Etymological Connections Between the Ancient People of Iaones and the Tacitean Suiones

Author(s)

Arduino Maiuri

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5526/2017.01.003

Affiliation(s)

Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

ABSTRACT

According to Felice Vinci’s revolutionary theory of the Nordic origins of the Homeric poems, the Achaeans who migrated to the Aegean Sea to found the Mycenaean civilization—whose language actually was an Ionian dialect, similar to that of Homer—were the Iaones, deriving their origin from Sweden. The Italian scholar offers significant analogies to prove his hypothesis, drawing them from several scientific disciplines, such as history (the movement appears similar to that of Varangians, who in the Middle Ages moved from Sweden to found the kingdom of Rus’), geography (the promontory of Cape Sounion, located 43 miles south-southeast of Athens, seems to be a souvenir of the same name), archaeology (the spiral shape, one of the most popular ones in the volutes of the Ionic capitals, was a common decoration also during the Nordic Bronze Age), and literature (especially a remarkable quotation taken from Plato, Critias 111e). In the author’s contribution, he tries to check Felice Vinci’s interpretation through a careful survey in ancient literature and linguistics, in order to verify the etymological connections between the ancient people of Iaones and the Tacitean Suiones.

KEYWORDS

Homer, Felice Vinci, Baltic Sea, Tacitus, Pliny the Elder

Cite this paper

Sociology Study, January 2017, Vol. 7, No. 1, 12-16

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