What are the Cimbri?

[BigJohn]

Hi all! This is my first time posting, and I must say that EB is a HUGE improvement over vanilla Total War. I can't believe I just got started on EB and now there's an EB 2 being made!! Just a quick question though, I have always thought that the Cimbri were germanic. But when my cousin flew in last week and the conversation turned to celtic and germanic tribes, which he is fanatical about, and I told him my opinion of there origins, he went into this deep conversation of proof that they were celtic. He then showed me a site... here's the URL

http://www.davidkfaux.org/Cimbri-Chronology.pdf

After reading it, my beliefs about the Cimbri have been shaken. What do you guys think, celtic, or germanic?

[Madoushi]

I'm not really qualified to answer, though Wikipedia says:

Advocates for a northern homeland point to Greek and Roman sources that associate the Cimbri with the peninsula of Jutland, Denmark. According to the Res gestae (ch. 26) of Augustus, the Cimbri were still found in the area around the turn of the First Century AD:

My fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri, to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea, and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans of that same region through their envoys sought my friendship and that of the Roman people.
The contemporary Greek geographer Strabo testifies that the Cimbri still existed as a Germanic tribe, presumably in the "Cimbric peninsula" (since they are said to live by the North Sea and to have paid tribute to Augustus):

As for the Cimbri, some things that are told about them are incorrect and others are extremely improbable. For instance, one could not accept such a reason for their having become a wandering and piratical folk as this that while they were dwelling on a Peninsula they were driven out of their habitations by a great flood-tide; for in fact they still hold the country which they held in earlier times; and they sent as a present to Augustus the most sacred kettle in their country, with a plea for his friendship and for an amnesty of their earlier offences, and when their petition was granted they set sail for home; and it is ridiculous to suppose that they departed from their homes because they were incensed on account of a phenomenon that is natural and eternal, occurring twice every day. And the assertion that an excessive flood-tide once occurred looks like a fabrication, for when the ocean is affected in this way it is subject to increases and diminutions, but these are regulated and periodical.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimbri

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

They were germanic, you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet.

[SFS2006]

They were germanic, you shouldn't believe anything you read on the internet.

then i dont believe you^^

[Arthur, king of the Britons]

then i dont believe you^^

D'oh I meant to write everthing. Thanks for the heads up.

[Ca Putt]

afaik the cimbri themselves(thus those that lives in denmark) were germanic. yet the Cimbri that invaded roman territory had been wandering through central europe and took everyone who wanted to join with them and they thus became part of the "army"/"warband"/"mob". this made them Cimbri so It is probably correct that many(I'd guess 50-60%) of them were originally celts.