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

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

> --- On Wed, 9/9/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@... s.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@... s.com
> > > Date: Monday, September 7, 2009, 3:12 PM
> > > First of all this:
> > >
> > > http://www.princeto n.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,
>
> ****GK: Tacitus' Venedi are excellent candidates. The name persisted in Germanic tradition (cf. Jordanes and mediaeval German).****

It's not the communis opinio.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula_Veneti

> and there's nothing in the text that implies that they trade in
> Slaves.
>
> ****GK: In context it's pretty certain. The practice antedated them

Antedated who?

> and persisted into the middle ages (cf. the accounts of Arabic
> geographers about the raiding Scandinavian Rus').

The Scandinavians were slave trades, and therefore the Veneti a thousand years earlier were too?

> Svyatoslav asserted as much in his pre-Bulgarian campaign speech of
> 969 as recorded in "The tale of bygone years"

How is that relevant to what the Veneti did 800 years earlier?

> (read it)****

Got it.

> 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.
>
> ****GK: I don't agree with your Venetic theories.

Nor with Wikipedia's nor with Gol/a,b's.

> Tacitus' text considers the Venedi an important population (this is
> confirmed in Jordanes when he talks about Hermanaric)*****
>

How is this relevant?



Torsten