--- tgpedersen <
tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> The idea that he was a Suebian is from Pliny, not
> Caesar. I think that
> with Ariovistus' defeat, the traditional authority
of
> the Semnones
> would have taken over from Ariovistus' revolutionary
> one. Kind of
> Bonaparte/Louis XVIII thing. Note that the Suebi
> never tangle again
> with Romans until 406 CE. But the spirit lived on.
****GK: I think Caesar implicitly tells us that
Ariovistus was a "Suebian" (whatever that meant to
Caesar). The following groups (tribes or associations)
participated in the final combat: Harudes, Marcomanni,
Triboces, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, Suebi. One of
these would be Ariovistus'. Which one? Certainly not
the Harudes. Ariovistus himself only says that his own
people (the original 15,000 of what had become a
"German" force of some 120,000 by 58 BCE) had been in
Gaul since ca. 72 BCE, and that they had left their
home AND THEIR PEOPLE to seek success in Gaul. Who
were "their people"? Caesar states that there was a
danger that a newly arrived mass of "Suebians" would
cross the Rhine to join Ariovistus' old army. After
Ariovistus' defeat,when he fled back across the Rhine
with his wives, Caesar informs us that wife n.1 was
"Suebian", and that Ariovistus had married her "at
home". Granted this does not mathematically prove that
Ariovistus was a "Suebian". But what else would he be?
Which other group is as good a candidate? But perhaps
you agree, and merely wish to make the point that not
Caesar but Pliny made the explicit identification.
Granted.****
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