Troglodytes

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With troglodytes ( "cave dwellers"), were more referred to a lower level of development than their own standing ethnicities. Several ancient authors mention a troglodyte or trogodyte people , including Herodotus , Hanno the Navigator , Agatharchides , Diodor , Strabo , Pliny the Elder and the 2nd book of the Chronicle of the Septuagint .

Surname

The term Troglodytai ( Τρωγλοδύται ) is often found in the handwritten copies of classical texts instead of the correct form of the name Trogodytai ( Τρωγοδύται ) for a people of Ethiopia; the name appears for the first time in the 5th century BC as Trogodytai Aithiopes ( Τρωγοδύται Αἰθίοπες ) in Herodotus in book 4 of his histories as a name for a hit people in southern Libya hunted by the people of the " Garamantes " - supposedly the fastest-footed of all known to him from hearsay Eating snakes, lizards and other crawling animals, and with a language unlike any other, making sounds like those of bats. The etymology of this name is unclear.

The designation Trog l odytai is then found in Aristotle's description of pygmies and in Strabo - with the (incorrect) derivation from trogle ( τρώγλη "cave") and dynai ( δῦναι "immerse") - continues to inhabit all types of caves Peoples related.

The "Aitiopian" trough (l) odytes mentioned by Herodotus are described in more detail by Artemidor of Ephesus : They lived as nomadic cattle breeders, cultivated women and children and were possibly the ancestors of the Tubu who lived in the central Sahara .

The form Trogodytai remained common in Ptolemaic Egypt until the 1st century BC. BC. The “Aitiopian Trogodytai” were mainly Nubian tribes, otherwise the “Trogodytai” were the inhabitants of the African Red Sea coast. The form Trogodytae was almost always used by the Roman authors , but also as a general term for cave dwellers.

Troglodytes on the Red Sea

Strabo and the anonymous author of the Periplus Maris Erythraei describe troglodytes in the southern Red Sea . The important port of Berenike was located in this area .

Strabo gives in Book XVII of the Geographica as the alleged report of Eratosthenes :

"Τὰ δὲ κατωτέρω ἑκατέρωθεν Μερόης παρὰ μὲν τὸν Νεῖλον πρὸς τὴν Ἐρυθρὰν Μεγάβαροι καὶ Βλέμμυες͵ Αἰθιόπων ὑπακούοντες͵ Αἰγυπτίοις δ ὅμοροι · παρὰ θάλατταν δὲ Τρωγλοδύται · διεστᾶσι δὲ εἰς δέκα ἢ δώδεκα ἡμερῶν ὁδὸν οἱ κατὰ τὴν Μερόην Τρωγλοδύται τοῦ Νείλου. ἐξ ἀριστερῶν δὲ τῆς ῥύσεως τοῦ Νείλου Νοῦβαι κατοικοῦσιν ἐν τῆι Λιβύηι͵… ”

"The development on both sides below Meroe inhabit the Nile to the Red Sea towards Megabarer and Blemmyes , Ethiopians obedience, but to Egyptians marching; but troglodytes by the sea; ten to twelve day trips away are those troglodytes east of Meroe from the Nile. To the left of the river bed of the Nile, Nubians live in Libya ... "

- Strabo : Γεωγραφικά

The Periplus Maris Erythraei describes them as "fish eaters" ( Ichtyophagoi ) who live in scattered caves in narrow valleys. To the south of them live barbarians ( Barbaroi ), further inland hunter peoples ("game meat eaters") and gatherers ( mosxophagoi " twig eaters") under their respective chiefs.

In the vicinity of Adulis , after the Periplus, lay the small sandy Alalaei Islands , where the fish-eaters brought turtle shells for exchange.

Pliny the Elder mentions an island in the Red Sea called Topazos. The word topazin is troglodyic and means "looking for", since the island is often hidden in fog. In Latin, the word has become the name of the corresponding semi-precious stone, the modern precious olivine . Schäfer derives this word from Nubian tube (to search) or tubesun , "du suchtest", Murray from tabesin , "I / we searched". The troglodytes would have spoken a Nubian language . According to Pliny, the troglodytes had sea-going ships. The island of Cytis - presumably St. John's Island -, on which topazes can also be found, was discovered by troglodytic pirates who were swept away by the storm. Furthermore, there is said to have been a "source of the sun" ( fons solis ) in the land of the troglodytes , which supplied cold fresh water at lunchtime and warm salt water at night.

Troglodytes in zoology

Carl von Linné classified the troglodytes, together with the orangutan , the satyrs and chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) as homo nocturnus in the second sex of the primates order.

The designation "Troglodytes" as a zoological name (Linné; in Systema Naturae , 10th edition, 1758), however, is borne by the wrens - who like to build their nests spherically and often close to the ground, occasionally also underground - and are the only species in Eurasia like one of the smallest birds in Europe: the wren , Troglodytes troglodytes, in binomial nomenclature also as an epithet .

Troglodytes in literature

In his epistolary novel Persian Letters , published in 1721, the French writer Montesquieu describes troglodytes as a small people in Arabia who descended from the ancient troglodytes.

In Goethe's Faust. The second part of the tragedy says the "Deputation of the gnomes to the great Pan ": "When the brilliantly rich good / thread-wise strokes through gaps / only the clever divining rod / shows its labyrinths / we vault our house in dark tombs / troglody-table ..."

literature

  • François Lassere: Trog (l) odytai. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 5, Stuttgart 1975, Col. 977.
  • GW Murray, EH Warmington: Trogodytica: The Red Sea Littoral in Ptolemaic Times. In: The Geographical Journal 133/1 (1967), pp. 24-33

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see entry τρωγοδύται in the LSJ .
  2. ↑ R. Morkot: Trogodytae . In: Oxford Classical Dictionary , March 2016; taken on January 20, 2018.
  3. ^ S. Rausch: Trogodytai . In: Der Neue Pauly , 2008; taken on January 20, 2018.
  4. ↑ see also entry Troglodyt in DWB .
  5. ↑ Herodotus: Historien , 4.183 (4) ; In some of the African languages ​​that are still alive today, snapping or clicking sounds are part of the regular speech sounds, the Khoisan languages .
  6. ↑ according to Brill's Neuer Pauly with this expression (hist. An. 597a 9).
  7. ^ Strabo: Geographika , 1.42.
  8. ↑ Strabon Geographika April 16, 2017 (16.775).
  9. ^ WW How, J. Wells: A Commentary on Herodotus. Vol. 1, 1912. p. 362.
  10. ^ Georges: Latin-German concise dictionary. Vol. 2. Darmstadt 1998. p. 3237.
  11. ↑ Pliny the Elder Naturalis historia 2.75; 6.34.
  12. ↑ Strabon Geographica XVII / 1.2 according to Γεωγραφικά , also translated here ( memento of the original from November 24, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.chufu.de
  13. ↑ ZAS 33, 1895
  14. ^ GW Murray: English-Nubian Comparative Dictionary. P. 39
  15. ↑ Pliny the Elder Naturalis historia , 6.34; 37.32
  16. ↑ Pliny the Elder Naturalis historia , 2.106
  17. ^ Carl Linnaeus: Systema naturae per regna tri naturae. Leiden 1735.
  18. ↑ Montesquieu, Persian Letters. Novel. After the translation by Ms. von Hagedorn based on the French original, reviewed and carefully modernized by Bärbel Brands. Structure Media, Berlin 2005; Weltbild licensed edition, ISBN 3-8289-7925-4 , pp. 8–19 (chapters 2–5).
  19. ^ Goethe's works. Hamburg edition in 14 volumes. Volume 3. Wegner, Hamburg 1949, p. 181 .