Maroboduus

Maroboduus, (died ad 37, Ravenna [Italy]), king of the Marcomanni who organized the first confederation of German tribes.

A Marcomannian noble, Maroboduus spent his youth in Italy and received a Roman education. On his return to Germany, he emerged as leader of the Marcomanni. About 9 bc, to escape the threat of Roman domination, he and his people migrated from the Main River valley in west-central Germany to Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic, where he founded a kingdom and formed a powerful confederacy with neighbouring German tribes in what is now Silesia and Saxony. After a period of hostility, the Romans recognized his kingdom in ad 6. In ad 9, Maroboduus refused to support the Cherusci leader Arminius in his war against Rome. Defeated by Arminius in 17, he was deposed in 19 and spent the rest of his life as an exile in Italy.