04-16-2011, 08:39 PM
Michael, I need to clarify this. I object to this: "clibanarii were a specific Roman troop type and the term should not be applied to non-Roman troops" in conjunction with: "cataphracti or cataphracti equites are the correct terms to be applied to non-Roman cataphracts of the Eastern type".
The term clibanarii is applied to non-Roman troops, also in an anachronistic way, which makes even more obvious that contemporary authors did not think "the term should not be applied to non-Roman troops", as you do. That is the point, not what you think should be applied to the objects they were describing in the object's contemporary vocabulary – a vocabulary which (again: of course) does not know the term clibanarius.
The term cataphracti is applied to Roman troops, and its continued application to non-Roman troopers is simply because it was around for a longer time. Sticking to the fourth century, I would not defend the statement it was seldom if ever used. However history does neither end in the fourth century, nor in 476 nor today. There are not many cataphracti/katafraktoi to be found in the sixth century e.g.
If you argue all this is no problem because you want a distinction between "official" terminology and literature without the need to stick to this terminology - then I have trouble understanding how you are going to prove that. There is no consensus on the ND being an official document to say the least (!) and trying to find official terminology in literature will not be fruitful and certainly not compelling.
Apropos compelling... my problem with personati is that I cannot accept a reading as historically important just because it appears not as often as persae in manuscripts (=lectio difficilior) without being skeptical about it. I would like to separate what argument is made:
The philological argument is that persae can be read more often than personati, and that is it, despite the only one having access to the best manuscript read it differently. The historical argument you make is that masked troopers are attested elsewhere. No one ever doubted that. Equally strong is the historical argument that a connection between clibanarii and persae exists. You may not like it, but it is there in the SHA. Further it is reinforced by the mass of clibanarii-units with the persae and parthi-epithet and the possible etymology of grivbanvar. Coming back to philology, contrary to your writing the word grivban does exist in Pahlavi. The addition of the var-suffix is what one has problems to safely identify. The Latin words cribanus or clibanus in the meaning of armour are directly derived from grivban. Thus the Clibanarius term has a strong Persian root. This forces historians to take the persae reading into account. There is a nice paper by Ph. Huyse on that if you are interested (Vorbemerkungen zur Auswertung iranischen Sprachgutes in den Res Gestae des Ammianus Marcellinus, in: W. Skalmowski and A. Van Tongerloo (Eds.): Medioiranica, 1993)
It is not my opinion that "historians are at liberty to ignore" the efforts of other disciplines. Wow, do I really make that impression :mrgreen: ? On the contrary I think we have no liberties at all. This is my problem.
We are obliged to be critics and skeptics. That is precisely why one must not set one single reading as definite, if another is possible. Again, that is what historians do, especially when the wording is important. Research in German studies e.g., especially onomastics, would be plain silly accepting one reading as definite in the Ammianus manuscripts.
All I opt for is a little less definite statement, and as "official" terminology cannot be found in panegyrics, history, or whatever the ND is, your only resort are legal texts. Some people even doubt that...
Regards
Kai
PS: I may have forgotten a smilie in the last paragraph of my previous post. Lighten up.
The term clibanarii is applied to non-Roman troops, also in an anachronistic way, which makes even more obvious that contemporary authors did not think "the term should not be applied to non-Roman troops", as you do. That is the point, not what you think should be applied to the objects they were describing in the object's contemporary vocabulary – a vocabulary which (again: of course) does not know the term clibanarius.
The term cataphracti is applied to Roman troops, and its continued application to non-Roman troopers is simply because it was around for a longer time. Sticking to the fourth century, I would not defend the statement it was seldom if ever used. However history does neither end in the fourth century, nor in 476 nor today. There are not many cataphracti/katafraktoi to be found in the sixth century e.g.
If you argue all this is no problem because you want a distinction between "official" terminology and literature without the need to stick to this terminology - then I have trouble understanding how you are going to prove that. There is no consensus on the ND being an official document to say the least (!) and trying to find official terminology in literature will not be fruitful and certainly not compelling.
Apropos compelling... my problem with personati is that I cannot accept a reading as historically important just because it appears not as often as persae in manuscripts (=lectio difficilior) without being skeptical about it. I would like to separate what argument is made:
The philological argument is that persae can be read more often than personati, and that is it, despite the only one having access to the best manuscript read it differently. The historical argument you make is that masked troopers are attested elsewhere. No one ever doubted that. Equally strong is the historical argument that a connection between clibanarii and persae exists. You may not like it, but it is there in the SHA. Further it is reinforced by the mass of clibanarii-units with the persae and parthi-epithet and the possible etymology of grivbanvar. Coming back to philology, contrary to your writing the word grivban does exist in Pahlavi. The addition of the var-suffix is what one has problems to safely identify. The Latin words cribanus or clibanus in the meaning of armour are directly derived from grivban. Thus the Clibanarius term has a strong Persian root. This forces historians to take the persae reading into account. There is a nice paper by Ph. Huyse on that if you are interested (Vorbemerkungen zur Auswertung iranischen Sprachgutes in den Res Gestae des Ammianus Marcellinus, in: W. Skalmowski and A. Van Tongerloo (Eds.): Medioiranica, 1993)
It is not my opinion that "historians are at liberty to ignore" the efforts of other disciplines. Wow, do I really make that impression :mrgreen: ? On the contrary I think we have no liberties at all. This is my problem.
We are obliged to be critics and skeptics. That is precisely why one must not set one single reading as definite, if another is possible. Again, that is what historians do, especially when the wording is important. Research in German studies e.g., especially onomastics, would be plain silly accepting one reading as definite in the Ammianus manuscripts.
All I opt for is a little less definite statement, and as "official" terminology cannot be found in panegyrics, history, or whatever the ND is, your only resort are legal texts. Some people even doubt that...
Regards
Kai
PS: I may have forgotten a smilie in the last paragraph of my previous post. Lighten up.
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![[Image: regnumhesperium.png]](http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/3673/regnumhesperium.png)
