Ah they and welcome to Emperor of Rome a podcast about the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire.

I'm your host Matt Smith and with me today is Dr.

Riana Evans, a senior lecturer in ancient Mediterranean studies at Latrobe

University. This is episode L-X-X-The-O-Manic Wars. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

With the Parthians once again defeated and the Antonine plague sweeping through the empire,

Marcus Aurelius must defend Rome from yet another

opportunistic enemy. The tribes to the north, or as Rome called them, the barbarians.

The northern borders were under threat from a rough coalition

chiefly led by the Mark O'Mani and Marcus heads out to take control of the Roman

forces himself. It's a conflict that will dominate his attention for the rest of his life.

He's Rianna Evans.

The Markomaniq Wars really dominated the reign of Marcus Aurelius

and they started maybe late 166 early 167

ongoing throughout the whole rest of his reign right until the time he died in 180

and they involved a group of peoples that we would now call

German or even German who were moving south and forming more of an alliance than they had before.

So previously they'd been kind of distinct peoples.

Combative tribes kind of things.

Yeah, might be more likely to fight against each other than to join together and fight against the

Roman Empire, but who saw an opportunity in the mid second century to extend their power southwards and they were a few separate peoples but the main

one that we talk about is the Marco Mani. So that was a specific tribe at the time.

That is a specific Germanic people.

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