Getae

[Геннадий Воля]

http://dacia.org/lundius/clundius-eng.html

CAROLUS LUNDIUS

ZAMOLXIS – FIRST LEGISLATOR OF

THE GETAE

UPSALA - 1687

translation from Latin

and a few notes by MARIA CRISAN

translation to English

by Honorius Crisan

2001 - 2002

U pon a long dissertation within the Academy of Sciences, it is resolved to be made public this historical truth by Carolus Lundius, the author. On the same occasion, further data regarding the antiquities of the Sveons, the Goths/Getae, as well as other nations, such things never having been tackled before by others, is now brought to light, briefly, by the same author.

TO HIS SERENE HIGHNESS, MOST POWERFUL PRINCE AND

MASTER CAROLUS XI,

KING OF THE SVEONS, GOTHS AND VANDALS,

GREAT PRINCE OF FINLAND, DUKE OF SCANDINAVIA, ESTONIA, LIVONIA, KARELIA, Bremen, Verden, Stetin, Pomerania, Cassubia and Vandalia, Prince of Rugia, Ingria, ruler of Vismaria and of the County of Rhenania Palatinate as well, Duke of the Bavarian Mountains, Jullich and Clivie, August The Most Faithful And Happy, my Most Best King and Master.

Most enlightened and all-powerful KING, most gentle MASTER!

[Геннадий Воля]

http://dacia.org/1articole/index.php?news_...=&arcmonth=

About Dacian History

http://www.pelasgians.bigpondhosting.com/contents.htm

Prehistoric Dacia - Nicolae Densusianu - translation by: Alexandra Furdui

[Геннадий Воля]

http://dacia.org/1articole/index.php?news_...=&arcmonth=

About Dacian History

http://www.pelasgians.bigpondhosting.com/contents.htm

Prehistoric Dacia - Nicolae Densusianu - translation by: Alexandra Furdui

http://dacia.org/lundius/clundius-eng.html

CHAPTER I

Summary

§1. ZamolxiV, SAMOLSES in our scrolls. To him are related the beginnings of the paternal laws and the defence of that truth. Who is he and where comes from? He belongs to the Getae, who are the same with Goths and Scythians.

§10. Those who have been called Scythians, thereafter called Sueons (Sueones). Where does the name of Scythians come from? For they come from the Elysium Fields, hence their name.

§1. The waxed tablets together with the other manuscripts, where they talk about the origin of paternal (national) laws, they are referring to SAMOLSE. It is not known quite exactly about him whether he was a real man and when he was born. However, most authors assert, with greatest levity, that he was born somewhere in the Thracian Land. About that time, the Getae were living there, “Qreikwn andreiotatoi kai dikaiotatoi ” (Hdt., IV, XCIII, to the end), that is “the most brave and pious of the Thracians”, in Herodotus’ words. Among the praiseworthy virtues, no doubt by right, that of undefeated is added, with which Procopius (IV, Hist. Goth., 419) has adorned the Goths.

The ones who in Thrace were called Getae, later in Procopius’ (a Greek historian that died in 562 AD) time were called Goths and in older times they were called Scythians. Such authors we owe a due trust, since they are among the best ones; beside them, through his ancient dignity and authority, brilliant Messenius imposed, too (Foreword to a versified edition of the laws, signed Ragvaldus) who, in a few words, has shown with so much clarity and perspicacity that the first laws of the Svions and Goths (Getae) have been made up by Samolse.

Subsidiary, if needed anymore, opinions have thereafter recorded, of certain brilliant scholars like BOXHORNIUS (Hist., VII, in the year 101), LOCCENIUS (Antiquit. Sveog., lib. I, chap.1), SCHERINGHAM (De orig. Angl., chap.IX, X. XI), HACHENBERGIUS (De orig. Sved., §XII, ff.), IACOB GISLON (in foreword and Chron. p.m.5 to the end) and in however other passages where the same opinion on the Getae, Goths and Scythians based on different proofs also in the mind of doctrine disciplines writers, such writers being among the most enlightened: that truth is perfectly confirmed by uncounted evidence. It is worthy retaining that unique truth, namely the Getae and the Goths were one and the same people and they were also called with the name of Scythians (Joh. Magn. Hist., S. 4, lib. I, chap.IV, f.f. Schol. Antiq. In Adam N. LXXXVII and authors next chapter)

The book, published in 1594, gives us the following information: “Norden for palude Maeoti ot swarte hass/ kalde de paa gammel Norske Svithiode. Det nafn haswe de paa alle diße kalde land som ligge mod norden/ oc erre somme af diße land öde fot fraast oc snee” (as author mistranslated the Gothic text in Latin, I dare to translate it, conveying in fact the essence: “Svithiod land being located north of Azov Sea, just in its most northern point, it has a very severe climate, the region being exhausted by frosty weather and snow”, T.’s N.) Let’s add to that source also Iordanes, the chapters (De Getarum sive Gothorum origin et rebus gestis, IV and V) in which we can find very clearly and well substantiated, from where and how arrived there for the first time the Goths (the Getae), that they have settled in Scythia, next to Black Sea and he describes already a number of settlements of theirs; from the notes of other writers, cited by Nicolaus Ragvaldus, in his speech (Herod., lib. IV), never praised enough. And it is in question not only the native writers, but to such also add some of other nations, in the words of whose we should trust with the power of truth comprised in them, having the strictness of purely scientific works: these are Herodotus (chap.IV), Xenophon (chap.11, Memoriale), Plato (Timaeus and Kritias) and many others nearer, among which one rises above all. This is Cl. Olaus Rudbeck (Atlant., chap.VII, §VIII).

§10. But they also called Scythians, which thereafter called Sueoni, accord. to an old manuscript titled Chronicon. As Iaphet dre komne Skyter oc Geter, som langt epter Kalladis Gother / oc nu Swenske. (“Scythians and Getae were born to Iaphet who later, after the Goths, called also Sveons.”) But in no hand written laws collection that order is wrongly written. Even Isidorus (the beginning of that Chronicle and the next chapter) begins his chronicle as follows: the reign of the Goths (undoubtedly it reads Getae’s - T.’s N.) is the oldest, as it was born from the reign of the Scythians. Scythians truly are brilliant archers, they raising a lot above other nations, as that kind of weapons was specifically proper to them - just for that reason Herodotus (IV, 27) called them ARIMASPOI, “the ones who pointed at very well with the arrow” (although the legend says the Arimasps had one eye only, T.’s N.); they were mounted archers (ippotoxotai, Thuc. 11, 139); Laurentius Valla gave the same interpretation that later was also recognised by Henricus Stephanus. Moreover, Herodotus (I, 73) called that skill of wielding the bow and arrows tenhn twn toxwn, i.e. “the art of pointing at with arrows”, and Xenophon (On Socrates' acts and words, I, III, the Latin translator being Cardinal Nicenus), where it is said that, unlikely other nations, the Scythians and Thracians are naturally gifted with that net superiority in wielding a bow and arrows. Yet, unlikely the Spartans, who wield a sword and shield, the Scythians and Thracians do not dare to also conversely handle them, Spartans refuse to fight the first using their weapons - bow and arrows.

Lucan (Lib. III) also calls the Gelons sagittiferi volucres, i.e. “from the hands of which the arrows fly like birds”, and the Gelons are a Scythian nation. As Lucan (chap.II) claims, the Masagets are Scythian too, like the Gelons occurring about the Maeotis Lake, i.e. the Azov Sea, driving Scythian wagons or riding horses that flew like birds, like arrows. Through the art of wielding the bow and arrows our ancestors have stood out from other peoples, as our national history confirms it to us. Since they knew how to send an arrow with a perfect precision, they went to war or fights, their bodies bare, to show the enemy how expert are they in pointing at by piercing with their arrows exactly the targeted point. For their skill in wielding the bow and arrows e.g. Magn. Sigurdar. Sigurdar., Magnusa Barfots and the legend of Olof Trygfars (Flot. Lb., III, chap.8) and many other passages. So, the Scythians were among the first of our ancestors. The handling of the bow and arrows with the Scythians was learned since the early childhood; Florus (Lib. III, chap.VIII) recounts that a child would refuse the food given by his mother until she did not show him, through her self example, how is she hit by arrows. All their hopes were those arrows, as Tacitus (De mor. Germ., to the end) recounts. They roamed with their herds, herds of horses, goats and sheep through forests and untilted deserts, hence they were called Nomads, Shepherds, by Homer, Strabo and, among others, also by Silius (I, III).

§11. That is too the case of the toponym BASILIA mentioned by Pytheas of Marseille (a famous navigator and geographer of the 4th century BC, T.’s N.) as the seat of the royal Scythians: basileio V meaning quite “kingly”, “royal” (Plin. XXXVII, II). I call as a witness just Herodotus (IV, 56) in a passage where Gerrhos clearly recounts on the county of nomad Scythians and that of royal Scythians (“tón te tvn Nomadwn cwrion kai ton tvn basilhiwn Skuqewn”). Lacus Maeotis (Azov Sea, T.’s N.) too is inhabited by the Royal Scythians and the Sauromatians (“Maihtin, SkuqaV te touV

basilhiouV kai SauromataV”). This is how far the Sveons’ Empire stretched once, as I already said here above (that is also perfectly valid for the Geto-Dacians, who have lived for centuries, if not even millenniums, mixed with Germanic peoples, both in the Scandinavian Peninsula, and in the southern Russia, T.’s N.) Those Scythians who lived in Asia, it is due to call them Nomads (SkuqaV touV NomadaV, Hdt. I, 73). On the same island – BASILIA – the old ones called it BALTHIA from BALDUR or Apollo or from the bows and belts (baltheis) which the Scythians used, a respect in which it is worth mentioning Herodotus (IV, 11, 19 and 50, VI. 74), where he some times speaks about the bow, and other times about Hercules The Baltic (centurion) and not only about Scytha as Hercules’ son, after whom the Kings Scythian have been called (Plin., 1.chap., Hdt., IV, 8, IX, 10). Apollo himself is called by Virgil The Bow Carrier (Verg., Aen. III). And in the 5th book of the same Aeneid says it explicitly: "Be it now allowed us to explain how it came from the belt to the word Baltic (belte) Sea, as it appears in ancient words. The Scythians called Royal, were also called Hyperborean4, and their seat was in the Hyperborean island, Yswer Norden, in Greek ‘uper, poetic super in Latin, Yser with the Goths and Sveons, letters p and s are used alternately, either instead of the other. „Same way could also be explained SCAN, nowadays SKAN / SKANE, Scania being called in ancient times Scandia. As Scandia, Scanau, Scanorum sive Scandorum island (Scans’ or Scanzs’ Islans), a name under which we have yet another region located beyond the other regions, getting in touch with the Aquilone (the north wind). That is why Lucan mentions them as dwelling in a region located under the Polar Circle or Hyperborean Ursa (De bell. Civil., V, p. m. 121), and Cicero, quoting from Aratus’ poetry, he says: “consequently come the Northern” (De nat. deorum, II, p.m. 47); Seneca calls the North Pole, by the synechdoche Ursas: the icy wagon of the Hyperborean Ursa (Med. Act., II, cor. V, see 315).

§9 The Gauls or Francs themselves have come from our Scandia and why not the Trojans, too. What else it would be meant by TROY if not LAZIUS (Lazio, -orum, accord. to Plin.,VI.12, is a nation in Colchis; accord. to V. Pârvan, Getica, 281, 363, 777, as well as the opuscule Dacians in TROY; see also M. Crisan, Die Lage der antiken Städte Troja und Theben aus Böotien in der Bronzezeit, T.’s N.) §10. The land of Amazonia, KUENLAND in Scandinavia. In SMALANDIA’s VERENDIA even these days the honour remained as a permanence of ancient valour and body strength. §11. The Britons originate from the Saxons, Angles and Getae. §12 Yet either the Scots don’t know they are descending from the same stock. There arose firstly the nobility of the whole Europe from, a truth confirmed by Carolus Quintus. §13. Even the Germans were born in Scandinavia. §14. The Helvets likewise. §15. Not less the DANS and neighbouring peoples. §16. And what is believed about the Moscow inhabitants, who draw on the source of old Gothic language (read Getic, T.’s N.) §17. The Cyprian words tally perfectly with our ancient lexical rules. §18. At the time the first settlement of the Goths (read Getae, T.’s N.) was set up and where the place of those who have migrated is determined. How many likewise causes have generated migrations. The first expedition of the Gods, when did it come to live. §19. A majority of the writers agreed it was that of the Goths (read Getae, T.’s N.) and they set out of Scandia; there are too few those denying such opinion over those asserting it. Their reasoning spells as follows: From Kranzius to Valdenselsium is everyone that thinks accurately.