Lusitania lusitanian

Previous studies on the subject coincide in giving priority to one type of document, epigraphy, iconography, and a few lines of Strabo, or in proposing a comparison between Indo-European traditions on the species of sacrificed victims. The present work follows a different approach, from a history of religions perspective and the recourse to comparative elements aimed at constructing a view from within the logic of each type of source. The goal is to explain the operative chain of the Galician Lusitanian divinatory sacrifice by combining the different documents to obtain a coherent and historically realistic image of the rite. Also, the difficulties of the task and particularly those related to the archaeology of the sacrifice, a subject still pending to be fully understood, are indicated.

This contribution deals with the repositories of geographical names, the documentation of different types (literary, epigraphic and numismatic) related
with peoples and place names of the ancient Lusitania and the progress made in this area over the last 25 years. Secondly, some considerations have been
made on the linguistic approaches of these materials and their problems. Finally, questions of historical and geographical nature were raised.

Este artículo es el repaso de una “duda razonable” (y razonada) sobre el origen de la ciudad romana de «EMERITA» (Mérida, Extremadura): ¿«IULIA» o «AUGUSTA»?; una introducción a un viejo debate sobre su fundación que inició la Doctora Alicia María Canto (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) en 1987. Desde entonces ha venido aportando múltiples pruebas sobre el posible protagonismo de Julio César en los orígenes de Mérida (la mayor parte no rebatidas por la postura académica a favor de Augusto). Por otro lado, intentando comprender su “nacencia”, advertimos el contexto viario que determinó su origen: una ciudad-puente como “consecuencia” (que no “arranque”) del «Camino de la Plata», un ancestral eje viario que facilitaba la rápida comunicación (comercial, militar, administrativa…) entre los extremos sur-norte del occidente peninsular. Ello fue gracias a una suerte de condicionantes físicos: un vado del Río Guadiana (que controlaba y del que se beneficiaba) integrado en una alineación aquí de pasos naturales (vados y puertos de montaña). Este estratégico itinerario fue clave en los inicios de la ocupación romana en las Guerras Lusitanas, antes y durante la reiterada presencia de Julio César en el occidente de «Hispania». Por tanto, la “teoría Iulia” de Alicia M. Canto no es descabellada (frente a la "teoría Augusta", más asentada), si atendemos a las pruebas que aporta, y al singular y privilegiado marco histórico-viario del enclave de «Emerita».

FICHA BIBLIOGRÁFICA:
Muñoz Hidalgo, Diego Miguel.
"¿Quién fue el padre de «Emerita» (Mérida): César o Augusto?, Y sobre su fértil cuna en el Camino de la Plata".
Revista "El Nuevo Miliario", Número 18/19, Mayo-2018, págs. 73-91. Madrid. Bajo el Patrocinio de la Fundación Juanelo Turriano

Abstract: This paper reflects on some linguistic constraints in the etymological analysis of personal names of Western Hispania. To be exact, any of the anthroponimical roots referring to numerals (tritio-, turio-, pentio-) cannot be assigned to a specific Indo-European family. And provided that it is the geographical distribution what helps to place them from a linguistic point of view, we propose that Linguistics should make the most of the importance of the Linguistic Geography, based on the coherent repetition of series of elements, in order to analyze the ancient material of Roman Hispania.

Olbia is the main port on the Eastern coast of Sardinia. It is settled in a gulf which allowed the development of an important market since the Phoenician period.

In Late Roman period cargoes from the whole Mediterranean area (Hispania, Levant, Italic Peninsula, Calabria, Sicily, Africa and Gaule) joined the port.

The Lusitanian products arrived at Olbia since the 1st AD.: are attested Dressel.

Particularly interesting are the Late Roman importations; in 4th and 5th AD the Lusitanian amphoras join Olbia, carrying fish products –contained in Almagro 50, 51 AB, 51C, Keay 78/Sado 1-.
Lusitania was at that time the major fish product exporter in the Western Mediterranean area; its direct competitor was North Africa –mainly actual Tunisia-, but, among the amphorae attestations of Olbia, Africa seems not to be sufficiently competitive in this sector.

In conclusion this paper will deal with the importation of Lusitanian fish products to Olbia in Late Antiquity, analyzing this stuffs together with the whole mass of importation from the others Mediterranean area (Baetica, North Africa, and Levant).

Nobody till now has studied the commercial role of Olbia –the Sardinian port right in front of Rome in the Tyrrhenian sea- on the basis of the amphorae data, in general and on the Lusitanian products in detail.

The Lusitanian hydronym Limaia has been translated into both Classical languages as ‘the River of Oblivion’ (Greek L»qh, Latin Oblivio, -onis). This semantics is supported by many ancient sources (e.g. by Livy, Pliny, Florus, Salustius, Silius Italicus, Strabo and so on), thus both Latin and Greek names represent the so called translational calques. It is possible that the word *limaiā (or a similar form) was a Lusitanian name for ‘oblivion, forgetfulness’, derived from the Indo-European root *ghleim- ‘to forget’, cf. ON. gleyma, Icel. gleyma, Dan. glemme, Swed. glömma ‘to forget’. However, the Lusitanian hydronym Limaia (Gk. Lima…a, Lat. Limaea) cannot be separated from the name of an Old Prussian lake *Limaiō, attested as early as in the fourteenth century AD (1362 inter hos lacum videlicet Lymaio; 1364 et versus lacum Lyma, 1386 inter lacus Lymaio). Both these water-names originate from IE. *leim- ‘to flood, inundate’, see Bret. liñva vb. ‘to flood, inundate, drown’, Welsh llif m. ‘flow, flood’, MBret. livat ‘flood’, Corn. lyf ‘flood, inundation’ (< Celt. *līmos), Toch. A lyam, B lyäm ‘lake’ (< *limen-), Alb. lumë, lumenj m. ‘river’ (< *limen-), Greek lim»n m. ‘harbour, haven, creek’, orig. ‘bay’, l…mnh f. ‘a pool of standing water; a marshy lake, mere; a large pool or basin’. The author believes that reflexes of the two different Indo-European roots *leim- ‘to flood’ and *ghleim- ‘to forget’ became conflated in Lusitanian. Thus the Lusitanian „flood-river” Limaia became „the River of Oblivion” as a result of folk etymology.

The text is an assessment of the actual knowledge about Iron Age religion in Iron Age Galicia (NW Spain). Manuel Gago ask me to write it as complement, postface, of his creative text on the mythology of the Galician Iron Age people. In that way the book combines creative literature and historic knowledge. This last part is offered in the present document.