While some point out Suavic-sounding tribes being present in Asia as reported by Ptolemy (see here), the same can be said of the Suevi themselves (see here).
But it gets better.
The name Germani first appears – we are told – on the Fasti Capitolini about 222 BC (celebrating the victor of Marcus Claudius Marcellus over the Galls and Germans – Galleis et Germaneis). A similar word appears there again though, it seems, to connote “brothers” or relatives.
Incidentally, obviously the same “relative” issue (is it a tribe or is the name used to mean “related” parties) appears with the Suevi (which may refer to “our own”) and with the Serbs (pa-sierb).
But, while that name may be etched in stone, later manuscripts of a much earlier work tell us of Germans in… Asia.
Specifically, this comes from the Histories of Herodotus (I.125.4) (Godley edition):
“The other Persian tribes are the Panthialaei, the Derusiaei, and the Germanii, all tillers of the soil, and the Dai, the Mardi, the Dropici, the Sagartii, all wandering herdsmen.”
Here is the entire passage, this time in the Rawlinson edition):
“Now the Persian nation is made up of many tribes. Those which Cyrus assembled and persuaded to revolt from the Medes were the principal ones on which all the others are dependent. These are the Pasargadae, the Maraphians, and the Maspians, of whom the Pasargadae are the noblest. The Achaemenidae, from which spring all the Perseid kings, is one of their clans. The rest of the Persian tribes are the following: the Panthialaeans, the Derusiaeans, the Germanians, who are engaged in husbandry; the Daans, the Mardians, the Dropicans, and the Sagartians, who are nomads.”
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