--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> >
> > This one you won't like:
> >
> > An attempt on an etymology foe Ariovist:
> >
> > PGmc. *xarja-gastiz ->
> > Suebian *xérj&Gest- ->
> > through an Gaulish-Latin interpreter (Ariovist spoke
> > Gaulish, Caesar
> > spoke no Gaulish)
>
> ****GK: Ariovist could not have had a German-Latin
> interpreter? Just wondering.****
This is the first Germanic-Roman encounter recorded. Where would a
Latin-Germanic interpreter then have acquired his second language?
Caesar is the first to mention the Germani at all, and Ariovistus is
the first one of them he sees.
Come to think of it:
Ariovistus' troops have slept without a roof in fourteen years,
presumably as Haedui mercenaries. Why would they, in the course of
(pecuniary) duty, have spent time in the Wetterau? There weren't any
Arverni enemies there. I propose therefore instead that the Wetterau
Przeworsk were the Harudes waiting to be settled in Haedui territory.
That would make the Harudes Przeworsk, which is OK; all intelligence
we have of them being elsewhere is later than the Ariovistus incident.
As for the 15,000 becoming 120,000, those extra people either came to
the Haedui on their own initiative, or the Haedui, unwilling to fight
for their own cause, sent for them when the war went badly. One day
came when they couldn't pay their services and the mercenaries
demanded land instead. Happened before, happened since, will happen again.
Torsten