From: markodegard@...
Message: 8068
Date: 2001-07-23
--- In cybalist@..., cas111jd@... wrote:
> As for the Cimmerian march around the Black Sea end of the Caucasus?
> Improbable IMO. Herodotus' Greco-centric perview of the world was
> rather limited.
Yes. But along with the bad information, he also had some very good
information.
> Remember, Herodotus also believed that a tribe in
> Russia turned into wolves. He was also wont to believe the Amazons
> still lived - placing them just beyond the Greek horizon in the
> Caucasus steppe where nobody could disprove him.
But archaeology, it seems *has proven* Herodotus. The Sauromatae had
female warriors; they got the whole kurgan burial bit, no different
from male warriors. Herodotus' information was vague, but it was real.
> He never visited the eastern Black Sea coast and did not
> know how treacherous that could
> be for any campaign or migration. That is why every
> historic movement has been around the east or central
> pass, which would have been challenging enough in
> themselves.
Herodotus' geographic knowledge, remarkable for the time as it was,
was indeed fuzzy about the Black Sea, and North Pontic hydrology in
general, but having said this, he really did have accurate
information.
As for Armenian and how it got to Armenia, the thesis we are all seem
to be maintaining is that what became Armenia, what had been Uraratu,
and the adjacent portions thereto had gone thru an immense military,
political, economic, and even, *genocidal* upheaval around this time.
What the Assyrians didn't wreck was taken over by opportunists who
seem to have been sucked in ultimately from the Steppe, perhaps in
response to other opportunistic movements by Medes and Persians,
particularly when the Assyrian Empire lost its verve.
The point is that we all recognize how fiendishly difficult it is to
'conquer' this part of the world (Afganistan is another example). Very
small groups of local tribesmen can fend of just about anyone. The
scenerio envisioned, however, is this whole region being reduced to a
state of total collapse, to the point that remnant populations might
be seen to actively welcome and actively assist newcomers. A modern
parallel is the mess left by Pol Pot in Cambodia (with the Vietnamese
being sucked into the vacuum); the situation in Somalia is less
parallel, but the level of chaos, and the responses to it provide some
lessons (under historical circumstances that would be different from
what is actually in effect, you could see certain Somali factions
inviting in foreigners). When things really get bad, more organized
forces peripheral to the mess tend to take advantage.
I don't know enough to fit the Cimmerians into this, but the ability
of them to fly over the Caucusus does suggest an inability of locals
to fend them off.