The Buri were a Germanic people in the Carpathian region. Tacitus expressly places them, by their language and customs, among the Suebi.
"The Buri show by language and custom that they are Suebi."after Tacitus, Germania 43 (public domain, own translation)
The Buri were a Germanic tribe that Tacitus counts among the Suebi: in language and custom, he writes in the "Germania", they resembled the Quadi. Their settlement area lay in the foreland of the Carpathians, on the upper Vistula, in the borderland between Germania and the world of the Danube peoples.
In Tacitus's description the Buri stand next to the powerful Lugii. Such neighbourhoods were changeable – now alliance, now rivalry. The Buri belonged to the many peoples of the East Germanic region whose history is graspable only in outline.
During the Marcomannic Wars (AD 166–180) the Buri stepped out of the dark of tradition. They fought against Rome but were finally forced to negotiate – another border people drawn into the great war on the Danube.
The historian Cassius Dio reports how Emperor Marcus Aurelius made a peace with the Buri. Rome used such treaties to play the Germanic peoples off against one another and to secure the frontier – diplomacy was as much a weapon as the sword.
Of the Buri we know little more than these few mentions. Like so many small tribes they later merged into larger confederations. Their name survived as a marginal note of Roman historiography.
The Buri stand for the many half-forgotten peoples on the Danube frontier who had to manoeuvre between Rome and the great Germanic powers. At GLANZ & GRAVUR we tell their story too – honestly from the scant sources.
The Buri belong to the varied border world of the Carpathians. Continue with the Cotini and Marcomanni.
The Cotini & Osi · The Lugii · The Marcomanni · The Quadi · The Semnones.
