--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Smith"
<mytoyneighborhood@...> wrote:
> Torsten, it's interesting you seem to suggest that Germanic
speakers
> came from further south before migrating north into Scandinavia,
> whereas I always thought that Germanic speakers started from the
> north and gradually expanding southwards and westwards, leading to
> the migratory pressure on Celtic speakers that was menifest in
Julius
> Caesar's campaigns.
>
Both Kuhn and Udolph, although disagreeing on most issues, agree on
this point. So does Östen Dahl. And Snorri, for that matter, and with
him Heyerdahl, and Jon Galster, my late uncle, so who am I to
disagree? But admittedly it was intellectually satisfying for me to
discover this consensus (especially about the role of the "founding
fathers", the Hermunduri/Swebians) after I reached those conclusions
myself. Ariovist, in Kuhn's opinion, given his absolute control of
the tribes he commanded, was one of those guys, whereas Arminius,
supposedly the liberator of the Germanic peoples, was a Nordwestblock
man, though some of his retinue (eg Sigimer) was Germanic.
Torsten