Apparently the most recent attempt to make sense of the phrase Suevi non sunt nati sunt seminati comes from Ernst Erich Metzner (a German medievalist) in the collection Kulturgeschichtliche Daten zur Deutschmaehrischen Literatur (Amici Amico III – Metzner was born in Czechoslowakia’s Sudetenland so this text is apparently part of some sort of bridge building). Metzner’s interpretation is a bit half-assed but it is still better than most.
His view is essentially that whoever wrote the “mysterious” words referred to the entire list of tribes listed by the “Bavarian Geographer.” Barring random scribbles that seems obvious though even this is admitting a lot. Essentially, he is saying that for the writer of that scribble “Suevi” meant all the preceding tribes – the vast majority of whom are indisputably Slavs.
But after this auspicious beginning Metzner begins to rationalize. He does not say that all of these are Slavs as he seems to find in some names “Restgermanen.” He then says that the phrase Suevi are not born they are sown must refer not to “sown” as in seedlings but rather to mixed-blood Suevi. Specifically, he says this must refer to a historical memory retained by the writer of those words that these East German lands were previously occupied by the Suevi and now they are occupied by some Restgermanen and by the Slavs and so the former are the “true” Suevi but they are now mixed up with the majority of the incoming Slavs and, therefore, they are, in effect, “halbgeborene” Suevi. Whether Metzner means that these Slavs are Mischlinge or bastards or something along those lines is not entirely clear but that is where his logic seems to be heading.
It is not clear whether he thinks that “Slavs” is, in fact, a German name (a bastardization of Suevi, I suppose). Such a view would be odd since the Sclavenes and Sclavi that invaded the Byzantine Empire would, presumably, in any telling of the “Slavs out of the East” story not have come into contact with the Suevi, if at all, until after the times of Procopius and Jordanes. In any event, Metzner seems content to avoid the question.
Metzner believes that whoever the writer was must have been a Schwabe who was familiar with Tacitus and, as we know, “according to Tacitus “all the North and East Germans were in fact Suevi with the exception of the Bastarnae.” For this proposition Metzner points to Tacitus but the above citation is actually from Rudolf Much. Much’s leanings were decidedly pan-Germanic but more importantly for the current point, the above statement is unsubstantiated by Tacitus.
As is well known, in chapter 46 Tacitus waffles as to where to put the Bastarnae (and the Veneti and the Fenni) – on the Germanic path or on the Sarmatian wagon. But he notes that the Bastarnae or Peucini have the same language, customs and dwellings as the Germans and does not say anything – one way or the other – whether they were Suevi.
More importantly, Metzner may have actually bothered to examine chapter 38 of Germania which (along with the subsequent chapters) he cites. Had he done so, he would have discovered some relevant information for the point he was trying to make. Specifically, a review of chapter 38 would have revealed that the point about Suevi being “halbgeboren” is implicit in the words of Tacitus – without needing to rely on a conjectured and unproven Slavic immigration into Germania. Let us then quote Tacitus:
“I must now speak of the Suevi, who are not one nation as are the Chatti and Tencteri, for they occupy the greater part of Germany, and have hitherto been divided into separate tribes with names of their own, though they are called by the general designation of ‘Suevi.'”
Thus, the Suevi are not “one” nation but rather many – they are Suevi and come from separate tribes. Already here is open the possibility that there is no unifying principle as to who is part of the Suevi other than those who somehow become part of the club. One thinks of the modern gangs or other types of groups where the name that inspires fear becomes used by other imitators – who are perhaps initially not related to the feared group. Indeed, the same process, as we know, may have occurred with the Avars who may not have been the “true” Avars. Later the Hungarians have called themselves Huns. And so on. Once again, however, all these processes may be gleaned from the words of Tacitus without the need to posit a very hypothetical Slavic migration.
I note again that there is zero proof as to what language the Suevi of Caesar and Tacitus spoke. Plenty of articles on Suevic names on this site does provide circumstantial evidence that they may have spoken some something other than Germanic. (Hell, we do not even know what language the Portuguese Suevi spoke!).
Whether or not the Glossator of the text was learned in Tacitus’ Germania is also hardly something that can be established based on that single note.
Finally, Peucini may well have a Slavic etymology – thus you have Pełka or Pełczyński. The name was so Slavic sounding that the Communists even renamed the formerly German Bernstein with the name of Pełczyce.
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