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Note: this topic is from May 2009. Re-ping. Probably unrelated, but date is close (or identical?).

Romans and Barbarians
by Derek Williams
In fact the German heartland appears to have lain in the southern Baltic and north coastal areas of today's Germany. However, in the late 2nd century BC the Germans began to move southwards into the Rhineland and Belgium, setting in motion events which would shake Roman confidence and fuel her longstanding fear of the morthern peoples. Two tribes migrated from Jutland, 'driven from their lands by a great flood-tide.'(p 70)[footnote: Strabo, Geography, 7.2.1]

Geography, 7.2.1
by Strabo
II. As for the Cimbri, some things that are told about them are incorrect and others are extremely improbable. For instance, one could not accept such a reason for their having become a wandering and piratical folk as this--that while they were dwelling on a Peninsula they were driven out of their habitations by a great flood-tide; for in fact they still hold the country which they held in earlier times; and they sent as a present to Augustus the most sacred kettle in their country, with a plea for his friendship and for an amnesty of their earlier offences, and when their petition was granted they set sail for home; and it is ridiculous to suppose that they departed from their homes because they were incensed on account of a phenomenon that is natural and eternal, occurring twice every day. And the assertion that an excessive flood-tide once occurred looks like a fabrication, for when the ocean is affected in this way it is subject to increases and diminutions, but these are regulated and periodical.