Aventinus 94

Johannes Turmayr's 1520 History of Bavaria, Chapter 94, - translated and annotated by Ras Feqade, AD 2021.

* Previous Chapter: Aventinus 91
* Next Chapter: Aventinus 103
* (To Table of Contents)

### 94. Of King Wolfheim Siclinger.

To King Frank succeeded king **Wolfheim Siclinger**, who was vastly victorious and certainly successful. From him came the name of Sigling, the village overlying toward Frankenhienham (named by his father); it has long been a town. He acquired three sons from Frau Kaltei, by the name of Kels for short, in full **Keltes**; Gal, in full **Galter**, and **Hillyr**. After the death of their father, who was in administration for about 58 years, the three sons owned this country, named after them even to Greece and Asia, as I will write afterwards.

At this time of this king there was a great movement from Germany to Asia, as is now called Turkey, of men and women who moved with each other, as the bishop Eusebius and St Jerome have recorded in their chronicles. The knight was called the Kempher, as it is now the landsknecht, the women Mazen, Anmannaz. The women's queen was Frau **Thäb**; her comrades, with names Eisenkraut, Koi and Kone, Trau and Pal were the most notable with her. And Thäb built a settlement in front of the Black Sea, where the Danube falls, named after her Taber, in a very fertile land, which she also called Thebe, as Homer, Livius, Stephanus recall.

And this attack of the women in Asia from the punishment of God lasted 550 years. It has been a long time since we were punished by those from Asia that covered us like we did before them: so everything is annihilated, God punishes one country and (as one says) one boy with the other drives away poses with poses. It is a common old saying: whoever wants to be a rogue must provide a rogue for the hatches. But we don't take such a thing until we also perish and die like our replica, so we are blinded and suffocated.

[Wolfheim (Wolfram in one MS) Siclinger was king 1135-1077 BC, that is 58 years as given both here and in Anderson (who spells his surname 'Sickenger'). Aventinus assumes he was a son of Frank, but synchronistically he must be the same as Uffe, son of king Wermund of Dania, who Saxo says was known to the Saxons as Olaf the Gentle, who became king of Saxony after slaying the son and heir of Frank in 1135 BC. He is also on the list of royal Mercian ancestors as Offa. He inherited Dania from Wermund in 1126 BC, ruling both in a personal union. Frank continued to rule a shrinking domain in Gallia, leaving only Champagne and Ile-de-France to another son Sicamber in c. 1119 BC. Olaf or Wolfheim left Dania to his son Dan II in 1116 BC, and continued in Franconia until 1077 BC, leaving it to Kels, Galther III and Hillyr, who thus founded Skioldung-descended dynasties there. The Mercian line seems to have followed yet another son, Ongengeat. The British accounts also mention Esyllt or Estrilde, the daughter of the unnamed German king at this time (ie Wolfheim); she was kidnapped by Hymyr or Humber king of the "Huns", and ended up marrying Locrinus of Loegria, son of Brutus.]

### 95. About the Jews, how they begged a king against the will of God, and God gave king Saul, which they were not willing to allow: and further, how Saul was rejected from the kingdom and David came to the kingdom by the mercy of God.

[Saul was king 1047-1007 BC when David became king, still out of synch for Wolfheim.]

### 96. Of the kings in Italian lands.

At this time there was king of the Latins in Italy **Sylvius Posthumus**, the young son of Aeneas, twenty-nine years, and after him his son **Aeneas Sylvius** thirty-one years. In the place where Florence is now, **Ocnus** ruled sixty-four years, lived ninety-six years.

[Sylvius Postumus ruled Latium 1147-1108 BC, followed by Aeneas Sylvius 1108-1077 BC. Ocnus ruled in Tyrrhenia 1160-1114 BC, 46 years.]

### 97. Of Greece.

In Greece in the island of Morea the people of the family of the Greek Herculis named Teminus, Cresphontes, Aristodemus, drove out the ancient ancient tribe of Pelops (from which the country is still in Latin and Greek called Peloponesus, that is, the island and town Pelopis) If Penthelus and Tisamenus had to rule the country for three years, with all their friends, were sons of the above mentioned Orestis, Agamemnon was their uncle, Atreus their grandfather and Pelops their great grandfather. So nothing is permanent in this world, one race always drives away the other: Pelops' heirs drove Herculis out, so the race Herculis came up again, counts with the same value, even drives the Pelopis tribe out of Greece.

[This refers to the return of the Heracleidae, the Dorian invasions, of 1103 BC.]

### 98. Of King Kels and his brethren, who ruled above and below the Danube.

After king Wolfheim Siglinger, I find with the Greeks that three of his sons, **Kels**, **Gal**, **Hyllyr**, divided the land under themselves and gave their names to German lands. Hillyr had the land under the river Inn, on the Danube down to the Black Sea, according to the mile length over 150, across from the Danube to the Venetic and Greek Seas, to Macedonia and Thrace in Greece at thirty, at several points measuring a hundred narrow miles wide, commonly named after him Illyria, as it is still called today by the Romans in Latin. They divided in ten captaincies of the holy roman empire for ages, as I will describe in the other book.

And this king Hillyr had three daughters, six sons, after whom special areas and places were named in the past: namely from **Aichel**, **Authar**, **Dardner**, and from Authar's sons **Panno** and **Schärdinger**, in Latin and Greek Achilles, Dardans, Pannonii, Scordisci or Scardisci; all of the Romans expelled their cousins ​​the Bavarians from the above mentioned lands not many years before the birth of Christ (as described by the Greeks Strabo and Appianus of Alexandria, the Romans too). Later the Wends pushed the Romans away, they still live there.

From king Kels and his brother Gal we are called by the ancients Kelzer, Gallen, and Germany Kelsgau and Galreich; it is in Latin and Greek Celtae and Celtica, Galli Gallia for short, in full Galatae Galatia. And from the Kels, the name of the Kels, as near Phering fell in the Danube, the city of Kelheim and the surrounding area, as the old people in the Kelsgau call it, as an old imperial letter to Weltenburg in the monastery attests. Aristotle also says the Danube rises in Kelsgau and runs through the Kelzer landscape. Cornelius Tacitus wrote the same thing, as the Bavarians are also called Gallen and his Gallader; and if Gallus is still a baptismal name among the Germans, they also have a saint of the name, from which an empire imperial monastery and imperial city is also referred to. Therefore, where one reads Celtae Galli Galatae with the ancient Greeks and Latins, namely before the Roman Empire, one has to take the same for the Germans. There was no such thing as a person who germanised the Titus Livius, not French for Galli, if it were German. And since I am now coming to the Galli, I want to feel myself, I mean not being a stranger to my boss, to give lessons and because of that to deal with it.

[Of course the Celts had long had this name from the ancient king Celtes I (since ca. 1997 BC).

The number of years corresponding to Kels, Gal and Hillyr is not given, but it seems to fit into ca. 1077-1027 BC, about 50 years. Anderson is little help here, he says the succession after these three is unknown and has little further until the reign of Tarquin Priscus in Rome in 618 BC, or rather 614 BC by his count, with Baldweiss, Sygweiss and Medo (Mader II?); although he says Wolfheim ended in 1057 BC, a difference of 443 years.]

### 99. What the ancient names of the Germans were and from when they came.

[Here Aventinus inserts a synopsis of the history of various names in the Central European region including 1) Sarmatians 2) Scythians 3) Galli 4) Celts 5) Hyperborei 6) Isterreich 7) Germania 8) Franks 9) Allemanni 10) Getae 11) Thracians 12) Teutons 13 Cimmerians. This section is omitted as it adds nothing to the current history.]

### 100. Of the Jews and King David and his son, king Solomon, who built the first church by the special grace of God.

[David ruled at Hebron from 1007 BC and Jerusalem from 1000 BC, succeeded by Solomon 967-928 BC, who built the first Temple of Yahweh at Jerusalem in 964 BC. This is still out of synch with this era.]

### 101. What happened to the heathens in other countries at this time.

At that time, when the above-mentioned brothers were ruling in German countries, there was in the country of the Latins king **Latinus Sylvius** fifty years. In Greece, what was once the most famous and richest city of Athens, there was a king called **Codrus**. Now those from the country and the tip of Morea got against the city with their kings who were here from Hercules (as I only mentioned above). But now what has been said, on which side the king died, the same people would take over the masons and power, would become rich and poor. Accordingly, King Codrus of Athens, so that he might make his city and his people lords, he gave himself to his death willingly because of common use: he gave him the artificial clothes, put on a shepherd's dress so that nobody would know him; then the enemy had forbidden in the event of a great punishment that nobody would lay hands on the king of Athens. But king Codrus in peasant clothes went unbeknownst to the enemy, raised a quarrel carefully with a servant who didn't know him and killed him. After that, those of Athens were obedient, were then worldly on land and water, and for an eternal honor of Codrus they wanted no more kings after him.

[Latinus Sylvius ruled Latium 1077-1027 BC. Codrus ruled Athens 1096-1075 BC, and was the last king before Athens was ruled by archons after 1075 BC.]

And just as in our time Venice is the mightiest city on land and water, wholesalers and traders asked, feeds and drives all over the world, so at the time the mighty city on land and people, on water, land and trade was Athens in Greece in Europe, and Tyre (also called Zaur) in Syria in Asia. And those of Athens and Greeks had so much people back then that they sent people across the sea in Asia with a chief, called Jon: the names of the best part and place against the west and south of the land of Asia, by the sea, one and there occupied the city with the names Ephesus, Miletos, Colophon, Priene, Lebedos, Myus, Erythra, Clazomenae, Phocea and also many islands between Nigropont, Crete and Rhodes. Another group of the Greeks, called Aeolians, attacked the country too, approaching the city at midnight, and did so in the cities and islands of Smyrna, Cyme, Larissa, Myrina, Mytylene, and Lesbos.

[Jerome places the Ionian migration in 1036 BC.]

For a long time now, the oft-mentioned war women would have lived in these localities and lands, who at that time left Asia, took themselves into the country, as is now called Tatary, settled at the river Rha, which is now called Volga by the Tatars, around the great mountain range, as the Latins and Greeks call it Corax and Caucasus, the Germans called it gray mountains, which has always snow on top of it, is also called the Mäzenbirg after the women mentioned above. Everyone fell away from the women, what generously happy that they got from her, considered it a great shame, that they let the women plague them for so long, how such a thing happened with the help of the German knights, called the Kempher and Deckensek who also settled themselves there in Tatary, since they then set Ptolemy. Also other Greeks moved more slowly from Rome in Italy to the kingdom of Naples, and built many cities there as Naples. Cumae, Taranto; called Great Greece by them a long time ago. And Tyre sent the city from people in Africa and Hispania, who also built large, powerful and well-known cities there: Carthage, Utica, Gades near the pillars of Heraclis; King Solomon also sent wood, workers and artists.

[Jerome has this entry for 1077 BC: *The incursion into Asia of both the Amazons and the Cimmerians*. This would seem to be the correct date, when they abandoned Anatolia and the Balkans, evidently pressured by the Moesians and Thracians, now ruled by Skioldung princes. He also mentions the founding of Carthage in 1039 or 1014 BC]

### 102. Further of the above-mentioned three brethren, who ruled in Germany according to Sag Appiani of Alexandria and named the country and people in all of Europe from Greeks to Hispania after them; how they were then called by the ancient Greeks and Latins and now even more so in Latin and Greek.

[Off topic digression about Latin omitted] But I return to the three above-mentioned kings.

At Regensburg, in Heimeran's monastery, I found good old Latin verse, in which several of the old German kings and heroes were described, for his grace Emperor Charlemagne put the German old songs into Latin: they keep the opinion in it, how the above King Galter, for short Gal, ruled from the sea where the Danube runs, until it passed through all of Europe to Hispania. His son in law was King **Hörreich**, who lived around Lyons in the lands now belonged to the crown of France; he had one daughter by the name of Hiltigund in marriage, he won her ritually with the sword, passed twelve fights with twelve lords, as they would have liked, as also St Jerome and Eusebius the bishop have abbreviated and recorded others write more, Latins and Greeks. And, as I first mentioned above, the Thraxes from the country, where Constantinople is now, were mighty on the sea, their crossed the sea in Asia, fell upon the area on the Black Sea where the Danube falls, and drove out of it the knights, men and women, who were called the Kempher and anmannischen or Anmanazmäzen. The same thing happened (as I just mentioned above) by the Greeks, who also suffered great hardship at this time because of rebellion. At the same time, these peoples traded and traded, were powerful on land and people on land and water, as the city of Venice is now.

Therefore, two brothers, named Galter and Kels, moved across the Danube from the Nordgau out of the forest and Bohemia to their brother Hillyr, who had six sons, three daughters. They wanted to get all good and honorable, also their compatriots in Asia, so they moved with force to Thrace and Greece.

**Aichel**, the first son of king Hillyr, took the landship around the Danube, since it lost its name in the sea, where now Wallachia and Serbia are.

**Maid**, the second son, settled in Thracia in the country where the cities Constantinople and Andrenopel are now, not far from the Greek sea, rests for herself even at the end of the sea in the peninsula, that stretches far from the sea until you get to Asia, where the sea is even narrow, not even a quarter of a mile wide, we are called Saint George's arm.

**Dardaner**, the third son, took the land under the Sava, which we called Bulgaria several years ago.

**Taulant** or Tuland, the fourth son, and his sister Draut or Daurt got Dalmatia as far as Epirus. They invented mead or (as Aristotle called it) to make wine from honey, as it is still the custom in Poland and Russia that one only drinks mead for wine.

His brother **Parheb**, with the other two sisters, named Pärthin and Desera, traveled even further in Greece for themselves; with Ptolemy and the old writers of land this land and town still keep their names from these gentlemen and women.

**Autharius**, in German Aithar, the sixth and youngest son of king Hillyr, kept the land all from the Save up to the Lech, and from the Danube to the Venetic sea and Histerreich. I think that Salzburg was called Aitherburg, in short Atterburg is still in Athergau. And the Etsch or Aither, in Latin Atriana and Atrianus, the others make of it Zadrianus. Freithilf and Schreitwein, the oldest Bavarian historians, whose excerpts I found in Passau, say how the Bavarians had all the lands before the birth of Christ, and the land of Moesia, as it is now called Bulgaria, is a march of the Bavarian kingdom toward the rising of the sun, around midday in Histerreich and around midnight in Bohemian mountains, ten miles from Baierbing now Prague, around which place Ptolemy also sets a city, which he calls Bergion in the Greek way, due to the Roman tongue Bergium. Strabo also testifies to this, says that the Bavarians all lived in these upper tents; whoever wants to notice in diligent cunning, will find it. In the old letters I find that the old kings and princes, who owned this land in Bavaria, went there and wrote duchies and margraves. Furthermore, his brothers in Italy, after which they moved to their brother-in-law in France, also moved to Hispania, and (as our ancient Bavarian histories describe, also among the Greeks and Latins, namely Pliny, Ptolemy, Diodorus, Appian, Strabo, Justin, and the like are read more) so the current lands all have their old names, namely from these two kings Kels and Gal.

[Off topic digressions omitted.]