TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

ZISA. 297
What Titus Annius was meant by the praetor, I cannot guess ;
there is a consul of that name A.U.C. 601 and 626, or B.C. 153, 128.
Velleius Paterculus can never have written this sort of thing. 1
But all the rubbish it contains does not destroy the value of
the remarkable story to us. The comparatively pure Latinity is
enough to show that it was not composed
so late as the twelfth
century ; Lazius and Velser 2 are inclined to place it in the Caro-
lingian period, and it looks like the work of a foreigner, to whom
the Germans are heathens and barbarians. The glosses confirm the
local connexion of the whole tradition with Augsburg and its
neighbourhood ; ,and not .only the Latin verses, but the German
forms werthaha (R. Wertach), cizunberc, habino, habinonberc, look
too old for the 12th century. Habino (Hepino), Habinolf, is an
authentic OHG. man s name: Cacus is unknown to me, Cacan,
Cagan would seem more vernacular, and the derived local name
Geginen leads up to it. Some of the names quoted are preserved
to this day: the eminence in the middle of the city, next the senate-
house, is still called Perlach, on which the monastery and churcli
of St. Peter were founded in 1064 ; so the verse subdidit hunc
(collem) Eomae praepes victoria Petro was composed after that ?
The name perleih, which the legend derives from periens or perdita
legio, suggests the OHG. eikileihi, aigilaihi (phalanx), Gl. ker. 124.
Diut. 1, 223 ; and in other compounds we find leih in a variety of
senses. 3
Zisenberg and Havenenberg are names no longer heard,
while Pfersen (Veris-se) MB. 33 b , 108 an. 1343, and Kriegshaber
are well known villages. Whatever may be the explanation of the
older and correcter form Criechesaveron, it is very plain that the
name of die place Criahhes (graeci) avard (imago, -conf. pp. 86, 95,
yet also avaro proles) first suggested Graecus Avar, as well as
-< HaUnonlerc the hero Habino . The Auersberg chronicler s state
ment, that the Latin verses were found carved in all those places,
must be rejected.
We find then, that tradition, true to her wont, has mixed up
1 CL 3&. Vossius, De%ist. Lat. 1, 24.
2 Marct yelseri rer. Augustanar. libri 8. 1594 fol. p. 45.
3 Henisch p. 293 explains berlach at Augsburg ab ursis in publica
cavea ibi altia, a tiring which was done in other towns, e.g. Bern. On the
Perlach tower there was fixed a figure of St. Michael, which came into view
every time the clock struck on Michaelmas-day in earlier times ; a wooden
temple of Isis (p. 294, ex lignis) is said to have stood on the spot ; Fischart s
geschichtkl. 30b : der amazonischen Augspurger japetisch fraw Eysen .