Baemi

The Baemi, (Bæmi) or Baimoi, were a Germanic tribe who are only known by their mention in Ptolemy's Geography. He described them as a large tribe living on the north side of the Danube, near the Luna forest, and the Quadi, and with the Gambreta forest of the Marcomanni to their northwest. This would place them in or around modern Slovakia, Moravia and Lower Austria.

Commentators generally compare the term to another one found in the same text (but located further north), the "Bainochaimai". And both terms are considered related to references to similar terms in older authors, Strabo and Tacitus, who were both referring to a place rather than an ethnic group. Strabo describes Boihaemum, as the domain of Marabodus, in the Hercynian forest, where he had moved some of his Suebian people and based his kingdom. Tacitus describes Boiemum in the same region, and specifically as a name derived from the more ancient Celtic tribe, the Boii, who had lived there in the past. The second element of these names is thought to derive from an old Germanic term meaning "home of" (cf the modern German Heim, English "home"; more at *haimaz) therefore giving the complete term the meaning "the place where the Boii lived".

These terms survive today in the modern name Bohemia, and more generally the name of the Boii survives not only in "Bohemia" but also in the name of the neighbouring German region of Bavaria.

See also

• List of Germanic peoples