Re: Torsten's theory reviewed

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
>
> --- 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 a 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,

OK.

> and that they had left their
> home AND THEIR PEOPLE to seek success in Gaul.

Where in DBG?

> 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.****

'Ariovistus had two wives, one a Suevan by nation, whom he brought
with him from home...' Presumably, A. comes from where people marry
Suebi, so it's reasonable to assume he was Sueban.


Torsten