(1)
In this paper the notice of the Monumentum Ancyranum is omitted. It is
CIMBRIQVE ET CHRIIDES ET SEMNONES ET EJVSDEM TRACTVS ALII GERMANORVM
POPVLI PER LEGATOS AMICITIAM MEAM ET POPVLI ROMANI PETIERVNT. This
seems to connect itself with Strabo's notice. It may also connect
itself with that of Tacitus. Assuming the CHARIIDES to be the Harudes,
and the Harudes to be the Cherusci (a doctrine for which I have given
reasons in my edition of the Germania) the position of the Cimbri in
the text of Tacitus is very nearly that of them in the Inscription. In
the inscription, the order is Cimbri, Harudes, Semnones; in Tacitus,
Cherusci, Cimbri, Semnones. In both cases the 3 names are associated.
(2)
I would now modify the proposition with which the preceding
dissertation concludes, continuing, however, to hold the main doctrine
of the text, viz. the fact of the Cimbri having been unknown in respect
to their name and locality and, so, having been pushed northwards, and
more northwards still, as fresh areas were explored without supplying
an undoubted and unequivocal origin for them.
I think that the Ambrones, the Tigurini, and the Teutones were Gauls of
Helvetia, and South Eastern Gallia, and that the alliance between them
and the Cimbri (assuming it to be real) is _primâ facie_ evidence of
the latter being Galli also. But it is no more.
That the Cimbri were the Eastern members of the confederation seems
certain. More than one notice connects them with Noricum. _Here_ they
may have been native. They may also have been intrusive.
Holding that the greater part of Noricum was Slavonic, and that almost
all the country along its northern and eastern frontier was the same,
I see my way to the Cimbri having been Slavonic also. That they were
Germans is out of the question. Gauls could hardly have been so unknown
and mysterious to the Romans. Gaul they knew well, and Germany
sufficiently--yet no where did they find Cimbri.
The evidence of Posidonius favours this view. "He" writes Strabo
"does not unreasonably conceive that these Cimbri being predatory and
wandering might carry their expeditions as far as the Mæotis, and
that the Bosporus might, from them, take its name of _Cimmerian_, i.
e. _Cimbrian_, the Greeks calling the _Cimbri Cimmerii_. He says that
the Boii originally inhabited the Hercynian Forest, that the Cimbri
attacked them, that they were repulsed, that they then descended on
the Danube, and the country of the Scordisci who are Galatæ; thence
upon the Taurisci," who "are also Galatæ, then upon the Helvetians
&c."--_Strabo._ 7, p. 293.
For a fuller explanation of the doctrine which makes the Cimbri
possible Slavonians see my Edition of Prichard's origin of the Celtic
nations--_Supplementary Chapter--Ambrones, Tigurini, Teutones, Boii,
Slavonic hypothesis_ &c.
ON THE ORIGINAL EXTENT OF THE
SLAVONIC AREA.
READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
FEBRUARY 8, 1850.
The current opinion, that a great portion of the area now occupied
by Slavonians, and a still greater portion so occupied in the ninth
and tenth centuries, were, in the times of Cæsar and Tacitus, either
German, or something other than what it is found to be at the beginning
of the period of authentic and contemporary history, has appeared
so unsatisfactory to the present writer, that he has been induced
to consider the evidence on which it rests. What (for instance) are
the grounds for believing that, in the _first_ century, Bohemia was
not just as Slavonic as it is now? What the arguments in favour of a
Germanic population between the Elbe and Vistula in the _second_?
The fact that, at the very earliest period when any definite and
detailed knowledge of either of the parts in question commences, both
are as little German as the Ukraine is at the present moment, is one
which no one denies. How many, however, will agree with the present
writer in the value to be attributed to it, is another question. For
his own part, he takes the existence of a given division of the human
race (whether Celtic, Slavonic, Gothic or aught else) on a given area,
as a sufficient reason for considering it to have been indigenous or
aboriginal to that area, _until reasons be shown to the contrary_.
Gratuitous as this postulate may seem in the first instance, it is
nothing more than the legitimate deduction from the rule in reasoning
which forbids us to multiply causes unnecessarily. Displacements
therefore, conquests, migrations, and the other disturbing causes
are not to be assumed, merely for the sake of accounting for assumed
changes, but to be supported by specific evidence; which evidence, in
its turn, must have a ratio to the probability or the improbability of
the disturbing causes alleged. These positions seem so self-evident,
that it is only by comparing the amount of improbabilities which are
accepted with the insufficiency of the testimony on which they rest,
that we ascertain, from the extent to which they have been neglected,
the necessity of insisting upon them.
The ethnological condition of a given population at a certain time
is _primâ facie_ evidence of a similar ethnological condition at
a previous one. The testimony of a writer as to the ethnological
condition of a given population at a certain time is also _primâ facie_
evidence of such a condition being a real one; since even the worst
authorities are to be considered correct until reasons are shown for
doubting them.
It now remains to see how far these two methods are concordant or
antagonistic for the area in question; all that is assumed being, that
when we find even a good writer asserting that at one period (say the
third century) a certain locality was German, whereas we know that
at a subsequent one (say the tenth) it was other than German, it is
no improper scepticism to ask, whether it is more likely that the
writer was mistaken, or that changes have occurred in the interval; in
other words, if error on the one side is not to be lightly assumed,
neither are migrations, &c. on the other. Both are likely, or unlikely,
according to the particular case in point. It is more probable that
an habitually conquering nation should have displaced an habitually
conquered one, than that a bad writer should be wrong. It is more
likely that a good writer should be wrong than that an habitually
conquered nation should have displaced an habitually conquering one.
The application of criticism of this sort materially alters the
relations of the Celtic, Gothic, Roman and Slavonic populations, giving
to the latter a prominence in the ancient world much more proportionate
to their present preponderance as a European population than is usually
admitted.
Beginning with the south-western frontier of the present Slavonians,
let us ask what are the reasons against supposing the population of
Bohemia to have been in the time of Cæsar other than what it is now,
_i. e._ Slavonic.
In the first place, if it were not so, it must have changed within the
historical period. If so, when? No writer has ever grappled with the
details of the question. It could scarcely have been subsequent to the
development of the Germanic power on the Danube, since this would be
within the period of annalists and historians, who would have mentioned
it. As little is it likely to have been during the time when the Goths
and Germans, victorious everywhere, were displacing others rather than
being displaced themselves.
The evidence of the language is in the same direction. Whence could
it have been introduced? Not from the Saxon frontier, since there the
Slavonic is Polish rather than Bohemian. Still less from the Silesian,
and least of all from the Bavarian. To have developed its differential
characteristics, it must have had either Bohemia itself as an original
locality, or else the parts south and east of it.
We will now take what is either an undoubted Slavonic locality, or
a locality in the neighbourhood of Slavonians, _i. e._ the country
between the rivers Danube and Theiss and that range of hills which
connect the Bakonyer-wald with the Carpathians, the country of the
_Jazyges_. Now as _Jazyg_ is a Slavonic word, meaning _speech_ or
_language_, we have, over and above the external evidence which makes
the Jazyges Sarmatian, internal evidence as well; evidence subject only
to one exception, viz. that perhaps the name in question was not native
to the population which it designated, but only a term applied by some
Slavonic tribe to some of their neighbours who might or might not be
Slavonic. I admit that this is possible, although the name is not of
the kind that would be given by one tribe to another different from
itself. Admitting, however, this, it still leaves a Slavonic population
in the contiguous districts; since, whether borne by the people to whom
it was applied or not, _Jazyg_ is a Slavonic gloss from the Valley of
the Tibiscus.
Next comes the question as to the _date_ of this population. To put
this in the form least favourable to the views of the present writer,
is to state that the first author who mentions a population in these
parts, either called by others or calling itself _Jazyges_, is a writer
so late as Ptolemy, and that he adds to it the qualifying epithet
_Metanastæ_ (Μετανάσται), a term suggestive of their removal from some
other area, and of the recent character of their arrival on the Danube.
Giving full value to all this, there still remains the fact of primary
importance in all our investigations on the subject in question, viz.
that in the time of Ptolemy (at least) there were Slavonians on (or
near) the river Theiss.
At present it is sufficient to say that there are no _à priori_ reasons
for considering these Jazyges as the most western of the branch to
which they belonged, since the whole of the Pannonians may as easily be
considered Slavonic as aught else. They were not Germans. They were not
Celts; in which case the common rules of ethnological criticism induce
us to consider them as belonging to the same class with the population
conterminous to them; since unless we do this, we must assume a new
division of the human species altogether; a fact, which, though
possible, and even probable, is not lightly to be taken up.
So much for the _à priori_ probabilities: the known facts by no means
traverse them. The Pannonians, we learn from Dio, were of the same
class with the Illyrians, _i. e._ the northern tribes of that nation.
These must have belonged to one of three divisions; the Slavonic, the
Albanian, or some division now lost. Of these, the latter is not to be
assumed, and the first is more probable than the second. Indeed, the
more we make the Pannonians and Illyrians other than Slavonic, the more
do we isolate the _Jazyges_; and the more we isolate these, the more
difficulties we create in a question otherwise simple.
That the portion of Pannonia to the north of the Danube (_i. e._ the
north-west portion of Hungary, or the valley of the Waag and Gran)
was different from the country around the lake Peiso (Pelso), is a
position, which can only be upheld by considering it to be the country
of the Quadi, and the Quadi to have been Germanic;--a view, against
which there are numerous objections.
Now, here re-appears the term Daci; so that we must recognise the
important fact, that east of the _Jazyges_ there are the Dacians (and
Getæ) of the Lower, and west of the _Jazyges_ the Daci of the Upper
Danube. These must be placed in the same category, both being equally
either Slavonic or non-Slavonic.
_a._ Of these alternatives, the first involves the following real or
apparent difficulty, _i. e._ that, if the Getæ are what the Daci are,
the Thracians are what the Getæ are. Hence, if all three be Slavonic,
we magnify the area immensely, and bring the Slavonians of Thrace
in contact with the Greeks of Macedonia. Granted. But are there any
reasons against this? So far from there being any such in the nature of
the thing itself, it is no more than what is actually the case at the
present moment.
_b._ The latter alternative isolates the _Jazyges_, and adds to
the difficulties created by their ethnological position, under the
supposition that they are the only Slavonians of the parts in question;
since if out-lyers to the area (_exceptional_, so to say), they must
be either invaders from without, or else relics of an earlier and
more extended population. If they be the former, we can only bring
them from the north of the Carpathian mountains (a fact not in itself
improbable, but not to be assumed, except for the sake of avoiding
greater difficulties); if the latter, they prove the original Slavonic
character of the area.
The present writer considers the Daci then (western and eastern) as
Slavonic, and the following passage brings them as far west as the
_Maros_ or _Morawe_, which gives the name to the present Moravians, a
population at once Slavonic and Bohemian:--"Campos et plana Jazyges
Sarmatæ, montes vero et saltus pulsi ab his Daci ad Pathissum amnem a
Maro sive Duria ... tenent."--_Plin._ iv. 12.
The evidence as to the population of Moravia and North-eastern Hungary
being Dacian, is Strabo's Γέγονε ... τῆς χόρας μερισμὸς συμμένων
παλαιοῦ· τοὺς μὲν γὰρ Δάκους προσαγορεύουσι, τοὺς δὲ Γέτας, Γέτας
μὲν πρὸς τὸν Πόντον κεκλιμένους, καὶ πρὸς τὲν ἕω, Δάκους δὲ τοὺς εἰς
τἀνάντια πρὸς Γερμανίαν καὶ τὰς τοῦ Ἴστρου πήγας.--From Zeuss, in _vv.
Getæ, Daci_.
In Moravia we have as the basis of argument, an _existing_ Slavonic
population, speaking a language identical with the Bohemian, but
different from the other Slavonic languages, and (as such) requiring a
considerable period for the evolution of its differential characters.
This brings us to Bohemia. At present it is Slavonic. When did it
begin to be otherwise? No one informs us on this point. Why should
it not have been so _ab initio_, or at least at the beginning of the
historical period for these parts? The necessity of an answer to this
question is admitted; and it consists chiefly (if not wholly) in the
following arguments;--_a._ those connected with the term _Marcomanni_;
_b._ those connected with the term _Boiohemum_.
_a._ _Marcomanni._--This word is so truly Germanic, and so truly
capable of being translated into English, that those who believe
in no other etymology whatever may believe that _Marc-o-manni_, or
_Marchmen_, means the _men of the (boundaries) marches_; and without
overlooking either the remarks of Mr. Kemble on the limited nature of
the word _mearc_, when applied to the smaller divisions of land, or
the doctrine of Grimm, that its primary signification is _wood_ or
_forest_, it would be an over-refinement to adopt any other meaning
for it in the present question than that which it has in its undoubted
combinations, _Markgrave_, _Altmark_, _Mittelmark_, _Ukermark_, and the
_Marches of Wales and Scotland_. If so, it was the name of a line of
_enclosing frontier_ rather than of an _area enclosed_; so that to call
a country like the _whole_ of Bohemia, _Marcomannic_, would be like
calling _all_ Scotland or _all_ Wales _the Marches_.
Again, as the name arose on the western, Germanic or Gallic side of the
_March_, it must have been the name of an _eastern_ frontier in respect
to Gaul and Germany; so that to suppose that there were Germans on the
Bohemian line of the _Marcomanni_, is to suppose that the _march_ was
no _mark_ (or boundary) at all, at least in an _ethnological_ sense.
This qualification involves a difficulty which the writer has no wish
to conceal; a _march_ may be other than an _ethnological_ division. It
may be a _political_ one. In other words, it may be like the Scottish
Border, rather than like the Welsh and the Slavono-Germanic marches
of Altmark, Mittelmark and Ukermark. At any rate, the necessity for a
_march_ being a line of frontier rather than a large compact kingdom,
is conclusive against the whole of Bohemia having been Germanic
_because it was Marcomannic_.
_b._ The arguments founded on the name _Boiohemum_ are best met by
showing that the so-called _country (home) of the Boii_ was not
_Bohemia_ but _Bavaria_. This will be better done in the sequel than
now. At present, however, it may be as well to state that so strong are
the facts in favour of _Boiohemum_ and _Baiovarii_ meaning, not the one
Bohemia and the other Bavaria, but _one of the two countries_, that
Zeuss, one of the strongest supporters of the doctrine of an originally
Germanic population in Bohemia, applies both of them to the firstnamed
kingdom; a circumstance which prepares us for expecting, that if the
names fit the countries to which they apply thus loosely, _Boiohemum_
may as easily be _Bavaria_, as the country of the _Baiovarii_ be
_Bohemia_; in other words, that we have a _convertible form_ of
argument.