Timeline on the Germanization of Agri Decumates etc

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

>

Welcome back, George! I was worried for a moment there when you didn't immediately jump on that posting.

> --- 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.****

Etc, etc

> 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...****

Etc, etc

> 82 BC
> (* Caesar meets the Dardanian prince Olthaces
> *( = Vərəθragna, 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 (:=))*****

Now I think you are just being sarcastic.

> * 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.*****

Plutarch takes Olthacus' murderous intentions as a fact
http://tinyurl.com/25yqmos
whereas Appian is divided between assuming that and assuming Olcaba' intentions were those he stated himself
http://tinyurl.com/327l7py §79

> 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

True, error.

> since this statement is not Torsten's fantasy but recorded
> documentation.*****

Not quite, see above.

> 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://tinyurl.com/32p539j
>
> ****GK: Mithridates' "own army" consisted basically of elements
> directly subject to the Bosporan Kingdom: Greeks and Maeotians, plus
> Pontic and Roman refugees and deserters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_VI_of_Pontus
Surely you mean kingdom of Pontus, right? That and Colchis were his first possessions and must have delivered more than 'refugees and deserters' to his army.

> 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)

You seem to want to imply that Scythians and similar folk (this is Olthacus/Olcaba's home country, according to Plutarch) could not be made interested in such a large undertaking.

Here is the full quote from Appian Mithridates §102
'Mithridates finally reached the Azov country, of which there were many princes, all of whom received him, escorted him, and exchanged presents with him, on account of the fame of his deeds, his empire, and his power, which were still not to be despised. He formed alliances with them in contemplation of other and more novel exploits, such as marching through Thrace to Macedonia, through Macedonia to Pannonia, and passing over the Alps into Italy. With the more powerful of these princes he cemented the alliance by giving his daughters in marriage.'

This text does not support your view.

> The expedition was to start from
> Panticapeion (today's Kertch in the Crimean Ukraine).*****

I can't find your source for that?

> *Mithridates VI gives Olthaces the task of invading Italy.
>
> *****GK: Acc. to Appian, the King himself was to lead the army

Where does he say that?

> (there is no hint of any delegation in the text).****

I'll make an emendation: Olthaces was to be the leader of the allied Dandarian/Scythian army / expeditionary force.

> *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.****

Movements in Scythian lands would be beyond the Roman horizon of interest.

> Mithridates VI commits suicide
>
> ****GK: With the assistance of a Gaulish warrior.****

Named Bituitus, a name known otherwise only from a king of the Arverni
http://www.attalus.org/names/b/bituitus.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bituitus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arverni
so perhaps the Arverni were the Gauls Mithridates was in contact with?

> 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.****

Well, there's Snorri, of course (*hides under sofa*).

> 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".

So true. But everything that was is not immediately accessible to us. Maybe we should ask Berkeley whether those two characters was the same person?

> Olthaces was not Ariovistus.

There's exactly fourteen years between Olthacus' defection to Mithridates and Ariovistus telling Caesar that his army had been without a roof for fourteen years.

> And we have no evidence the Germanics were involved in Mithradates'
> Italian plans.

By 60/59, Burebista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burebista
conquers the Boii and Taurisci; in 65 he would already have been a force to avoid, and Olthaces would have been in a position to know that better than Mithridates.

Further, the Germanics did not exist in the form we know them before Ariviostus' conquest of the Agri Decumates from the Helvetii

> The rest of Torsten's fantasy novel has been discussed many times.
> He has adduced nothing new.

Oh yes I did. All the Roman scheming is new.

It's always been a riddle why Catiline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catiline
chose to rebel in 63, when he was so badly prepared. My idea is that his financial backer Crassus and Caesar, who earlier desparately wanted someone they could control in a position of power in order to counterbalance the reign of terror they feared at the imminent return of Pompey from the east, suddenly dumped him because they somehow were guaranteed military assistance elsewhere (in particular cavalry, which Rome could no longer provide, especially to the Populares), namely from Olthaces, who had already started out on his mission, and now took an offer of aid in gold from Crassus, and that Catiline, thus stranded, set the remaining plan in motion after he was betrayed by Crassus and Caesar. Crassus and and Caesar dumping Catiline would make no sense otherwise. Pompey did not join in the triumvirate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate
(in 60) until he realized that his rash decision to disband his army, as law required, meant that he was powerless to see to it that they got the land they deserved.

BTW this whole gold export affair has never been explained properly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publius_Vatinius
but Puteoli was the habour for exports to the east.


Torsten