--- tgpedersen <
tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> Caesar is the first to mention the Germani at all,
> and Ariovistus is
> the first one of them he sees.
****GK: Posidonius of Apamea, in the lost 30th book of
his "Histories", published ca.80 BCE mentions the
eating and drinking customs of the Germani. Since
these drink wine, they are probably the early
Cisrhenani who crossed the Rhine long before
Ariovistus, or those just east of the Rhine. In the
Posidonius context a Celtic (Gaulish) etymology for
the term seems quite defensible.****
>
>
> 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.
****GK: This is a good example of "Torsten logic".
Now for the facts:
DBG 1.31: "it came to pass that the Germans were
called in for hire by the Arverni and the Sequani.
That about 15,000 of them [i.e. of the Germans] had at
first crossed the Rhine : but after that these wild
and savage men had become enamored of the lands and
the refinement and the abundance of the Gauls, more
were brought over, that there were now as many as
120,000 of them in Gaul: that with these the Aedui and
their dependents had repeatedly struggled in arms-that
they had been routed, and had sustained a great
calamity-had lost all their nobility, all their
senate, all their cavalry." The subsequent context
indicates that it was Ariovistus who kept inviting new
bands of Germans in, and the battle of Magetobria,won
by his forces, was the "great calamity". There is not
a hint of any "mercenaries" vesus "mercenaries"
struggle according to Torsten logic.****
As mentioned, vale.
>
>
> Torsten
>
>
>
____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping