Re: The complexities of Bastarnia

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
> > 1. Re (a) Strabo's account (7,3,17) is almost certainly drawn from
> > a source which discussed the Bastarnae of Mithradates' time frame
> > (i.e. first half of the 1rst c. BCE), since he admits he has no
> > recent knowledge of them.
>
> I can't find that?
>
>  Strabo 7,2,4:  what is beyond Germany and what beyond the
> countries which are next after Germany â€" whether one should say
> the Bastarnae, as most writers suspect, or say that others lie in
> between, either the Iazyges, or the Roxolani,47 or certain other of
> the wagon-dwellers48 â€" it is not easy to say; nor yet whether they
> extend as far as the ocean along its entire length, or whether any
> part is uninhabitable by reason of the cold or other cause, or
> whether even a different race of people, succeeding the Germans, is
> situated between the sea and the eastern Germans. And this same
> ignorance prevails also in regard to the rest of the peoples that
> come next in order on the north; for I know neither the
> Bastarnae,49 nor the Sauromatae, nor, in a word, any of the peoples
> who dwell above the Pontus, nor how far distant they are from the
> Atlantic Sea,50 nor whether their countries border upon it.

He says he has no knowledge of the Bastarnae, not that he has no recent knowledge of them. Your 'almost certainly' is unwarranted.

****GK: He would have knowledge of those "border" Bastarnae who actively interacted with the Romans in Augustan times, i.e. the Peucini (since he is obviously familiar, in other contexts, of recent political events pertinent to the interests of the Empire. But his knowledge of the more northern Bastarnae, neighbours of the Roxolani, would be limited to more dated source material. Which is not surprising, given the catastrophic events which befell Bastarnia during and after the Burebista whirlwind of the period ca. 60-44 BCE.*****