Re: [tied Ariovistus again

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > > > I suggest that Ariovistus was active in Southern Germany at
> > > > > the time, colonizing it(?).
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > GK: The known facts have him colonizing Sequaniland.
> >
> > The Boii
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boii
> > at that time lived in Bohemia or possibly in Bavaria (Baiovarii).
> > They attacked Noricum. They left Helvetia with the Helvetians.
> > Ariovistus married the sister of king Voccio of Noricum.
> > The 'Harigasti' helmet was buried in Noricum.
> > The Helvetii was constantly at war with the 'Germani', sometimes
> > on their, sometimes on their own territory.
> > Now tell me again that in all this turmoil, Ariovistus wasn't
> > involved?
> > How would he have gotten to Noricum territory without being
> > embroiled in this war between Boii and Norici and Helvetii and
> > nameless Germani?
> >
> > I think Caesar had Ariovistus in mind all the time, since first
> > styling him friend of the Roman People. As far as he was
> > concerned, the Rhine was Ariovistus' Rubicon.
> >
> > BTW the long inactivity on Ariovistus' part before the debacle is
> > reminiscent of Gildas' account of the hired Sxons in Britain or
> > the events up to Odoacer's deposing the last Roman emperor: the
> > Germani expect to be fed, and if they're not, there's trouble.
> > Possibly the Sequani were trying to tell Ariovistus' people their
> > services were not required any more by starving them out.
>
> Hm. New information.
>
> http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_gallic_3.html
> Appian's History of Rome
> apud
> Constantine Porphyrogenitus, The Embassies
> §14 [59 BCE] Ariovistus, the king of the Germans beyond the Rhine,
> had crossed to this side before Caesar's arrival and made war
> against the Aedui, who were friends of the Romans. But when the
> Romans commanded him to desist, he had obeyed and moved away from
> Aedui and had desired to be accounted a friend of the Roman people
> also, and this was granted, Caesar being consul and voting for it.
>
> §15 [58 BCE] Ariovistus, the king of the Germans, who had been
> voted a friend of the Roman people, came to Caesar to have a
> colloquy. After they had separated he wished to have another.
> Caesar refused it, but sent some of the leading men of the Gauls to
> meet him. Ariovistus cast them in chains, wherefore Caesar
> threatened him and made war on him, but fear fell upon the army on
> account of the military reputation of the Germans.
>
> DBG 6, 24
> 'And there was formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the Germans
> in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and, on account of
> the great number of their people and the insufficiency of their
> land, sent colonies over the Rhine. Accordingly, the Volcae
> Tectosages seized on those parts of Germany which are the most
> fruitful [and lie] around the Hercynian forest (which, I perceive,
> was known by report to Eratosthenes and some other Greeks, and
> which they call Orcynia) and settled there. Which nation to this
> time retains its position in those settlements, and has a very high
> character for justice and military merit: now also they continue in
> the same scarcity, indigence, hardihood, as the Germans, and use
> the same food and dress; but their proximity to the Province and
> knowledge of commodities from countries beyond the sea supplies to
> the Gauls many things tending to luxury as well as civilization.
> Accustomed by degrees to be overmatched and worsted in many
> engagements, they do not even compare themselves to the Germans in
> prowess.'

Strabo, Geography
VII, 2, 2
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/7B*.html#2.1
'Poseidonius is right in censuring the historians for these assertions
[TP: that the Cimbri emigrated because of an inundation], and his
conjecture is not a bad one, that the Cimbri, being a piratical and
wandering folk, made an expedition even as far as the region of Lake
Maeotis, and that also the "Cimmerian" Bosporus [The Strait of Kerch
(or Yenikale)] was named after them, being equivalent to "Cimbrian,"
the Greeks naming the Cimbri "Cimmerii." And he goes off to say that
in earlier times the Boii dwelt in the Hercynian Forest, and that the
Cimbri made a sally against this place, but on being repulsed by the
Boii, went down to the Ister and the country of the Scordiscan Galatae
[the Galatae lived between the Ister (Danube) and Morava Rivers on the
confines of Illyria], then to the country of the Teuristae [cp.
"Tauristae," 7.3.2]. and Taurisci (these, too, Galatae), and then to
the country of the Helvetii — men rich in gold but peaceable; however,
when the Helvetii saw that the wealth which the Cimbri had got from
their robberies surpassed that of their own country, they, and
particularly their tribes of Tigyreni and of Toygeni, were so excited
that they sallied forth with the Cimbri. All, however, were subdued by
the Romans, both the Cimbri themselves and those who had joined their
expeditions, in part after they had crossed the Alps into Italy and in
part while still on the other side of the Alps.'


The Cimbri appeared in Noricum 113 BCE, so the encounter with the Boii
must have taken place a few years before that. The Boii came out
victorious. In 58 BCE they don't live there anymore, and must have had
every reason to want to emigrate themselves. Ariovistus, before he as
invited into Gaul, was king of the Germani on the eastern side of the
Rhine. That must have been the Rhine south of the Main, north of it,
on the Rhine, still lived para-Celtic folks. That doesn't leave much
for any alternative candidate to have been the one who harassed the
Boii out their old homes. It must have been Ariovistus who colonized
Swabia.


Torsten