Before we go back to our puzzle, we wanted to take a quick look at Ptolemy’s description of Sarmatia. Ptolemy says:
“The Greater Venedae races inhabit Sarmatia along the entire Venedicus bay; and above Dacia are the Peucini and the Basternae; and along the entire coast of Maeotis are the Iazyges and the Rhoxolani; more toward the interior from these are the Amaxobi and the Scythian Alani. Lesser races inhabit Sarmatia near the Vistula river. Below the Venedae are the Gythones, then the Finni, the the Sulones;”
One way to approach the above paragraph would be to say that all of the above tribes are Venedae. The main objection must be that the tribes listed above are not “along the entire Venedicus bay” if by that we mean the Bay of Gdansk or even the Baltic Sea. In fact, many are nowhere near either of those locations. And yet this reading seems natural.
Ptolemy then comes back to the Venedicus bay saying:
“Back from the Ocean near the Venedicus bay, the Veltae dwell, above whom are the Ossi; then more toward the North the Carbones and toward the east are Careotae and the Sali; below whom…”
Another way to look at this is to say that these are the Venedae (the list continues after the Sali to include many other tribes).
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I have a better translation for Ptolemy Geography, Book III. Chapter V.
19. Sarmatia is populated with numerous tribes:
The Venedae live along the whole Venedian Bay [= the Bay of Gdansk] .
The Peucini [= island on the river Danube] and the Basternae settle higher [= on the east] than Dacia.
Along the whole coast of the Meotis [= black Sea] there were the Iazyges and Rhoxolani.
The Amaxobii [ Amaxobians, were a nomadic tribe who lived in chariots with leather tents mounted on them, Scythians] and the Scythians – Alauni [= Alani] populated further inland.
20. Less significant tribes, populated Sarmatia, are the following:
near the Vistula River, lower than the Venedae were the Phrungundiones,
further near the sources of Vistula River the Avarini live;
lower them there were the Ombrones,
then the Anartophracti, then the Burgiones, the Arsietae,
the Saboci, the Piengitae and the Biessi near Carpata Mountain.
Ptolemy had perfect information from Gallic/Celtic merchants
for Amber Route and partialy good or inaccurate information for
Vistula Route.
I have just translated a few names of tribes living on the eastern
bank of the Vistula;
– Ombrones = Amber ones – sellers of amber ?,
– Burgiones = burgi ones – belonging to the castle ?,
– Suboci = Sobczyk tribe ?;
– Piengitae = Pieniążek tribe ?;
– Biessi = Bis tribe?;
interesting.
Sarmatia was populated by 4 races;
German Peucini and Bastarnae
Sarmatians;
Fenni
Veneti; proto Balto-Slavs
The last three became so intermixed that it was difficult to tell one from the other.
After the Gothic invasion though Jordanes mentions Venedi as Slavonic race……
but where are the Balts in all this?
He must have confused Balts with Slavs.
Besides Slavs distinguished themselves from Balts by mixing with or assimilation with some Sarmatian group.
Perhaps. The Balts most likely are Aesti since “Estonians” are basically Finns, that is Fenni.
Describing European Sarmatia, Ptolemy (c. AD 150) tells us that the Greater Venedae lived along the entire Venedicus bay. He names tribes south of the Venedae both along the eastern bank of the Vistula and further east.3 So it seems that his Venedicus bay was the Bay of Danzig, inhabited by Baltic-speakers in the Middle Ages. Pliny also places the Veneti along the Baltic coast,4 as does the Late Roman Tabula Peutingeriana. So the Veneti of Ptolemy and Pliny seem to be the Western Balts. They could scarcely be Slavs, since Proto-Slavic lacks maritime terminology and had no word for amber, the chief Baltic export in Roman times.
@ jasio:
1) Ptolemy says nothing about the Bay of “Danzig” – neither does he say anything about the Bay of Gdansk.
2) The argument about the hydronims is a rip of the idiotic arguments made by Meillet which I can refute while standing on one foot and imbibing moonshine.
3) if you are going to cut and paste from Jean Manco’s moronic chapter on the Suavs you should at least give her credit for the nonsense she wrote. Otherwise, it just makes you, not her, look foolish.