Part 11

Now this word _cateia_ may be a provincialism from the neighbourhood of Sarraste. It may also (amongst other things) be a true Teutonic word. From what follows it will appear that this latter view is at least as likely as any other. The commentators state that it is _vox Celtica_. That this is true may be seen from the following forms--Irish: _ga_, _spear_, _javelin_; _gaoth_, _ditto_, _a dart_; _goth_, _a spear_ (O'Reilly); _gaothadh_, _a javelin_; _gadh_, _spear_; _gai_, _ditto_; _crann gaidh_, _spear-shaft_ (Begly)--Cornish: _geu_, _gew_, _gu_, _gui_ = _lance_, _spear_, _javelin_, _shaft_ (Pryce)--Breton: _goas_, _goaff_ (Rostremer).

_The Cimbri_--_The Teutones._--Of either the Cimbri separately or of the Cimbri and Teutones collectively, being of Gallic origin, we have, in the way of direct evidence, the testimonies exhibited above, viz. of Sallust, Cicero, Cæsar, Diodorus. To this may be added that of Dion Cassius, who not only had access to the contemporary accounts which spoke of them as Gauls, but also was enabled to use them critically, being possessed of information concerning Germany as well as France.

Of Appian the whole evidence goes one way, viz. that the tribes in question were Gauls. His expressions are: πλεῖστον τι καὶ μαχιμώτατον--χρῆμα Κελτῶν εἰς τὴν Ἰταλίαν καὶ τὴν Γαλατίαν εἰσέβαλε. (iv. 2.) In his book on Illyria he states that the Celts and Cimbri, along with the Illyrian tribe of the Autariæ, had, previous to the battle against Marius, attacked Delphi and suffered for their impiety. (Ἰλλυρ. δ. 4.)

Quintilian may be considered to give us upon the subject the notions of two writers--Virgil, and either Cæsar or Crassus. In dealing, however, with the words of Quintilian, it will be seen that there are two assumptions. That either Cæsar or Crassus considered the Cimbri to be Gauls we infer from the following passage:--"Rarum est autem, ut oculis subjicere contingat (_sc._ vituperationem), ut fecit C. Julius, qui cum Helvio Manciæ sæpius obstrepenti sibi diceret, _jam ostendam, qualis sis_: isque plane instaret interrogatione, qualem se tandem ostensurus esset, digito demonstravit imaginem Galli in scuto Mariano Cimbrico pictam, cui Mancia tum simillimus est visus. Tabernæ autem erant circum Forum, ac scutum illud signi gratiâ positum." _Inst. Orat._ vi. 3. 38. Pliny tells the story of Crassus (39. 4.). Although in this passage the word upon which the argument turns has been written _galli_, and translated _cock_, the current interpretation is the one given above.--_Vid. not._ ed. Gesner.

In the same author is preserved the epigram of Virgil's called Catalecta, and commented on by Ausonius of Bordeaux. Here we learn that T. Annius _Cimber_ was a Gaul; whilst it is assumed that there was no other reason to believe that he was called _Cimber_ than that of his being descended from some slave or freedman of that nation:--"Non appareat affectatio, in quam mirifice Virgilius,

Corinthiorum amator iste verborum, Ille iste rhetor: namque quatenus totus Thucydides Britannus, Atticæ febres, _Tau_-Gallicum, _min-_, _al-_ spinæ male illisit. Ita omnia ista verba miscuit fratri.

Cimber hic fuit a quo fratrem necatum hoc Ciceronis dictum notatum est; _Germanum Cimber occidit_."--_Inst. Orat._ viii. 3. _cum not_.

Dic, quid significent Catalecta Maronis? in his _al-_ Celtarum posuit, sequitur non lucidius _tau-_, Et quod germano mistum male letiferum _min-_.--_Auson._

Undoubtedly the pronunciation here ridiculed is that of the Gauls, and it is just possible that in it is foreshadowed the curtailed form that the Latin tongue in general puts on in the present French. Again, the slave whose courage failed him when ordered to slay Caius Marius is called both a Gaul and a Cimbrian by Plutarch, as well as by Lucan. In the latter writer we have probably but a piece of rhetoric (_Pharsalia._ lib. ii.)

Amongst tribes undoubtedly Gallic the Nervii claimed descent from the Teutones and Cimbri. The passage of Tacitus that connects the Nervii with the _Germans_ connects them also with the Treveri. Now a well-known passage in St. Jerome tells us that the Treveri were Gauls:--Νέρβιοι ἠσαν δὲ Κίμβρων καὶ Τευτόνων ἀπόγονοι.--_Appian_, iv. 1. 4. "Treveri et Nervii circa adfectationem Germanicæ originis ultrò ambitiosi sunt, tamquam, per hanc gloriam sanguinis, a similitudine et inertiâ Gallorum separentur." _German._ 28. Finally, in the Life of Marius by Plutarch we have dialogues between the Cimbri and the Romans. Now a Gallic interpreter was probable, but not so a German one.

Such are the notices bearing upon the ethnography of the Cimbri. Others occur, especially amongst the poets; of these little or no use can be made, for a reason indicated above. Justin speaks of embassies between Mithridates and the Cimbri. Suetonius connects the Cimbri with the Gallic Senones; he is writing however about Germany, so that his evidence, slight as it is, is neutralized. Theories grounded upon the national name may be raised on both sides; _Cimbri_ may coincide with either the Germanic _kempa_ = _a warrior_ or _champion_, or with the Celtic _Cymry_ = _Cambrians_. Equally equivocal seem the arguments drawn from the descriptions either of their physical conformation or their manners. The silence of the Gothic traditions as to the Cimbri being Germanic, proves more in the way of negative evidence than the similar silence of the Celtic ones, since the Gothic legends are the most numerous and the most ancient. Besides this, they deal very especially with genealogies, national and individual. The name of Bojorix, a Cimbric king mentioned in _Epitome Liviana_ (lxvii.), is Celtic rather than Gothic, although in the latter dialects proper names ending in _-ric_, (_Alaric_, _Genseric_) frequently occur.

Measuring the evidence, which is in its character essentially cumulative, consisting of a number of details unimportant in themselves, but of value when taken in the mass, the balance seems to be in favour of the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones being Gauls rather than Germans, Celts rather than Goths.

An argument now forthcoming stands alone, inasmuch as it seems to prove two things at once, viz. not only the Celtic origin of the Cimbri, but, at the same time, their locality in the Chersonese. It is brought forward by Dr. Pritchard in his 'Physical History of Mankind,' and runs as follows:--(_a._) It is a statement of Pliny that the sea in their neighbourhood was called by the Cimbri _Morimarusa_, or the _dead sea_ = _mare mortuum_. (_b._) It is a fact that in Celtic Welsh _mor marwth_ = _mare mortuum_, _morimarusa_, _dead sea_. Hence the language of the Cimbric coast is to be considered as Celtic. Now the following facts invalidate this conclusion:--(1.) Putting aside the contradictions in Pliny's statement, the epithet _dead_ is inapplicable to either the German Ocean or the Baltic. (2.) Pliny's authority was a writer named Philemon: out of the numerous Philemons enumerated by Fabricius, it is likely that the one here adduced was a contemporary of Alexander the Great; and it is not probable that at that time glosses from the Baltic were known in the Mediterranean. (3.) The subject upon which this Philemon wrote was the Homeric Poems. This, taken along with the geography of the time, makes it highly probable that the original Greek was not Κίμβροι, but Κιμμέριοι; indeed we are not absolutely sure of Pliny having written _Cimbri_. (4.) As applied to Cimmerian sea the epithet _dead_ was applicable. (5.) The term _Morimarusa_ = _mare mortuum_, although good Celtic, is better Slavonic, since throughout that stock of languages, as in many other of the Indo-European tongues (the Celtic and Latin included), the roots _mor_ and _mori_ mean _sea_ and _dead_ respectively:--"Septemtrionalis Oceanus, Amalchium eum Hecatæus appellat, a Paropamiso amne, qua Scythiam alluit, quod nomen ejus gentis linguâ significat congelatum, Philemon _Morimarusam_ a Cimbris (qu. _Cimmeriis_) vocari scribit: hoc est _mare mortuum_ usque ad promontorium Rubeas, ultra deinde Cronium." (13.)

One point, however, still remains: it may be dealt with briefly, but it should not be wholly overlooked, viz. the question, whether over and above the theories as to the location of the Cimbri in the Cimbric Chersonese, there is reason to believe, on independent grounds, that Celtic tribes were the early inhabitants of the peninsula in question? If such were actually the case, all that has preceded would, up to a certain point, be invalidated. Now I know no sufficient reasons for believing such to be the case, although there are current in ethnography many insufficient ones.

1. In the way of Philology, it is undoubtedly true that words common to the Celtic tribes occur in the Danish of Jutland, and in the Frisian and Low German of Sleswick and Holstein; but there is no reason to consider that they belong to an aboriginal Celtic tribe. The _à priori_ probability of Celts in the peninsula involves hypotheses in ethnography which are, to say the least, far from being generally recognized. The evidence as to the language of aborigines derived from the significance of the names of old geographical localities is wanting for the Cimbric Chersonese.

2. No traditions, either Scandinavian or German, point towards an aboriginal Celtic population for the localities in question.

3. There are no satisfactory proofs of such in either Archæology or Natural History. A paper noticed by Dr. Pritchard of Professor Eschricht's upon certain Tumuli in Jutland states, that the earliest specimens of art (anterior to the discovery of metals), as well as the character of the tumuli themselves, have a Celtic character. He adds, however, that the character of the tumuli is as much Siberian as Celtic. The early specimens of art are undoubtedly like similar specimens found in England. It happens, however, that such things are in _all_ countries more or less alike. In Professor Siebold's museum at Leyden, stone-axes from tumuli in Japan and Jutland are laid side by side, for the sake of comparison, and between them there is no perceptible difference. The oldest skulls in these tumuli are said to be other than Gothic. They are, however, Finnic rather than Celtic.

4. The statement in Tacitus (_German._ 44.), that a nation on the Baltic called the Æstii spoke a language somewhat akin to the British, cannot be considered as conclusive to the existence of Celts in the North of Germany. Any language, not German, would probably so be denoted. Such might exist in the mother-tongue of either the Lithuanic or the Esthonian.

It is considered that in the foregoing pages the following propositions are either proved or involved:--1. That the Cimbri conquered by Marius came from either Gaul or Switzerland, and that they were Celts. 2. That the Teutones and Ambrones were equally Celtic with the Cimbri. 3. That no nation north of the Elbe was known to Republican Rome. 4. That there is no evidence of Celtic tribes ever having existed north of the Elbe. 5. That the epithet _Cimbrica_ applied to the Chersonesus proves nothing more in respect to the inhabitants of that locality than is proved by words like _West Indian_ and _North-American Indian_. 6. That in the word _cateia_ we are in possession of a new Celtic gloss. 7. That in the term _Morimarusa_ we are in possession of a gloss at once Cimmerian and Slavonic. 8. That for any positive theory as to the Cimbro-Teutonic league we have at present no data, but that the hypothesis that would reconcile the greatest variety of statements would run thus: viz. that an organized Celtic confederation conterminous with the Belgæ, the Ligurians, and the Helvetians descended with its eastern divisions upon Noricum, and with its western ones upon Provence.

ADDENDA.

JANUARY 1859.

(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.