Part 14

The four islands of Sealand, Laaland, Moen, and Falster formed the ancient _Vithesleth_. This division is of considerable import; since the true country of _Dan_, the eponymus of the _Danes_, was not Jutland, nor yet Skaane, nor yet Fyen. It was the Four Islands of the Vithesleth:--"Dan--rex primo super Sialandiam, Monam, Falstriam, et Lalandiam, cujus regnum dicebatur _Vithesleth_. Deinde super alias provincias et insulas et totum regnum."--Petri Olai Chron. Regum Daniæ. Also, "Vidit autem Dan regionem suam, super quam regnavit, Jutiam, Fioniam, _Withesleth_, Scaniam quod esset bona."--Annal. Esrom. p. 224.

That the Swedes and Norwegians are the newest Scandinavians and that certain Ugrians were the oldest, is undoubted. But it by no means follows that the succession was simple. Between the first and last there may have been any amount of intercalations. Was this the case? My own opinion is, that the first encroachments upon the originally Ugrian area of Scandinavia were not from the south-west, but from the south-east, not from Hanover but from Prussia and Courland, not German but Lithuanic, and (as a practical proof of the inconvenience of the present nomenclature) although not German, _Gothic_.

Whether these encroachments were wholly Lithuanic, rather than Slavonic as well, is doubtful. When the archæology of Scandinavia is read aright, _i. e._ without a German prepossession, the evidence of a second population will become clear. This however, is a detail.

The Gothic historian Jornandes, deduces the Goths of the Danube first from the southern coasts of the Baltic, and ultimately from Scandinavia. I think, however, that whoever reads his notices will be satisfied that he has fallen into the same confusion in respect to the Germans of the Lower Danube and the Getæ whose country they settled in, as an English writer would do who should adapt the legends of Geoffrey of Monmouth respecting the British kings to the genealogies of Ecbert and Alfred or to the origin of the warriors under Hengist. The legends of the soil and the legends of its invaders have been mixed together.

Nor is such confusion unnatural. The real facts before the historian were remarkable. There were Goths on the Lower Danube, Germanic in blood, and known by the same name as the older inhabitants of the country. There were Gothones, or Guttones, in the Baltic, the essential part of whose name was _Goth-_; the _-n-_ being, probably, and almost certainly, an inflexion.

Thirdly, there were Goths in Scandinavia, and Goths in an intermediate island of the Baltic. With such a series of _Goth_-lands, the single error of mistaking the old _Getic_ legends for those of the more recent Germans (now called _Goths_), would easily engender others; and the most distant of the three Gothic areas would naturally pass for being the oldest also. Hence, the deduction of the Goths of the Danube from the Scandinavian Gothland.

ON THE JAPODES AND GEPIDÆ

READ BEFORE THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY, JANUARY 15TH 1857.

Of the nations whose movements are connected with the decline and fall of the Roman empire, though several are more important than the _Gepidæ_, few are of a greater interest. This is because the question of their ethnological relations is more obscure than that of any other similar population of equal historical prominence. How far they were Goths rather than Vandals, or Vandals rather than Goths, how far they were neither one nor the other, has scarcely been investigated. Neither has their origin been determined. Nor have the details of their movements been ascertained. That the current account, as it stands in the pages of Jornandes Diaconus, is anything but unexceptionable, will be shown in the present paper. It is this account, however, which has been adopted by the majority of inquirers.

The results to which the present writer commits himself are widely different from those of his predecessors; he believes them, however, to be of the most ordinary and commonplace character. Why, then, have they not been attained long ago? Because certain statements, to a contrary effect, being taken up without a due amount of preliminary criticism, have directed the views of historians and ethnologists towards a wrong point.

These, however, for the present will be ignored, and nothing, in the first instance, will be attended to but the primary facts upon which the argument, in its simplest form, depends. These being adduced, the ordinary interpretation of them will be suggested; after which, the extent to which it is modified by the statements upon which the current doctrines are founded will be investigated.

If we turn to Strabo's account of the parts on the north-eastern side of the Adriatic, the occupancies of the numerous tribes of the Roman province of Illyricum, we shall find that no slight prominence is given to the population called Ἰάποδες. They join the Carni. The Culpa (Κολαπις) flows through their land. They stretch along the coast to the river Tedanius; Senia is their chief town. The Moentini, the Avendeatæ, the Auripini, are their chief tribes. Vendos (Avendo) is one of their occupancies. Such are the notices of Strabo, Ptolemy, Appian, and Pliny; Pliny's form of the word being Japydes.

The Iapodes, then, or Japydes, of the authors in question, are neither an obscure nor an inconsiderable nation. They extend along the sea-coast of the Adriatic. They occupy the valley of the Culpa. They are Illyrian, but conterminous with Pannonia.

As Pliny seems to have taken his name from Strabo, the authors just quoted may all be called Greek. With the latest of them we lose the forms Ἰάποδες or Japydes.

As the Roman empire declines and its writers become less and less classical, their geographical records become less systematic and more fragmentary; and it is not till we get to the times of Probus and Maximian that we find any name approaching Ἰάποδες. Probus, however, plants a colony of _Gepidæ_ within the empire (_Vopiscus, Vit. Pub._ c. 18). The Tervings also fight against the Vandals and Gipedes (_Mamertinus in Genethl. Max._ c. 17). Sidonius makes the fierce Gepida (_Gepida trux_) a portion of the army of Attila. Finally, we have the Gepidæ, the Lombards, and the Avars, as the three most prominent populations of the sixth century.

The Gepid locality in the fifth century is the parts about Sirmium and Singidunum--Alt Schabacz and Belgrade--within the limits of Pannonia, and beyond those of Illyricum, _i. e._ a little to the north of the occupancy of the Iapodes and Japydes of Strabo and Pliny.

There is, then, a little difference in name between Japydes and Gepidæ, and a little difference in locality between the Gepids and Iapodes. I ask, however, whether this is sufficient to raise any doubt as to the identity of the two words? Whether the populations they denoted were the same is another matter. I only submit that, word for word, _Japyd_ and _Gepid_ are one. Yet they have never been considered so. On the contrary, the obscure history of the Japydes is generally made to end with Ptolemy; the more brilliant one of the Gepidæ to begin with Vopiscus. This may be seen in Gibbon, in Zeuss, or in any author whatever who notices either, or both, of the two populations.

There is a reason for this; it does not, however, lie in the difference of name. Wider ones than this are overlooked by even the most cautious of investigators. Indeed, the acknowledged and known varieties of the word Gepidæ itself, are far more divergent from each other than _Gepidæ_ is from _Japydes_. Thus Gypides, Γήπαιδες, Γετίπαιδες, are all admitted varieties,--varieties that no one has objected to.

Nor yet does the reason for thus ignoring the connexion between _Gepidæ_ and _Japydes_ lie in the difference of their respective localities. For a period of conquests and invasions, the intrusion of a population from the north of Illyricum to the south of Pannonia is a mere trifle in the eye of the ordinary historian, who generally moves large nations from one extremity of Europe to another as freely as a chess-player moves a queen or castle on a chess-board. In fact, some change, both of name and place, is to be expected. The name that Strabo, for instance, would get through an Illyrian, Vopiscus or Sidonius would get through a Gothic, and Procopius through (probably) an Avar, authority--directly or indirectly.

The true reason for the agreement in question having been ignored, lies in the great change which had taken place in the political relations of the populations, not only of Illyricum and Pannonia, but of all parts of the Roman empire. The Japydes are merely details in the conquest of Illyricum and Dalmatia; the Gepid history, on the contrary, is connected with that of two populations eminently foreign and intrusive on the soil of Pannonia,--the Avars and the Lombards. How easy, then, to make the Gepidæ foreign and intrusive also. Rarely mentioned, except in connexion with the exotic Goth, the exotic Vandal, the exotic Avar, and the still more exotic Lombard, the Gepid becomes, in the eyes of the historian, exotic also.

This error is by no means modern. It dates from the reign of Justinian; and occurs in the writings of such seeming authorities as Procopius and Jornandes. With many scholars this may appear conclusive against our doctrine; since Procopius and Jornandes may reasonably be considered as competent and sufficient witnesses, not only of their foreign origin, but also of their Gothic affinities. Let us, however, examine their statements. Procopius writes, that "the Gothic nations are many, the greatest being the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepaides. They were originally called the Sauromatæ and Melanchlæni. Some call them the Getic nations. They differ in name, but in nothing else. They are all whiteskinned and yellow-haired, tall and good-looking, of the same creed, for they are all Arians. Their language is one, called Gothic." This, though clear, is far from unexceptionable (_B. Vand._ i. 2). Their common language may have been no older than their common Arianism.

Again, the Sciri and Alani are especially stated to be Goths, which neither of them were,--the Alans, not even in the eyes of such claimants for Germany as Grimm and Zeuss.

Jornandes writes: "Quomodo vero Getæ Gepidæque sint parentes si quæris, paucis absolvam. Meminisse debes, me initio de Scanziæ insulæ gremio Gothos dixisse egressos cum Berich suo rege, tribus tantum navibus vectos ad citerioris Oceani ripam; quarum trium una navis, ut assolet, tardius vecta, nomen genti fertur dedisse; nam lingua eorum pigra _Gepanta_ dicitur. Hinc factum est, ut paullatim et corrupte nomen eis ex convitio nasceretur. Gepidæ namque sine dubio ex Gothorum prosapia ducunt originem: sed quia, ut dixi, _Gepanta_ pigrum aliquid tardumque signat, pro gratuito convitio Gepidarum nomen exortum est, quod nec ipsum, credo, falsissinum. Sunt enim tardioris ingenii, graviores corporum velocitate. Hi ergo Gepidæ tacti invidia, dudum spreta provincia, commanebant in insula Visclæ amnis vadis circumacta, quam pro patrio sermone dicebant Gepidojos. Nunc eam, ut fertur, insulam gens Vividaria incolit, ipsis ad meliores terras meantibus. Qui Vividarii ex diversis nationibus acsi in unum asylum collecti sunt, et gentem fecisse noscuntur."

I submit that this account is anything but historical. Be it so. It may, however, be the expression of a real Gothic affinity on the part of the Gepids, though wrong in its details. Even this is doubtful. That it may indicate a political alliance, that it may indicate a partial assumption of a Gothic nationality, I, by no means, deny. I only deny that it vitiates the doctrine that _Japydes_ and _Gepidæ_ are, according to the common-sense interpretation of them, the same word.

The present is no place for exhibiting in full the reasons for considering Jornandes to be a very worthless writer, a writer whose legends (if we may call them so) concerning the Goths, are only Gothic in the way that the fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth are English, _i. e._ tales belonging to a country which the Goths took possession of, rather than tales concerning the invaders themselves.

It is suggested then, that the statements of Procopius and Jornandes being ignored, the common-sense interpretation of the geographical and etymological relations of the _Iapodes_ and _Gepidæ_--word for word, and place for place--be allowed to take its course; the Gepidæ being looked upon as Illyrians, whatever may be the import of that word; occupants, at least, of the country of the Iapodes, and probably their descendants.

Thus far the criticism of the present paper goes towards separating the Gepidæ from the stock with which they are generally connected, viz. the German,--also from any emigrants from the parts north of the Danube, _e. g._ Poland, Prussia, Scandinavia, and the like. So far from doing anything of this kind, it makes them indigenous to the parts to the north-east of the head of the Adriatic. As such, what were they? Strabo makes them a mixed nation--Kelt and Illyrian.

What is Illyrian? Either Albanian or Slavonic; it being Illyria where the populations represented by the Dalmatians of Dalmatia come in contact with the populations represented by the Skipetar of Albania.

The remaining object of the present paper is to raise two fresh questions:--

1. The first connects itself with the early history of Italy, and asks how far migrations from the eastern side of the Adriatic may have modified the original population of Italy. Something--perhaps much--in this way is suggested by Niebuhr; suggested, if not absolutely stated. The Chaonian name, as well as other geographical and ethnological relations, is shown to be common to both sides of the Gulf. Can the class of facts indicated hereby be enlarged? The name, which is, perhaps, the most important, is that of the _Galabri_. These are, writes Strabo, a "people of the Dardaniatæ, in whose land is an ancient city" (p. 316). Word for word this is _Calabri_--whatever the geographical and ethnological relations may be. Without being exactly Iapodes, these Calabri are in the Iapod neighbourhood.

Without being identical, the name of the Italian Iapyges (which was to all intents and purposes another name for Calabri) is closely akin to Iapodes; so that, in Italy, we have Calabri called also Iapyges, and, in Illyria, Iapodes near a population called Galabri.

More than this, Niebuhr (see Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography, v. _Japygia_) suggests that Apulia may be Iapygia, word for word. The writer of the article just quoted demurs to his. At the same time the change from _l_ to _d_ is, at the present moment, a South Italian characteristic. The Sicilian for _bello_ was _beddo_. On the other hand, this is a change in the wrong direction; still it is a change of the kind required.

The evidence that there was a foreign population in Calabria is satisfactory--the most definite fact being the statement that the Sallentines were partly Cretans, associated with Locrians and _Illyrians_. (See _Calabria_.)

Again, this district, wherein the legends concerning Diomed prevailed, was also the district of the Daunii, whom Festus (v. _Daunia_) connects with _Illyria_.

I suggest that, if the Calabri were Galabri, the Iapyges were Iapodes. Without enlarging upon the views that the definite recognition of Illyrian elements in Southern Italy suggests, we proceed to the next division of our subject.

2. Is there any connexion between the names _Iapod-es_ and _Iapet-us_? The answer to this is to be found in the exposition of the criticism requisite for such problems. Special evidence there is none.

The first doctrine that presents itself to either the ethnologist or the historian of fiction, in connexion with the name Iapetus, is that it is the name of some _eponymus_--a name like Hellen, or Æolus, Ion, or Dorus. But this is opposed by the fact that no nation of any great historical prominence bears such a designation. Doubtless, if the Thracians, the Indians, the Ægyptians, &c. had been named _Iapeti_, the doctrine in question would have taken firm root, and that at once. But such is not the case.

May it not, however, have been borne by an obscure population? The name _Greek_ was so born. So, at first, was the name _Hellen_. So, probably, the names to which we owe the wide and comprehensive terms _Europe_, _Asia_, _Africa_, and others. Admit then that it may have belonged to an obscure population;--next, admitting this, what name so like as that of the Iapodes? Of all known names (unless an exception be made in favour of the _-gypt_ in _Æ-gypt_) it must be this or none. No other has any resemblance at all.

Who were on the confines of the non-Hellenic area? Iapyges on the west; Iapodes on the north-west. The suggested area was not beyond the limits of the Greek mythos. It was the area of the tales about Diomed. It was the area of the tales about Antenor. It was but a little to the north of the land of the _Lapithæ_, whose name, in its latter two-thirds, is _I-apod_. It ran in the direction of Orphic and Bacchic Thrace to the north. It ran in the direction of Cyclopæan and Lestrygonian Sicily to the west. It was on the borders of that _terra incognita_ which so often supplies eponymi to unknown and mysterious generations.

Say that this suggestion prove true, and we have the first of the term _Iapodes_ in Homer and Hesiod, the last in the German genealogies of the geography of Jornandes and in the Traveller's Song--unless, indeed, the modern name _Schabacz_ be word for word, _Gepid_. In the Traveller's Song we get the word in a German form, _Gifþe_ or _Gifþas_. The _Gifþas_ are mentioned in conjunction with the _Wends_.

In Jornandes we get _Gapt_ as the head of the Gothic genealogies:--Horum ergo (ut ipsi suis fabulis ferunt) primus fuit _Gapt_, qui genuit Halmal; Halmal vero genuit Augis, &c. Now _Gapt_ here may stand for the eponymus of the _Gepidæ_, or it may stand for _Japhet_, the son of Noah. More than one of the old German pedigrees begins with what is called a Gothic legend, and ends with the book of Genesis.

To conclude: the bearing of the criticism upon the ethnology of the populations which took part in the destruction of the Roman empire, is suggestive. There are several of them in the same category with the Gepidæ.

_Mutatis mutandis_: every point in the previous criticism, which applies to the Gepidæ and Iapydes, applies to the _Rugi_ and _Rhæti_. Up to a certain period we have, in writers more or less classical, notices of a country called _Rhætia_, and a population called _Rhæti_. For a shorter period subsequent to this, we hear nothing, or next to nothing, of any one.

Thirdly, in the writers of the 5th and 6th centuries, when the creed begins to be Christian and the authorities German, we find the _Rugi_ of a _Rugi-land_,--_Rugi-land_, or the land of the _Rugi_, being neither more nor less than the ancient province of _Rhætia_.

Name, then, for name, and place for place, the agreement is sufficiently close to engender the expectation that the _Rhæti_ will be treated as the _Rugi_, under a classical, the _Rugi_ as the _Rhæti_, under a German, designation. Yet this is not the case. And why? Because when the Rugi become prominent in history, it is the recent, foreign, and intrusive Goths and Huns with whom they are chiefly associated. Add to this, that there existed in Northern Germany a population actually called _Rugii_.

For all this, however, _Rugiland_ is _Rhætia_, and _Rhætia_ is _Rugiland_,--name for name and place for place. So, probably, is the modern Slavonic term _Raczy_.

VIII.

ETHNOLOGICA.

ON THE SUBJECTIVITY OF CERTAIN CLASSES IN ETHNOLOGY.

FROM THE PHILOSOPHICAL MAGAZINE FOR MAY 1853.

To the investigator who believes in the unity of the human species, whether he be a proper ethnologist, or a zoologist in the more current signification of the term, the phænomena exhibited by the numerous families of mankind supply ninetenths of the _data_ for that part of natural history which deals with _varieties_ as subordinate to, and as different from, _species_. The history of domestic animals in comprehensiveness and complexity yields to the history of the domesticator. Compare upon this point such a work as G. Cuvier's on the Races of Dogs, with Dr. Prichard's Natural History of Man. The mere difference in bulk of volume is a rough measure of the difference in the magnitude of the subjects. Even if the dog were as ubiquitous as man, and consequently as much exposed to the influence of latitude, and altitude, there would still be wanting to the evolution of canine varieties the manifold and multiform influences of civilization. The name of these is _legion_; whilst the extent to which they rival the more material agencies of climate and nutrition is getting, day by day, more generally admitted by the best and most competent inquirers. Forms as extreme as any that can be found within the pale of the same species are to be found within that of the species _Homo_. Transitions as gradual as those between any varieties elsewhere are also to be found. In summing up the value of the _data_ supplied by man towards the _natural history of varieties_, it may be said that they are those of a species which has its geographical distribution everywhere and a moral as well as a physical series of characteristics. Surely, if the question under notice be a question that must be studied inductively, Man gives us the field for our induction.

Before I come to the special point of the present notice and to the explanation of its somewhat enigmatical heading, I must further define the sort of doctrine embodied in what I have called the belief of the unity of our species. I do not call the upholder of the developmental doctrine a believer of this kind. His views--whether right or wrong--are at variance with the current ideas attached to the word species. Neither do I identify with the recognition of single species the hypothesis of a multiplicity of protoplasts, _so long as they are distributed over several geographical centres_. The essential element to the idea of a single species is a single geographical centre. For this, the simplest form of the protoplast community is a single pair.

All this is mere definition and illustration. The doctrine itself may be either right or wrong. I pass no opinion upon it. I assume it for the present; since I wish to criticize certain terms and doctrines which have grown up under the belief in it, and to show, that, from one point of view, they are faulty, from another, legitimate.

It will simplify the question if we lay out of our account altogether the _islands_ of the earth's surface, limiting ourselves to the populations of the continent. Here the area is _continuous_, and we cannot but suppose the stream of population by which its several portions were occupied to have been _continuous_ also. In this case a population spreads from a centre like circles on a still piece of water. Now, if so, _all changes must have been gradual, and all extreme forms must have passed into each other by means of a series of transitional ones_.