Re: Celtic names popular with early Germanic leaders?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Smith"
<mytoyneighborhood@...> wrote:

>
> I noticed that the leader of the German tribes under Spartacus
> was named Crixus, which seems to be a Celtic name. Yet the

Germans

> seem to have been distinguished from the Celts who were with
> Spartacus' army. Also, Ariovistus is (from what I've been told)

is

> a Celtic name, and he was a German king who fought Caesar. Also,
> the Cimbri and Teutones' chiefs had Celtic names, yet they were
> mentioned as being Germanic and their speech was said by Plutarch

to

> have been like none the Romans had ever heard (thus not Celtic?).
>
> Thus, there seems to be a few possibilities:
>
> 1. In these early periods it was a common trend among German

chiefs

> and nobles to have Celtic names.
>
> 2. Many of these early German groups, such as the Cimbri and
> Teutones, and the Germans with Spartacus, were a mixed Germanic-
> Celtic speaking bunch.
>
> 3. These early Germans (up until Caesar) were Celtic speakers who
> lived east of the Rhine (along with actual Germanic speakers) and

so

> were not different from the Celts/Gauls linguistically, but
> geographically and to an extent culturally a lot like the actuall
> Germanic-speakers and somewhat different than the Gauls/west-of-

the

> Rhine Celts. But can a Celtic-speaking presence east of the Rhine
> at any period be substantiated?
>

Check Peschel: Anfänge germanischer Besiedlung im Mittelgebirgsraum
for the archaeology. Try the archives for various quotes from it; I
don't recall it all.
I checked the relevant articles by Hans Kuhn for Celtic place name
evidence in Germany; surprisingly, there's very little of it outside
of the Moselle and Rhine valleys, and the former, in Kuhn's opinion,
might represent a late conquest, after Celtic power began to wane in
Germany.

The classical writers place several Celtic tribes in Germany.

Archaelogically, 'Celtic sites' are found in Germany south of an
east-west line that passes south of Thuringia. The mountaineos area
to the east of the Rhine was home to a 'Celtoid' civilisation.


Torsten