--- "Rex H. McTyeire" <
rexbo@...> wrote:
> Combining your last two George: why don't we accept
> my proposition that
> H. does not answer the question and look elsewhere,
> and avoid
> frustration? The Scylas thing is inconclusive, and
> dissecting it further
> is pointless; as is H. alone on the issue.
*****GK: Etc. etc. etc. etc. Dear Rex, It does not
really matter what I say or don't say. You have your
"idee fixe" and you will stay with it no matter what.
Inconvenient evidence will be ignored or rejected as
"inconclusive" so as to "avoid frustration". You have
been told over and over that there is no classical
source which defines the area NORTH of the Danube as
"THRACE". And that is the key issue. It's not up to me
to find a passage negating your idee fixe. It's up to
you to find one supporting it. Even if we were to
accept that the Getae were "Thracian" in a linguistic
or cultural sense it would still not make THRACE out
of the Land of the Getans, just as the fact that
Americans or Canadians or Scots, all of whom are
mostly English-speaking do not live in ENGLAND. Is
that so difficult for you to understand? I guess it
must be... But in fact we don't have to accept that
the Getae (and Dacians) spoke the Thracian of the real
Thracians south of the Danube. Strabo can be used as
an argument here, since he says that the word for city
in the Thracian language is "bria" (7.6.1), whereas in
Getan it would be "dava". Piotr could give you many
more pointers here were you really interested. But of
course admitting that Getans and Thracians spoke
different languages would be too "frustrating". And
the fact that the Agathyrsi customs resembled those of
the Thracians does not make Thracians out of them, let
alone Thracians residing in Thrace. Whatever some
Greeks may have supposed about the Getan identity in
centuries past the very fact that Strabo proferred an
expression like "used to suppose" (7.3.2) should alert
you to the fact that... they no longer did so.
BTW you might be interested in a recent article by a
Moldavian scholar called Tcaciuc (it's in Russian
though, but you can find it at
http://www.ant.md/school/has/ The journal "Stratum
plus", n.4, 1999: "The Getica we have lost"), who
argues very plausibly that there is no record of Getae
north of the Danube prior to the IVth c. BC. Since
they lived south of the Danube in the times of
Herodotus and Thucydides this may have been one of the
reasons why some Greeks "used to suppose" they were
Thracians.
Speaking of Thucydides, here is a quote from Book II
of his "Peloponnesian War". He was a general rather
than a storyteller and his opinion carries more weight
than Herodotus'.
Having described the Kingdom of the Odrysians ruled by
Sitalkes (the Getae were his subjects, and the Kingdom
extended to the Danube where it bordered on that of
the Scythians), Thucydides resumes:
"...the kingdom (of Sitalkes) became very powerful,
and in revenue and general prosperity exceeded all the
nations of Europe which lie between the Ionian Sea and
the Euxine; in the size and strength of their army
being second only, though far inferior, to the
Scythians. For if the Scythians were united, there is
no nation which could compare with them, or would be
capable of resisting them; I do not say in Europe, but
even in Asia..." Could this be a "correction" of
Herodotus about the Thracians? (:=)))["if the
Thracians could be united under a single ruler in a
homogeneous whole, they would be the most powerful
nation on earth, and no one could cope with them"]
==="An ideologue-- one who thinks ideologically--
can't lose. He can't lose because his answer, his
interpretation and his attitude have been determined
in advance of the particular experience or
observation. They are derived from the ideology, and
are not subject to the facts. There is no possible
argument, observation or experiment that could
disprove a firm ideological belief for the simple
reason that an ideologue will not accept any argument,
observation or experiment as constituting disproof...
... If there is any seeming conflict between doctrine
and reality, then reality not the doctrine, must give
way. This is exactly what proves that his system of
belief is not a meaningful assertion about what is or
is not the case in the real world, but an ideology.
the primary function of which is not to state truths
but to adjust attitudes." (James Burnham)
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