Germanic Chieftain Maroboduus

The Great Crow 

Maroboduus was born into a noble family of the Marcomanni, a Suebi confederation tribe. As a young man, he was a hostage in Italy and under Emperor Augustus. The Marcomanni had been defeated and subjugated by the Romans in a 6 year campaign by 10 BC. In 9 BC, Maroboduus returned to Germania and became ruler of his people as a client and friend of the Romans. With the threat of further Roman expansion into the Rhine-Danube basin, Maroboduus led the Marcomanni to the area later known as Bohemia to be outside the range of the Roman influence. There, he took the title of king and organized a confederation of several neighboring Germanic tribes.

The miniature is from the Warlord Range, but is huuuuuge, 34mm head to eye, so it will not match their plastics and needs to be based separately. 

In early AD 6,  Tiberius launched a campaign against the Marcomanni, seeing the confederation with the Quadi as a threat. Tiberius, Legate Gaius Sentius Saturninus and Consul Legatus Marcus Aemilius Lepidus led an army of 13 legions, totaling around 100,000 men (65,000 heavy infantry legionaries, 10,000–20,000 cavalrymen, archers, and 10,000–20,000 civilians) against Maroboduus.

Setting out northwest from Carnuntum on the Danube with four legions, Tiberius passed through Quadi territory in order to invade Marcomanni territory from the east. Meanwhile, general Gaius Sentius Saturninus would depart east from Moguntiacum on the Rhine with two or possibly three legions, with Consul Legatus Marcus Aemilius coming north over the mountains with 5 legions , passing through newly annexed Hermunduri Territory with Saturnius and attacked the Marcomanni from the west. The campaign was a resounding success, but Tiberius was then forced to turn his attention to the Bellum Batonianum, also known as the Great Illyrian Revolt. Tiberius was forced to stop his campaign against Maroboduus and recognise him as king so that he could then send his eight legions (VIII Augusta, XV Apollinaris, XX Valeria Victrix, XXI Rapax, XIII Gemina, XIV Gemina, XVI Gallica to crush the rebellion in the Balkans.

Tiberius Campaign route 

During the Germanic uprising of 9 AD Maroboduus had an unstable treaty with with Arminius, the Cheruscan leader, this prevented a coordinated Germanic attack on the Romans in the Danube basin. Arminius and his allied Germans then defeated the Romans under Publius Quinctilius Varus in 9 AD in the Teutoburg forest. According to the first-century historian Marcus Velleius Paterculus, Arminius sent Varus's head to Maroboduus, with the offer of a federation of the tribes in alliance against the Romans, but the king of the Marcomanni declined sending the head to Augustus.

During the invasion of Tiberius and Germanicus against the Cherusci in 14, 15 and 16 AD, Maroboduus stayed neutral, but in 16 AD supplied Germanic Auxiliaries to Germanicus.

In retaliation of the support of the Romans in 17 AD war broke out between Arminius and Maroboduus, and after an indecisive battle, Maroboduus withdrew into the hilly forests of Bohemia in 18 AD. In the following year, Catualda, a young Marcomannic nobleman living in exile among the Gutones, returned, perhaps by a subversive Roman intervention, challenged and defeated Maroboduus in individual combat. 

The deposed king then fled to Italy, and Tiberius placed him under house arrest for 18 years in Ravenna.  Maroboduus died there in 37 AD. So another great leader of the Germanic tribes passed. 

Hope you found that as interesting as I did

Cheers

Matt