The term "Teutons" (from Proto-Germanic Þeudanōs, from which the German word Deutsch, German, also derives, as well as the French adjective "tudesque"[1]) refers to Germanic peoples who could be different and whose generic name means our people. This word can designate either a people who emigrated from northern Germany and plundered Gaul around -100, or tribes otherwise known as the Alamans. It also designates the Teutonic Knights.
In -113, with the Cimbri and the Ambrone, tribes of uncertain origins but surely Celtic and Germanic, the Teutons are agitated and form an ever greater threat to Rome. In -105, they won a great victory over the Romans at Arausio (Orange) and entered Spain, from where they were quickly expelled by the Celtiberians.
Their invasion of Gaul was stopped in -102 at the great battle of Aquæ Sextiæ (today Aix-en-Provence), by the Roman general Marius. The king of the Teutons, Teutobod, is taken prisoner there. It is said that the female prisoners committed suicide en masse.
The Alamanni
The Teutons are western Germans grouped into tribes under the name of Alamans with the Hermundures (Hermions), the Juthunges, the Bucinobantes, the Lentians, the Semmons, the Quades.
In slang, the German people are referred to as “the Teutons”. The pejorative connotation is slight.