From: george knysh
Message: 65069
Date: 2009-09-19
--- On Sat, 9/19/09, Torsten <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
--- In cybalist@... s.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
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> --- On Sat, 9/19/09, frabrig <frabrig@... > wrote:
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> In search for a Sarmatian etymon for his invented Iazigyan word **far-ang 'enemy, one of the others', which, according to him, might have been used by the Iazyges in Pannonia (early centuries CE)
>
> GK: It's worth remembering that in the early centuries CE
> Pannonia (and then the Pannonias) was (were) Roman provinces south
> and west of the Danube. The Yazigi roamed in the fields north and
> east of Pannonia, across the border. Except for the possible
> unrecorded individual(s) we don't know of any Yazigi in Pannonia,
> or indeed of any Yazig entering Roman service prior to 175 CE.
> That's pretty clear from the available Roman army auxiliaries
> studies. Otherwise your linguistic points seem solid.****
>
To find a cohesive and permanent ethnic unit in the article I kept my eye straight on the word cavalry
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Auxiliaries_ %28Roman_ military% 29
'Then the Danubian regions were annexed: Raetia (annexed 15 BC), Noricum (16 BC), Pannonia (9 BC) and Moesia (6 AD), becoming, with Illyricum, the Principate's most important source of auxiliary recruits for its entire duration.'
The Yazyges were encouraged to colonize Pannonia in 7 BC
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Iazyges
****GK: No evidence (or reference) is offered in this article for the assertion. The article itself has many other errors, whence the tag "this article may need to be rewritten entirely". Maybe the author was thinking of Harmatta's theory that the Iazyges moved into the Tysa basin (loosely called "Pannonia") around 7 CE. We certainly have no evidence whatsoever to indicate that "the Yazyges were encouraged to colonize Pannonia in 7 BC". Harmatta (and others) think that the Romans "encouraged them" to settle across the Danube from Pannonia in what was then Dacian territory, but this too is doubtful. Cf. http://www.kroraina.com/sarm/jh/jh2_1.html and cf. his note to p. 41. Other scholars think this too early a date (I agree). Sulimirski says "soon after 20 AD": cf. http://www.acronet.net/~magyar/english/96-10/szarme.htm Sulimirski says that the Romans attacked the Yazigi across the Danube in 78-76 BCE but I have been unable to locate the classical
source for this.
We know that they ranged on the Lower Danube (and perhaps made incursions westward) as early as the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 1rst c. BCE .BTW the Wikipedia article also has it wrong in calling the Yazigi "metanastae" (after Ptolemy) already at the time of their original settlement in Ukraine. The Metanastae are those Yazigi who settled in Hungary. There is no evidence for the settlement of Yazigi in the trans-Pannonian plain until very shortly before the mid-1rst c. CE. During Vannius' time of trouble with his relatives, when these had the loyalty of the Quadian cavalry, Vannius, in need of equestrian mercenaries, got some help from the Yazigi, with the probable permission of Farzoi.
So your speculations below about Yazigi in Pannonia are quite empty and useless.*****
The state of affairs being that way, a large part of the newly organized auxilliaries, which were mainly cavalry, Roman cavalry being insignificant at the time, must have been Yazyges. That would explain why the Roman army adopted so many Sarmatian weapons: those who used them were ethnic Yazyges (they are not recorded as such because only when forced to do so by flagging recruitment from Italy, increasingly populated by Christian freeloaders, did the Roman army set up ethnically named units). The very fact that a unit is an auxilliary one means the troop are not Roman.
I think it's the Batavi in the auxilliaries one should concentrate on
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Batavi
as they would have had a sufficiently strong sense of self and of devotion to empire to survive the chaos of conflicting loyalties in the collapsing empire (cf. the hagiography of St. Maurice
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ St._Maurice
). Also note the city of Batavis or Batavia,
http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Passau
There are to my knowledge no account of Batavi being settled here.
The Pannonia to Netherlands story of the Franks of course occurs also in Trithemius' 'De origine gentis Francorum compendium' which has been translated now
http://tinyurl. com/lfrkvd
Maybe one should check that 'Cronyke van Hollandt, Zeelandt ende Vriesland'.
Torsten