The Suevi or Suebi were the collective name for a number of warlike German tribes, mentioned by Gaius Julius Caesar as dwelling E. of the Rhine R.; the historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus describes them as inhabiting all central Germany w. of the Oder R. to the Danube R., except a strip along the Baltic Sea occupied by the Harudes. The Suevi allied themselves with the Alamanni and other barbarie tribes early in the 5th century
A.D., and helped to demolish the Roman Empire in the W. and N.W. They swept down upon Spain in 409
A.D., but were later defeated by the Franks under Clovis I. The Suevi who remained in Germany seem to have spread to the E. and s., and the medieval Swabians were their direct descendants.
