ESSAY I. TOTAL LOSS OF THE CIMMERIAN LANGUAGE. 183 of the Romans seems worthy of being accepted as an historic fact upon the grounds stated by Niebuhr and Arnold.2 The historical connection of these latter with the Cimmerii of Herodotus has strong probabilities, and the opinion of Posidonius,3 in its favour; but cannot, it must be admitted, in the strict sense of the word, be proved. 4. It is to be regretted that we have no means of submitting the question of this connection to the test of comparative philology. Of the Cimmerian language we know absolutely nothing beyond the single word Cimmerii. No names of Cimmerians even, on which any reliance can be placed, have come down to us; and although some of the Scythian river-names, which have a close connection with Celtic roots, may be conjectured to belong to Cimmerian rather than Scythic times, yet this is only a surmise; and though an argument of some slight weight, as it accords with what we should have expected if the people driven out by the Scyths were Celts, yet it is scarcely sufficient to put forward as a distinct ground on which to rest the identification. All perhaps that can be said is that comparative philology is not adverse to the identification, which, if regarded as historically probable, would help to explain the formation of certain words, whereof it would otherwise be difficult to give a satisfactory account. 5 5. It is probable that when the Cimmerians fled westward before the Scyths, they found the central and western countries of Europe 2 Hist. of Rome, vol. i. pp. 521-529. 3 Fr. 75. ὁ Κιμμέριος Βόσπορος οἷον Κιμβρικός, Κιμμερίους τοὺς Κίμβρους ὀνομασάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων. Compare Plut. Vit. Mar. c. ii. τῶν βαρβάρων, Κιμμερίων μὲν ἐξ ἀρχῆς, τότε δὲ Κίμβρων προσαγορευομένων. The name Lygdamis, given by Callimachus (Hymn. ad Dian. v. 252) as that of the Cimmerian general who headed the great irruption into Asia Minor, is so manifestly a Greek name that nothing can be gathered from it. Strabo's Madys (i. p. 91) might furnish a basis for speculation, if we could be sure that he had not by mere inadvertence transferred the name of a Scythic leader (Herod. i. 103) to a prince of the Cimmerians. Madys might well represent the Madoc of the British Cymry. As Hypan-is with Avon, Tana-is with Dinas, &c. See the following Essay. 6 The Scythian river-names are made up of distinct elements, each signifying river" or "water" (see the following Essay). It helps us to understand the formation of such names to suppose that the Cymry, coming first, called the streams, Avon, Dinas, &c., which were their words for water; that the Scyths, following them, took these words to be proper names, and proceeded to speak of one stream as the "Avon-river" (Hypan-is), of another as the "Dinas-river" (Tanais), &c. Finally, the Greeks, hearing these words, took Hypanis, Tanais, and the like for the appellations of the streams. 184 MIGRATIONS OF THE CIMMERIANS. APP. BOOK IV. 9 either without inhabitants, or else very thinly peopled by a Tatar race. This race, where it existed, everywhere yielded to them, and was gradually absorbed, or else driven towards the north, where it is found at the present day in the persons of the Finns, Esths, and Lapps. The Cymry, or rather the Celtic hordes generally (for in the name of Cimmerii may have been included many Celtic tribes not of the Cymric branch), spread themselves by degrees over the vast plains of central Europe, lying between the Alps on the one side, and the Baltic Sea and German Ocean on the other. It probably required a fresh impulsion from the east to propel the Celts yet further westward, and to make them occupy the remoter regions of Gaul, Spain, and Britain. This impulsion seems to have been given by the Goths and other Teutons, who by degrees possessed themselves of the countries between the Danube and the Baltic. The Celts found central and northern Gaul occupied by a Tatar population, while towards the south coast they came in contact with the Ligurians, most probably an Illyrian race. In the Spanish peninsula it is not quite certain whether on their arrival they found Iberians or no; but if not, these latter must have shortly crossed over from the African main, and it was in consequence of the gradual pressure exerted by this people upon the Celts in Spain that the further migrations of the Celtic tribes took place. The struggle in Spain was probably of long duration; but at length the Celts were compelled to cross the Pyrenees in vast numbers, and to seek a refuge with their kinsmen in Gaul. These, however, were themselves too numerous and too closely packed to offer more than a temporary asylum to the refugees, who consequently had to seek a permanent abode elsewhere. Hereupon they crossed the Alps into commenced very much earlier. The Cimmerians, who after maintaining themselves some considerable time in the Tauric Chersonese, were at length driven across the strait into Asia, would probably be the last to leave their country. It is their invasion of Asia Minor which falls between the years B.C. 650 and 600. 8 It is now generally believed that there is a large Tatar admixture in most Celtic races, the consequence of this absorption. 9 It may likewise have been in part driven westward. The mysterious Cynetians of Book ii. ch. 33 (cf. also iv. 49), who dwelt west of the Celts, may have been a remnant of the primitive Tatar occupants. Such too may have been the Iberians of the Spanish Peninsula. 1 Niebuhr (Roman Hist. vol. i. p. 165, E. T.) connects them with the Liburnians of the Adriatic, and these with the Venetians, who were Illyrians according to Herodotus (i. 196). 2 Niebuhr's Rom. Hist. vol. ii. p. 520, E. T. The Iberians are thought to remain in the modern Basques. ESSAY I. MIGRATIONS OF THE CIMMERIANS. 4 185 Italy, and made themselves masters of the whole plain of the Po; after which they separated into two streams, and overran, on the one hand, the whole of middle and lower Italy, even reaching Sicily, according to some accounts; 3 while, on the other hand, crossing the Alps to the north of the Adriatic, and following down the streams which run into the Danube, they spread over the great central European plain, the modern kingdom of Hungary. Here for a time they found ample room, and the torrent of emigration paused awhile upon its course; but a century later fresh movements of the Celtic tribes took place. About the year B.C. 280 vast hordes of Gauls from these regions entered Macedonia, and pressing towards the south threatened Greece with destruction. Repulsed, however, from Delphi, they returned northwards; and crossing the Dardanelles, invaded Asia Minor, the whole of which for many years they ravaged at their pleasure. In course of time the native inhabitants recovered from them most of their conquests; but the Gauls permanently maintained themselves in the heart of Phrygia, and gave their name to the northern portion, which became known as Galatia. They also, during this same period, carried their victorious arms into Scythia, and avenged themselves on their former con querors, whom they subdued, and with whom they intermixed, forming thereby the people known in history as Celto-Scythians.7 At this period they warred with the Greek town of Olbia; and advanced as far as the Mæotis, from which they had been driven by the Scyths five hundred years earlier. Here, however, they were met and overpowered by a movement of nations from the cast. The progress of the Sarmatic tribes commenced; and the Celts fell back along the valley of the Danube, leaving traces of their presence in the names Wallachia and Gallicia,1 but everywhere sinking and disappearing before the antagonism of more powerful nations. In Eastern and Central Europe the Celtic race has been either absorbed or destroyed; in the West, as has been observed already, it still remains. Northern Italy deserves its German appellation of Wallsch Justin. xx. 5. Part stayed between the Alps and the Adriatic (Scylac. Peripl. p. 13). From these Celts came the ambassadors to Alexander (Arrian, Exp. Alex. i. 4.) Livy, xxxviii. 16. 7 Strabo, i. p. 48. * See the Inscription of Protogenes, edited by Köhler. 9 Strabo, vii. p. 425. 1 The modern Wallachs and Gallicians may not indeed be descendants of the ancient Gauls; but the names can scarcely have come from any other source. The theory which would derive them from the old German use of wälschen, walli, for "strangers, foreigners," is somewhat fanciful. 186 CELTIC DIALECTS. APP. BOOK IV. land; for neither the Roman nor the Lombard conquest, nor the ravages of Goths, Huns, or Vandals, ever rooted out the offspring of those Gallic hordes which settled in the plain of the Po four centuries before our era. France is still mainly Gallic. Rome indeed imposed her language there as elsewhere, except in one remote corner of the land, where the Celtic is still spoken; but the people continued Gauls, and the country Gallia. The Teutonic bands, Franks, Normans, Burgundians, caused the name of Gaul to disappear; but the conquerors, as a race, were absorbed among the conquered. In the British Islands, the Anglo-Saxon Teutons, in their earlier conquests, displaced the Cymry, and drove them beyond their borders; but these last maintained themselves in various places-in Cornwall, Wales, the Scotch Highlands, and Ireland— until the inauguration of a new policy. When the Cymry of Wales and Cornwall, the Gaels in Scotland, and the Erse in Ireland, submitted to Anglo-Saxon supremacy, they retained their lands, their language, and even their name. Amalgamation of race has since been effected to a certain extent; but still in many parts of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, the mass of the population is mainly or entirely Celtic. Four Celtic dialects-the Manx, the Gaelic, the Erse, and the Welsh are spoken in our country; and the pure Celtic type survives alike in the Bretons, the Welsh, the native Irish, the people of the Isle of Man, and the Scottish Highlanders, of whom the two former represent the Cimbric, and the three latter the non-Cimbric branch of the nation. 4 2 Brittany. See Prichard's Celtic Nations, § 3; and Michelet's Histoire de France," vol. i. pp. 139-143. A 3 Cornwall was the country of the Cern-Walli, or Welsh of the Horn. Celtic dialect was spoken in Cornwall till late in the last century. 4 The Welsh is akin to the Breton and the Cornish dialects; the Gallic and the Erse, which are closely allied, differ considerably from the three firstmentioned. In the former we have the Cimbric, in the latter the more ordinary Celtic tongue. ESSAY II. ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE SCYTHS. 187 ESSAY II. ON THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE EUROPEAN SCYTHS. 1. Supposed Mongolian origin of the Scyths-grounds of the opinion twofold. 2. Resemblance of physical characteristics, slight. 3. Resemblance of manners and customs, not close. 4. True test, that of language. 5. Possibility of applying it. 6. The application-Etymology of Scythic common terms. 7. Explanation of the names of the Scythian gods. 8. Explanation of some names of men. 9. Explanation of geographical names. 10. Result, that the Scythians of Herodotus were an Indo-European race. 11. Further result, that they were a distinct race, not Slaves, nor Celts, nor Teutons; and that they are now extinct. 1. A LARGE number of the best scholars of Germany,1 among them the great historian Niebuhr,2 have maintained that the Scythians of Herodotus were a Tatar or Mongolian race, the earliest specimen known to us of that powerful people which, under the name of Huns, Bulgarians, Magyars, and Turks, has so often carried desolation over Europe, and which in Asia, as Mongols, Calmucks, Eleuths, Khirgis, Nogais, Turcomen, Thibetians, and (perhaps) Chinese, extends from the steppes of the Don to the coasts of the Yellow Sea. This opinion has also been adopted by the most eminent of our own historians,3 who regard it as certain, or at least as most highly probable, that the Scythians of Herodotus were a Mongol nation. The grounds upon which the opinion rests are twofold: first, it is maintained that the physical characteristics of the Scythians, as recorded by Hippocrates (who himself visited Scythia), are such as to place it beyond a doubt that the people so described belong to the Mongolian family; and, secondly, it is contended that such an identity of manners and customs can be made out as would alone suffice to prove the same point. 2. The description of Hippocrates, on which reliance is placed, 'As Boeckh (Corpus Inscrip. Gr. Introduct. ad Inscript. Sarmat. pars. xi. p. 81), Schafarik (Slavische Alterthumer, vol. I. xiii. 6), and Rask (Saml. Afhandl. i. 334.) See his "Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der Skythen, Geten, und Sarmaten," published in the "Kleine Schriften," p. 362, and compare the "Vorträge über alte Geschichte" (vol. i. p. 179. 3 Thirlwall, History of Greece, vol. ii. ch. xiv. p. 219, 8vo. edition; Grote, History of Greece, vol. iii. p. 322, 2nd ed. |