kormesiy - History 5

From ELEMENTA NOVA PRO HISTORIA MACEDONO-BULGARICA,

G. Sotiroff, Regina, Lynn Publishing Co., Saskatchewan, Canada, 1986

THE LANGUAGE OF CONSTANTINE THE GREAT

By G. Sotiroff

1. In his book entitled De Magistratibus Ioannes Lydus reports that Constantine the Great wrote, in his native (οικεια) tongue, some Discourses which he left to posterity [1]. While avoiding carefully to specify what exactly this native tongue of Constantine was, the Lydian, deliberately or not, gives us a clue. Evidently, Constantine’s "domestic” landuage could not have been Greek; otherwise the adjective (οικειοs) would have been out of place, even confusing [2]. Neither could Constantine’s native tongue have been Latin. To designate the Latin tongue otherwise than by its name, Byzantine writers generally used the words πατριs φονη in his own home?

2. The Lydian wrote his book sometime between years 551 and 564 A.D., when Latin in Constantinople was in full retreat [3]. Justinian himself is said to have spoken broken Latin, and Greek like a barbarian [4]. This was two centuries after the death of Constantine. Clearly, throughout this period, there was in Constantinople people who could read Latin and/or Greek, and also people who could read Constantine’s Discourses, written in his "domestic” language. The Lydian darkly hints that in his time Latin was being pushed out of official business. But, by what other language?

3. There is abundant circumstantial evidence that Constantine the Great was a Thracian, and there is also enough direct evidence to this effect, namely:

I). Constantine’s grandfather, Eutropius, was a Thracian from Dardania [5];

II). Constantine himself was born and raised in Nish (Naissus), a Thracian (Dardanian) city [6];

III). He completed his education in Nicomedia, a Thracian city, at the court of Galerius, a Thracian emperor born in Serdica (the modern Sofia). Galerius was so un-Roman that he is believed to have even thought of dropping from the name of the Empire the adjective "Roman” and replacing it by "Dacian”, Dacia at that time being one of the several large Thracian districts [7];

IV). Julian the Apostate, a nephew of Constantine, says several times over that his family was Thracian, from Mysia [8];

V). Constantine himself transferred the Imperial capital away from Rome, to Byzantium, in the heart of Thrace;

VI). He is said to have founded "in the land of the Scythians”, four cities, namely Persthlaba, Pliscuba, Constantia and Dristra [9].

II.

4. But, we are told, the Thracian language has disappeared, as have the Thracians themselves [10]. And as the Thracians never had books [11], to say that Constantine’s language was Thracian would be like replacing one unknown quantity by another. And so it would be, indeed, if it could be proven that the Thracians and their language have disappeared. Yet, upon examination, this disappearance turns out to be worse than a hollow statement: it clashes head on with a number of testimonies.

5. Understanding these testimonies presupposes a little reflection on an observation made by Herodotus. The Thracians, says Herodotus "have many names, depending on their respective regions” [12]. Thrace proper is, of course, to this day, the name of the region encompassed by Stara Planina (Mount Haemus) and the Aegean Sea. But the people living north of Mount Haemus, in Mysia, were also considered as Thracian, because they spoke the same language. For the same reason, the term Thracian has been used as a common designation for the people living in Bithynia, i.e. on the Asiatic side of the Straits, as well as for the people north of the Danube, i.e. those in the original Dacia (also called Gothia). Among the Thracian peoples often mentioned by ancient historians, most conspicuous were the Paeonians, the Phrygians, the Mysians, the Macedonians, the Odrysians, the Bessi and the Goths.

6. Tremendous efforts have been made by some recent academics to blur the ethnicity of the Thracian nations. This compels us to take a close look at the subject, starting perhaps with the Paeonians.

• These people were familiar to Herodotus, who speaks at some length about their customs. Five hundred years later, Strabo observed that the Paeonians lived on both sides of the Vardar (the Axius) [13]. Many Paeonians, however, lived further north. Dio Cassius, a man well-placed to know, since he was at one time governor of that province, wrote that the Paeonians "dwell near Dalmatia along the very banks of the Ister, from Noricum to Moesia . . . ” [14]. This was two hundred years after Strabo’s time.

• Another 350 years later, John the Lydian explained that the real name of the Province was Pannonia (? Banovina – G.S.), "which the Greeks have termed Paeonia, inventing the name for purposes of euphony and to avoid a barbarous word form” [15].

• Ioannes Tzetzes, writing almost 600 years after the Lydian, did not notice that these people had disappeared. For him they were still there, and he tersely says "The Paeonians are Bulgarians” [16].

7. Another famous Thracian people were the Phrygians.

• According to Strabo, "the Brygi and Bryges and Phryges are the same people”. And elsewhere: "And the Phrygians themselves are Brigians, a Thracian nation . . .” [17].

• In a fragment (№ 25) of his Seventh Book – badly mutilated by mafiosi who evidently sought to destroy as many proofs as possible about the Thracians – Strabo quotes Herodotus, whose words are: "According to the Macedonian account, the Phrygians, during the time they had their abode in Europe and dwelt with them in Macedonia, bore the name of Brigians; but on their removal to Asia they changed their name at the same time as their dwelling place.” [18]

8. The Mysians (Moesians) were yet another Thracian nation whose settlements filled the area between the Danube and Stara Planina (Mount Haemus), as well as Bithynia, on the east side of the Bosphorus, and the Aegean fringe of Asia Minor.

On the ethnicity of the Mysians Strabo is quite explicit.

• The Mysians in Asia Minor, he says, are Thracians "who now live between the Lydians and the Phrygians and the Trojans” [19].

• And elswhere: "The country north of Pergamum is held for the most part by the Mysians.”

• And again: "Now the Greeks considered the Getae as Thracians, and the Getae lived on either side of the Ister, as did the Mysians, these also being Thracians.” [20]

9. The identification of Macedonians and Thracians is also unquestionable, although the wording differs from author to author.

• Polybius calls the Thracians and the Macedonians ομογενεs i.e. people of the same nation, stock or race [21].

• Pliny speaks of Mysomacedonians in Asia Minor, who "get together (conveniunt) at Ephesus” [22].

• Appian calls the Sinti a Macedonian tribe; Strabo calls them Thracian [23]. Both are right, of course.

• Dio Chrysostom observed, at the beginning of the second century A.D., that the population of Nicomedia consisted of "the leaders among both Greeks and Macedonians” [24].

• Nicomedia at that time was the greatest city of Bithynia. It was founded, says Pausanias, by Zipoetes "a Thracian by birth to judge from his name” [25].

• Strabo explains that "the Bithynians . . . received this new name from the Thracians . . . who settled the country in question”, and he refers to Nicomedes III as "the Bithynian” [26].

• Four centuries later Zosimos quoted an oracle in which Nicomedes II is styled "Thracian King” [27], while Ioannes Malalas says that Nicomedes I was "of Macedonian” origin” [28].

10. Of interest in this connection are a couple of "literary” facts.

• Euripides (Rhesus, 404) makes Hector call the Thracian king Thesus εγγενηs, i.e. he considered the Trojans (Phrygians) to be of the same stock or race as the Thracians from Macedonia.

• The other similar instance is provided by Conon. In his 46th Narration Conon speaks of Orpheus who "reigned over the Macedonians and the country of the Odrysians”, then refers to the "people of Thrace and Macedonia” and to "a crowd of Thracians and Macedonians getting together at Leibethra”, where Orpheus is believed to have died at the hands of "the women of Thrace and Macedonia” [29].

• Euripides and Conon may have written for entertainment only, but Pausanias, a contemporary of Conon, endeavoured to give an accurate description of Greece and its lore. To him, too, Orpheus was a Thracian [30], while five centuries later Ioannes Malalas calls Orpheus "the most famous lyric poet, an Odrysian from Thrace” [31].

11. Another eight centuries later, the identity of the Thracians and Macedonians is attested by Nicephorus Gregoras. From a letter which he wrote in the year 1325 or 1326, describing his trip through Macedonia, we learn that the majority of the local people were "from the very beginning, Mysian settlers who lived intermingled with our own people” [32].

• Gregoras uses the word αρχηθεν (from the very beginning), thus rejecting in advance any blabbering about a subsequent arrival of Thracians (Mysians) in Macedonia. He does not tell us when the first Greek settlers arrived in Macedonia, but

• Pompeius Trogus says that they came under the leadership of Caranus, an event occuring in the year 810 B.C., or thereabouts. Prior to that time, the whole of Macedonia was settled by Thracians [33].

12. The origin of the name Macedonia has also some relevance to our topic. According to one report – some may prefer to call it a legend – the Egyptian king Osiris, later on promoted by the priestly caste to the rank of god, had two sons, Anubis and Macedon. The second one was left by his father as a ruler of Macedonia, earlier named Emathia, and it was from him that the country got its name [34].

• From figures supplied by Manetho, it may be computed that Macedon reigned about the year 2326 B.C. [35]

• Hesiod, like a good Greek poet, endowed Macedon with a Greek ancestry: he makes him the son of Zeus and Thyia, Deucalion’s daughter. [36]

• On the other hand, Hellanicus believed Macedon to have been the son of Aeolus, when the Macedonians "inhabited the land together with the Mysians”. [37]

13. Regardless of the margin of error separating the computations of ancient chronographers in respect of these events, the Macedonian name must have been familiar throughout the East at the time of the Trojan War.

Why, then is there no mention of it in Homer?

Nobody so far has suggested a plausible explanation. Yet, faced with the fanatic zeal with which Greek writers strove to blot out some "barbarian” names while doctoring others so as to make them agreeable to sensitive Attic eardrums, we are glad to be able to make a rapprochement. Homer may not have cared to admit that, without the help of some Macedonians, the Greeks would have been destroyed before the walls of Troy. Thus, either he, or someone like him, may have thought of replacing the Macedones by Myrmidones.

And it just so happens that for Ioannes Malalas, the Homeric Myrmidons were identical with those Bulgarians, whose home was once in Thessaly – a Macedonian district. [38]

14. From the first century of our era onward, a very important part in the history of Central and South-Eastern Europe is played by the Getae. Some writers have called the Getae Dacians, other have preferred to call them Goths. Most of these people lived between the Danube and the Carpathian Mountains, althougth there were Getic settlements south of the Danube, and many others in the area north-east of the Carpathians. A vigorous campaign has been under way for a long time to retroactively make of the Goths a Germanic nation. This thesis should be rejected. In actual fact, every single bit of information at our disposal tends to prove that the Goths were none others than the Hutzuli, a branch of the Getae, a Thracian nation par excellence. [39]

15. The Thracian nations have never ceased to exist. They have never lost their vigour. Dio Cassius tells of a stinging defeat they inflicted on Mark Antony in Mysia. [40] They were obviously very strong, since Octavian is said by Suetonius to have sought the hand of a Thracian princess. [41]

• Pliny the Elder, who died during the eruption of the Mount Vesuvius (79 A.D.) calls the Thracians one of the most powerful nations in Europe [42]. In the third century, they kicked the Romans out of Dacia. [43] At the dawn of the 4th century, their leader Constantine marched on Rome, defeated Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge, disbanded the praetorian cohorts and, by moving the capital of the empire to the Bosphorus, reduced Rome to the status of provincial city.

• We learn from Theophanes that in the year 497 A.D. Anastasius, in support of one of his generals in the East, sent out an army of Goths, Bessians "and other Thracian nations”. [44]

• Procopius calls them "the Romans from Thrace” [45]. He also makes reference to the city of Anchialo, on the Black sea, which, he says, was "inhabited by Thracians”. [46]

16. Since the Bessians and the Goths had not disappeared, we are not surprised to read that their dialects were spoken in the middle of the 6th century. Thus, Jordanes noted that Hister was the name of the Danube in the language of the Bessi. [47] The language of the Bessi was definitely spoken about the year 570 A.D., as we may learn from the Itinerarium of Antoninus Placentinus. [48]

As to Gothic, it was heard in Constantinople and in many parts of Italy, where some Gothic clerics seem to have been able to write it, although they were apparently unable to write Latin. [49]

17. Not only were the Thracian dialects widely spoken in the Byzantine Empire;

Thracian has been a written language ever since the second millennium B.C.

• Euripides refers to Thracian tablets inscribed in the language of Orpheus. [50] The fact that this literature is mentioned in a drama and not in a historic treatise should not mislead us. Euripides certainly put in verse, and in dialogue form, something which was common knowledge in his time.

• Herodotus, who was not a playwright, mentions the existence of Thracian oracular tablets. [51]

• Ovid has placed on records the fact that he composed a poem in the language of the Thracian Getae. [52]

• Photius tells us that a writer of the 7th century A.D. used Thracian books. [53]

• And Constantine the Great wrote his Discourses in his native, i.e. Thracian, language.

18. The old Thracian books have been successfully wiped out by religious fanatics and other savages, who have tried many times to destroy the Thracian peoples themselves. But the Thracian language has survived throughout the ages, as has the Thracian script itself. [54] All doubts regarding these matters are dispelled for anyone who cares to stop for a moment on the testimony of Theophylactus Simocata.

• Writing in the 7th century A.D., Simocata states twice over that the Slavonic peoples of his day and age were those who in earlier times were called Getae.

• These were the people whose wealth was admired by Herodotus, whose medical science was praised by Plato, and whose army defeated at one time Philip II and later on the forces of Lysimachus. [55]

It follows that the native language of Constantine the Great was a Slavonic dialect.

19. That Constantine the Great spoke a Slavonic dialect is corroborated by plentiful linguistic evidence for those who want to see it. In order to be able to see it, one must recognize first of all that a language, when left alone, changes very slowly. Pausanias (IV.27.9-11) has recorded a telling case. "The wanderings of the Messenians outside the Peloponnesus lated for 300 years”, wrote he, "during which it is clear that they did not depart in any way from their local customs and did not lose their Doric dialect but even to our day have retained the purest of Doric in Peloponnesus.” Quick changes occur only when two or more peoples speaking different languages are suddenly thrown together, thus being forced to develop a makeshift system of communication. That is why hybrid languages like Rumanian, French and English have schizophrenic vocabularies and a simpler grammatical structure, when compared with the parent languages. A language which has escaped this kind of distortion may also borrow words and grammatical forms, but on a much smaller scale, because of the slowness with which neighbouring language tend to interpenetrate each other. By taking a look at the oldest Bulgarian document – O Pismeneh, by Czernorizets Hrabri – we get an idea of the antiquity of the Bulgarian Language. O Pismeneh dates from the end of the 9th century. It is, thus, 1100 years old. Yet any educated Bulgarian can read it without great difficulty. There is no reason to doubt that 1100 years before the time of Hrabri, the language spoken in Mysia, and in the rest of Thrace, was very much the same. Over these many centuries, limited but significant borrowings have taken place between Greek and Bulgarian, borrowings capable of teaching us something.

20. That Bulgarian – the "new” name of Thracian – has borrowed from the Greek, nobody will contest.

But how much has Greek borrowed from its "barbarian” neighbours to the north?

• Dio Chrysostom tells us that Homer himself "used many barbarian words. . . sparing none that he believed to have in it anything of character vividness”. [56]

• Plato, too, was aware of such borrowings. "I imagine”, he wrote, "that Greeks, especially in countries which are under the sway of Barbarians, have borrowed many barbarian words (ονοματα).” [57] The Thraco-Macedonians being the nearest "barbarian” people to the Greeks and, in fact, living intermingled with the latter as far south as the Peloponnesus, it is only normal to come across Thraco-Macedonian words in the Greek Lexicon.

• Athenaeus drew the attention of his readers to this fact. "Many Attic writers”, says he, "use Macedonian idioms, as a result of intercourse with them”. [58] The penetration of the Greek vocabulary by Slavonic – i.e. Thracian, or Bulgarian – words may be observed most conveniently by going so to speak backwards.

• Thus, Theophylact, Greek bishop of Okhrid during the Byzantiune yoke (c. 1110 A.D.) has used several Bulgarian words (στρουγα,, πλανινα, οτρωτζινα). [59]

• Before him, towards the middle of the 10th century, Constantine Porphyrogenitus used other Bulgarian words, such as δρουγγαριοs [60], ζακανον, ζουπανοs and κραβατοs. A. Bailly spells the last word κραββατοs and sys that this was a loan word of obscure origin. Liddell and Ascott, however, think that it is a Macedonian word, which is actually the case. We find a derivative of this word (κραββαταρια) in the 7th and 6th centuries, respectively. [61]

• In the Getic Dance described by Porphyroghenitus in his Book of Ceremonies one finds several Bulgarian words such as βελε and βικη, ιδε, ογυν and τουλ, meaning he says, he calls, he is coming, fire and quiver, respectively. [62]

• Somewhat earlier, the Byzantines had learned the Bulgarian word Zagora. When the Bulgarians annexed the district around Burgas (the old Debeltum), they called it, says Zonaras, [63], Ζαγοραν. The word Zagora is understood throughout the Slavonic world. It means "district beyond the mountain”, which corresponds exactly to the location of the annexed district on the map.

21. We are thus gradually being taken back into the period preceding the adoption of the Cyrillic alphabet, preceding also the formation of the First Bulgarian State. The list of Bulgarian words in the Greek lexicon could be extended.

• In Heychius (5th century A.D.) we find the word ζελκια which is explained as the Phrygian for vegetables. [64] This word is very much alive in modern Bulgarian, meaning cabbage.

• From Diodorus Siculus we may learn that ‘Εστια was a Thracian (Getan) goddess. [65] She was worshipped also in Rome, under the name of VESTA, and was believed by her devotees to have discovered how to build and equip homes. [66] In other words she was a knowing woman, in Bulgarian veshta. The counterpart to this is evidently nevesta which, in all Slavonic languages means a bride, i.e. a young woman who must yet be initiated in the art of family life.

• The Greek adjective μαλακοs is generally translated as soft. A passage in Plutarch suggests that the same word, with a slightly different meaning, may have been common to both Greek and Thracian. Aristodemus, tyrant of Cumae, says Plutarch, was called by the barbarians Μαλακοs, "which in their tongue means childlike”. [67] Now, a child is a "little one”, and little, or small, in Bulgarian is mal’k.

• A loan-word to which scant attention has been paid so far is βολαι. It occurs in Procopius, who explains that the pains of travail were so called "in former times”. [68] Why does not the shrewd Procopius quote his source, or otherwise allow us to guess what "former times” he had in mind? Because, had he done that, he would have had to acknowledge that "in former times” the inhabitants of Euboea, where the word was recorded, spoke Bulgarian (Thracian), in which the word boli has always meant pains, not just the pains of travail. This was something Procopius did not care to know.

22. An elaborate attempt to disguise the Thracian (alias Slavonic, alias Bulgarian) origin of a Greek word – the name of a pagan goddess – may be watched in Ioannes Lydus.

• Here is how the Lydian goes about it: "Earth was called θεμελη (foundation) because everything is founded on her; the poets by changing the letter, the Ζ, have called her Ζεμελη.” [69] The Lydian either did not know or did not want to know that in the speech of the neighbouring "barbarians” ZEMLJA meant earth and TEMELI – foundations, which is also the meaning of these words in present-day Bulgarian.

• Another lexical curiosity is provided by the Greek word δελτοs (writing tablets). A. Bailly says that its ethymology was uncertain. Liddell and Scott say that the name came "from the letter Δ (the old shape of the tablet)”. Triangular writing tables are found only in dictionaries. The real ones are all square. All one needs to know in order to understand the derivation of this word is the Bulgarian word DELAM, which means to cut, to whittle, to carve, or to do. The word chisel in Bulgarian is dleto. The infinitive is delati. The participle delano means something that has been hewn, whittled, or worked over – like a writing tablet, for instance – in Greek δελτοs.

• We have also the glaring case of the place-name Nestane, which has mysteriously escaped the eye of both ancient and modern philologists. Pausanias reports that, in Arcadia, he came upon the ruins of a village called Νεστανη, near which Philip II of Macedon had once pitched his camp. [70] One look at this word is sufficient to convince us that we have before us a casual transcription of the Old-Bulgarian words NA STANE, meaning "in the camp”. Νεστανη is meaningless in Greek. Pausanias must have written it down as he heard it from some local person.

• Finally, ‘αρβυλαι was the designation of a type of shoes worn in the countryside. The derivation of the word, say Lindell and Scott, was unknown. Nonnos thinks that this was an old word. [71] In Bulgarian, to this day, one of the words designating moccasins is tsarvuli.

23. The words discussed so far are described by lexicographers as Phrygian, as possibly Macedonian, as Barbarian, as ancient, or as of unknown origin. They have one thing in common: they are very much alive in modern Bulgarian. Particularly striking are the names Vesta (Hestia), Semele and Nestane – to which many others may be added. [72]

24. Several other categories deserve to be looked into when studying the lexical osmosis between Greek and Bulgarian. Words are usually borrowed along with the objects or actions they designate. The Greeks were a maritime people (? The People of the Sea – G.S.) – fishermen, tradesmen and pirates. Small wonder if the Thracians have borrowed from them words like ‘οκταποδυs (octopus), θαλασσα (waves), σκελοs (landing) or μυρον (perfume). On the other hand, the Thracians being predominantly an agricultural people, it was only too natural for the Greeks to adopt some Thracian words having to do with agriculture and husbandry. Thus, the Bulgarian words S’RP (sickle) reappears in Greek as ‘αρπη - with the initial S dutifully scuttled, following a law of Greek phonetics. The Bulgarian word IARE (kid) gets a Greek ending and becomes ‘ιαρειον, PRAS (leek) becomes πρασιον, KROMID (onion) becomes κρομμυον, LAPAD (sorrel) λαπαθον, TSELINA (celery) becomes σελινον, ZHITO (wheat) becomes σιτιον.

This list is far from being exhaustive.

25. Still another category of words borrowed from the Bulgarian (Thracian) may be recognized by a mark of semantic economics. The Bulgarian Word KORITO (tub) reappears in Greek as κορυs (genitive: κορυτοs), but with the restricted meaning of helmet [73]. The word KOREN (root) becomes κορυνη, designating not only any kind of root, but knotty piece of wood, a club. The Bulgarian word KOLACH, which means a round loaf of bread with a hole in the middle (a wheel), reappears in Greek as κολλιξ a loaf of barley-bread, while CHIRAK (apprentice) becomes κηρυξ, i.e. a specialized messenger, a herald.

26. Several grammatical forms also suggest that the impact of Bulgarian (Thracian) on ancient Greek has been strong.

(I) Position of the definite article. In ancient Greek, the article is of the prefix type, whereas in Bulgarian the article follows the noun (or the adjective). Yet in Greek too we find cases in which the article follows. (At times it is used twice over, once before and once after the noun.)

• In Xenophon, for instance, we find the structure κατα μεσον το των πολεμιον. [74]

• In Herodotus, we come upon θανατοs ο and . . . [75],

• in Plato κατ ‘ακουην την [76] and

• in Euripides ‘ανδρα τον and ‘αδην το [77].

Many other examples may be quoted. Such peculiarities could be explained by postulating a formative stage of Greek language, during which usage wavered between the prefix and the suffix type of article.

(II) System of the article. To an observer who has little time for details, a comparison of the article in ancient Greek and in Bulgarian could hardly appear as very promising. To start with, Bulgarian has lost the greatest part of its declension system, and this applies to the article as well. In ancient Greek, on the other hand, we find a fully developed declension of the article. When we compare the nominative case, what do we see? In the masculine and feminine genders all article forms differ; only in the neuter gender are the forms identical in both languages, as may be seen from the following table:

Singular Plural

Modern Bulgarian Ancient Greek Modern Bulgarian Ancient Greek

Masc. - ТЪ HO - TE HOI / HAI

Fem. - ТА HE - TE

Neut. - ТО TO - TA

Yet, when we look at the entire system of the article in ancient Greek, we notice something different. We see that in all oblique cases the article features an initial T.

Masculine Feminine Neuter

Singular Nom. HO HE TO

Gen. TOU THS TOU

Dat. TH TH TH

Acc. TON THN TO

Dual

Nom.& Acc. TH TA TH

Gen. & Dat. TOIN TAIN ТО

Plural Nom. HOI HAI TA

Gen. THN THN THN

Dat. TOIS TAIS TOIS

Acc. TOUS TAS TA

So the Attic system.

In Doric we may observe that the nominative of plural of the article is not HOI and HAI, but TOI and TAI. This seems to jibe with the opinion that Doric is older than Attic. An initial T, or Ts, then, must have been present throughout the system of the definite article in the formative stage of the Greek language. Later on, the T (Ts) was probably dropped from the overworked nominative case, possibly after a transitional stage involving the passage through S.

(III) Some irregular verbs. Several irregular verbs in ancient Greek display features suggesting that we have before us an amalgamation of two or more verbs of different origins. Possibly the most interesting case is that of the verb OIDA (to know). The present indicative of this verb in Greek and Bulgarian is:

OIDA VIDYA

OISTHA (OIDAS) VIDISH

OIDE VIDI

ISMEN VIDIM

ISTE VIDITE

ISASI VIDYAT

In Bulgarian VIDYA means, of course, to see, whereas in Old-Bulgarian VEDETI means to know. In the above paradigm, the forms ISMEN, ISTE, ISASI could be easily explained by postulating a merger of two distinct verbal systems, each one of two different languages supplying a part of the whole – one language the singular, another one the forms of the plural.

Irregular forms occur also in the following important verbs:

(a) To eat

Greek Bulgarian (present indicative)

ESTHIO (present) YAM

YADESH

EDOMAI (future) YADE

EPHAGON (imperfect) YADEM

YADETE

YADAT

(b) To say

PHEMI (present) REKA (perfective)

RECHESH

EIPON (imperfect) RECHE

EIREKA (perfect) RECHEM

RECHETE

REKAT

These verbs have fully developed paradigms in modern Bulgarian. It is most improbable that the Bulgarian language has found it necessary to borrow half an irregular verb from the Greek, in order to develop it fully for its own use. A more convincing explanation would be to expect the original stable forms to have remained in use among the native people, and the idiom of the immigrant Greeks to have combined some indigenous forms with language forms imported from Egypt or elsewhere.

IV.

27. There is a large number of facts from history, linguistics, archaeology, numismatics, and folklore, over and above the ones mentioned in this paper, which underscore the conclusion that the language of Constantine the Great was an elderly form of Slavonic dialect which has come to be known as Bulgarian. Collecting and classifying these facts could become an interesting research project. However, necessaria non sunt multiplicanda. The following examples should, therefore, be considered mainly as adding colour to what has been said before.

(I)

• Laonicus Chalcondyles says that he discovered the Triballians to be the most ancient and greatest of all nations. [78] "They are now being called Bulgarians”, he says.

• For Strabo the Triballians were Thracians.

• Dio Cassius counted the Triballi and the Dardani as Mysians. [79]

(II) According to Cesare Baronius, Constantine the Great claimed to be a descendant of Vespasian. [80] We know that Vespasian was the founder of the gens Flavia. The Latin word flavius, on the other hand, means blond, in Bulgarian rus, while Russi, as a noun, means Russians. One is tempted to ask if a blond Slavian did not somehow become latinized to Flavian(us). The "Vespasian connection” of Constantine suggests a literary flourish which is totally devoid of charm. Suppose someone told us that Vespasian’s father was called by his relatives and friends ЧИЧО СЛАВИ ПЕТРОВ (CHICHO SLAVI PETROV) How would such a barbarian name be latinized so as to please a Roman audience? One possibility – perhaps there are others – would be to change this name to TITUS FLAVIUS PETRO, which is exactly the name recorded by Suetonius.

(III) Julian says that his family came from Mysia, along the Danube, where people were reputed to be very obstinate: once they had made up their mind, they never changed it. [81] How can one help thinking that as far back as Julian’s time there were in the Danubian plain some obstinate Bulgarians, in today’s colloquial speech INAT B’LGARI?

(IV) The man who is supposed to have taught the Greeks how to make youghourt was called Aristaeus. He learned this art, we are told, from the nymphs. We do not know where Aristaeus met these nymphs.

• However, from Herodotus we learn that Aristaeus was a great traveller, that he went as far as Issedones, in Scythia, and that he wrote a poem called The Arimaspians. [82]

• Pliny speaks as if he had read the writings of Aristaeus [83], and adds that Aristaeus, in Thrace, was the first man to have mixed honey with wine. [84]

• Strabo knew people who claimed Aristaes to have been the teacher of Homer. [85]

• Diodorus Siculus tells us that Aristaeus, eventually removed to a place near Mount Haemus [86] where he finished his life.

Could it be that on one of his prolonged visits to Thrace, Aristaeus met some local women ("nymphs”), who taught him how to make youghourt? Suidas calls Aristaeus one of the Giants. From other sources we may learn that the "Giants” were in all probability a Thracian people in Chalcidice. [87]

Those who do not believe that the language of Constantine the Great was Thracian, i.e. a Slavonic dialect known as Bulgarian, would do a service to historiography, if they could show just what other language it must have been. [88]

NOTE ON SOURCES

The sources indicated in the text and in the notes on pages 24-30 are those which were accessible to me in Quebec, at the time of writing. No judgement is implied as to their relative merits, unless otherwise stated. Specifically, it is not suggested that a text published, say, in the Corpus scriptorum historise byzantinae is ipso facto more reliable than the corresponding text in Patrologia Graeca, or vice-versa.

No attempt has been made at exhaustiveness. Had it been made, this would have swollen the present article well beyond its prescribed limits, for a small gain. This means that in cases where several ancient authors have made the same point, not all have been quoted. Likewise, where an author has made the same observation times over, not all instances have been noted here.

I share the opinion of those scholars who have observed that the most ancient sources are, as a rule, the most reliable ones. Greater care is required when using more recent sources, while the opinions voiced by contemporary writers must always be looked upon with suspicion.

Some general remarks are in order about the use of sources as such.

We have been warned not to rely too much on certain authors, because the themselves are quoting sources which can no longer be found. This is particularly the case of Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA), on which we must lean for much of the information concerning Constantine and his contemporaries. The English translator for the Loeb edition of SHA (David Magie), when coming upon an untraceable older source, seldom misses the opportunity to add in a footnote the words: "probably fictitious”. An author who invents his sources, obviously, could not be trusted. As if the destruction of libraries and archives were not common practice among men in authority at all times, in all parts of the world. Yet, if one took the trouble to catalogue all such n-longer-existing sources, one would see that most of them concern the origin, life and language of Constantine the Great, and those of his Thracian countrymen, throughout history.

Where are, indeed, the accounts of the Phrygians and the Mysians which, according to Strabo (12.8.4), went back to earlier times than the Trojan War?

The same goes for the lost parts of books which have survived in a mutilated condition. Torn pages and punched-out words and lines abound particularly where the author was manifestly saying, or about to say, something important concerning Constantine and his people, or something relative to Thrace in general. In this connection, the reader is referred to the appendix entitled The Eloquence of Gaps, in my book on The Assassination of Justinian’s Personality (Regina, Lynn Publishing Co., 1974).

To make things worse, eager but prejudiced translators have often warped the meaning of original sources. For a striking example of such distortions concerning the antiquity of Thracian writing, the reader is referred to the article on Pre-Cyrillic writing in Slavonic lands elsewhere in this volume.

Last not least, we are exposed to the fanciful interpretations, occasionally offered to us by some high-ranking scholars. An example: Plutarch (Moralia, 282a) "explains”, why the Roman nobility wore crescent-shaped ornaments on their shoes. May be, he intimates, this was because these families were Arcadian, Προσελενοι who had come to Italy with Evander. And how does the translator for the Loeb edition interpret this word (Προσελενοι)? Pre-Lunar people, he says, as if Arcadia and Evander could have had anything to do with the time before the moon. Προσελενοι is quite obviously nothing else than the Bulgarian word ПРЕСЕЛЕНИ meaning immigrants (literally: resettled). As to the little crescents on the shoes of wealthy Romans, one must be, indeed, an idle man with a powerful imagination, in order to see here a connection with the age of the moon.

Quellenforschung may be a frustrating activity, yet a small dose of it can be salutary, when studying subjects like the language of Constantine the Great.

Strange things will happen not only to books. In the Capitoline Museum, Rome, one may see the head, hands and feet of what was once a colossal marble statue of Constantine.

Who broke it up?

When and Why?

What happened to the trunk?

Was there an inscription on it?

The pontifices maximi won’t talk.

NOTES TO TEXT

Abbreviations:

BL = Les Editions Belles Lettres, Paris

CERF = Les Editions du Cerf, Paris

CSHB = Corpus scriptorum historiae byzantinae, Bonn

Loeb = Loeb Classical Library, William Henemann, London

PG = Patrologia Graeca, J.-P. Migne ed. Paris

PL = Patrologia Latina, J.-P. Migne ed. Paris

SHA = Scriptores Historiae Augustae (Teubner, Leipzig; or Loeb)

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