Re: The Bastarnians

 

> > > > The question is: when did the Peucini take possession of
> > > > Peuce?
> > > GK: Exactly. I'm musing on this.  Ps. Scymnos calls them
> > > "arrivals" or "arriving migrants" which is ambiguous enough. If
> > > they were there in 133-116, they must have been subjects of
> > > Skilur at that time (according to the Neapolis inscription).
>
> > According to Wikipedia, the Perigesis ad Nicomedem Regem of
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Scymnus
> > was composed around 90BCE, not 133-116.

> ****GK: Wikipedia gives no arguments for its date. Your earlier
> source (Pekkanen) offers lengthy ones for 133-116.

Well, not really. This is all:
'The poem was in all probability written between 133â€"116 B.C.3
...
3 Ginsinger, RE III A, 674.'
where
'RE = Realencyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart 1894 ff.'
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/67478

which means the arguments should be found there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Scymnus
offers
'It is dedicated to a King Nicomedes, most likely Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, which would place its composition around 90 BC.' Given
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomedes_IV_of_Bithynia 's
regnal period ('c. 94 BC to 74 BC.'), a terminus ante quem be set at 74 BCE. That's accommodates the date at which I would like to place Burebista's expulsion of the Bastarnae: around 89 BCE, where Mithridates lines up his forces and allies to attack Rome, including the Bastarnae, cf
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/67060
Nicomedes IV was in Rome in 90-89 and in 88-84 BCE, a good time to receive a poem praising your reign.

On the other hand, I am suspecting that all the early Germanic Roman imports, being made in Capua, is actually Spartacus' loot from there which he was cheated out of in 72 BCE by pirates, so I would like the Bastarnae not to have lost contact with the northern Black Sea coast before that time by moving north.

> Actually I preferred a post-Skilur date, because I felt that
> Pekkanen's conflicted with the data of the Neapolis inscription
> somewhat. But I deferred to Pek. and his authorities on this. If
> Bastarnians were "recent arrivals" in 133-116 they could only have
> been placed there by Skilur as his vassals, after the establishment
> of his empire to which they were subject.

I thought the presence of Scythians in Crimea and Dobrogea at that time was due to their being chased out of Ukraine by the Sarmatians, not by some deliberate Scythian policy?

> > If they "arrived" after
> > 110-> this would have been a part of the Mithridatian "new order"
> > after the defeat of Palak and the loss of the Crimea by the
> > Scythians. The Bastarnians might have been given a green light to
> > occupy Peuca as Mithradates' allies. I don't see any hint of a
> > Burebista expansionism in Ps. Sc. just yet. One question remains:
> > from which are of Bastarnian settlement would these new arrivals
> > have come? P/L, Zar., or both?*****

 
corrected: post -> ante  

> Given that it was dedicated to a king in the region, I don't think
> P-S would have dared substituting actual information with the words
> of a century-old source (Demetrius of Callatis). We thus have a
> terminus ante quem of ca. 90 BCE (or 74 BCE,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicomedes_IV 's
> last year on the throne?).

Torsten