--- On Wed, 9/9/09, tgpedersen <
tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > --- On Mon, 9/7/09, george knysh <gknysh@> wrote:
> >
> > > 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
****GK: I identify Tacitus' Venedi with the Zarubinian culture, which basically originated from the earlier Pomoranian culture (with Celtic and Yastorf elements added) and absorbed local Balts and Thrakoids as it moved into the Prypjat' and Middle Dnipro basins. I have no theory about some ancient "Venetic community" which might somehow have incorporated groups from the Baltic, Italy, and France. If it ever existed it was long gone by the 1rst c.BCE. The Veneti of France were Celtic-speaking, the Veneti of northern Italy had their non-Celtic language, and the Pomorians had a dialect Ukrainian linguists think akin to Illyrian. Nor is any psychological or other unity between them evident. Your tortuous analyses are not convincing.== Tacitus' Venedi were Proto-Slavs in that they were an important component of emerging Slavdom (and here Shchukin's thesis is an excellent contribution). Slavic is an offshoot of Baltic most likely, and may be to some extent
"Baltic through Venedic throats". The fact remains that it is after the disintegration of the Zarubinian culture in the 50's CE and the dispersion of its carriers "from the Bastarnians to the Finns" (proven archaeologically beyond all doubt) that Slavdom arose in its first historical culture, the Kyivan culture, which, in Tacitus' time, was in statu nascendi (50-200CE).*****
> 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?
****GK: Pliny's Tacitus' and Ptolemy's Venedi****
> 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?
****GK: Not "therefore", just "were".*****
> 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?
****GK: Slave raiding was a continuous occupation here from Scythian times onwards, up to Svyatoslav and beyond.****
> (read it)
Got it.
****GK: good.****
> 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?
*****GK: It indicates that the 1rst c. Venedi raiders were hardly on their last legs. And Tacitus indicates their raiding proclivities were in imitation of the Sarmatians. BTW the Late Zarubinians were joined in their raids by Germanic elements from Przeworsk and Baltic elements from the Stroked Ceramic culture of Belarus and the Yuchnov culture of northeastern Ukraine(this too is archaeologically proved). The former were also "Farzoi's boys" (at least their eastern elements), while the Strokers came in because of pressure against them by the Balts further West. The Venedi predominated at the leadership level, but there were more Balts (or Baltoslavs acc. to some incl. Shchukin) which explains the emergence of Slavic as the lingua franca rather than any other. In the time of Ptolemy this mixed group was recorded as the "Stavani" (cf. Trubachev's interesting analysis of this as the Iranic term "glorious ones". But debate on this continues. A recent Polish
scholar has suggested that "Slav" is a religious concept ("worshippers of...") The Slavic term for "God" is not the same as the Baltic (which retains the old IE word (as does Latin etc.) We know that "Bagha" was not a prime Scythian deity. Perhaps it was that of Farzoi and the Venedi got their "Bog" from his group. God as the "rich one". "Rich in slaves"....But this is purely speculative.****