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Statue of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus in the parliament of Vienna
Author: morhamedufmg. Source: Wikipedia. CC 0 1.0
Herodotus (480-c. 420 BC) was a historian and geographer. He was the son of a certain Lyxes, probably from ancient Caria. In 469 BC, his family went into exile in Samos because they conflicted with the Carian tyrant Lygdamos. He spent time in Egypt, Syria, the city of Tyre (modern Lebanon), Babylon (modern Iraq), Colchis (modern Georgia), the city of Olbia (modern Ukraine) and Macedonia.
Back in Halicarnassus, in Caria, around 454 BC, he took part in the insurrection that overthrew the tyranny. Then he had to go into exile again and settled in Athens where he sympathised with Sophocles. He then followed the colonists who, at the instigation of Pericles, left to reach the city of Thurii, in south-eastern Italy. This is called a refoundation, as this city once existed under the name of Sybaris.
We will review Herodotus’s information on the Cimmerians.
’There is also another different story, now to be related, in which I am more inclined to put faith than in any other. It is that the wandering Scythians once dwelt in Asia, and there warred with the Massagetae, but with ill success; they therefore quitted their homes, crossed the Araxes, and entered the land of Cimmeria. For the land which is now inhabited by the Scyths was formerly the country of the Cimmerians. (…)’Scythia still retains traces of the Cimmerians; there are Cimmerian castles, and a Cimmerian ferry, also a tract called Cimmeria, and a Cimmerian Bosphorus. It appears likewise that the Cimmerians, when they fled into Asia to escape the Scyths, made a settlement in the peninsula where the Greek city of Sinope was afterwards built.’
The Greek city of Sinope was south of the Black Sea. The Cimmerians would therefore have lived in the present-day Scythian country and retreated to (western) Asia on the shores of the Black Sea. They were also in the Bosporus (modern Turkey). This is a strait that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.
‘The whole district whereof we have here discoursed has winters of exceeding rigour. For eight months the frost is so intense that water poured upon the ground does not form mud, but if a fire be lighted on it mud is produced. The sea freezes, and the Cimmerian Bosphorus is frozen over.’
It is an understatement to say that at the time, the climate in this region seemed much harsher than today.
‘Cyaxares, the grandson of Deioces, drove the Cimmerians out of Asia.’
Cyaxares was a Scythian ruler. It was during his reign that the Cimmerians left Asia for good. Herodotus describes the debate among these Cimmerians before the Scythians fell upon them.
‘At this meeting opinion was divided, and both parties stiffly maintained their own view; but the council of the Royal tribe was the braver. For the others urged that the best thing to be done was to leave the country, and avoid a contest with so vast a host; the Royal tribe advised remaining and fighting for the soil to the last. As neither party chose to give way, the one determined to retire without a blow and yield their lands to the invaders; but the other, remembering the good things which they had enjoyed in their homes, and picturing to themselves the evils which they had to expect if they gave them up, resolved not to flee, but rather to die and at least be buried in their fatherland. Having thus decided, they drew apart in two bodies, the one as numerous as the other, and fought together. All of the Royal tribe were slain, and the people buried them near the river Tyras, where their grave is still to be seen. Then the rest of the Cimmerians departed, and the Scythians, on their coming, took possession of a deserted land.’
These events took place after 630 BC, as Herodotus states that the fleeing Cimmerians plundered the Greek city of Sinope (founded around 630 BC). To their credit, they had a (fleeing) population to feed. So we are more than a century before the foundation of democracy in Greece and the Cimmerians already had ‘parties’, including the ‘people’s party’.
What happened next is not known. According to the official thesis, they were colonised and assimilated by the Scythians. But Herodotus’s testimony does not support this hypothesis. The idea that part of the Cimmerians went up the Danube is not new. To support the idea, we can point out that the Greek geographer Strabo specified that the Cimmerians had Thracian allies.
We could recall the following scenario. The Cimmerians go up the Danube, settle in territories of present-day Romania, then in the Pannonian Plain (or even in the German-Polish plain). Finally, populations will move even further west and settle between the Paris Basin and the Southern Alps. If this is the case, we are talking about the Gauls.
Officially, the latter came from the Hallstatt culture before a hypothetical immigration of the Cimmerians into Central Europe. These Cimmerians appeared spontaneously and disappeared just as spontaneously in history. However, their society had a political maturity that the ancient Greeks did not have until much later.
In conclusion, we would go so far as to suggest that this massive Cimmerian immigration merged with the Hallstatt culture and that it is not alien to the La Tène culture that developed in Europe from 450 BC onwards. Having said that, let us finally address the subject: the Bretons.