest of the area associated with the Angrivarii, on the Weser. So from Tacitus, it appears that the Dulgubnii probably lived near the Weser. By the account of Tacitus, the

Chauci The Chauci (german: Chauken, and identical or similar in other regional modern languages) were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Rivers Ems and Elbe, on both sides of the Weser and ranging as far inland as the ...

in his time lived not only along the whole German coast, but would have also stretched down to the lands of the Cherusci and

Chatti The Chatti (also Chatthi or Catti) were an ancient Germanic tribe whose homeland was near the upper Weser (''Visurgis''). They lived in central and northern Hesse and southern Lower Saxony, along the upper reaches of that river and in the va ...

. So they were probably the neighbours of the Dulgubnii on the east. The Dulgubnii in Tacitus are probably the same as

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance ...

's ''Doulgoumnioi'' of the same region (Book 2, Chapter 10). (Many Germanic names are corrupted in Ptolemy's Greek.) Ptolemy describes them near the

Elbe The Elbe (; cs, Labe ; nds, Ilv or ''Elv''; Upper and dsb, Łobjo) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Re ...

, so to the east of the position described by Tacitus, in an area Tacitus associated with the Chauci. They are described as having the "Laccobardi" (

Langobardi The Lombards () or Langobards ( la, Langobardi) were a Germanic people who ruled most of the Italian Peninsula from 568 to 774. The medieval Lombard historian Paul the Deacon wrote in the ''History of the Lombards'' (written between 787 and ...

) to their north, and the " Suebi Angili" (

Angles The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ...

) to their south. To their east are the Angrivarii, still near the Weser, and then the "Chamae" (Chamavi), between Ems and Weser, north of the Bructeri who are now on the Rhine. In Ptolemy, the Chamae, Angrivarii, and Laccobardi have the Chauci directly on their north, all the way to the coast, and stretched from Ems to Elbe. And the Dulgubnii are no longer between the Chauci and the Chamavi and Angrivarii. Compared to Tacitus, the Chasuarii had also moved away. Ptolemy mentions Casuari far to the south, east of the Abnoba mountains that run east of the Rhine (with the

Tencteri The Tencteri or Tenchteri or Tenctheri (in Plutarch's Greek, Tenteritē and possibly the same as the Tenkeroi mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy if these were not the Tungri) were an ancient tribe, who moved into the area on the right bank (the norther ...

apparently between Rhine and Abnoba at that point).

Sources

* Tacitus, ''Germania'', XXXIV. Early Germanic peoples {{Ethno-stub

See also

Sources