While Tacitus' Germania makes no mention of them, Ptolemy's Geographia locates the Charudes (Χαροῦδες) on the east coast of the Cimbrian peninsula[1] (see Hardsyssel).
Gathering forces from a wide area of Germany, Ariovistus crossed the Rhine with large numbers and defeated the Aedui at the Battle of Magetobriga.
[2] The Harudes (in the graecized form "Charydes") are next mentioned in the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, in which Augustus claims that his fleet had "sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea, and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans of that same region through their envoys sought my friendship and that of the Roman people".
In a second theory, the Hǫrðar are identical to the Arochi dwelling in the Scandza mentioned in the Getica of Jordanes, which dates to the 6th century, but might refer to any time prior to then.
[6] However, it has also been suggested that OE harað and OHG hard go back to PIE *ḱosdho-,[7] making this word impossible as a basis for the ethnonym Charudes.