Veneter (Vistula)
The name Veneter (Venedi, Venetae, Venedae) is used in antiquity by different authors to designate different tribes u. a. also used by a population in the Baltic States . The term was originally used by the Romans , who used it to describe tribes that live directly on and probably also from water (in the broadest sense). The original translation corresponds to the color blue ( Latin veneti , Middle Greek venetoi , interpreted very broadly by the Romans) and was used as a designation for the racing teams in the context of chariot races e.g. B. used in the Circus Maximus . The term was in the Middle Ages the Frankish kingdom of monks to Wenedi reshaped that eventually turning was the Slavic were designated populations. The word "winds", which probably originated in the same period, probably goes back to the term.
Such a deformation of the name, which is sometimes tied to certain places (e.g. Venice ), does not allow any continuity of a specific population group to be inferred.
background
Several authors from antiquity and the early Middle Ages mention a Venetian people east of Germania . The name is seen as the source of the medieval and modern term Wenden for various West Slavic peoples, mostly in the sense of a misspelling. Even the statements of the old authors about this people living on the outermost edge of the world known to the ancient writers are not entirely uniform. As Sarmatia , named after the Sarmatians living in today's Ukraine and southern Russia , ancient authors referred to all of Eastern Europe east of the Sarmatian Mountains ( Latin Sarmatae mons ). Presumably one meant the High Tatras .
Pliny (* about 23; † 25 August 79) refers in his Naturalis historia to statements by Scandinavians that in the country Aeningia (east of the Baltic Sea , larger than Scandinavia) on the Vistula (i.e. northeast and east of the same) the Sarmatae, Venetae , Skiren and Hirren lived.
Tacitus (* around 58 AD; † around 120) mentions the Peucini , Venedi and Fenni in his Germania on the eastern edge of Germania , with whom he is not sure whether he should attribute them to the Teutons or the Sarmatians. His localization of the Venedi is limited to "between Fenni and Peucini". As a coastal inhabitant, he mentions the esti gentes to the Suiones (ancestors of the Swedes) and that their settlement area east of the estuary ( Latin aestuarium , river delta ) is assumed to be adjacent to the mouth of the Vistula, which he nowhere mentions. It is therefore partly assumed that Tacitus referred to the or a people of the Baltic with Aesti.
Claudius Ptolemaios (* around 100; † around 175) describes the tribes west of the Vistula in his Geographike Hyphegesis in the chapter Germania of the second book, the tribes east of the Vistula in the chapter Sarmatia of the third book. He does not mention Aesti or Aisti anywhere. The great Uenedai peoples live with him on the coast of a Venedian bay , the smaller peoples of the same on the (lower) Vistula , and in the vicinity Galindoi and Sudonoi , more than a millennium later the names of Baltic tribes, and east not far from the sea the Veltae . Due to its geographical information, some researchers assume that Ptolemy called Venedai a Baltic tribe who lived on the Prussian lagoon coast or the Riga Bay . The modern place names Ventspils , Venda (river near Ventspils) and Wenden (former name of Cēsis ) in Latvia are associated with this tribe .
Jordanes mentions a legend according to which the Gepids once lived on islands in the Fresh or Curonian Lagoon . Tacitus mentions the Aesti east of it. Archaeologically, in the 1st century east of the Goths, another culture can be found on the Curonian Lagoon (today's Lithuania, Latvia), which is considered to be western Baltic.
Around 550, Jordanes mentions both the Aesti and the Venethi in his account of the history of the Goths ( Getica 23, 119) . He literally writes that the kingdom of the Goths under the Gothic king Ermanaric ( Latin Hermanaricus , † 376) extended from the Aestii to the Pontus. In addition, the Goths had defeated the Venethi , Anten and Sclaveni (Greek Sklavinoi). Coin finds from the time of the Gothic wars against Roman emperors in the western Baltic confirm this representation and testify to a lively interaction between the Balts from Samland, Kujawia and Masuria ( Dollkeim culture and Bogaczewo culture ) and the Goths, which lasted into the 5th century.
..., from the source of the Vistula through an immeasurable stretch, the mighty people of the Venetians live, whose names may change with different families and places, so they are still called Sclaveni and Anten. As a possible grouping, the 5 tribes of the Lugier as well as the Charini or Harier come into question, which are only mentioned in the 1st century and were sometimes also referred to as vandals. They are part of the Przeworsk culture . Archaeologically, the Venetians are most likely attributed to the so-called Memel culture in Courland, which maintained Iron Age trade contacts with Scandinavia. But there were also intensive contacts with Samland.
Around 550, Jordanes placed the Sclaveni, as the original part of the Venethi, from Noviodunum ad Istrum to the Mursian Lake (near Novae ) and northwards to the sources of the Vistula (in the Silesian Beskids); next to it (west of Turris) lived the antas. This statement is confirmed by the contemporary Prokopios of Caesarea , who described the Sklavini around 550 at the time of Justinian I north of the dilapidated Ulmetum fort. Avars are recruited from Ostrom in Noviodunum ad Istrum in 559, and in 562 the Antas, who received 545 Turris, are attacked by the Avars . Jordanes knew no Avars and died before they arrived. He can therefore only have referred to Europeans. From then on, the term Sklavinoi is historically used for all barbarians in Eastern Europe on the other side of the Danube, including the Avars, and disappears after about 250 years with the expansion of the Bulgarians.
literature
- Robert Nedoma , Wojciech Nowakowski: Veneter. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 32, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2006, ISBN 3-11-018387-0 , pp. 133-139.
Remarks
- ^ Heinrich Beck , Heiko Steuer , Dieter Timpe (ed.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde. Germanic, Germania, Germanic antiquity = The Germanic , study edition, 2nd, completely revised and greatly expanded edition. de Gruyter, Berlin a. a. 1998, ISBN 3-11-016383-7 , p. 145, hatching in the original replaced by colors.
- ↑ Pliny, Naturalis Historia 4, 97 . habitari ad Vistlam usque fluvium a Sarmatis, Venedis, Sciris, Hirris tradunt, sinum Cylipenum vocari et in ostio eius insulam Latrim, mox alterum sinum Lagnum, conterminum Cimbris. Translated: Inhabitants of the Vistula on the Sarmatian river (arm) are (besides the aforementioned Goths and Bastarnen) Veneter, Sciren and Hirris are mentioned. A port called Cylipenum is located on / near an island of the robbers (?) On a gulf (called gulf) over the lagoon (called lagoon) opposite the Cimbres (probably in relation to travelers from Cimbres ( Jutland ?)). According to all Roman sources that were consistent at the time, the Sarmatians lived east of the Vistula; Teutons lived west of the river at that time .
- ↑ Tacitus, Germania , Latin ; Google search "aesti gentes" Lexicon of Germanic antiquity. 2nd Edition. Volume 26, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2004, pp. 392-393.
- ^ Ptolemy 2, 10: Germania .
- ↑ Ptolemy 3: 5: Sarmatia .
- ↑ Ptolemy 3: 5: Sarmatia .
- ↑ Jordanes, Getica 34, new translation L. Möller, 2012.
- ↑ Basic research on settlement archeology on the Iron Age in the Baltic States , as well as rediscovery of the so-called Königsberg Prussia collection and the lost catalog of Roman coin finds from 1925 in the Prussia Museum in Königsberg, East Prussia. (Finds themselves are partly lost in World War II)
- ↑ Jordanes, Getica 34, new translation L. Möller, 2012.
- ↑ Florin Curta: The making of Slavs. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge et al. 2001, ISBN 0-521-80202-4 .