PART 5 – Ch.XXXIII.3

The Pelasgians or proto – Latins (Arimii)

(The Pelasgians from the northern parts of the Danube and the Black Sea)

PART 5

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XXXIII. 3. Hecatonchirii (‘Echatoncheires, Centimani).

According to Greek traditions, to the family of the Giants also belonged the so-called Hecatonchirii, ‘Echatoncheires, a superb generation of men of a colossal stature, the most powerful of all the sons of the earth. Hecatonchirii were only three in number.

They were called Cottus [1], Briareus and Gyas (by Horace, or Gyges by Ovid and Hyginus and Gyes by the grammarian Apollodorus. Guiul, as personal name at the Romanian people also appears in historical documents -Hasdeu, Cuvinte, I. 131).

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[1. A royal family of the Getae of Thrace had the name Cotys = Cotus. One Cotiso is king of the Dacians during the civil war between Octavianus and Antonius. A tribe of Dacia has the name of Cotenses with Ptolemy. The family names Cotu or Cotul and Cotea are widespread even today at the Romanian people].

They help Jove against the Titans (Hesiodus, Theog. v.714), and after the end of this unhappy war for the Pelasgian race, they are charged with guarding the defeated Titans in the prison called Tartaros (Hesiodus, Theog. v. 734-5; Apollodorus, Bibl. I. 1. 4).

As results from Hesiodus, Hecatonchirii did not form a separate tribe or people. They were only the representatives or chiefs of the military power of the Pelasgian state, “the most powerful of all the sons of the earth” (Theog. v. 154-155. Their military character also results from Virgil’s Aeneid, I. X. v. 565).

Apart from their military attributions, Hecatonchirii had also judging functions. They were called to judge as arbiters in the most important trials. (According to Pausanias, II. 1. 6, the Hecatonchir Briareus had been arbiter-judge in the trial of Neptune and the Sun for the isthmus of Corynth). The public prisons were under their authority.

The origin of the name Hecatonchiri is reduced to the number 100, from the meaning of the word ‘echaton, and from the explanation given by Hesiodus. We have here only the traces of an ancient Pelasgian institution which was based on centuriae, or on the number of 100 families, and which presents itself in a somewhat clearer light during the history of the first centuries of the Roman people. The oldest military and political organization of Rome had been based on centuriae, or on the number of 100 families (Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. I. 65).

In the beginning, each tribe, or community of families settled on the territory of Rome, had to give one centuria, or 100 riders, celeres (Livy, lib. I. 13). At the head of each military centuria was a centurio (Varro, L. L. lib. V. 35), or centenarius (Vegetius, lib. II. 8), ‘echatonarches at Dionysius (lib. II. 13). Apart from these centurions, or heads of centuriae, there was another class of dignitaries in the old organization of the Roman people, the Centumviri. The members of this college were chosen by tribes, three for each tribe. The original character of this extremely antique institution was military, exactly as that of the centurions or heads of centuria.

Centumvirii constituted in the beginning a high military tribunal, called judicium hastae (certainly with the meaning of the tribunal of the army – TN – oste in Romanian). The insignia of the dignity of Centumviri was hasta or the spear (lance). Before the Centumviral tribunal rose a hasta implanted into the ground. Martial calls the college of the Centumviri “gravis hasta” (Epigr. VII. 63. 7), meaning (army) tribunal of high authority; Statius gives it the name “moderatrix hasta” (Silv. IV. 4. 43), meaning governing (army) tribunal.

In the latter times of the republic, the Centumvirii’s college had become only a shadow of its once importance, a simple tribunal of arbiters, called to judge especially in matters of heredity, which treated the family origin of the estates and fortunes.

The centuriae, or military administrative communities of 100 families, had formed the basis for the public rights in all the Pelasgian lands, even since the most obscure age.

In Hispania, the national communities called centuriae, had continued to exist even during the time of Roman domination; and each centuria corresponded from the point of view of political organization, to a Roman pagus (C. I. L. vol. II. nr. 1064).

At 415ad the emperor Honorius promulgated a law in which he canceled for ever in the Western empire the illegal institution of the centenarii, who, as the text of this law tells us, assumed the right to separate the heathen people in centuriae (Codex Theodosianus, Ed. Godofredi, 1665, Tom, VI. 291). In Gallia, in the German provinces near Ren and on the territory of the Liguri, the last administrative subdivision was also centena or centuria. At the head of a centena was a centenarius, with the attributions of a lower judge, of village judge (Baluzius, Capitularia reg. Franc. Tom. I, Ed. 177, p. 19); Ibid, Tom. I. p. 690; Du Cange, Gloss. med. et inf. lat. see Centena).

The Romanians from the Balkan peninsula had had the same system of communal administration. Here the centenae appear under the name of chatounotopia (Nicetas, Alexium III. 2, in Du Cange, Gloss. Med. et inf. graecitatis see chatoyna), exactly as on the territory of Romania, the administrative subdivisions of a rural community are called catune even today.

In Dalmatia, the civil and military authority of the communes of the population of Pelasgian origin, was also constituted in the Middle Age on the basis of the centenae (Lucius, Hist. di Dalmatia, Venetia, 1674, p. 212).

On the territory of Transilvania and Hungary, Romanians had formed since remote times a stable militia for defending the fortresses and frontiers, juxta antiquam et laudabilem consuetudinem. These military communities had their own centurioni, or centenari, until the 13^th century (Regestr. Varad. 44, An. 12; Ibid, 254).

We find an important historical tradition about the institution of the centenarii, or catunarii, of the Romanian population from the Carpathians, in the oldest medieval chronicle of Ragusa (Cronica la piu antica di Ragusa).

We reproduce here the part regarding these ancient chiefs of the Romanian pastoral tribes:

“An. 743: A numerous people from Bosnia came and settled (on the territory of Ragusa) …. also came Murlaci from the woods above Narenta, a number of Catunari, among which one was chief over all the others, and had come with a great number of domesticated animals of various races ….. An. 744: and after the Valachi people from Dogiu came (here we must understand the territory of ancient Dacia, replaced further down with Vulachia), they started to separate according to rank, being men with great riches in gold, silver, cattle and other things, among whom were many Catunari, and each of them considered himself as a chief, each having his subordinates. One was chief over the horses, another over the big cattle, one over the smaller animals, another over the pigs; one for the housekeeping, and another to give orders to his subalterns mentioned above. Then there was one over everybody, who was called Marele Catunariu (TN – the Great Catunariu) and this one was from the people of the Shepherds, because this is how they called themselves, and considered themselves noble, so rich were they in cattle, and especially in sheep. These Catunari mentioned above made a general council and divided the people in three classes, by the social standing of each. On one part were the noble people, on another the folk people, and in the third were the servants, because they had brought from Valachia so many farmhands for the cattle, that they formed a great mob (manuscript in the Yugoslav Academy at Agram, Nr. II. d. 160, An. 743).

As we see, the ancient Annals of Ragusa mention three groups of pastoral migrations, who had settled on the territory of this district. One group of shepherds had come from Bosnia, another from the woods above Narenta; and the third, the most numerous, rich, and better organized, was composed of the Valachian shepherds, who had come from Dogiu, or from Valachia, from the Lower Danube.

This latter migration predates in any case the Christian era. We have here only an echo of some events of remote times, a tradition about the great movement of the Pelasgian tribes from the Carpathians towards the western parts of Europe.

As name and as institution, Hecatonchirii of Hesiodus correspond to the Centumvirii of ancient Rome, and to the great Catunari of the pastoral tribes from the Carpathians [2].

[2. A Roman legion had in ancient times 55 centurions or centenari (Vegetius, II. 8). When Hesiodus tells us therefore that Hecatonchirii had each 50 heads, it is doubtless that he wants to indicate by this figurative expression that each Hecatonchir had under his orders another 50 lower hecatonchiri or centenari].

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