_Sa_-ra = _I_. _Ha_-ra = _we_.
_Wa_-ra = _thou_. _S'a_-ra = _ye_.
_Ui_ = _he_. _U_-bart = _they_.
The amount of likeness here is considerable. Over and above the use
of _s_ for the first person singular, the _s'_ in the second person
plural should be noticed. So should the _b_ and _r_ in the Circassian
u-_b_a_rt_; both of which are plural elements in the Tushi also.
Finally (as a point of general philology), the double forms of the
Tushi plurals _wai_ and _ṭxo_ suggest the likelihood of their being
exclusive and inclusive; one denoting the speaker but not the person
spoken to, the other both the person spoken to and the person who
speaks; plurals of this kind being well known to be common in many of
the ruder languages.
ON THE NAME AND NATION OF THE DACIAN
KING DECEBALUS, WITH NOTICES
OF THE AGATHYRSI AND ALANI.
READ
BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
APRIL 17TH 1854.
The text of Herodotus places the Agathyrsi in Transylvania (there
or thereabouts). (See F. W. Newman On Scythia and the surrounding
Countries, according to Herodotus, Philological Society's Proceedings,
vol. i. p. 77.)
The subsequent authors speak of them as a people who painted
(tattooed?) their bodies; the usual epithet being _picti_.
The same epithet is applied to the _Geloni_; also a population of the
Scythia of Herodotus.
For accurate knowledge the locality of the Agathyrsans was too
remote--too remote until, at least, the date of the Dacian wars; but
the Dacian wars are, themselves, eminently imperfect in their details,
and unsatisfactory in respect to the authorities for them.
There is every reason, then, for a nation in the locality of the
Agathyrsi remaining obscure--in the same predicament (say) with the
Hyperborei, or with the occupants of Thule.
But there is no reason for supposing the obliteration of the people so
called; nor yet for supposing a loss of its name, whether native or
otherwise.
Hence, when we get the details of Dacia we may reasonably look out for
Agathyrsi.
How far must we expect to find their name unmodified? This depends
upon the population through whom the classical writers, whether Latin
or Greek, derived it. Now it is submitted, that if we find a notice
of them in the fifth century A. D., and that in an account relating
to Dacia and Pannonia, the _medium_ has, probably, been different
from that through which Herodotus, amongst the Greek colonies of the
Black Sea, obtained _his_ accounts. The details of this difference
of _medium_ are not very important, and the discussion of them would
be episodical to the present paper, if not irrelevant. It is enough
to remark, that a difference of _medium_ is probable; and, as a
consequence thereof, a difference in the form of the name.
This is preliminary and introductory to the notice of the following
passage of Priscus, to whom we owe the account of one of the embassies
to Attila--Ὁ πρεσβύτερος ἧρχε τῶν Ἀκατζίρων καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν ἐθνῶν
νεμομένων τὴν πρὸς τὸν Πόντον Σκυθικέν. They are specially called
_Akatiri Hunni_. Jornandes' form is _Acatziri_.
Place for place, this gives us the Agathyrsi of Herodotus as near as
can be expected; and, name for name it does the same: the inference
being that the _Akatziri_ of Priscus are the descendants of the
_Agathyrsi_ of Herodotus. Of course, evidence of any kind to the
migration, extinction, or change of name on the part of the population
in question would invalidate this view. Such evidence, however, has not
been produced, nor has the present writer succeeded in finding, though
he has sought for it.
Descendants then of the _Agathyrsi_, and ancestors of the _Akatziri_
may have formed part of the population of Dacia when Domitian and
Trajan fought against Decebalus; a part that may have been large
or small, weak or powerful, homogeneous with the rest of Dacia or
different from it. Assuming it to have been different, it may still
have supplied soldiers--even leaders. Decebalus himself may as easily
have belonged to the Agathyrsan part of Dacia as to any other. A very
little evidence will turn the balance in so obscure a point as the
present.
Now, no German and no Slavonic dialects give us either the meaning of
the name Decebalus or any name like it. It stands alone in _European_
history. Where does it appear? In the history of the _Turks_. The first
known king of the Turks bears the same name as the last of the Dacians.
_Dizabulus_ (Διζαβούλος) was that khan of the Turks of Tartary to whom
Justinian sent an embassy when the Avars invaded the Eastern empire.
This (as is freely admitted) is a small fact, if taken alone; but
this should not be done. The _cumulative_ character of the evidence
in all matters of this kind should be borne in mind, and the value of
small facts measured by the extent to which they stand alone, or are
strengthened by the coincidence of others. In the latter case they
assume importance in proportion to the mutual support they give each
other; the value of any two being always more than double that of
either taken singly.
On the other hand, each must rest on some separate substantive evidence
of its own. To say that _Decebalus was an Agathyrsan because the
Agathyrsans were Turks_, and that the _Agathyrsans were Turks because
Decebalus was one of them_, is illegitimate. There must be some special
evidence in each case, little or much.
Now the evidence that the _Agathyrsi_ were Turks lies in the extent to
which (_a_) they were Scythians (_Skoloti_), and (_b_) the Scythians
(_Skoloti_) were Turks;--neither of which facts is either universally
admitted or universally denied. The present writer, however, holds
the Turk character of the Agathyrsi on grounds wholly independent
of anything in the present paper; indeed, the suggestion that the
_Acatziri_ are _Agathyrsi_ is, not his, but Zeuss'.--(See _Die
Deutschen and die Nachbarstämme, v. Bulgari_, p. 714.)
If _Agathyrs-_ be _Akatzir-_ in some older, what is the latter word
in any newer form?--for such there probably is. Word for word, it is
probably the same as _Khazar_, a denomination for an undoubtedly Turk
tribe which occurs for the first time in Theophanes:--Τοῦρκοι ἀπὸ τῆς
ἐώας οὓς Χαζάρους ὀνομάζουσιν. This is A. D. 626. Whether, however,
the same populations were denoted is uncertain. There are certain
difficulties in the supposition that they were absolutely identical.
It is not, however, necessary that they should be so. There might
be more than one division of a great stock, like the Turk so
called. Nay, they might have been populations other than Turk so
designated, provided only that there were some Turk population in
their neighbourhood so to call them. More than this. The word may be
current at the present moment, though, of course, in a modified form.
Suppose it to have been the Turk translation of _pictus_; or rather,
suppose the word _pictus_ to be the Latin translation of _Agathyrs-_
(_Akatzir-_): what would the probable consequence be? Even this,
that wherever there was a _painted_ (or _tattooed_) population in
the neighbourhood of any member of the great Turk stock, the name,
or something like it, might arise. Be it so. If the members of the
same Turk stock lay wide apart, the corresponding painted or tattooed
populations lying wide apart also might take the same name.
The details suggested by this line of criticism may form the
subject of another paper. In the present, the author hazards a fresh
observation--an observation on a population often associated with
the Agathyrsi, viz. the _Geloni_. Seeing that we have such forms as
_Unni_ (the Greek form is Οὖννοι, not Οὗννοι) and _Chuni_ ( = _Huns_);
_Arpi_ and _Carpi_; _Attuarii_ and _Chattuari_, &c.; and seeing the
affinity between the sounds of _g_ and _k_; he believes that the
word _Geloni_ may take another form and begin with a vowel (_Elôni_,
_Alôni_). Seeing that their locality is nearly that of the _Alani_
of a latter period; seeing that the middle syllable in Alani (in one
writer at least) is long--ἀλκήεντες Ἀλαῦνοι; seeing that Herodotus,
who mentions the _Geloni_, knows no Alani, whereas the authors who
describe the Alani make (with one exception about to be noticed) no
mention of the Geloni, he identifies the two populations, Geloni and
Alani, or _vice versâ_. He deduces something more from this root _l--n_
(λ--ν). Let the name for the Alans have reached the Greeks of the
Euxine through two different dialects of some interjacent language; let
the form it took in Greek have been parisyllabic in one case, whereas
it was imparisyllabic in the other, and we have two plurals, one in
-οι, as Γέλωνοι, Ἄλαυνοι, Ἄλανοι, and another in -ες, as Γέλωνες,
Ἄλαυνες, Ἄλανες,--possible, and even probable, modifications of the
original name, whatever that was. Now, name for name, Αλανες comes very
near Ελληνες; and in this similarity may lie the explanation of the
statement of Herodotus as to the existence of certain _Scythian Greeks_
(ἑλληνες Σκυθαι)--iv. 17. 108.
If so these _Scythian Greeks_ were _Alans_.
The exception, indicated a few lines above, to the fact of only one
author mentioning both _Geloni_ and _Alani_, is to be found in Ammianus
Marcellinus (xxxi. 2. 13. 14). The passage is too long to quote. It
is clear, however, that whilst his _Alani_ are spoken of from his own
knowledge, his _Geloni_ are brought in from his book-learning, _i. e._
from Herodotus.