Re: Pekkanen on Bastarnae

From: Torsten
Message: 67493
Date: 2011-05-06

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> I'll just remove the linchpin of this construction.
>
>  
> (Pekkanen):The Scythians bordering on the Thracian Crobyzi on the
> western coast of the Euxine Sea are also known from other sources.
> An important argument in support of the above assumption of their
> identity with the Bastarnae is that the elder Pliny in nat. 4, 80
> describes them as Scythae degeneres et a servis orti aut Trogodytae,
> although, as Müller points out,14 he has transferred them together
> with the Crobyzi,18 mentioned in nat. 4, 82, too far north. The
> identity of the Scythae degeneres . . . aut Trogodytae with the
> northern neighbours of the Crobyzi in Nic. 756 is based on the
> comparison of the following sources, quoted by Müller:
> Nic. 756 κροβύζων κα`ι σκυθων . . . ;
> Str. 7, 5, 12 κρόβυζοι κα`ι ο´ι τρωγλοδύται . . . ;
> Ptol. Geog. 3, 10, 4 τρωγλοδύται . . . κρόβυζοι.
> Since the neighbours of the Crobyzi are called alternately σκύθαι
> and τρωγλοδύται in these sources, their identity with the group
> called by Pliny Scythae . . . aut Trogodytae is in my opinion quite
> indisputable.
>
> ****GK: But the "Troglodytae" were not the only Scythians in Scythia
> Minor (on which see Strabo 7,4,5). More important were those
> mentioned by Pliny at 4,44: "namque Thracia altero latere a Pontico
> litore incipiens, ubi Hister amnis inmergitur, vel pulcherrimas in
> ea parte urbes habet, Histropolin Milesiorum, Tomos, Callatim, quae
> antea Cerbatis vocabatur, Heracleam. habuit et Bizonen terrae hiatu
> raptam; nunc habet Dionysopolim, Crunon antea dictam; adluit Zyras
> amnis. totum eum tractum Scythae Aroteres cognominati tenuere."
> These were a branch of the "agricultural Scythians" (Herodotus) also
> known as Aukhata, who held Scythia Minor for the Great Scythian
> Kings of Central Asia, and also for King Skilur who reigned at the
> time of Pseudo-Skumnos' composition ca. 133-116 BCE, and whose
> empire stretched from the Maeoti to the Crobyzi, and included the
> Bastarnians (cf.
http://www.pontos.dk/publications/papers-presented-orally/oral-files/Zay_neapolisscythia.htm.
> The "Troglodytae" were the underlings in this system. The "Scythae
> degeneres" of 4,80 were their kin, and I have discussed them in my
> posts on Farzoi. They were one of the transplanted populations which
> controlled the northern shores of the Danube for Farzoi in the 1rst
> c. CE, and had nothing to do with the Bastarnians. I wonder why P.
> did not mention that Dio Cassius (38.10.3) also mentions the
> "Bastarnian Scythians"?  In those days, Pliny's explanation applied:
> "Scytharum nomen usquequaque transiit in Sarmatas atque Germanos"
> (4,81).****


What linchpin is it you think you removed? I don't get it. Are you trying to say that the Scythians and Bastarnae in that part of Scythia Minor, ie. Dobrogea, didn't mix, that they stayed separate?


> I disagree with the identification of Sithones with
> Sidones/Bastarnians. Too far fetched.

With no reasoning why this is just a restatement of your belief that there was no mid-1st cent. BCE Bastarnian penetration of Przeworsk.


> And Tacitus' misogynist prejudices concerning the Sithones and
> Peucini are pretty transparent.

So?


BTW, if Bastarnae and Scythians mixed, as per Tacitus, and Scythians used inhumation, how can Bastarnae in the Poieneşti-Lukaševka have used cremation exclusively? What is your source on that?



Torsten