Re: Caesar and Tacitus on the Germanics (Was:Re: Uralic Continuity

From: george knysh
Message: 54022
Date: 2008-02-23

--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
The null
> hypothesis, so to
> speak, that lkanguages don't move unless we can
> prove orherwise. I'm
> not basing this on Snorri alone, there are other
> things:
>
> 1) Why do Caesar and Tacitus state that the Germani
> had never been
> heard of before?

****GK: Where do they state this? CAESAR reassured his
troops in 58 BCE that they should not be afraid of
Ariovistus since "of that enemy a trial had been made
within our fathers' recollection"("eius hostis
periculum", with a specification of Cimbri and
Teutones). The Cimbri et Teutones (late 2nd c.BCE,and
hardly Przeworsk) were not Suevi like Ariovistus'
people ,yet they were "that enemy"= the Germans. (De
Bello Gallico, I, 40.) As for TACITUS, he claims, as
is well known, that the Germans of his "Germania" were
autochthons (Germania, 2). So the issue is not their
ethnicity or presence long known, but their most
recent label. Tacitus claims it was self-invented at
the time of the original invasions of Gaul by these
autochthons from across the Rhine. There are,of
course, other explanations of the term. But that is a
different issue.****



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