Re: The Germani in Spartacus' army

The sources tell us that
1) there were Germani, besides Galli, in Spartacus' army of slaves,
2) that they broke with Spartacus and left the main, Thracian part of the army twice, one under Crixus, once under Castus and Gannicus.
3) that the number of them was considerable, 30,000 under Crixus, 35,000 under Castus and Gannicus
http://tinyurl.com/2upq3oc
http://www.livius.org/li-ln/livy/periochae/periochae096.html#96
http://tinyurl.com/35jocrw
http://www.attalus.org/latin/orosius5.html#24

At the same time, we know that Crixus, Castus and Gannicus are not Germanic names, at least not in the conventional sense.

The question is, where did those Germani come from? Rome's main source of slaves was prisoners of war and Rome had not had any war with anything resembling Germani at that time, and the Germani at any rate at the time of Spartacus' rebellion, eleven years before Ariovistus is documented in the present Southern Germany, must have been confined in the Przeworsk and Jastorf areas.

As for the Thracians, Florus has the following:
Epitome, XXXVIIII. The Thracian War

'III, 4
After the Macedonians (heaven save the mark) the Thracians, former tributaries of the Macedonians, rebelled and, not content with making incursions merely into the neighbouring provinces of Thessaly and Dalmatia, penetrated as far as the Adriatic; checked by the boundary which it formed, since nature apparently stayed their advance, they hurled their weapons against the very waters.
2 Throughout the period of their advance they left no cruelty untried, as they vented their fury on their prisoners; they sacrificed to the gods with human blood; they drank out of human skulls; by every kind of insult inflicted by burning and fumigation they made death more foul; they even forced infants from their mothers' wombs by torture.
3 The cruellest of all the Thracians were the Scordisci, and to their strength was added cunning as well;
4 their haunts among the woods and mountains harmonized well with their fierce temper. An army, therefore, was not only routed and put to flight by them, but â€" what almost seemed like a miracle â€" entirely cut up under the command of a Cato.
5 Didius, finding them wandering about and dispersed in undisciplined plundering, drove them back into their own land of Thrace. Drusus forced them still further and prevented them from recrossing the Danube. Minucius laid waste all the country along the Hebrus, losing, however, many of his men as they rode across a river covered with treacherous ice.
6 Volso penetrated to Rhodope and the Caucasus.
Curio reached Dacia, but shrank from its gloomy forests.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Scribonius_Curio the father
Appius advanced as far as the Sarmatians,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appius_Claudius_Pulcher_(consul_79_BC)
while Lucullus reached the Tanais, the boundary of those tribes, and Lake Maeotis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Terentius_Varro_Lucullus
7 These savage enemies could only be reduced by the employment of their own methods against them; severe cruelties were inflicted upon the captives by fire and the sword, but nothing was regarded by the barbarians as more horrible than that they should be left with their hands cut off and be forced to survive their punishment.'

Interestingly, another Scribonius half a century later makes a grab for the throne of the Bosporan Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosporan_Kingdom#Roman_Bosphoran_Kingdom
against Roman interests; there are no records of how the Scribonii family set root in that kingdom.

Konrat Ziegler,
Die Herkunft des Spartacus,
Hermes, Vol. 83, No. 2 (1955),
pp. 248-250
believes Spartacus was captured during the campaign of Appius Pulcher in 76 BCE; since he known to have fought once on the Roman side, then deserted and become a brigand (Florus), it is possible that he was a Spartocid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartocids
pretender to the throne of Bosporan_Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosporan_Kingdom
who allied himself with the Romans and later fell out with them.

The name seems to have been connected to the Thracian part of the population in the Bosporan Kingdom and in Thrace proper. One more thing which connected them was the slave trade, and the pool of slaves in both places would have come from the same place. Panticapaion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panticapaeon
the capital of the Bosporan Kingdom, was the center in the Black Sea, selling slaves bought from the nomads. It is possible that one side of the Saumakos rebellion
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66473
was made up of such slaves.
Such a slave trade would need 'agents' upstream from the Greek cities if the northern Black Sea coast. It is possible that the influx of a new people into Southeastern Przeworsk was the result of the slave trade being 'bottled up' by war at Panticapaion, ie Pompey's campaigns against Mithridates.

In other words, the Germani of Spartacus' army might have been the former slaves of the Thracians in Thrace, captured by slave traders in Przeworsk. So would the Galli, presumably Cotini
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotini
called Gallic in Tacitus' Germania on account of their language. This would explain their irreconcilable conflict with the Thracians and their undiscplined behaviour contrasted to that of the Thracians.

That would also make Ariovistus the leader of an army of slave traders and their local clients who decided to fight their way to the next river (the Danube) in order to get home to the Black Sea. The two Indian merchants Ariovistus passed on to Metellus Celer would have had been some who had particularly urgent business at home to see to.

As for the name of Gannicus, I imagine a connection with the
*gann-/*wann- "deceive (by magic)" word
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/61985
(note: 'Ganna "name of a Semnonic prophetess"', the Chattic name Adgandestrius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adgandestrius
should also be noted)
cf. Italian ingannare, Spanish engañar "deceive" etc.
(related to *kan- "sing, play"?)

Torsten

The DRAE has

9. prnl. equivocarse. 

In grad school, they told us that it was related to gana or ganar

ganar.

(Quizá del gót. *ganan, codiciar, infl. por el germ. *waidanjan, cosechar; cf. nórd. gana, desear con avidez, noruego gana, mirar con ansia).

1. tr. Adquirir caudal o aumentarlo con cualquier género de comercio, industria o trabajo.

2. tr. Obtener un jornal o sueldo en un empleo o trabajo.

3. tr. Obtener lo que se disputa en un juego, batalla, oposición, pleito, etc. U. t. c. intr. Ganar al ajedrez

4. tr. Conquistar o tomar una plaza, ciudad, territorio o fuerte.

5. tr. Llegar al sitio o lugar que se pretende. Ganar la orilla, la cumbre

6. tr. Captar la voluntad de alguien. U. t. c. prnl.

7. tr. Lograr o adquirir algo. U. t. c. prnl. Ganar la honra, el favor, la inclinación, la gracia

8. tr. Aventajar, exceder a alguien en algo.

9. tr. Mar. Avanzar, acercándose a un objeto o a un rumbo determinados.

10. intr. Mejorar, medrar, prosperar.

a la, o al, gana gana.

1. locs. advs. Dicho de jugar a las damas: Por oposición al ganapierde, procurando ganar las piezas del contrario.

a la, o al, gana pierde.

1. locs. advs. Al ganapierde.

~ alguien de comer.

1. loc. verb. ganar el pan.

llevar, o tener, alguien las de ~.

1. locs. verbs. Disponer de medios sobrados para alcanzar un éxito.

gana.

(De or. inc.).

1. f. Deseo, apetito, voluntad de algo. U. t. en pl. con el mismo significado que en sing. Ganas DEcomer, DE dormir

mala ~.

1. f. desus. Indisposición, desazón, molestia.

abrir, o abrirse, las ~s de comer.

1. locs. verbs. Excitar el apetito.

con ~s.

1. loc. adv. coloq. En exceso, mucho. Es feo con ganas Llovía con ganas

darle a alguien la ~, o la real ~.

1. locs. verbs. coloq. Querer hacer algo con razón o sin ella.

darle a alguien ~s de algo.

1. loc. verb. Entrarle el deseo de hacerlo.

de buena ~.

1. loc. adv. Con gusto o voluntad.

de ~.

1. loc. adv. Con fuerza o ahínco.

2. loc. adv. de buena gana.

3. loc. adv. Ec. Sin motivo, por mero capricho.

de su ~.

1. loc. adv. desus. Voluntariamente, por sí mismo, espontáneamente.

de mala ~.

1. loc. adv. Con resistencia y fastidio.

hacer alguien lo que le da la ~.

1. loc. verb. coloq. Seguir el propio gusto o arbitrio sin atender a nada más.

quedarse alguien con las ~s.

1. loc. verb. Verse privado de algo en el momento en que iba a alcanzarlo.

tener alguien ~ de fiesta.

1. loc. verb. coloq. Incitar a otra persona a riña o pendencia.

tener alguien ~ de rasco.

1. loc. verb. coloq. desus. Hallarse, sentirse con ganas de jugar o retozar.

tenerle ~s a alguien.

1. loc. verb. coloq. Tenerle aversión.