From: george knysh
Message: 66287
Date: 2010-07-11
--- On Mon, 6/28/10, Torsten <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
I made up my own history
****GK: "my own history"= fantasy. The term "history" does not apply to such endeavours.****
on what really happened then.
The asterisked *facts are my own.
Please criticize!
****GK: Much of this was already criticized in the archives. Nor do I remember the moderators lifting their decision not to allow "Odinist" spammings on this list...****
82 BC
(* Caesar meets the Dardanian prince Olthaces
*( = Vərəþragna, Wardana) in Bithynia,
****GK: Caesar also met with envoys of the Bactrian Sakarauka and impressed upon them the need to support Sinatruces as Parthian monarch. Olthaces, just back from a secret mission to China and the Hsiung Nu, who was actually a paid agent of Pompey, advised the latter (by letter) to keep an eye on the overly enterprising Caesar. (topic for an alternative novel (:=))*****
* tells him, he is worried that Lucullus would behave similarly to
* Sulla when he returns to Rome,
* persuades Olthaces to try to assassinate Lucullus)
****GK: And later pays Roman rumour spreaders to place the blame for this suggestion on Mithradates.*****
73 BC
http://www.attalus.org/bc1/year73.html
Beginning of Third Mithridatic War (- 63 BC)
Lucullus arrives in Athens
72 BC
http://www.attalus.org/bc1/year72.html
Olthaces (= Olcaba) tries to obtain interview with Lucullus
(* to assassinate him)
*****GK: The asterisk is inappropriate since this statement is not Torsten's fantasy but recorded documentation.*****
but gives up and flees to Mithridates VI
http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_mithridatic_16.html §79
http://tinyurl.com/25yqmos
71 BC
http://www.attalus.org/bc1/year71.html
64 BC
http://www.attalus.org/bc1/year64.html
63 BC
http://www.attalus.org/bc1/year63.html
Mithridates VI plans invading Italy
http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_mithridatic_22.html#%A7109
****GK: Mithridates' "own army" consisted basically of elements directly subject to the Bosporan Kingdom: Greeks and Maeotians, plus Pontic and Roman refugees and deserters. And draftees both slave and free. The "Scythians" (Scythians proper and Sarmatians) were independent auxiliaries who had to be bought off by promises of dynastic alliances (Appian,#108). This did not work. It is very clear that apart from "his own army" Mithridates intended to draw on the Gauls, whom he had been cultivating for some time (#109). He intended to lead his large motley crew "through Thrace to Macedonia, through Macedonia to Pannonia, and passing over the Alps into Italy" (#102) The expedition was to start from Panticapeion (today's Kertch in the Crimean Ukraine).*****
*Mithridates VI gives Olthaces the task of invading Italy.
*****GK: Acc. to Appian, the King himself was to lead the army (there is no hint of any delegation in the text).****
*Olthaces as leader (*wod-in-) of an army (*wod-)
*invades Przeworsk by 'Schlieffen plan'
*going around Burebista's Dacia
*****GK: The Mithridatian army gathered near Panticapeion, but the expedition never got under way. There is no mention of any out-movement by anyone.****
Mithridates VI commits suicide
****GK: With the assistance of a Gaulish warrior.****
End of Third Mithridatic War
*Olthaces, the wod-in- in Przeworsk,
*must give up attempt for 'Schlieffen plan' against Italy and
*reconsider his options
****GK: This is pure novelistic fantasy. There is no evidence which would link the career of Ariovistus to the figures of Mithradates and Olthaces.****
BTW it is possible (though hardly certain) that the Olthaces in Pompey's triumph in 62 was Olthaces the Dandarian. He seems to have been a very trusted ally of Mithradates, who just might have appointed him "king" of reconquered Colchis (or parts thereof) after the unsuccessful attempt on Lucullus. It is however equally plausible that these Olthaces were distinct personalities.
As the philosopher Berkeley remarked (I may have mentioned this once) "everything is what it is and not another thing". Olthaces was not Ariovistus. And we have no evidence the Germanics were involved in Mithradates' Italian plans.
The rest of Torsten's fantasy novel has been discussed many times. He has adduced nothing new.