Piotr wrote:
<<My greatest objection to your "Hermetic porters", beside the formal
difficulties discussed below, is that the etymology is arbitrary and neither
unparallelled by anything I know in matters of ethnonymy, nor motivated by
any real-world historical scenario. Such etymologies are a dime a dozen in
books like Bernal's "Black Athene". A Greek phrase (and a rather unlikely one
one at that, see below for details) picked up by a band of pre-Germanic
speakers and adopted as a self-appellation? >>
I understand the reason to be skeptical and conservative about such things.
So, I would just beg your patience and ask that you very temporarily suspend
your disbelief.
First of all, I gave the wrong impression. "Hermetic porters" is not correct
and would justify the Black Athene reference.
Maybe a better translation would be "international traders/porters". Or more
precisely "traders/porters with access beyond the border markers." And this
is precisely how Tacitus describes them. Remember that back in those days,
trading did involve being a porter, someone had to carry or cart the stuff.
Let's start with what I think is mainstream here.
There is nothing radical or wild-eyed about calling border markers <herme:s>.
This word is the same as <Herme:s>, the god. It may be because the original
markers were piles of stone (herma) or because Herme:s was the god often
portrayed at the head of later boundary stelae. It is totally mainstream to
call Hermes the god of boundaries, trade and messengers who cross borders.
There is loads of support for this.
Some <herme:s> were placed opposite the doors of houses, temples and gates,
<antithuros>. Note the -o- stem. <-thuros> is present in a good many
compounds of <thura>, door -- e.g., <athuros>, without a door, open,
unchecked; <dithuros>, two doors, split door.
Another example is <anchi-thuros>, meaning next door, generally,
neighbouring, applied to both <geitones>, neighbor, and <naioisa >,
dwelling. It also can mean "near the door."
As I mentioned in the earlier post, the base word <thora> didn't just mean
door. It meant ACCESS. Lidell-Scott gives a whole slew of examples. It
meant "getting in" to see a king or a rich man. Disciples and clients are
specifically mentioned as having that kind of "in" or access. <Athurus>
clearly refers to the situation where there was nothing to limit access. In
this sense, it was a selectively opening door or gate.
It should also be noted that there are a number of instances where the <th->
is replaced by <d-> in Greek texts. E.g. <pseduros> and <psaduros>. L-S
seems to say that this may have been dialectical.
As far as, matching the vowel with the apparent Germanic -u- in Hermunduri
and Hermondoroi, all I have is that in Gothic we have attested <daur>, in ON,
<dyr>, OHG <tor>, and according to OED, OE had <dor>, <dure>, <dor> and
<dure>, suggesting multiple sources- all meaning gate or door. I see no
reason to think that the idea of a closed or open door or gate meaning ACCESS
or lack of it did not exist in any Germanic mind. It clearly did in Latin
(e.g., <dithurus> a seat in the Roman tribunal.)
As far as Hermon- or Hermun-, I'm not sure what the objection is to
<Hermo:n>. I do not understand what the Greek form would have to be for it
to generate Hermon- or Hermun- as a loan. I do not know whether the -o- in
the earlier Greek versions of the name was an -o:- or an -o- or both. But
there is certainly enough shift in the vowels among Germanic dialects and I
don't think we know what dialect the Hermunduri would have spoken. More
importantly, we don't know that the Hermunduri even called themselves that
name. The Egyptians didn't call themselves Egyptians (until they adopted the
Greek name.) Is so difficult to believe the same could happen to a some small
Germanic tribe? Our experience with the accepted indigenous names on the
American frontier (e.g., Iroquois, Apache, Navaho, Crow) is that they
consistently are not the original self-names, but are often the adopted name.
These names are most often the names given by other groups.
Hermon- or Hermun-, if treated as Hermo:n, would refer not to "hermetic" or
"hermeneutic", but to the boundary markers or stelae that Tacitus refers to
the Hermunduri crossing at will. Like the <herme:neos>, who had the ability
to cross national boundaries. <immensus> in Latin along with vast, also
means "without limits or boundaries." The gloss put on the much later -erm
words in Germanic could just as easily take this interpretation. Rather than
being an abstract "vast", making the word operational and functional, it would
mean "unrestricted freedom to move."
As far as historical evidence, go to the Hauseberg website and see the
samples of Greek pottery and masonery that have been found north of the Alps
from @500BC. Caesar tells us that the Gauls kept their business records in
Greek. Tacitus apparently reports Germanic claims of early Greek contact.
The very notion that Germanic tribes on the Danube were not exposed to Greek
culture seems dubious. The notion that Germanic tribes like the Hermunduri
would not actively seek early contact with the richness of Greek culture
seems dubious, especially given the technical advances evident north of the
Danube that had to come from somewhere. I think there's a little Black Athene
about the supposed isolated indigenousness of early German cultures.
Piotr, if you still have your disbelief suspended at this point, please
consider that though the Hermunduri/Hermondori spoke German, at some point
they adopted a Greek name that reflected how this group was "licensed" to
trade and act as go-betweens, as reported by Tacitus. And the name meant
something like "those with access beyond the border markers."
I know this is not a typical glorious Germanic name, but maybe the
Hermunduri, being accomodating, adopted it as a matter of good customer
relations.
Steve