From: tgpedersen
Message: 65003
Date: 2009-09-09
>That's why continuous warfare was necessary for the upper layers also of Germanic societies.
> 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.