High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Marcomannic Wars (called by the Romans bellum Germanicum or expeditio Germanica) were a series of wars lasting over a dozen years from about AD 166 until 180. These wars pitted the Roman Empire against the Marcomanni, Quadi and other Germanic peoples, along both sides of the upper and middle Danube. The struggle against the Germanic invasions occupied the major part of the reign of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and it was during his campaigns against them that he started writing his philosophical work Meditations, whose first book bears the note "Among the Quadi at the Granua".