can be seen in the few words in the comedy The Birds which Aristophanesputs into the mouth of the god Triballos. These are in fact Greek wordsdistorted for comic effect, with which the comic poet caricatured thecoarse speech of the barbarians. According to the context, aav vaKa{3aKrapL «ooooa should mean aOL vcUw, {3aKTT/pi4? «povoc», and «asa»«opauau Kat J1eya'Aa {3aaL'AL/laV - Ka'A7W Koprw Kat J1eya'Arw {3aaL'Aetav.210

Should one see in "this open pronunciation of the vowels a peculiarity ofthe Triballian dialect which the Athenians could notice in their Triballianslaves, or would these words have sounded the same in the mouth of aScythian or Persian, or any other barbarian?

On the basis of the name Triballos, as we have seen, two otherphonetic principles of the Triballian tongue have been adduced, accordingto the interpretation of the name itself. The etymology TpL-{3aA'Ao,involves the conclusion that the Triballian language changed the old mediaaspirata to a media ((3aAAo" as compared with Gk. <pano,), while thederivation of Trib-alli from the root tjb- would show that the vocalic r waschanged in Triballian into ri. The uncertainty of the etymology rendersphonetic conclusions also unreliable.

This is, in the main, as far as I have been able to see, all that thelinguists have to tell us about the Triballian language. Before concludingthis chapter, I must refer to the theory recently put forward by V.Georgiev about the Dace-Moesian language, which would include Tri-ballian.

According to this distinguished Bulgarian linguist, Dace-Moesian, Thracian andPhrygian represented three separate Indo-European languages, with separate phoneticsystems, which cannot be reduced to one. In the Balkan area there are two distinctregions: the northern, or Daco-Moesian, and the southern, or Thracian in thenarrower sense. Their languages differ in the way in which they modify, or retainunchanged, the Indo-European consonants and in their treatment of the Indo-European vowels.

The separation of Dacian from Thracian as a different language is undoubtedlyimportant from the linguistic point of view. For historians it is much less significant,for the Dacians as a people have always been clearly differentiated, both in ancientsources and in contemporary historical literature. For us it would be of particularinterest if we could establish the ethnic character of the population in the transitionalbelt between the Dacian and Thracian ethnic groups. In this matter, however,Georgiev shows so much hesitation that his results cannot be utilized in the form inwhich they appear without bringing greater confusion into this already very confusedproblem.

210. Arist. Av. 1629 sqq. (T 77). cr. Brandenstein, i.e., 410.

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Georgiev himself seems to be uncertain what his North-Thracian linguistic groupincludes, and exactly what it should be called. In the numerous writings in which hehas worked out his theory, he either, starting from it as from an already establishedfact, uses it as a basis for further combinations,211 or he constantly hesitates betweenthe conceptions "Dacian" and "Dace-Moesian", so that it is not clear whether theyare to be considered as identical or only to some extent corresponding. In his mainwork B~lgarska etimologija i onomastika, in which he has worked out his theory inthe greatest detail, he speaks of three languages, "Dacian, Thracian and Phrygian",but later in his text he makes use of the expressions "Dace-Moesian","(Dacoj-moesian", or "Daco(moesian). In the sections on "Dacian" names, "Dacian"place-names and "Dacian" glosses, he includes the ethnics ~ap6avoL, TpL(3aAAoi, and

the Dardanian gloss sopitis, although he speaks of the Dardanian and Triballianlanguages as Daco-Moesian or Daco(moesian) languages, and not Dacian.212 On theother hand, discussing the etymology of Bulgarian river-names, he notes" as"Thracian" the ancient names of the rivers Isker, Nisava, Timok and Cibrica, whichflow through former Triballian territory. 213Should the Triballian language, accordingto all this, be reckoned with Dacian, Daco-Moesian or Thracian?

This hesitation is not only a matter of terminology. In distinguishing the funda-mental characteristics "of the phonetic system of the "Thracian" language, G. usesalso the etymologies of the river-names "Aepv~, 'APTciVT1~, .HATAa~, Utus, Timachus,i.e. material from the region north of Mt. Haemus, from. Moesia and the land of theTriballi. 214"Again it becomes uncertain whether the population living between theDanube and the Balkan Mountains spoke a Thracian or a Dacian dialect (orDaco-Moesian, to use the same way out of a confused situation). Place-names in-dava, which are the most typical remains of Dacian, are met with "in Dacia, UpperMoesia and the Dobrudja" or "in Dacia and the two Moesias".21s However, amongthe examples which Georgiev gives in the text and on the attached map, I do not see

~ have used the following works by Georgiev: Butgarska etimologija i ono-mastika, Sofia 1960; "Dnesnoto siistojanie na proucvanijata vurhu trakijski ezik",Arheologija (Sofia) 11-2, 1960, 13 ff. (this is in fact one section of the previousbook); "Albanisch, Dakisch-Mysisch und Rumanisch" LB 2 (1960), 1 ff.; "SurI'ethnogenese des peuples balkaniques: le dace, l'albanais et te roumain', Studii clasice3 (1961), 23 ff.; "Le probleme de l'union linguistique balkanique", ler Congresinternational des etudes balkaniques, (Sofia), 1966, 5 ff.212. Cf. Bfllgarska etimologija, p. 107 (Dacian), p. 108 ff. (Dacomoesian), 88 ff.;

on the Dardanians - pp. 91 and 94 (he allows that darda may be a Thracian word).213. Bidgarska etimologija, pp. 29 f. (Isker), 34 (Timok), 35 (Nisava), 45 (Cibrica).214. Ibid. 97 ff. These are southern tributaries of the Danube: Athrys is the Jantra,the Utus runs between the Isker and the Jantra, and Artanis and Atlas between theJ antra and the Black Sea.215. Ibid. 85. Cf. also Le probleme de l'union linguistique balkanique, p. ·12 ("en

Dacie et dans les deux Mesies").

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one from Upper Moesia. The districts of Sofia, Pirot and Custcndii were never

Moesian. In the early imperial period they were included in the province of Thrace,

and later in Mediterranean Dacia.

Ceorgiev, obviously, counts the Triballi, the Moesians and the Dardanians as

"Daco-M oesians" (which is why he coined that expression), but the arguments on

which he bases this in any case insufficiently elaborated opinion, are ambiguous. This

explains the terminological inconsistencies. It is characteristic that nowhere in his

works do we find the concept of the "Getae". Does he identify them with the

"Dacians"? That would be quite unacceptable, for, as is well-known, from the

earliest times there is evidence among the Athenians for the ~CioL and riTaL (and

indeed also [or the TpL/3ail.il.oi)216 and this obviously shows that they belonged to

three separate peoples. Among the ancient writers there are references, as we shall

see, to the mingling of the Moesians and Getae in the district south of the Danube,

and in the same way the Triballi mingled with the Moesians and the Getae, who

crossed the Danube into Moesia and the Triballian country. The Dacians appear much

later on the stage of history, and then in the western part of the lower Danube basin.

Georgiev leans heavily on the geographical distribution of place-names ending in

-dava and -para. The former are typical of Dacia, and we find them also south of the

Danube, between the Danube and Mt. Haernus, and also in the Piro t, Sofia and

Custcndii areas. This is probably one of the fundamental reasons why Georgiev

numbers the Moesians, Triballi and Dardanians among the "Daco-Moesians". How-

ever, the matter is not so simple. If we look more carefully, we shall notice that all

these place-names from the western district (Pirot - Sofia - Custcn dil), with one

exception, are only noted by Procopius: ALaoaiJa (Proc. de aed. IV, 123, 26, in the

district of Rernesiana), '!moiiJa (ib., IV, 122, 5, in Mediterranean Dacia),

KOU/lOuoEiJa (IV, 123, 29, district of Remesiana), BpeYEoaiJa (IV, 121, 33, in

Mediterranean Dacia), ~avEotiiJaL (IV, 121, 28, Kavetzos district). 217 And this means

that these place-names may have appeared later, at the time of the coming of the

Dacians from Transdanubian Dacia to Dacia Mcd itcrranea, and that accordingly

they are useless to show the relation between Thracian and Dacian in that area. An

216. Cf. above, n. 175.217. In Georgiev two more place-names are marked on the map: Zisnudeba in the

Sofia district, not far from Kurnudeva, which Procopius places in the Rernesiana area,and Buteridava in the Custend il district. These positions are given, it is true, with aquestion-mark, but in no case is there any reason to locate Zisnudeba and Buteridavain the above-men tioned West- Thracian territory. Zwvovo EiJa was, according to Pro-copius, de aed., 148, 19, a fort MuoLa<; n aoi: /lEV norouou '"!OTpOV and was thereforein lower, Danubian Moesia. Detschew, 192, places it "irn Harnusgebie t", and thisprobably misled Georgiev. Bu teridava, indeed, is known from an inscription which

* Add. n. 7 reads: Inter IMJessiam Pude [ntil]lam et vicanos Buteridavenses (cf. Studii si cercetaride istorie veche 6, 1955,75 1'1'.). I do not see on what evidence this village can belocated.

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exception is Desudaba, which is testified to in the second century B.C. in Livy'saccount of the coming of the Bastarnian troops to Macedonia. But Desudaba is notDardanian, but a Maedian settlement! And the Maedi were, as is generally recog-nized, a Thracian tribe. With Desudaba goes also Pulpudeva, Philip's famous town ofPhilippopolis, built in the very heart of Thrace, Although the form Pulpudeva is firstnoted by J ordanes, we may suppose that it arose soon after the foundation of thetown, as a translation of the Greek name. But even if it arose later, it does not alterthe case, for whenever it appeared, the fact remains that the name was given bynatives, who were Thracians. Georgiev tries to explain the appearance of this name in-deva in a purely Thracian district in a very strange way: he says that the appellation

was taken "from the west", and that it was not "Thracian" but "Daco-Moesian orMacedonian,,?18 It is not clear how a "Dace-Moesian" name came to be found in theheart of Thrace, and as regards Macedonian, this would have been the one and onlyinstance of the Macedonians' naming a town "<dava": Georgiev does not find itnecessary to explain the appearance of Desudaba so far to the south. However,Pulpudeva and Desudaba make it impossible to conclude, on the basis of theundoubted concentration of names in -dava in Dacia and -para in Thrace, that theseplace-names belonged to two different languages. On the contrary, to explain theappearance of Desudaba and Pulpudeva on Thracian territory, we must suppose thatthe word dava was understandable to the Thracians although-they used it infrequent-ly. Perhaps dava with the Thracians acquired the meaning of a fortified town, or alarge town, whereas para usually meant an open settlement? It is quite a commonthing in the same linguistic area to find that one type of place-name appears morefrequently, or even exclusively, in one district, another in another. Place-names in-diza, of which, according to Georgiev, there are eleven, are limited to the easternpart of Thrace,219 and that certainly does not indicate a separate linguistic region.

And Georgiev's conclusion that original deva changed between the fifth and first *Add n. 8

centuries B.C. to daba22fJ rests, it seems to me, on slender foundations. It is true thatthe earliest recorded instances of dava are from the second and first centuriestDesudaba, Argedava), and that Puipudeva may go back to the fourth century B.C.But all the afore-mentioned place-names in Procopius have the form -deva, and they,as we already said, probably arose at the time of the crossing of the Dacians intoMediterranean Dacia, i.e. in the third century A.D. If it had not been for Desudaba,there would have been a possibility of connecting Pulpudeva too with Dacian settlers(I do not know if there are any other indications suggesting the presence of Daciansin the Philippopolis district), for it is rather strange that this name is not recordedbefore J ordanes.

218.. Bldgarska etimoiogija, 86.219. Cf. V. Georgiev, "Thrace et illyrien", LB 6, 1963,72, and map "Distribution

of Daco-Moesian and Thracian place-names" in the book Buigarska e timoiogija.220. Bidgarska etimologiia, 92 and III f. Cf. also Studii clasice 3, 1961, 25.

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There are also other things which shake my confidence in the theory of theDaco-Moesian origin of the Triballi and Dardanians. Thus, for instance, Georgievholds that Av,),(,),)woc; 7rOTafJ.OC; is a translation of the Thracian Longinopara.Z21

However, if Longinopara occurred on Triballian territory, this Triballian place-nameargues in favour of the Thracian, and not Dacian, origin of the Triballi, for theDacians, according to G., pronounced IE.*bora, meaning "pool, stream", as bara andnot para. Then the name of the town on the Danube in the Dobrudja, 'A~t07rOA(C;

~'""l 01.), 'A~io7ra (Proc.), today Cernavoda (Bulg. Cerna voda), is interpreted byGeorgiev as a Dacian place-name derived from IE. +n-ksei-no, "dark, black", and*upa,"water". This etymology is quite convincing with regard to the present name, which.is a translation of the ancient one. Aelian mentions a tributary of the Danube in thatarea named "A~wc;. On the basis of that, Georgiev comes to the conclusion that IE.n became Dacian a or atn}, However, there is also a river 'A~€wc; in Macedonia and itstributary is today called the Crna Reka (Black River). Obviously the same word is inquestion. According to Georgiev, the name of the Macedonian Axios was "Daco-Moesian (Dardanian)", while the appellation Bapliovapwc;, Ovapliapwc;, Bapliapwc;

(which is first mentioned in the scholia on Ptolemy III, 13, 14 and also meant "black~ter")-;i~t-~';~cian:-Macedoni~I11yrian".2Z2 It seems to me quiteincredible that a Dardanian name for the largest Macedonian river should have takenroot among the Macedonians and Greeks (as far back as Homer's time), especially asit only touched Dardanian territory in its upper course. Round the mouth of the

'1/ »»> Axios, and in its lower reaches, there lived in former times both Thracians and(It ( ~ f t,/>./:7 Paeonians, and nothing is simpler, it seems to me, than to see in this name, and in the&\c. ~;- name 'A~io7ra on the Danube, Thracian words. -) e'~-J Finally, I must add that I am quite confused by a remark made by Georgiev in~~ G.'fir another article. Publishing a recently-discovered inscription from Kjolmen, he notes'If""" (;\-( ~ that in the sixth century B,C., Thracian and Dace-Moesian were very close to eacho IJ other, not because they were cognate Indo-European languages, but because they

mutually influenced each other, so that in the archaic inscription in question it is--?...... difficult to distinguish between them. Moreover, even of Thracian and GreekGeorgiev says that they are "so close that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish

_----~., between them".223 If it is impossible to distinguish between two languages of whichone is so well-known as Greek, I wonder how we are to distinguish two unknownlanguages, of which we have only meagre remains, such as Thracian and Daco-Moesian, especially if by the sixth century B.C. their mutual influences had broughtthem so close to each other.

221. See above, p. 35.222. Bulgarska etimologija, 83 f., 92.223. V. Georgiev, "Die Deutung der altertiimlichen thrakischen Inschrift aus

Kjolmen", LB 11, 1966,23.

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These are the reasons why I have considered that in discussing the ethnicrelationships of the Central Balkan peoples it is better to continue using thetraditional concepts "Thracian" and "Illyrian", although I am quite conscious oftheir vagueness, and although I very well know the reservations that have recen tJybeen made in that respect, and the demands for the revision of all that has been doneup to the present. I think Georgiev is quite right in insisting on the differencebetween Thracian and Illyrian, and protesting against the expression "Thraco-Illyrian".224 This expression is in fact nothing but an acknowledgement of ourinability to distinguish certain Indo-European elements in Balkan place-names andpersonal names as Thracian or Illyrian, In all cases where there is enough material, thelinguistic differences appear much greater than is usually supposed. To count onwidespread linguistic and ethnic communities in those early times is to conceal aninsufficient knowledge of the real state of things. For before we can affirm therelatedness of two languages, we must to some extent know their characteristics.

In concluding this chapter, we may remark that it has been difficult tosay anything very definite about the ethnic connections of the Triballi.The linguistic material has left us as much in uncertainty as the ancientwriters do. It is only certain that in ancient times their territory wasconsidered to be Thracian, that their connection with the Thracians wasolder and stronger than with the Illyrians, and that in historical times theywere mixed with both Thracian and Illyrian elements. Only if we had atour disposal linguistic material which we were reasonably convinced camefrom the period before this mingling, might we hope one day to throwlight on the ethnic situation. Such material, however, does not exist, andtherefore it is best to retain the first impression gained on the basis of thenarrative sources, that the Triballi represented a separate ethno-politicalgroup in the northern part of the Central Balkans.

IV. ON THE WORD TPIBAAAOL AMONG THE ATHENIANS

The name Triballos underwent a very unusual semantic developmentamong the Athenians. Already in the earliest times - at the time whenHerodotus and Thucydides were writing the first news of the Triballianland - the word T ptj3a"A/v)c; got a pejorative sense in Attic speech. In afragment of Cratinus, noted by Lucian's scholiast, two brothers Cercopes,dwarfs known as mischievous, lying good-for-nothings, have the namesLi"AA.oC; and Tptj3aA.I\6c;.22S Although the name Tptj3aA.l\6c; is not used for

224. Cf. LB 6,1963,71.225. Schol. Lucian. Alex. 4 = Cratini frg. 12 Kock (T 68).

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