From: Torsten
Message: 66147
Date: 2010-05-17
>From the Historia Solitana
>
>
> > > As some may have noted I think the Slavs spread to their present
> > > sites as the Charudes (= Croats) of Ariovistus' army. Here comes
> > > something in the same vein:
> > >
> > > Caesar, DBG, 1, 37
> > > 'Haec eodem tempore Caesari mandata referebantur et legati ab
> > > Haeduis et a Treveris veniebant: Haedui questum quod Harudes,
> > > qui nuper in Galliam transportati essent, fines eorum
> > > popularentur: sese ne obsidibus quidem datis pacem Ariovisti
> > > redimere potuisse; Treveri autem, pagos centum Sueborum ad
> > > ripas Rheni consedisse, qui Rhemum transire conarentur; his
> > > praeesse Nasuam et Cimberium fratres. '
> > >
> > > "At the same time that this message was delivered to Caesar,
> > > ambassadors came from the Aedui and the Treviri; from the Aedui
> > > to complain that the Harudes, who had lately been brought over
> > > into Gaul, were ravaging their territories; that they had not
> > > been able to purchase peace from Ariovistus, even by giving
> > > hostages: and from the Treviri, [to state] that a hundred
> > > cantons of the Suevi had encamped on the banks of the Rhine,
> > > and were attempting to cross it; that the brothers, Nasuas and
> > > Cimberius, headed them."
> > >
> > > AFAIK, there exists no satisfying etymology, Germanic or
> > > otherwise, for a name 'Nasua'.
> > >
> > > But:
> > > Polish naswa,
> > > Czech název,
> > > Slovak názov
> > > Slovenian naziv
> > > Serbian naziv
> > > (Bulgarian nazvanie) "name"
> > > (from *na-zUva-ti "call, name" vel sim.)
> > >
> > > So what I think happened was that hundred villages of Slavic
> > > Charudes (led by Suevi) were attempting to cross the Rhine
> > > headed by Ariovistus(?) brother, named Cimberius, and that the
> > > message got garbled on its way through translators.
> >
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@> wrote:
> >
> > Cimberius = Cymry?
> > Nasuas < *nes- to save? cf. Nasatya, Nestor? <*Naswant-?
> >
>
> Pokorny has two forms of
> *nas- "sich verenigen, geborgen sein", ie "unite, be hidden"
> with suffix -w- or -u-, none of them Germanic:
>
> 1. *ναÏ-FÏÏ:
> Doric thess. να:ÏÏ,
> Lac. να:FοÏ,
> Lesb. να:Ï ~Î¿Ï (ie. νάFFοÏ),
> Ion. νηÏÏ,
> Att. νεÏÏ m.
> "(Götterwohnung [abode of gods] =) Tempel, Heiligtum [sanctuary]";
>
> 2. Toch A nas.u "Freund"
>
> So unless you want to argue that one of the leading brothers was Greek or Tocharian and the other one Celtic(?)/Cimbrian(?), I don't think I'll agree with your proposal.
>
> Details of what I think happened:
>
> The only items of information in the message from the Treveri
> which couldn't have been obtained by direct observation are
> 1. the names of the 'two leaders' and
> 2. the type and number of their provenance (the hundred pÄgÄ«).
>
> Since the Suevi referred to in the massage from the Treveri came
> from further north (they lived in pÄgÄ«, ie. they were civilians,
> not soldiers, cf.
> Ernout-Meillet
> 'pÄgus, -Ä« m.: borne fichée en terre (cf. pangÅ),
> sens qui apparaît encore dans Vg. G. 2, 382
> praemiaque ingeniis pagos et compita circum |
> Thesidae posuere
> (mais il y a peut-être ici influence de ÏάγοÏ);
> de là "territoire rural délimité par des bornes, district".
> Souvent joint à uīcus, qui désigne le centre des habitations. -
>
> Ancien, usuel.
> Celt.: britt. pau.
>
> Dérivés:
> pÄgÄnus, -a, -um: relatif aux pÄgÄ«: -a lex;
> subst. pÄgÄnus, -Ä« m.: habitant du pÄgus, paysan (class.).
> De pÄgÄnus dérivent:
> PÄgÄnÄlia n.pl. "fêtes du pÄgus" (Varr.),
> pagÄnicus, -a, -um: appartenant au village, villageois;
> -a (sc. pila): balle de nature particulière employée d'abord par les paysans,
> cf. Rich, s.u.; Iuppiter -us; -ae feriae.
>
> Composé:
> se:mipÄgÄnus (Mart., Prol.);
> pÄgÄtim (comme uÄ«cÄtim).
>
> PÄgÄnus dans la l. militaire a pris le sens de "civil" par
> opposition au soldat qui était castre:nsis;
> cf. notre "civil" ou "bourgeois".
> Dans la l. de l'Ãglise, les pÄgÄ« étant demeurés longtemps rebelles
> à la christianisation, pÄgÄnus a désigné le "païen" (comme
> gentīlis). On a supposé aussi que ce sens avait été créé en
> opposition avec. mīles Christī; v. en dernier lieu A. Piganiol,
> L'Empire chrétien, p.382, et n. 104.
> C'est avec ce sens que le mot est passé dans les l. romanes, cf.
> M.L.6141, et
> en irl.: pagan.
>
> A ce sens se rattache
> pÄgÄnitÄs "paîenneté" (Cod. Theod.), et
> pÄgÄnismus hybride formé à l'aide du suffixe gr. en -ιÏμÏÏ sur le
> type ÏÏιÏÏιανιÏμÏÏ (St-Aug.).
>
> L'emprunt de pÄgÄnus en germ. au sens de "cheval de ferme",
> westph. page,
> est peu sûr.
>
> Bâti sur castre:nsis, pace:nsis, apparaît en bas latin un adj.
> pÄge:nsis (Greg., Tur.),
> dont proviennent
> it. paese, fr. pays, etc., cf. M.L. 6145.
> L'existence de *pagīnus, M.L. 6148, est douteuse.',
>
> likely from wherever Ariovistus came from in Silesia, where
> settlements disappear at the same time, not from the war-torn
> territory to the right of the Rhine and south of the Main,
> communication beyond the most basic level between the occasional
> prisoner taken by the Treveri and his interrogators would have
> been impossible. They would have been the Charudes Ariovistus at
> the later meeting tells Caesar he is expecting to arrive within
> the near future. So the only words that they would have been able
> to pick out from an answer to 'who is our leader?' (sign language,
> slap-slap) would have been
> 'brÄti' ("brother", misunderstood as "brothers"),
> 'naswa' "name", misunderstood as a name of a person, and
> 'kimberi', also misunderstood as a name of a person,
> when the poor wretch tried to tell them that his people and the
> Cimbri were 'brothers', or that the name of their leader actually
> was Cimberius, or, if he mixed in a Latin(?)/Germanic(?) word
> that their leader was a *kampi-ari, cf.
> Lat. campiÅ, -nis,
> PGmc *kampjÅ,
> OHG kempfo "warrior",
> now German Kämpfer.
>
>
> So much for 1., the names of the 'two leaders'
>
> As for 2., the hundred pÄgÄ«, I'll have to assume that information
> item came from another POW ;-). But whatever the real meaning of
> the *pÄg- like word of the information source was, the appearance
> of the foreigners trying to cross the Rhine can't have been
> grossly discordant with a description of them as coming from
> pÄgÄ«, ie. as civilians.
>
> Torsten
>