Slaves and Slavs

However, the context I've heard Strategos in is always referring to Pericles. Unless he had a different title back then, I'd have to imagine that's not a Latin loan word.
 
Stratos crops up in Sappho, writing on the island of Lesbos around the time of the birth of the Roman republic. At that point, the cultural influence between Greece and Rome was definitely one-way.
 
Εκστρατεία (military campaign) as well. However maybe the str cluster is unique in that. Infact it is kept in Ekstrateia which i mentioned, now having nicely 4 consonants in a row :)
 
Or maybe there are (or were) more consonant clusters in Greek than you realized.
 
Well, Latin for hard is durus, which is very different from sclero. Can anyone think of any unambiguously Latin words that start with scl?

Also, did Homer never use the word "hard." It seems it should be easy to verify whether these words predate Latin influence.
 
Well, Latin for hard is durus, which is very different from sclero. Can anyone think of any unambiguously Latin words that start with scl?

Also, did Homer never use the word "hard." It seems it should be easy to verify whether these words predate Latin influence.

There are non-latin sounding synonyms, so that isn't a point :mischief:

Απηνής, ανελαστικός, άκαμπτος etc (anelastic would be the more obvious of those in carried over to english form. Penion is the term for any easy to bend -and retain in bent shape- material, eg those that wire internal parts are made of are called that now as well. Kampto is the verb for bend or alter in a manner so as to diminish metaphorically as well as literally).
 
Any article on the word slave will tell you that so many Slavic people where taken into slavery that some languages took the root slav- for the word slave. It all go back to Latin -->Old French-->English, not Greek.
 
There are non-latin sounding synonyms, so that isn't a point :mischief:

Απηνής, ανελαστικός, άκαμπτος etc (anelastic would be the more obvious of those in carried over to english form. Penion is the term for any easy to bend -and retain in bent shape- material, eg those that wire internal parts are made of are called that now as well. Kampto is the verb for bend or alter in a manner so as to diminish metaphorically as well as literally).

My whole point is that every Greek word that sounds weird to your ears is automatically labeled as a Latin import even though there's no evidence or reason to believe that. It's easier to argue that it's a Thracian import or a Lydian import. At least then I wouldn't have a clue of the actual word from that language that sounds nothing like it.

Απηνής is translated as ferocious
ανελαστικός as inflexible
άκαμπτος as rigid

I agree that ανελαστικός and άκαμπτος are synonyms. I disagree that either is a good synonym for σκληρό, which is probably why scl- was imported to English for medical terms as opposed to just using inelastic.
 
Probably also because 'Multiple Anelastikosis' and the like sound ridiculous, in addition to being overly long.
 
The question of the day still is: Did the word Slav(e)s within the English language originate from the English version of the tribal name Slavs. Similar, aren't they?. This would support the thesis that it was the Catholic Frankish Empire which caused hundreds of thousands of non Christian West(Wend) Slavs to be captured and sold like cattle (what a Christian thing to do!) as a result of the Franks victorious wars with these people.
 
what a Christian thing to do!

Medieval Church Law forbade enslaving fellow Christians, but there was no any similar paragraph concerning Pagans or Muslims.

There was an empire-wide scandal with Bishop Agobard of Lyon (779 - 840), who mass-baptised - by sprinkling water at them - a convoy with slaves, that was moving through Lyon to Marseille. Then he ordered the traders to release their slaves, because they were now Christians and thus had to be freed.

But the traders didn't want to release them, as they had paid a lot of money for them. Authorities of Lyon decided that the Bishop was right. Then the traders started an appeal to the King. The King ruled that Agobard had the right to do that, but at the same time he forbade such practices in the future.

of the tribal name Slavs.

It was not a tribal name though, but an ethnic name. Just like Deutsch or Dutch (both of which mean "belonging to the people").
 
The question of the day still is: Did the word Slav(e)s within the English language originate from the English version of the tribal name Slavs. Similar, aren't they?. This would support the thesis that it was the Catholic Frankish Empire which caused hundreds of thousands of non Christian West(Wend) Slavs to be captured and sold like cattle (what a Christian thing to do!) as a result of the Franks victorious wars with these people.

The English and other European languages loaned the word "slave" from Latin and Greek, who in turned coined the word "sclavus/sklavos" after the Byzantine empire captured lots of Slavs - who had migrated en masse into the Balkan peninsula - and turned them into unfree persons. The words "sclavus" and "sklavos" mostly (but not entirely) replaced the older words "Servus/servii" and "doulos/douloi" (Latin and Greek respectively) the Romans had for the concept.
 
Tigranes said:
It all go back to Latin -->Old French-->English, not Greek

According to Max Vasmer, first use of "sclavos" in the meaning of "slave", goes back to the writings of Agathias of Myrina (530-594 AD).

Tigranes said:
Any article on the word slave will tell you that so many Slavic people where taken into slavery that some languages took the root slav- for the word slave.

The problem is that this notion contradicts the notion of Slavic expansion from their small primordial homeland into half of Europe.

This was noted by Mario Alinei in his "The Slavic Ethnogenesis..." - an excerpt:



So IMHO a more likely explanation is that which can be found in Strategikon of Emperor Maurice.

"Strategikon", written by Emperor Maurice (539-602), contains this highly thought-provoking passage:

"(...) Slavs, unlike all other peoples, do not keep prisoners of war in perpetual slavery, but they demarcate for them a limited period of time, after which they give them a choice: they can either return home if they purchase their freedom, or stay among them as free people and friends. (...)"

So, according to "Strategikon", Slavic tribes used to incorporate captives into their ranks. They had an unusual habit of liberating their slaves and incorporating them into their communities as free people.

Therefore Slavic tribes which emerged in the Balkans must have included a lot of descendants of former Roman citizens who got captured by Slavs, then liberated and assimilated into their communities.

This is also confirmed by other sources, for example by these excerpts from Procopius of Caesarea:

Procopius, Book VII, XIII - describing the events in year 545 AD:

"(...) For a great throng of the barbarians, the Sclaveni, had, as it happened, recently crossed the Ister, plundering the adjoining country and enslaved a very great number of Romans. (...)"

Another excerpt from Procopius:

"(...) In Illyria and Thracia, from the Ionian Gulf to Byzantine surrounding cities, where Hellas and Chersonese regions are situated, (...) the Sclavenes and the Antes, penetrating practically every year since Justinian administering the Roman Empire, were inflicting irreversible damage to their inhabitants. In each invasion I estimate 200,000 Romans were either enslaved or killed (...)"

And here an excerpt from John of Ephesus:

"(...) In third year after the death of Emperor Justin, during the reign of victorious Tiberius, the damned nation of the Slavs has risen, and marching through entire Hellas, through lands of Thessaly and Thrace, captured many cities and strongholds, plundered, burned and robbed, seized the land and settled there with full ease, without fear, like in their own land. (...) they were plundering the country, burning it and robbing, as far as the Great Walls [of Constantinople], and this is how they captured many thousands of cattle, as well as many other kinds of booty. (...) Until today, that is until year 584, they still continue to live in peace in lands of the Rhomaioi, without fear and concern, plundering, enslaving and burning, getting rich and highjacking gold and silver, capturing horses and plenty of weapons; and they have learned to fight better than the Rhomaioi. (...)"

Also a passage from Menander Protector:

"(...) About the fourth year of the reign of Caesar Tiberius Constantine, some hundred thousand Slavs broke into Thrace, and pillaged that and many other regions. As Greece was being laid waste and enslaved by the Slavs, with trouble liable to flare up anywhere, and as Tiberius had at his disposal by no means sufficient forces, he sent a delegation to the Khagan of the Avars. (...)"

Jordanes about the three branches of early Slavic peoples (ethnonym Slavs comes from just one of them):

"(...) These people, as we started to say at the beginning of our account or catalogue of nations, though off-shoots from one stock, have now three names, that is, Venedi, Antes and Sclaveni. (...) they now rage in war far and wide, in punishment for our sins (...) Though their names are now dispersed amid various clans and places, yet they are chiefly called Sclaveni and Antes. (...)"

Procopius of Caesarea once again (about Slavic foederati/mercenaries fighting under Belisarius):

"(...) Belisarius was eager to capture alive one of the men of note among the enemy, in order that he might learn what the reason might be why the barbarians were holding out in their desperate situation. And Valerian promised readily to perform such a service for him. For there were some men in his command, he said, from the nation of the Sclaveni, who are accustomed to conceal themselves behind a small rock or any bush which may happen to be near and pounce upon an enemy. In fact, they are constantly practising this in their slave hunts along the river Ister, both on the Romans and on the barbarians as well. (...)"

And also: http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/pdf/uploads/hesperia/147272.pdf

"(...) There is clear evidence from the excavations of the Athenian Agora that the late sixth century witnessed some interruption in the peaceful course of town life in Athens. Certain buildings, for example, are known to have been burnt and temporarily or permanently deserted at that time. Finds of coinage, evidently concealed in haste or abandoned in emergency and never recovered, allow a date to be assigned to events, for which, although they are well attested by archaeological discovery, it would otherwise be very difficult to demonstrate a particular historical context. Byzantine chroniclers tell of a Slavonic invasion of Greece which took place apparently at the end of the year 578 or early in 579, as a result of which large numbers of Slavs settled in Greece... It is virtually certain that some of the destruction in the Athenian Agora, for which a date in the years immediately following the invasion is here proposed, was the work of the Slavs... Menander Protector, in his work chronicling the period ca. 560-580, writes as follows (...)"

So early Slavs were famous for their slave hunts, in which they enslaved both Roman citizens, and other barbarians. Most of those captives were later becoming members of Slavic tribes, as "Strategikon" says.

The Iroquois of North America had a similar habit of incorporating slaves from other tribes into their own tribal communities. As the result - as noted by European sources - in the mid-1600s the original Iroquois became the minority in their own nation, and people descended from other ethnic groups, previously defeated by the Iroquois, were the majority of Iroquois:

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/...up;seq=123;start=1;sz=10;page=search;orient=0





 
Esmer said:
Slavs - who had migrated en masse into the Balkan peninsula

Leszek Podhorodecki in "Dzieje Ukrainy" ("History of Ukraine") writes:

"(...) At the turns of the 5th and the 6th centuries the Slavs, living until that time at the Dniester River, attacked the borders of the Byzantine Empire. The whole reign of Justin (518-527) and that of Justinian (527-557) were filled with combats against the Slavs pushing south across the Danube. They were especially active in period 545-557, because at that time they started to settle en masse in conquered territories [south of the Danube]. Only the incursion of the Avars into the Black Sea steppe and the lands along the Danube [years 561 - 569], hampered - for some time - the Slavic migration. After victorious wars against [some of] Slavic tribes, the Avars penetrated into the Pannonian Basin, and established their realm there. (...)" - from page 18

Avar influence was not that unequivocally negative for Slavic settlement in the Balkans, though. Their initial attack against Slavs living north of the Danube (in what is now Romania and southern Moldova) in the 560s drove some further Slavs - this time as refugees rather than settlers - south of the Danube, into the Balkans. Later there was a time when Avars were Byzantine allies against the Slavs (that was the case in years 584 - 585, for example), but in the end the Avars turned against the Byzantines and started to promote Slavic settlement. We can speak about two or three types of Slavic immigrants in the Balkans - those from independent tribes, and those from tribes which accepted overlordship of the Avars, or signed alliances with them. The Avars also pushed Germanic tribes from Pannonia into Italy, when they defeated the Gepids (568) and forced the Langobards to emigrate (569). The disruption of the Gepids and the emigration of the Langobards made a vacuum that West Slavs filled, migrating from Moravia into what is now Austria-Hungary-Slovenia.

^So Slavs were Essos sea of grass people? Not unexpected :mischief:

They were peaceful eastern grass hoppers squatters, occasionally turning into locust. :p

Esmer said:
The English and other European languages loaned the word "slave" from Latin and Greek

In Old English the word for slave was - if I recall correctly - "welsh", or something with similar spelling.

In Old Norse the word for slave was "thrall" and the word for "Slavs" was "Vindr" (cognate to Old English "Winedas", today "Wends").

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Edit:

In most of Slavic languages the word for "slave" is "rob" or "rab" (not to be confused with "A-rab" :)).

Esmer said:
The words "sclavus" and "sklavos" mostly (but not entirely) replaced the older words "Servus/servii" and "doulos/douloi" (Latin and Greek respectively) the Romans had for the concept.

Indeed. By the way - "servus!" ("hello!") comes from "servus" ("slave"), and "ciao!" ("hello!") comes from "sclavus":

"(...) in Northern Italian dialects, in particular in the dialects of Veneto, through regular phonetic developments, sclavus has become first sciavo, then sciao, and finally ciao, the Italian informal greeting, now internationally known (...)"
 
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