Re: Fw: Farzoi's chief racket and his northern boys.

From: tgpedersen
Message: 65003
Date: 2009-09-09

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> Clicked on the wrong button before the message was complete. Sorry!
>
> --- On Mon, 9/7/09, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> > From: george knysh <gknysh@...>
> > Subject: Farzoi's chief racket and his northern boys.
> > To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> > Date: Monday, September 7, 2009, 3:12 PM
> > First of all this:
> >
> > http://www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/scheidel/050704.pdf
> >
> > Cf. especially the text to footnote 48.
> >
> > Then have a look at Strabo (Book 11, section 2, paragraph
> > 3).
> > It appears that slave trading was one of the Eurasian
> > nomads' chief occupations. And Greek city states were
> > intermediaries. The Scythian fortresses of the Lower Dnipro
> > fulfilled the same basic function.
>
> Which puts a somewhat different slant on Tacitus' famous passage
> in the "Germania" ch. 46: "from whence [the Sarmatians GK] the
> Venedians have derived very many of their customs and a great
> resemblance. For they are continually traversing and infesting with
> robberies all the forests and mountains lying between the
> Peucinians and Fennians."
>
> Proto-Slavs as slave raiders for Farzoi and his successors...And
> they were occasionally accompanied by their employers. The fearsome
> mounted "ispolins" (Slavic designation for the Spali as the rulers
> of Scythia were called) are a part of East Slavic folklore (ditto
> re the "Serpent" (=Dragon!) threatening from the steppes ,and the
> "Serpent Walls" built south of Kyiv for protection many times), and
> Farzoi coins have been found deep in the forest area of the north.
>
> Interesting twist on these "glorious" empires.

That's why continuous warfare was necessary for the upper layers also of Germanic societies.

The Veneti were not Proto-Slavs, and there's nothing in the text that implies that they trade in Slaves. At Tacitus' time they would have been on their last legs, those former traders on the Amber Road being squeezed out from east and west, reduced to living by brigandage.



Torsten