replaces kingdom of the suebi
Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC . He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul , assisting the Arverni and Sequani in defeating their rivals , the Aedui . Then , they settled in large numbers into conquered Gallic territory , in the ___MASK79___ region . They were defeated , however , in the Battle of Vosges and driven back over the Rhine in 58 BC by Julius Caesar . The Suebi ( or Suevi , Suavi ( Jordanes , Procopius ), or Suevians ) was a large group of related Germanic peoples who lived in Germania in the time of the Roman Empire . They were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with his battles against Ariovistus in Gaul , around 58 BC . While Caesar treated them as one Germanic tribe within an alliance but the largest and most warlike one , later authors , such as Tacitus , Pliny the Elder and Strabo , specified that the Suevi " do not , like the Chatti or Tencteri , constitute a single nation . They actually occupy more than half of Germania , and are divided into a number of distinct tribes under distinct names , though all generally are called Suebi ". At one time , classical ethnography had applied the name " Suevi " to so many Germanic tribes that it appeared as if , in the first centuries AD , that native name would replace the foreign name " Germans ". The Visigoths were the western branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths . These tribes flourished and spread during the late Roman Empire in Late Antiquity , or the Migration Period . The Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups ( possibly the Thervingi ) who had invaded the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 . Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths were variable , alternately warring with one another and making treaties when convenient . The Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and sacked Rome in 410 . After the Visigoths sacked Rome , they began settling down , first in southern Gaul and eventually in Spain and Portugal , where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom and maintained a presence from the 5th to the 8th centuries AD . The Roman Empire ( Koine and Medieval Greek :    , tr . ) was the post - Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization , characterized by government headed by emperors and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe , Africa and Asia . The city of Rome was the largest city in the world BC AD , with Constantinople ( New Rome ) becoming the largest around 500 AD , and the Empire ' s populace grew to an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants ( roughly 20 % of the world ' s population at the time ). The 500 - year - old republic which preceded it was severely destabilized in a series of civil wars and political conflict , during which Julius Caesar was appointed as perpetual dictator and then assassinated in 44 BC . Civil wars and executions continued , culminating in the victory of Octavian , Caesar ' s adopted son , over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt . Octavian ' s power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power and the new title " Augustus ", effectively marking the end of the Roman Republic . The Kingdom of the Suebi ( Latin : Regnum Suevorum ) , also called the Kingdom of Gallæcia ( Latin : Regnum Gallæciae ) , was a Germanic post - Roman kingdom , one of the first ones to separate from the Roman Empire . Based in the former Roman provinces of Gallaecia and northern Lusitania , the de facto kingdom was established by the Suebi about 410 and during the 6th century it became a formally declared kingdom identifying with Gallaecia . It maintained its independence until 585 , when it was annexed by the Visigoths , and was turned into the sixth province of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania . The Visigothic Kingdom or Kingdom of the Visigoths was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries . One of the Germanic successor states to the ___MASK91___ , it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Aquitaine in southwest France by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of the Iberian Peninsula . The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire , the attempts of which to re - establish Roman authority in Iberia were only partially successful and short - lived . The Roman Senate was a political institution in ancient Rome . It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history , being established in the first days of the city ( traditionally founded in 753 BC ). It survived the overthrow of the kings in 509 BC , the fall of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC , the division of the Roman Empire in 395 AD , the fall of the ___MASK91___ in 476 AD , and the barbarian rule of Rome in the 5th , 6th , and 7th centuries . The Goths were an East Germanic people , two of whose branches , the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths , played an important role in the fall of the ___MASK91___ and the emergence of Medieval Europe . The Goths dominated a vast area , which at its peak under the Germanic king Ermanaric and his sub - king Athanaric possibly extended all the way from the Danube to the Don , and from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea .