Re: The complexities of Bastarnia i

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

>
>
>
>
> (GK)
> > The Peucini might, however, be an exception to this (after all
> > they were a border people for areas of Roman interests), and so
> > his tentative mention of the B. as within the "Germanic" fold
> > might refer to that particular group. This would then be in line
> > with (a)-type documentation from the 1rst c. CE (Pliny and
> > Tacitus). But Strabo's information about the Bastarnae of the
> > "interior" would be, possibly, less certain for his time.
>
> Strabo 7, 3, 17
> 'In the interior dwell, first, those Bastarnians whose country
> borders on that of the Tyregetans and Germans â€" they also being,
> one might say, of Germanic stock; and they are divided up into
> several tribes, for a part of them are called Atmoni and Sidoni,
> while those who took possession of Peuce, the island in the Ister,
> are called "Peucini," whereas the "Roxolani" (the most northerly of
> them all) roam the plains between the Tanaïs and the Borysthenes.'
>
> I find your interpretation of Strabo strained. Peucini Germanic,
> Atmoni and Sidoni not? I'm not convinced.
>  
> ****GK: Strabo is not even sure whether the Roxolani are (or not)
> "Germanic".

So?

> All this quite in line with his comments in 7,2,4.

In which he says he knows nothing of them.

> Plus the minor complication of what he actually meant by "Germanic":
> (7,1,2: the Germans, who, though they vary slightly from the Celtic
> stock in that they are wilder, taller, and have yellower hair, are
> in all other respects similar, for in build, habits, and modes of
> life they are such as I have said the Celti are. And I also think
> that it was for this reason that the Romans assigned to them the
> name "Germani," as though they wished to indicate thereby that they
> were "genuine" Galatae, for in the language of the Romans "germani"
> means "genuine.")

Okay.

> What I am saying is that Strabo had a better case
> about the Peucini being fundamentally Germanic in his time (early
> 1rst c. CE) than about the other Bastarnian groups, about which his
> information was opaque and possibly out of date.

There is nothing in what you cite which distinguishes the reliability of Strabo's information of the Atmoni and Sidones being Germanic from that of his information of the Peucini being Germanic.

> Lots of things had occurred in Bastarnia since
> the time of Mithradates, not least the disappearance of the
> Poeneshti-Lukashovka people of the "interior".

Yes, but you haven't shown or even made probable that Strabo's information on the Atmoni and Sidones dated from Mithridates' time.

> As for the Atmoni and Sidones of ca. 80 BCE, we have to decide (a)
> whether they were the Poeneshti-Lukashovka groups or (b) the
> Zarubinian groups or (c) some or all of either. And take our cues
> from additional indicators, as I have done.*****

Didn't you say there were three archaeological groups? So...


Torsten