Harier

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The Harians (handwritten as Harios and [H] arii ) were a Germanic tribe. According to the Roman historian Tacitus , the Harii were an addition to the Helvekonen , Manimern , Halisionen and Nahanarvalern one of the five main tribes of Lugier between Vistula and Oder settled. Tacitus also reports:

“Ceterum Harii super vires, quibus enumeratos paulo ante populos antecedunt, truces insitae feritati arte ac tempore lenocinantur: nigra scuta, tincta corpora; atras ad proelia noctes legunt ipsaque formidine atque umbra feralis exercitus terrorem inferunt, nullo hostium sustante novum ac velut infernum aspectum; nam primi in omnibus proeliis oculi vincuntur. "

“In contrast, the Harians not only surpass the previously listed tribes in strength, but are also terrible to look at and help their innate savagery by artificial means and at a favorable time. (Because) the shields are black, the upper bodies are painted; They choose dark nights to fight, and so the horrible, shadowy appearance of the ghostly army already gives them horror, since no enemy can withstand the horrific, almost infernal sight; because the eyes are defeated first in all battles. "

- Tacitus : Germania 43, 4

The brief mention in Tacitus leaves modern research room for interpretation. While some older researchers equated the Harii with the Vandal tribe of the Charini , others assumed that "Harii" was not a separate tribe, but only a name for the warriors of the Lugians. Linguists associate the name with the Gothic word for army, harjis , and the Einherjern of Germanic mythology. Tacitus' description of the Harians as “feralis exercitus”, as “ army of the dead”, also suggests a connection with the old Germanic idea of ​​the Wild Army . More recent text-critical research seems to indicate, however, that the earlier conjecture , which conjugates the word alii (“the others”) in the Tacitus manuscripts to <H> arii and thus the following passage explicitly referred to this stem, is no longer straightforward is durable. Philologists also point out the topical character of the particularly pictorial ( ekphratic ) description, which suggests a more rhetorical function of the passage.

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Tacitus, Germania 43, 2.
  2. ↑ Quoted from Tacitus, Germania , Latin and German by Gerhard Perl , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1990, p. 121.
  3. ^ So first Karl Viktor Müllenhoff , in: Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum , Volume 9, p. 247 (cf. Rappaport, in: RE VII, 2, Sp. 2365).
  4. ↑ Cf. e.g. Harii. In: Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 368). 2nd, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-520-36802-1 , 164f., Here p. 165.
  5. ↑ So already Otto Höfler , Cultic Secret Societies of the Teutons , 1934; Taken over from Rudolf Simek: Lexicon of Germanic Mythology (= Kröner's pocket edition. Volume 368). 2nd, supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-520-36802-1 , p. 165.
  6. ↑ The conjecture originally comes from Franciscus Puteolanus from 1475.
  7. ↑ For a summary of this discussion, cf. Castritius, in: RGA 14, p. 9f., Who considers Dieter Timpe's suggestion to use <Lug> ii instead of <H> arii to be the best. Nevertheless, he rejects the conjecture Harii - unlike Karlheinz Dietz, for example : Harii. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 5, Metzler, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-476-01475-4 , Col. 158. - not quite, “because it interferes least with the tradition and the junction feralis exercitus 43, 4 probably as an explanatory translation of Harii is to be understood ”(p. 10).
  8. ↑ See, for example, Gerhard Perl's commentary, in: Tacitus, Germania , Latin and German by Gerhard Perl, Berlin 1990, p. 248f.