PART
5 –
Ch.XXXIII.10
The
Pelasgians or proto – Latins (Arimii)
(The
Pelasgians from the northern parts of the
XXXIII. 10. Migrations of the Arimii in
Thracia
Thracia, in the primitive
times of history, comprised from an ethnographical point of view the entire
north of
And Herodotus writes that the
Trojans, in their times of power and greatness, had conquered the entire Thracia, up to the
“The nation of the Thracians”, writes Herodotus, “is, apart from the Indians, the biggest among all the
nations of the world, and if these Thracians were under the rule of a single
man, or if they could agree among themselves, they would by impossible to
defeat and the most powerful of all peoples. But this thing is not possible to
ever happen, because of which they are weak. By the diversity of the regions in
which they dwell, they bear various names, but they all have the same customs
and the same institutions (lib. V. 3).
From the point of view of their ethnic origin, the ancient populations
of Thracia belonged almost entirely to the Arimic family.
Homer mentions in the
Iliad one Rigmus (‘Rigmon),
who had rushed to assist the Trojans from Thracia, ex Thraches eribolaxos,
where the plough furrows large and rich fields (XXV. 485).
In another place Homer characterizes
the region called Thrache eribolax as mater malon, the mother of sheep (Iliad,
XI. V. 222), words which could be in no case applied to Thracia from near the
Another king, from the times of Alexander the Great, who had reigned
over the Tribalii from the western parts of Mesia, is called by the historian Arrianus, Sirmus (De exp. Alex. I. 4. 6); a name which, from the point of
view of its etymology, is identical with Rimus,
but with the swapping of R (=
Irmus), and with an S in the
beginning, as a dialectal aspiration.
Pausania also mentions a
king of the Tursenii, with the name Arimnestus,
who had been the first among the barbarians to send pious gifts to Jove at
Olympia (lib. V. 12. 5). If this Arimnestus had reigned over the Tyrsenii from the
eastern parts of Macedonia (Herod.
I. 57), or over the Trausii or Agathyrsii from the Carpathians, we could not
know. Probably not even Pausanias knew more.
We also find with Suidas a
mention about one ‘Ermon o Pelasgon basileus (Lex.), who lived in the times of
Darius and reigned over the
As we see, various kings of Thracia, some from the southern parts,
others from the northern parts of the Hem, have Arimic names, beginning even
from ante Homeric times. The fact in itself is quite remarkable and has as
foundation an ancient historic tradition.
The king of Thracia, as Herodotus
tells us, venerated most among all gods, ‘Ermas (‘Erman), who they
considered at the same time as the beginner of their dynasty (lib. V. 7). It is
the same Hermes, also called Hermias, Hermaon, Herman and Armis, whom we see
also represented on the coins of Sarmizegetusa, identical with Armen, the divine parent of the
Herminonii of Germany, with ‘Ermas (‘Erman), also called
Faunus, the mythical king of the Aborigenes, and with Orman, who figures on the coins of the Ilergetii of Hispania.
Fillip II of Macedonia and his son Alexander the Great also considered
themselves descendants of Hermes. Both these kings use on some of their coins
the monogram AP, sometimes with the
effigy, at other times with the attributes, of Hermes (Mionnet, Descrip. d. med. Tom. VI. pl. LXX. Nr. 2, 4, 9).
The powerful Romanian family from Tarnova, who had founded and
re-founded the Romanian-Bulagarian Empire, seems to have had also the same
genealogical traditions.
An Armenian chronicle pretends that the Romanian-Bulgarian king Samuil (976-1014) might have been Armean (TN – Armenian) of origin (Matei de Edessa, ap. Hilferding, Gesch.
d. Serben und Bulgaren, Bautzen, 1864, p. 61; Hasdeu, Etym. magn. II. 1705). Hasdeu rightly believes that he
hadn’t been Armeanian, but Arman, as
are called the Macedo-Romanians.
We also add here that a son of Samuil “Armenul”, was called Roman (1015ad), that a cousin of this
Samuil has the name Armonius (Wenzel, Cod. Dipl. Arpad. Cont. VI. 29),
and that a son (976-1002) of the emperor Petru I was also called Roman (Wertner, A kozepkori delszlav uralkodok, p. 132, 145).
We also find important traces about the spread of the Arimic tribes on
the
The entire fertile region between the Hem and Adrianopol has on the Tabula Peutingeriana the name Rimesica (Segm. VIII. 3), a
geographical name of ethnic origin, like Aremorica, Belgica,etc.
On the big road of Thracia, from Filipopol towards Adrianopol, we find
in Roman times two localities with Arimic names, one Ramlum (Tab. Peut. Segm.
VIII. 2) and the other Rhamae, today
Hermanli (Itin. Hierosol. p. 269).
Close to Mount Athos existed an ancient city called Sermulia and ‘Ermulia,
mentioned even by Hecateus in the 6th
century bc (Steph. Byz; Tomaschek, Sitz. – Ber. XCIX, Bd. 475),
and on the southern shores of Thracia is mentioned Rumbodunum, situated between the rivers Nestus and Strymon (Itin. Hierosol. p. 284).
As we see, the regions from the southern parts of Hem, where had once
reigned the Odrysii, the most civilized and powerful people of Thracia, present
us today with a very ancient Arimic stratum, not only on the valleys of Marita
(Hebrus) and Tunga (Tonzus), called in Roman times Rimesica, but also on the mountainous regions from near the Aegean
Sea.
We arrive now to an important matter of prehistoric geography.
Even beginning with the 5th century, the entire eastern Roman
Empire was also called Romania,
Greek ‘Romania (Chron. Idatii;
Jornandes, Get. c. 25; Malala, Chronogr. lib. XVI, p. 378; Du Cange, Gloss. Med. lat. see
Romania), a geographical term which we find used for the Constantinopolitan
empire during the whole course of the Middle Ages, by chroniclers, in Papal
bulls, as well as in official acts of the western states (Fejer, Cod. Dipl. III. 1. 204, 1217; Mon. Germ. SS. Xiv. 660).
The origin of this name is very ancient. It is neither political, nor
literary.
We find a precious indication in this regard: in his Aeneid, which
treats the matter of the first times of Roman history, Virgil mentions two large geographical regions, which were destined
as inheritance for the descendants of Aeneas, one with the name regnum Italiae, and the other with the
name Romana tellus (IV. 274-276).
The name of tera rumica (Rum
or Rum-ili) has been preserved by the traditions of the populations of
[1. For
the Arabs and other oriental peoples,
the geographical term Rum or Rum-ili (tera Rum) had, regarding
On the eastern parts of Thrace, the ancient Arimic population had
preserved its national character until around the beginning of the 14th
century.
In the times of emperor Andronicus Palaeologus (1282-1328), as Pachymerus writes (De Andronico
Palaeologo, Ed. Bonnae, lib. I. 106), the Blachii
of Thrace extended from the suburbs of Constantinople, to Byzia and further.
These Blachi dwelt mostly in mountainous regions, were people accustomed with
weapons, rich in flocks and cattle herds. They had multiplied in such
considerable numbers, that they inspired serious worries, that they shall ally
themselves with the Scythians from the Danube (the Romanians of Basarab the
Great), having the same life style and probably the same origin. In order to
prevent such a danger, the emperor Andronicus believed that the best thing was
to resettle these people, from the western continent to the eastern, beyond the
Hellespont, on the shores of Asia, and in order to reduce their wealth at the
same time, to impose on them various extortions, so that they would never
become too daring, by knowing their real strength. Both these things,
Pachymerus tells us, have been done with an extreme rigor. They had to pay huge
sums of money, which had been collected with an unheard of severity. These
Blachi were forced in the most inhumane way, to move beyond the Hellespont
straight away, so that they had lost a large part of their wealth, which they
could not transport. It also happened that this resettling of theirs had
happened during the harsh winter, so that a large number of people and their
herds had died.
Pachymerus calls these ancient inhabitants of Thrace, Blachi; but their national name had
been Rami, Ramni and Armani. This results also from the
description of the Arab geographer Idrisi
(end of the 12th century), who mentions between Sumla and Sliven an
important city with the name Agermini
and another locality, situated between Sumla and Anchial, with the name Fremniac (Tomaschek, in Sitzungsberichte, CXIII, Bd. P. 301-317).
This also results, finally, from the fact that the various Romanian
groups from Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus and central Albania, are even today
called Armani, Aramani and Arameni (Weigand, Die Aromunen, II. p. VIII).
According to ancient Greek traditions, the origin of the Thracian
populations was on the northern parts of the Hem peninsula. In the genealogies
of the antique peoples, Thracia
appears as a daughter of the river Oceanos, or Istru.