---
tgpedersen@... wrote:
Now Abeacus, king of the
> Siraces,
> > sent forth twenty thousand horsemen at the time
> when
> > Pharnaces held the Bosporus[[GK: 63-47 BC]]; and
> > Spadines, king of the Aorsi, two hundred thousand;
> but
> > the upper Aorsi sent a still larger number, for
> they
> > held dominion over more land, and, one may almost
> say,
> > ruled over most of the Caspian coast."
> >
>
> Now you got me curious about how the story ended:
> Why did they send
> all those troops there?
*****GK: I've made no special study of this particular
issue. And one guess might be as false as another. I
very much doubt that these huge numbers (a total of
more than 500,000 horsemen!!) were used in Pharnaces'
wars against the Romans. Had they been available it's
Pharnaces and not Caesar who would have made that
famous "veni,vidi, vici" statement (:=)). Strabo is
much more trustworthy than other contemporary
geographers/historians, so it's possible that these
numbers represent some sort of "mobilization for show"
in the internecine conflict for the Bosporus kingdom
which Pharnaces lost shortly after Zela. I don't even
want to imagine the details of this. It sounds as
though an entire people was on the move (to get some
reward from one or other of the competitors? Asander
won I believe), Or possibly this only reflects
"available" but never utilized power, and "promised"
or "threatened" but never really sent.=== I suspect by
the way that "Spadines" might be a misprint in this
source. Other works I consulted have "Spaldines".*****
This must have been during
> the Mithridatic
> wars, judging from the Pharnaces date? Any etymology
> for "Spadines"
> (he asked)?
*****GK: Nothing from this quarter. The best I could
come up with would be Spal-dines, and wonder if that
"Spal" had anything to do with the later "Spalei
Satharchi" mentioned by Pliny.*****
>
> Torsten
>
>
>
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