himself of the lands of the Marcomanni; and that name, which Marbod had rendered famous, now sinks into obscurity. The Marcomanni, as well as the Quadi, fell under the domination of other tribes, probably the Hermunduri. All these tribes appear to have been to a certain extent dependent on Rome; and we read that the Emperor Domitian, having demanded aid from Quadi and Marcomanni in his war with Decebalus of Dacia and receiving an unsatisfactory answer, caused their envoys to be murdered and attacked their country (90).
During seventy-five years from this date we find no historical mention of the tribes which inhabited Bohemia, and only from the time of the beginning of the Marcomannic war (a.d. 165) we find some slight mention of Bohemia and the neighbouring countries. This war is known in history as the Marcomannic war; probably more because the name was better known to the Romans than those of other tribes living further from the frontiers of the empire, than because that tribe took a very prominent part in it. Numerous tribes, whose partly-distorted names are recorded by the Roman historians, and among whom we find mentioned the Marcomanni and Quadi, driven southward by other—probably Slavonic—tribes, simultaneously attacked the Roman Empire. Only insufficient and contradictory accounts of this great war have reached us. The Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, having defeated the German tribes in several battles, formed the plan of incorporating the lands of the Marcomanni and Quadi (that is to say, the districts now known as Bohemia, Moravia, and Upper Hungary) entirely with the Roman Empire. A great insurrection in the east, however, obliged Marcus Aurelius to renounce these plans and to conclude peace. Faithful to the Roman system of separating the various German tribes, the Emperor granted them peace under different conditions; and those imposed on the Marcomanni appear to have been the hardest. They and the Quadi were obliged to receive in their land and maintain a Roman army of 20,000 men. The severity of this condition, and the depredations committed by the Roman army of occupation, soon caused the Marcomanni to renew the war with Rome. They were again defeated by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, but he was not able completely to conquer their country; and after his death the Emperor Commodus made
