PART
4 –
Ch.XXVI.6
Prehistoric
monuments of metallurgic art in
(Chryseion Koas – The Golden Fleece)
XXVI. 6. An enormous multitude of inhabitants
from Aietes’ kingdom pursue the Argonauts
to the
The origin and language of the Istrien
Romanians.
According to the traditions which we find with the Greek and
Roman authors, the ancient inhabitants of
“The nation of the Istrians” writes Trog Pompeius “has its origin from the Colchi, sent by king Aietes to chase
the Argonauts and his daughter’s kidnappers. Tracking the Argonauts, these
Colchi had passed from Pontos into the waters of Istru, then they had advanced on the valley of the river Sava up to
near its sources, and from Sava they had transported their ships over the
crests of the mountains down to the shores of the Adriatic Sea, upon learning
that the Argonauts had done the same thing with their big ship. But these
Colchi, being unable to find the Argonauts and, either because they feared king
Aietes’ anger if they returned without any result, or because they had had
enough of this long and arduous journey, had settled near Aquileia and were
called Istri from the name of the
river on which they had navigated from the sea onwards” (Justinis, Hist. Philipp. Ex Trogo Pompeio, lib. XXXII, c.3; Apollodorus, Bibl. lib. I. 9, 24. 25).
We find that the chronicler Isidorus of Sevilla (VI - VII century bc) had also reproduced
exactly the same prehistoric tradition about the ancient population of
We find two main errors in this tradition communicated by
the two Latin authors:
Trog Pompeius and Isidorus of Sevilla were somehow of the
opinion that the ancient dwellings of the Colchi in Aietes’ kingdom were to be
found somewhere on the eastern parts of the
The second error presented in Trog Pompeius’ tradition is
that the Colchi settled near the
The name Istri appears,
even from a very remote epoch, as a general ethnographic appellation for all
the Pelasgian tribes which inhabited the plains, valleys and mountainous region
of the
In the ancient genealogies of these prehistoric peoples,
there existed even a mythological father called Istros (Apollodorus,
Bibl. lib. II. 1. 5. 4) for the Istriens from the lower parts of the
The
troupes sent with the ships by king Aietes to chase after the Argonauts, were,
as Apollonius Rhodius tells us (lib.
IV. v. 236-241, 1001), of such a huge number that all the waters echoed of
their multitude.
These inhabitants of the mountainous region of the Colchi,
or better said, from Aietes’ kingdom, being unable to bring Medea back, stayed
there, near the
[1.
According to ancient traditions, Apsyrtos
was king Aietes’ son with the nymph Asterodea. It is a familiar name. Even today
exist in the villages Manesci and Sarulesci from the mountainous region of
Buzeu district, two groups and two
hamlets of free peasants called Apostari. The name of the people
settled in the Apsortides islands
originated without doubt from these tribes.
In
Homer’s Odyssey, the island of the Pheacians is called Scheria. Apollonius
Rhodius (IV. v. 984-990) calls it Drepane
(TN – secere, sickle), Deous
arpe (the sickle of Dia or Cybele), Couretis Chthon (Curetum
Terra). Veglia island is called Curictae in Roman inscriptions, Ceryctice and Cyrictice by Strabo. Lucan (IV. 406) mentions the population
of this island under the name of belaci
gente Curetum, and Caesar calls
it
Apollonius Rhodius
calls the island Arbe Deous arpe, but mistakes it for the
island of the Pheacians (Veglia). In C. I. L. III. nr. 2931 it is called Arba].
Finally, another significant part of the numerous troupes
sent by king Aietes chose to dwell on the shores of
As for the antiquity of these Istriens from near the
We find the first geographical mention of them with the
historian Hecateus of Miletus, born
around 549bc (Stephanos Byzanthinos,
see ‘Istroi).
And the historian Timaeus of Sicily (4th century bc)
retained an important tradition about their antiquity in those parts.
After the fall of
So,
according to Timaeus, the migration and settling of the Istriens in the upper
It results from this tradition, which in fact belongs to the
cycle of the Homeric heroes, that the legendary dragon which guarded the golden
apples from the Atlas mountain, in the country of the Hyperboreans, the dragon
which the Argonauts had to fight in order to steal the golden fleece, the
dragon which had chased the Argonauts as far as the Adriatic Sea, and against
which Diomedes, as a mercenary hero in the island of the Pheacians, had to
battle against, was the glorious dragon with open jaws from the Istru, the war standard of the Dacian tribes, against whom even the
Romans had sent so many great war expeditions across the Danube.
Apart from traditions and apart from the ethnographic name
of Istri given to these Pelasgian
tribes from the
An ancient locality in the eastern parts of
Another city on the shore of the
[2.
We note here another curious connection. Altinum
was situated near the river called in antiquity Silis, today Sil and Sille. The same name, or better said, the same
historical etymology has the Jiu
river (Schill in German, Sill, Zsil in Hungarian), the principal river in the central region of
today Oltenia. It seems that the
tribes of Olteni, settled at Altinum, had taken and also localized
at the
These names are two ethnic appellations of the first tribes
which founded these localities.
The etymology of these names goes back without doubt to Aluta or Alutus fluvius from
Another group settled in the eastern parts of the peninsula
are called by the name of Mentores
by Pliny (lib. III. 25. 1), namely Munteni [3].
[3.
We find an analogous from of muntari
with the Romanians dwelling in the western mountains of
We have here a “rotacism” (r instead of n) in the
last syllable, and the rest of the word is a form corrupted by the Greek
authors. Pliny himself, so illustrious for his vast knowledge, complains that
he must use Greek data for the description of
Apart from the tribes called Mentores by Pliny, who lived in
Istria, the Greek navigator and geographer Scylax,
who lived in the times of Darius Hystaspes, mentions (Periplus, 21) the islands
Mentorides, namely Muntenesci, in the Adriatic gulf.
The origin of the ethnographic name Mentores is at the
The geographic term of Munteni
had become in antiquity an ethnic appellation for different Pelasgian tribes,
Liguri (Pliny, lib. III. 24. 3; Ciceronis, Agr. II. 35; Livy, XXVIII. 46; Tacitus, Hist. II. 12) and Istriens, which had emigrated in remote
times from the Carpathians and had settled in the upper parts of the Italic
peninsula.
We still find in Roman inscriptions the family names of Montanus in Montona, Montanus and Montania in Aquileia, Muntana
in Verona (C.I. L. Vol. V. nr. 423, 1241, 1307, 3808), Montana in Senia facing Veglia island, Montanus in Iader (Zara), Muntana
in Salona (C. I. L. Vol. III. nr. 3017, 2927, 2624). These are hereditary
geographical appellations, applied to emigrated families or tribes. They
indicate that the primitive origin of these families had been in a region
called Montania, namely Muntenia. As well as Montanus and
Montana, we also find on the territory of Istria and the adjoining region, the
geographical family names of Messius
in Piquentum, another Messius on the
territory of the Veneti, a Messius, Dacco and Decia in Aquileia and a woman called Dacia in Verona (C. I. L. Vol. V. nr. 449, 210, 1298, 1645, 1252,
3647). We add also that an ancient city of
Finally, the Slavs from the
A third geographical name in the Istria region, with the
origin at the Lower Istru is Tergeste,
with its variants Tregeste and Tregesten (Ravennatis, Cosmographia, Ed. PInder, p. 255. 257), or Triest of today. Tregeste had been in the
Roman epoch one of the most important maritime cities of
But which was the historical origin of the name Tergeste, no
author could tell.
The geographers Strabo
(Geogr. lib. II. 5. 12; III. 4. 17) and Ptolemy
(Geogr. lib. III. 10. 7) mention an important ethnic group Tyregetae (with the variants Tyrigetae,
Tyragetae, Tyrangitae, Tyrangotae)
in the eastern parts of
According to Strabo their dwellings were more removed from
the sea, but close to the mouths of Istru, near the Peucini, Britolagi, and
Harpi or
The appellation of Tyregetae
is a Greek form, as proved by the geographical ending tes and tai, and corresponds to the Latin form Tyregenae. We have a decisive proof in this respect in the name of
the city from the mouths of Siret, which appears under the forms Dinogetia and Dinogenia, Diogetia and Diogenia (Ptolemy, Geogr. Ed. Didot, Vol. I. p. 458). So, by their name and
their geographical position, the Tyregeti (or Tyrangoti) of Strabo and Ptolemy
were the people living near the mouths of Siret, whose political centre was
Dinogetia, also called in the ancient manuscripts Dirigothia, or Tirighina,
once the opulent and powerful capital of king Aietes.
(The name Tyregeti does not derive from the river Tyras
(Nistru, Dnester) and they were not settled there anyway).
The city of
A Roman inscription from lower
Finally, we also find on the territory of old
The historical question becomes therefore clear. The ancient
inhabitants of
[4.
We also add here the following: Buzeres
and Sapires were, as we know, two
important tribes in Aietes’ kingdom.
In the Capodistria district we find a village called Buzari and a hamlet Puzzeri (Special-
Orts- Repertorium d. oesterr.-illyr. Kustenlandes, 1894, p. 75, 80)].
As for the nationality and ethnic affiliation of these
Istriens from the
In 221bc the Romans conquered
But now an important political question faced the Roman
Senate: if it were better to send to
[5.
Other cities of
These
facts are quite eloquent in themselves. The indigenous population, which the Romans
had found settled in the region of Aquileia in Istria, and in the island
Curictae, today Veglia, was, in regard to its religion, national institutions
and political sympathies, closer to the Latin shepherds than to the Latinized
heterogeneous elements of Rome.
The ancient cities of
So, we find the following personal names in Roman
inscriptions from these regions: Romulus
in Montona, Romulus Bizegoni in
Aquileia, Romulus and Romulianus in Concordia, west of
Aquileia, near Romatinus river, Rominus on the territory of Mediolan, Remus in Vicetia and Trident, Remmius, Remmia in Patavium, Vicetia and Verona, Remmia in Arbe, Rhome in
Salona, Rumno, Rumia, the daughter of Tatuca Vervex and Roma in Noric, Armonia
in Pola and Arminu in Brixia (C. I.
L. vol. V nr. 423, 1045, 8669, 8662, 5662, 3180, 5033, 2837, 8110, 3701; C. I.
L. vol. III. nr. 3125, 2083, 4966, 5350, 5667) [6].
[6.
We find that the names Arimanni and Aremanni were used by the ancient
Romanic population of upper
The
vast territory of the Veneti, with
the cities Aquileia, Concordia, Patavium, Vicetia, Verona and the alpine regions of the Carni, formed during the Roman epoch,
together with Istria, only one ethnographic region, and in the
Middle Ages only one ecclesiastical
province. The name of
Pliny calls an ancient city in these parts, probably in
These are names which, as we shall see later, do not derive
either from Roma, which had
conquered by arms these regions, or from the ancient tribe Ramnes from near the Tiber, but from an archaic appellation of the
Pelasgian race, whose strong origins had been with the Arimi from the Istru (Hesiodus,
Theog. v. 304; Homer, Iliad, II. v.
783; also see Ch.VII) and the Aramaei
(Aramani in Latin form) from north of the Black Sea (Pliny, lib. VI. 19. 1).
To this ancient Pelasgian population of
The
number of these Romanians was once very significant, not only in the
We do not
find any historical mention about when these Romanians had emigrated from their
old country from the Lower Istru, and had settled near the Adriatic, either in
the chronicles of the Romanian Countries, or in the documents of Transylvania,
Hungary, Croatia, Istria, Venice, or in the documents of the patriarchy of
Aquileia.
The
opinions we have so far about the geographical origin and the age of these
Romanians from
[7.
According to Miklosich, they came
from Major Vlachia, a region near
the frontiers of
These
opinions are based neither on historical research, nor on a study of the ethnic
individuality of this people in its existing environment.
For our
part, we can assert that, owing to the light thrown by the historical
documents, we consistently find traces of the existence of this Vlach nationality on the
An
ancient Blac population existed in
the upper parts of
The epic
poet Lucan uses (Phars. Lib. Iv. v.
406-407) the same word of “bellaci”,
but with an ethnographic and etymologic meaning at the same time, in order to
characterize the warlike population of the island of the Cureti or Veglia. By the epithet of bellax, or in the applied form of “bellaci gente Curetum”, Lucan wants to express that the indigenous
population from Veglia was part of the so-called nation of the Belaci, or that they were themselves Belaci or Blaci [8].
[8. A Blac or Romanian population had also existed in the island Arbe, near Veglia.
In a letter
written in Arbe in 1852, annexed to
the Statutum Arbensis Civitatis,
found in the Library of the
Until the
end of the 17th century, the national name of the Romanian
inhabitants from the regions of Triest
and Valdarsa had been, as the Istrian literati assure us, Rumeri (Rumari) and Ramleni (Ireneo della Croce, Historia della citta di Trieste.
The term
of Romarius (Romar) begins to appear
in the upper parts of
[9. We find
the form of Rumarul used instead of Romanul also in the Carpathian regions,
as appears in a document of
In
another document from around 1102ad the inhabitants of the eastern parts of
And
finally, apart from the form of Rumar (Romarius), we also find in the documents
of Albona from the years 1170, 1341, 1363 (Codice
dipl. Istriano, Vol. I. An. 1275, 1363; L’Archeografo Triestino, N. S. vol. I. p. 6. An. 1341), the family
names of Rumin and Rumen, and in the documents of Veglia
from the year 1248, the name Romanus (Kandler, Inscrizione romana
It results therefore from what we’ve presented so far, that
the ancient population of Istria was originally from outside Italy, that it
belonged to the strong and widespread nation of the eastern Pelasgians, to the
nation of the Arimi from the Istru;
finally, that the Romanians so-called Istriens have to be considered from a
historical point of view only as descendants of the ancient tribes, which in
remote times had emigrated from the Carpathians and had conquered Istria and
the neighboring islands.
The national language of these Romanians from the
The existence of this phenomenon on the
Even in Roman times there was a particular tendency of the
Latin language of
The city Tergeste appears in the best manuscripts of the
geographies of Ptolemy (Geogr. lib.
III. 1. 23, Ed. Didot, p. 336) and Mela,
as Tergestron and Tergrestum, with the introduction of a
useless r. In the Roman inscriptions
of
This dialect, in which the letter r substitutes very often the letter n, had once been widespread in the parts of
The origin of this linguistic phenomenon belongs to the
ante-Roman epoch. The Pelasgian dialect (namely Daco-Getic) from the
To this particularity of the language spoken in the northern
regions of Istru refer Ovid’s words,
when he calls the language of the Getae “vox
fera, vox ferina, barbara verba, murmur in ore” (Trist. V. 7. 17; Ex Ponto,
IV. 13. 20. 36); when he uses, in order to characterize the Getic people, the
expressions “rigidos Getas, duros Getas, diros Getas, ferox Getes, feros Getas, trux Getes, fera gens, turba Getarum, barbara turba” (Trist. Lib. V. 1. 46; III. 10. 5; IV. 6. 47; III.
3. 48; Ex Ponto, lib. I. 5. 12;
The substitution of the nasal letter n with r was also in use
in the dialect spoken in the prehistoric
Not only the documents, but also the ethnographic character
of the Romanians of Istria tells us that their settling there harks back to
very obscure times.
And in truth, when we studied on site the physical and moral
condition of this group of Romanians, we realized easily that today they lost
everything specific Romanian, apart from their archaic dialect. Their type,
generally Romanic, has lost today the particular character of the Romanians
from the Carpathians. Their old national name is forgotten. The traces of their
origin are lost. Their heroic poetry is extinguished (though it seems that they
also had the tradition about Old Novac:
a hamlet of Montona is called Sella di
Novaco). Only a little remains from their nuptial songs and funerary
bewailing. The rhythm of their speech is so much altered, that their
conversation doesn’t sound Romanic, not even when all the elements of speech
are Romanian. Their costume has changed too. From the domestic economy of the
Romanian women from
All these real circumstances prove that the separation of
these Romanians from their original stock from the Istru had happened in very
remote times.
The only explanation of the fact that the language of the
Romanians of Istria stayed almost unchanged, stationary, that the filiations of
this dialect with the Romanian mother language from the Carpathians is even
today so close, is to be found in the particular history of the Romanian
language.
The Romanian language, as spoken at the
The Romanian language from the Istru and the Carpathians
came out of its formative period a long time ago. It had reached regular forms
to a high degree of stability and consolidation, long before the western
Romanic languages, which compared with the Romanian language are really young
languages. A proof of this is the fact that on the territory of ancient
Regarding the historical origin and formation of the
Romanian language everywhere, it is not
a neo-Latin language, neither a dialect of the Latin language from the
Tiber; on the contrary, it is basically only a continuation of the Pelasgian
language from the Carpathians, from where a great number of tribes have
emigrated in different prehistoric epochs, some westwards, others towards the
southern regions.
This explains why different forms of the Romanian language,
even those with the article post placed, are also found during Greek antiquity,
as we shall see later; why there are even today in the Romanian language from
the Carpathians, a great number of words with a much more primitive meaning
than the same words of classic Latin language, or of the rustic language of
Latium, as far as this is known to us.
The Romanian language from the Carpathians has been able to
change some vowels in the course of centuries, to soften or eliminate some
consonants, to shorten the endings, to lose some words and adopt others, to
modify some verb forms, as this is a normal evolution through which every
language passes.
And if we find today particularities in the language of the Romanians
of Istria, some of which are common to the Daco-Romanian language, others to
the Macedo-Romanian dialect, this is only an obvious proof that the separation
of these tribes settled near the Adriatic had happened in an epoch when the
differences between the language spoken at the Carpathians and at the Pindus
was not that big.
There remains only one matter to be explained. The language
of the Romanians of Istria has preserved its archaic, eastern character, or
Romanian almost unaltered. This was due firstly to the fact that, once upon a
time, the whole of Istria and the neighboring regions of Aquileia, Verona and
of the Carni (who lived in the mountainous regions above Triest), were
inhabited in compact masses by a single homogenous population, speaking a
single language; secondly, it was due to their geographical isolation and
finally, to their pastoral occupations, which made them lead a mostly communal,
contained, tribal life [10].
[10.
TN – At this point in the text, the author gives some examples from the Grammar of the Istro-Romanian dialect, as collected and
studied by the author himself in
He
starts with some declinations of nouns, with or without articles, some verb
conjugations, personal and possessive pronouns, and ends with numerals.
I
will give only one small example: the verb to
be (Romanian a fi) in the
present tense, but I will preserve the spelling as of the year 1913:
Romanian: eu sunt, tu esci, el
este, noi suntem, voi sunteti, ei sunt.
Istrian Romanian: io sum (escu),
tu esci (sti), ie ie (iaste), noi smo (esmo), voi ste, ieli scu (isu).
I
have to add though, that even today, Romanians use in everyday parlance: io instead of eu, iel instead of el, e or iaste instead of este.
The
conjugation of the verb “to be” clarifies, at
least for this translator, the origin of the typical Romanian ending of “escu” for family names. “io escu” was the Istrian Romanian
equivalent of today’s Romanian “eu sunt”
(TN - I am), the archaic form having been lost probably ages ago in Romanian
language. So, for example “Ionescu”
meant “I am Ion”. Another variation
is that of names of localities, ending in esci
(again, the old spelling). For example, Bucuresci,
which I interpret as you are Bucur,
who by the way, was supposed to have been the founder of the city].
The
language of the Romanians of Istria is at the same time extremely important,
because it shows the archaism and the place which the Romanian language
deserves in the genealogy of the Romanic languages.
It is an
antique language, placed between the Latin languages of the West and the
ancient language of the Pelasgian race from the Istru [11].
[11. The studies made so far regarding the etymology of the Romanian words, lack
for the best part any scientific value. We give here an example. Two hamlets on
the
But
according to some literati who have studied the origin of the Romanian words,
the word Cioban (TN – shepherd)
might be of Turkish origin (Cihac,
Dict. II. p. 565). So we are led to believe that the Romanians of Istria might
have settled there after the Turkish invasion of
But
the word cioban belongs to the
archaic times of the Romanian language. It had migrated from the Carpathians
towards
Pliny mentions
Coebanum caseum, “Casul ciobanesc” (TN – shepherds’
cheese), made especially from sheep’s milk, which came to
Today we
have but a small number of isolated words, and very few texts preserved in the
language of the Romanians from
In order to better appreciate though the historical
characteristics of this language, we reproduce here the following comparative
excerpts from “The parable of the prodigal son”, texts which I have collected
myself from the live language of the people in three localities of
[12. TN - This chapter continues with four comparative texts from “The parable of the prodigal son” from The Gospel of St.Luke, chapter XV, 11-32. Three of them are in the Romanian dialects spoken in the villages of Berdo, Susnevita and Jeiani (Zejane) in Istria, the fourth is the corresponding text taken from the Romanian Gospel, printed by Deacon Coresi in 1560/61ad. Finally, the author compares texts from “The lamentations of Jeremiah”, chapter V, 1-8, 15-17, 21, as spoken by the people of Berdo and as appearing in the Romanian Bible printed at Blasiu in 1795].