Thrace

George K.  comes back with:

O-: (1) What do you make of Herodotus' comment
that "ancient Scythia" began just north of the Danube?

 

Potentially confusing, imprecise, but accurate when sorted in geography and time. The Danube is large.  The Scythian incursion and State was North and east of the Danube, on a Dniester and east center c. 800 BCE. By H.’s time the area of Scyth control had extended around the Black Sea coast to the West and South, down to the Border with Dodrogea (That border the Danube Delta) which Ateas then invaded across temporarily.  That < is >  “just North of the Danube” and the beginning of Scythia.  No conflict. H. also lists Thracians as the most numerous people in the world after Indians, and capable of domination if united: he was not referring to a tiny Roman province..while you are.  

O-:(2) Why do you think the Costobocs were "Thracian"
rather than "Celtic"? Their name sounds very close to
that of one of the Galatian tribes.*******

 

They are defined as Thracian whenever mentioned, sometimes as a Daci daughter tribe.  There is no Arch support for any Celt association, while there is Celt intrusion into Transylvania and other Celt settlements, supported by Arch.  (Galati?)  The Costobocs covered too broad an area to be a single settlement or intrusion..they were native and culturally linked to others in the region. Ptolemy addresses them specifically as Thracian and accurately locates them across Central and North Moldova (the original region..not the current split political areas.) Cassius Dio applies no Danube barrier to his descriptions of Daci and Getae; neither do Strabo, Appian, or Trogus Pompeius.     

> Periodic influence: Deeper into Anatolia and the
> Aegean via Mysia,
> Bithynia, Phrygia; well into the Steppes east of the
> Dniester;

O-:******GK: I suppose that in a very extended sense one
might consider a number of closely related linguistic
families "Thracian", though I personally prefer the
term "Thrakoid", so as to restrict "Thracia" in the
strong sense to the territories south of the Danube.

 

The essence of our difference.  Thracia in no sense was limited to south of the Danube < until > Romans applied the name to a province that was so limited..which was one late stage in a series of moves away from the culture and language that was definitively Thracian before that series of actions; and most specific to that small piece of the larger whole.  < If >  there is a regional strong sense to a Thrace..it is the Carpathians, all north of the Danube; not the north coast of the Aegean south of the Danube. I also happen to believe that < if > there is a linguistic strong sense of Thracian..it is Getic.  

O-: Despite the fact that Strabo noted that Daco-Getans
and Thracians spoke the same language, it is clear
(and has been made clear on this list) that not all
linguists would agree.

 

Actually he said that Daci and Getae (as Thracian sister Tribes) both spoke the same dialect of Thracian, and never suggested a difference between Geto-Daci and Thracian, just curiously speaking the same language. (The meaning clearly that among Thracians the linguistic difference between the two named Thracian tribes was negligible compared to other Thracian tribes..also implied is that it (Getic) was a different dialect than ..say..Moesi.   I have been here a couple of years: I am not at all sure all linguists agree on anything J.   Geto-Daci were Thracian, and any who addressed them said so in rather clear terms.  By “Thracian” in your context above; you clearly mean Latinized (over Hellinized) Moesi, Odrysians and Danube South Bankers (which included Geto-Daci.)  You are defining a small piece of North Eastern Rome in AD, and trying to defeat my definition of BC Thrace with it.   Let me put it another way:  Geto-Daci define Thracian more than any other common language group, and combined they appear to be the largest group, in both numbers and area dominated:  and anything after a Millennium of Greek, Persian, Macedonian, then Roman and Byzantine reshaping of the North Aegean Coast may or may not be: Thracian.   

 

 I don't know enough about them
to ponder whether the relation between Thr. and
Dac./Get. was as close or closer than, say, that
between Castilian and Portuguese, or French and
Catalan et sim.

 

I would rather put it that what you call Thracian (simply because the Romans selected that name for the place where you find it)  may have a relationship to Real Thracian (which was Getic) ..similar to that between Castilian  and Portuguese.  J

 

  

O-: In any case this "larger family"
certainly extended northeastward (at times) to a quite
considerable extent, judging by some interesting
hydronymic relicts. Perhaps the language spoken in
Herodotus' time between the Dnister and Dnipro up to
the forest zone bore the same or a similar relation to
Getan as the latter did to Thracian proper,

 

If Thrace was defined by people speaking a language or languages/dialects of..then the largest number of people in that Thrace that spoke a common language..were speaking Thracian.  Regardless of any labels applied to the late Aegean coastal dialect(s).  Therefore Getic = Thracian proper, and the other is a much influenced, late,  peripheral: dialect.

 

******GK: BTW what does "Thrace" and "Thracian" mean?
"Scythian" has been linked to an Iranic word meaning
"archer". Is there an etymology for "Thracian"?******

 

Don’t know it: the word entered Greek as a self descriptor of people contacted to their North who also defined themselves as Carpathian.  Note also that a piece now lost..written by Ovid while exiled in the Greek city of Tomi  (now Constanta) one hundred years before Trajan’s legions crossed the Danube..was written in the local language: Getic.