On Saturday, January 21, 2023 at 4:16:12 AM UTC-8, Ed Cryer wrote:
> m...@privacy.net wrote:
> > I don't know latin at all and could use some help in translating the
> > following sentence from "Annales Fuldenses" year 896
> >
> > "Pacem ergo Greci eodem anno cum Avaris, qui dicuntur Un­gari,
> > facientes; quod eorum concives Bulgari in pravum vertentes
> > hostili expeditione contra eos insurgunt et omnem regionem illo­rum
> > usque portam Constantinopolitanam devastando insecun­tur."
> >
> >
> > The translator of the text has difficulties with the meaning of "eorum
> > consives" which is something like "fellow (Roman) citizen" in classical
> > Latin, but certainly something different in the middle ages.
> >
> "The Greci making peace that same year with the Avari (known as Ungari);
> because their "concives" the Bulgari turned to bad, rose up against them
> with a hostile expedition and laid waste all their land pushing them up
> to the gate of Constantinople."
>
> A "civis" is someone who lives in a "civitas". That was primarily a
> city-state (like the old Greek polis); usually a walled city with farms
> and farmland around it. But under the Roman empire it blossomed in
> meaning, until by the early 5th c. Augustine wrote about the "Civitas
> Dei" (the civitas of God).
>
> I've searched through the Latin text of Annales Fuldenses, and the word
> "concivis" occurs a lot. One phrase in particular struck me: "et ceteris
> quibusque exteris nationibus vel concivibus" (and all other foreign
> nations or "concives"). I think it obviously means "compatriots" there.
>
> You might find this site interesting;
> (http://macedonia.kroraina.com/en/ibmh/ibmh.htm#3_84)
>
> Ed

Thank you, Ed, for giving such a good answer.

Mentifex (Arthur)