The Aesti (Aestii, Astui, Aests) appear at a time when European cultures mingle, and trade routes connect north to south. Neither Germans nor Balts, the Aesti breed livestock, hunt in the deep forests and collect amber from Baltic shores.
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The Old Prussian name Aistmarės or "sea of the Aesti" refers to Vistula Lagoon off the Bay of Gdansk. Aesti people are first described by Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania (c. 98 AD). According to Tacitus, the territory of Aesti is east of the Suiones, or Swedes.
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Tacitus asserts the Aesti live "upon the right of the Suevian [Baltic] Sea" and have the same customs and dress as the Germanic Suevi. They worship a mother of the gods, similar to Nerthus, the German Earth Mother. Slaves are often sacrificed to Nerthus.
According to Julius Caesar (1st century BCE) the Suevi or Suebi spend time on animal husbandry and hunting. They wear animal skins, bathe in rivers, drink milk and eat meat. They prohibit wine and allow trade only for their war booty.
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The Suebi have no exportable goods. Private land ownership is forbidden. The people can reside in one place no longer than a year. They comprise 100 cantons, each of which provides and supports 1000 armed warriors.
Thought to be of Baltic origin, the Aesti also have extensive relations with regional Germanic Goths. According to Tacitus the Aesti are
"the only people who collect amber - glaesum is their own word for it - in the shallows or even on the beach".
Glaesum, suggested to be a Latinized word for amber (sucinum), is the only known surviving example of the Aestian language. With traditions, beliefs and lifestyle passed down from generation to generation through speech, direct written records don't exist.
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The word may come to the Germanic from Gothic glas (glass - modern German Glas, pl. Gläser or Glaeser). Although this resembles glaesum, the name for amber, Tacitus describes the Aestii language as closer to languages of Britain.
The Old Prussian and modern Lithuanian names for the Vistula Lagoon, Aīstinmari and Aistmarės, respectively, derive from Aesti and mari (lagoon). This suggests the lands around the lagoon are populated or frequented by the Aesti.
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Tacitus is the first Roman to mention the Aestii and provides the most insight. He doesn't travel to Germania himself and has to rely on second-hand sources and captives.
The text below is the most detailed ancient account of the Aesti currently known.
"Upon the right of the Suevian Sea the Aestian nations reside, who use the same customs and attire with the Suevians; their language more resembles that of Britain. They worship the Mother of the Gods.
As the characteristic of their national superstition, they wear the images of wild boars. This alone serves them for arms, this is the safeguard of all, and by this every worshipper of the Goddess is secured even amidst his foes.
Rare amongst them is use of weapons of iron, but frequent that of clubs. In producing of grain and the other fruits of the earth, they labor with more assiduity and patience than is suitable to the usual laziness of Germans.
Nay, they even search the deep, and of all the rest are the only people who gather amber. They call it glesum, and find it amongst the shallows and upon the very shore.
But, according to the ordinary incuriosity and ignorance of Barbarians, they have neither learnt, nor do they inquire, what is its nature, or from what cause it is produced.
In truth it lay long neglected amongst the other gross discharges of the sea; till from our luxury, it gained a name and value. To themselves it is of no use: they gather it rough, they expose it in pieces coarse and unpolished, and for it receive a price with wonder.
(Germania, chapter XLV).
At one time archaeologists presume the trade of amber to date back to the Nordic Bronze Age. In fact it's much earlier, with Baltic amber found on the Iberian Peninsula dating to the 4th millennium BCE. A major Baltic center is the Sambia.
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Although Tacitus specifies the Suebian group is not itself an old tribal group, Pliny the Elder links them with the Irminones, a group of Germanic peoples who claim relation by ancestry. Tacitus mentions Suebian languages, and a geographical "Suevia".
The Suebians or Suevi become today's Swaben who live in the German southwest. The Suebi, with the Alemanni, occupy the upper Rhine and upper Danube region in the 3rd century CE.
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They spread south to Lake Constance, and east to the Lech River. Known first as Alemannia, the region is called Swabia from the 11th century.
In chapter 9 of Germania, Tacitus says that the Suebi principally venerate a god corresponding to Mercury (Hermes). They offer him human and non-human sacrifices on specific dates.
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Mercury is a god of merchants, travelers, luck, thieves and tricksters. He's also patron of divination, a popular Greco-Roman activity. He has chthonic associations as a psychopomp, leading the deceased to the Underworld, and a messenger of the Gods.
The Suebi also worship Mars and Hercules equivalents, whom they appease by offering animals in ritual sacrifice. Tacitus adds some of the Suebi venerate a cognate of Isis, although he admits that he doesn't know how Isis worship is imported.
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Isis is associated with snakes in Alexandria, where she's a tutelary goddess of the city. In the Greco-Roman period, Isis as a cobra, with her Graeco-Egyptian snake consort Serapis, are protectors of the city.
As serpent deities, Isis and Serapis are Agathe Tyche (Good Fortune) and Agathos Daimon (Good Spirit). They are considered guardians of Alexandria. Isis is connected to the cobra, having made the first uraeus or cobra crown. She's also an Eye of Ra goddess.
Another Egyptian divinity connected to snakes is Wadjet, represented as a cobra with wings. A powerful goddess, she's one of the earliest Egyptian deities and the symbol of Lower Egypt. Wadjet is also called 'the green one', referencing the Nile.
In the Baltic, the nature reverence of early Old Prussians, Lithuanians and Latvians include a strong association with the non-venomous European grass snake (Natrix natrix), also called the green snake. A distant relative is the extinct European cobra (Naja romani).
The small snake can present cobra behavior such as rising up. It has a leftover part of the cobra genetic, a flexible skin behind the head which might seem to flare or ability to flatten its head into a type of hood. Other grass snake species can also show these features.
The snake is called Žaltys, sacred to the Sun. It's strongly integrated into Baltic culture and lore. Egyptians are also big traders by 3100 BCE. So, word gets around. Whether an association exists between Wadjet or Isis and žaltys is of course speculation.
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Cassiodorus' Variae, published in 537 CE, contains a letter by Cassiodorus in the name of Theodoric the Great, addressed to the Aesti. In it, he refers to them as a separate, independent group from the Gothic tribes.
He tells them he knows where their amber comes from and
"We have thought it better to point this out to you, lest you should imagine that your supposed secrets have escaped our knowledge. We sent you some presents by our ambassadors, and shall be glad to receive further visits from you by the road which you have thus opened up, and to show you future favors."
The style of the letter proves the nation is independent at the time, not ruled by the Ostrogoths. The letter also indicates that the Aesti are confident of the value of amber and had made out of it a trade secret.