PREHISTORIC DACIA

PREHISTORIC DACIA

PART 2 – Ch.XV

STELE BOREIOS. The Boreal Column near the Lower Istru

In the geographical poem, commonly attributed to Scymnus of Chios, is mentioned a colossal column, which rose on the crest of a mountain near the Lower Istru, and which had the name Stele boreios, Boreal Column.

The text of this passage, so important for the prehistoric geography of ancient Dacia, is the following:

“In the most extreme parts of the Celts there is a Column which is called boreal. It is very high and the crest of the mountains on which it stands, stretches towards the sea full of waves. Close to this column dwell the most remote of the Celts, whose dwellings stop there. In the vicinity of the Column dwell also the Enetii, as well as the Lower Istriens, who are spread from here inside towards Adrian” (Orbis Descriptio, in Geographi graeci minores. Ed. Didot, Vol. I. v. 188-195).

In later times, different authors tried to establish the geographical position of this column, some near the strait of Gibraltar, others in the Alps, Pyrenees, or in the extreme corner of the peninsula named Bretagne (Mullerus, Geographi graeci minores, I. p. 202-203; Bertrand, La Gaule avant les Gaulois, p. 299-300). But all these locations present enormous difficulties, geographical and ethnographic, for the western parts of Europe.

As mysterious as the primitive and colossal monuments of the ante-Homeric times appear today, they are nevertheless an important vestige of the civilization of a vanished world and we should never avoid the task imposed by history to study those still extant today, to fix the position of the enigmatic ones, and bring to light their primitive character and meaning.

In ancient geographic literature, the famous monument of the prehistoric world about which Scymnus speaks, was called the Boreal Column. It was therefore situated in those parts of the European continent which ancient geography considered as a northern region.

Ephorus, one of the Greek historians who had tried to bring some light to ante-Homeric times, summarizes like this the ideas of the ancients about the geographic and ethnographic divisions of the earth: “The eastern region is inhabited by the Indians, the southern by Ethiopians, the western by the Celts and the northern region is occupied by the Scythians. But not all these parts are equal in size, because the regions occupied by the Scythians and Ethiopians are more extensive, while those of the Indians and Celts are smaller” (Fragm. 38 in Gragmenta Hist. graec. I. p. 243).

The Boreal Column was therefore in the geographical region of the Scythians, but in their western parts, close to the Celts, according to Scymnus. About the position of this gigantic Column of the ancient world we find another important geographical indication with him. According to what this author tells us, the crest of the mountains on which the Boreal Column rose, stretched towards the sea full of waves, or the stormy sea. Only one stormy sea par excellence was known to the ancient Greeks and this was Pontos axeinos, the inhospitable sea or the Black Sea of today. The same Pontos figures with Hesiod as the stormy or angry sea (Theog. v. 131-137), and with Herodotus as the boreal sea (lib. IV. c. 37).

It results therefore that the so-called Boreal Column was on one of the heights of the mountains which stretched on the western side of the Euxine Pontos, also called “the boreal sea”.

We have to examine now the ethnographic data presented by Scymnus regarding the geographic position of this important prehistoric monument.

According to him, three populations known to the ethnographic history of the ancient world were settled in the vicinity of the Boreal Column.

The first one mentioned by the author of this geography, were the extreme Celts, or the Celts most removed from their main body and who, says he, were extended only that far.

According to Diodorus Siculus, the Celts were scattered in ancient times as far as Scythia (lib. V. c. 32), in groups more or less considerable; and according to Stephanos Byzanthinos, the Agathyrsii or Tursenii rich in gold, who dwelt near the river Maris (Mures in Transilvania), were considered as a Celtic people.

The second ethnic group which dwelt close to the Boreal Column is called by Scymnus ‘Enetoi. About these Eneti we find another important geographical note with him: they were neighbors with the Thracians called Istriens (Orbis Descriptio, v. 391).

Scylax also tells us that Enetii were settled near Istru and the Istriens (Periplus, c. 20). According to Herodotus, Enetii dwelt this side of Istru, at north of Thrace and were neighbors with Sigynii (lib. V. 9; Apollonius Rhodius, lib. IV. 320), while Eustathius tells us that Enetii were neighbors with Tribalii, who dwelt near the river Oescus (Isker) in Lower Mesia.

We have therefore an absolute historical certitude that Enetii, about whom Scymnus speaks in the above text, were a people from near the Lower Istru [1].

[1. Homer mentions Enetii of Pahlagonia, as allies of the Trojans. Of Trojan origin were considered also Venetii of Italy, a small group separated from the large tribe of the Eneti (Pliny, I. III. 23. 3). We find the same ideas also with Strabo (XII. 3. 8). Enetii of Paphlagonia, writes he, after the destruction of Troy, scattered throughout Thrace and after wandering they reached Venetia (Cf. Scymnus, v. 889).

But the current of migrations between Europe and Asia Minor appears to have been completely different in history. It is a positive fact that all the Pelasgian tribes, which we find settled in Asia Minor, like Brygii, Bithynii, Mysii, Trojans, Lelegii, Cauconii, etc, had immigrated there from the Hem peninsula and from the parts of the Lower Danube. It seems then that Enetii of Paphlagonia too, who dwelt near the shores of the Black Sea, in close vicinity with the so-called Caucones, were only a fragment of the large group of Eneti from near the Istru].

The ethnic name of the prehistoric Eneti (‘Enetoi, Veneti), has left its trace in Romanian topography to this day. In the western parts of today Romania, a number of villages are called even today Vineti (Olt district), Venata (Gorj, Mehedinti, Ialomita, Prahova districts), Vinetesci (Falciu district, Vinetia (the country of Fagaras).

Finally, the third people who dwelt close to the Boreal Column were the so-called ‘Istroi.

Under the name of ‘Istroi, appear here the inhabitants of the lower parts of the Istru, who must not be mistaken for the ‘Istrianoi (Mnemonis, Fragm. 21, in Fragm. Historicorum graecorum, Ed. Didot, Vol. III. p.537; Herodotus, lib. IV. c. 78), the inhabitants of the rich and powerful city called ‘Istros, ‘Istria, ‘Istrie, situated near the old mouth of the Istru (Herodotus, lib. II. 33; Arrianus, Periplus Ponti euxini, c. 35; Pliny, IV. 18. 5; Mela, II. 2).

These Istri, according to what Scymnus tells us, were part of the large and historically important family of the Thracians (v.391), and extended “inside” towards Adrian [2].

[2. Mela (De Situ Orbis, lib. II. c. 1) understands under the name Istrici the entire population from the Lower Danube, starting near the river Tyras or Nistru (TN – Dnestr). At Trog Pompeius the same ‘Istroi or Istrici also figure under the general name of Istriani (Justinus, lib. X. 2).

Scymnus mentions three times in his “Periegesa” the geographical name of ‘Adrian (in the accusative). The same does Theopompus (Frag. 143). There existed therefore a scientific reason to do this, which puts in evidence that the real name of the territory in question was not at all ‘Adrias, but a form somehow near the Greek mode of expression, Adrian or Andrian (according to another version). The Greek and Roman authors had tried often, and we have numerous examples, to assimilate different personal and geographical names of the barbarians, with the grammatical forms of the language in which they wrote. But in no case, under the geographical term of Adrian or Andrian, which Scymnus mentions in connection with the Istru and the Boreal Column, can be understood the lands from the NE parts of the Adriatic Sea, or the city Adria from the plains of the river Padus (Po) in Italy].

These Istri formed therefore a considerable ethnic group, homogenous and speaking the same language, with the inhabitants of the region called by Scymnus Adrian.

The geographical expression “inside”, which we find with Scymnus, designated, by the natural meaning of the words, a territory further away from the open region of the big waters, a territory surrounded on all sides by high mountains, like an enclosure.

Jornandes, the historian of the Getae and the Goths, applies the same term of “inside” (intorsus) for the interior region of Dacia, today Ardel (De Getarum origine, c. 5).

So, this geographical matter becomes even clearer. The region which Scymnus calls “inside” (This expression is in use even today with the Romanian people. Those who travel from Romania to Ardel, say that they go inside), Adrian or Andrian, which was in an ethnic continuity with the Lower Istrieni, could be no other than the central region of Dacia, or today Ardel [3].

[3. The Hyperboreans, as we know, dwelt in the northern parts of the Lower Istru, of the Euxine Pontos, and beyond Rhipaei mountains (or the southern Carpathians). In the oldest geographical sources though, instead of Rhipaei figured the name of Adria (‘Adrias).

“The first to describe the regions of the earth, Strabo tells us (XI. 6. 2), called the Hyperboreans who dwelt above the Euxine Pontos, Istru and Adria, Sauromati and Arimaspi”. It is evident that here too, under the name of Adrias was not understood the territory near the Adriatic Sea. Nobody mentions the Arimaspi and Sauromati in those parts.

A suburb of Philipopoli was called around 227ad, vicus Ardilenus (C. I. L. VI. nr. 2799) and probably the inhabitants of that “vicus” had emigrated or resettled there from the northern parts of the Istru, from Ardel ].

Scymnus though is not the only author of antiquity who called Adrian the mountainous zone from north of the Lower Istru. This complex of mountains, valleys and hills appears under the same geographical name of ‘Adrian and ‘Adrias, at Theopompus (Fragm. 143 in Fragm. Hist. graec. I. p.303), Eratosthenes (Strabo, lib. VII. 5. 9), in the history of Alexander the Great (Strabo, lib. VII. 3. 8) and even Herodotus (lib. V. 9).

In Scymnus’ passage related to the boreal Column, it is also said in the final verse: “From here (the lands of the Istriens) starts, as it is said, the course of the Istru”. But by these words must not be understood the sources, but the cataracts of the Istru. According to Strabo (VII. 3. 13), the Danube was called Istru only downstream from the cataracts.

We are confronted now with the principal historical matter of knowing what significance had the so-called Boreal Column in the beliefs of the ancients.

According to the cosmographic ideas of the Hyperboreans, the universe (chosmos, mundus) was considered as a concave sphere, at the center of which was the earth (Plato, Axiochus, Ed. Didot, Vol. II. p.561). The firmament with all its stars turned continually around the earth.

The axis around which the sky, or the universe turned, was considered to pass through the centre of the earth. So the sky and the earth had a common axis (Strabo, Geogr. lib. II. c. 5. 2).

The extreme parts of the axis between the earth and the sky were called Cardines mundi (hinges of the world), the northern one Septentrio or axis boreus, the southern Meridies (Vitruvius, De architectura, lib. IX. 1; Isidorus, Originum, III. 32. 1. 2, 36 and 37; Ibid. XIII. 1. 8).

They touched the surface of the terrestrial globe on both sides, and represented therefore certain points of the celestial and terrestrial geography.

According to the astronomical and geographical ideas of classic antiquity, the northern pole, also called axis boreus or cardines mundi, around which turned the sphere of the universe, touched the earth near the Lower Istru, on the territory of the Hyperboreans (Pliny, H. N. IV. 26. 11), or the Getae, on the Rhipaei mountains.

The poet Ovid, exiled at Tomis, complains in one of his elegies (Trist. Lib. IV. 8. 41-42) that he must spend his life under axis boreus, on the left side of the Euxine Pontos, and in another letter, addressed to his friend Macerus in Rome, Ovid tells him that he was right under the Cardines mundis, and that he talks often with his friend under the boreal axis (axis gelidus) in the country of the Getae.

Martial calls the same geographic and astronomic point Geticus polus (Epigr. Lib. IX. 46), Statius calls it Hyperborei axes (Thebaid. Lib. XII. V. 650-651), Virgil, Hyperboreus septentrio. The same Virgil tells us also that the northern pole is in Scythia, on Rhipaei mountains, from where it rises up in the shape of a rock peak (Georg. I. v. 240-241, III. v. 381).

As we see from the texts referred to here, the astronomical and geographical terms of axis boreus, Geticus polus, Hyperborei axes, cardines mundi, were identical expressions which indicated that in the region of the Lower Istru was the important geographical point, around which the ancients believed that the celestial sphere turned.

The authors of antiquity also present the same geographical idea under another form.

According to the grammarian Apollodorus of Athens, the titan Atlas from the country of the Hyperboreans, supports the pole of the universe (Bibl. lib. II. 5. 11. 13).

Virgil says: the giant Atlas turns on his shoulders the starry axis of the sky (Aen. IV. v. 482). And Ovid: Atlas still labors, barely supporting on his shoulders the white and glowing axis of the sky (Metam. lib. II. v. 297).

This northern axis of the universe, also called polus Geticus, which the titan Atlas supported on his shoulders, was therefore identical with the Sky Column from the Atlas mountain (chion ouranou - Eschyl, Prom. Vinct. v. 349), or as Homer says, with “the long columns, which Atlas supports and which hold the sky around the earth” (Odyss. I. v. 53).

We have examined here the principal texts regarding the geographical character of the Boreal Column. From all this data, fragmented and scattered among the authors of antiquity, an important historical truth comes out to light: according to the geographical ideas of ante-Homeric times, the Column called stele boreios from near the Lower Istru, was the same traditional and sacred monument as the great Column of theogony, or chion ouranou, from the south-eastern arch of the Carpathians.

END OF PART 2 - (to follow up go PART 2 – CONTENTS – PART 3)