During Roman times, the Main and the Limes Germanicus formed Germania's border with the then Roman-occupied Odenwald area across the river. In the centuries that followed, several tribes lived in the Sulzbach valley: the Chatti, the Alamanni, the Burgundians and the Franks. It was likely in Charles Martel's time (714-741) that the municipality of Ruchelnheim, which lay within what are now Sulzbach's municipal borders and which was abandoned in the Thirty Years' War, was founded. As far back as Carolingian times, settlements on the streams Sulzbach and Leidersbach, like Sulzbach, Ebersbach, Leidersbach and Roßbach came into being. It is also likely that Soden's founding occurred in late Carolingian times.