--- In cybalist@..., tgpedersen@... wrote:
> As for 'Bastarnae' meaning "mixed breed, bastards" this is exactly
> what Tacitus describes them to be. That's an indication.
(Please forgive the one topic posts but it seems that my posts are
being cut off and my guess is that they are too long for the way I'm
posting them - directly from the website.)
I don't know of a single instance of <bast-> in any form appearing in
any pre-medieval text that equates it with "mixed breeds" or
illegitimates. Not in Greek, Roman, Persian, Sanskrit, Gothic, etc.
There may be one, but I've never seen it and I've made this challenge
many times.
As for Tacitus, he never says "bastarnae" means "mixed breed." The
contrast Tacitus seems to make is between the Venedhi and Bastarnae.
The Venedhi may be classifiable as Germans because, though they wander
about, they do it on foot.
There's good reason to think that Tacitus and his contemporary readers
would have recognized the word "bastarnae" as relating to wagons,
litters, baggage carriers, i.e., the Scythian/Sarmatian life style.
There's really no good reason to think that any contemporary of
Tacitus would have thought the word "bastarnae" meant mixed breed.
And there is really no reason to think that Tacitus knew or expected
his readers to know that some Germanic word that sounded like
"bastarnae."
"Bastazo:" was a word used many times in many forms in Classical
Greek. In Roman word was used often enough. But it appears to NEVER
have meant mixed b