Quintilian may be considered to give us upon the subject the notions of two writers—Virgil, and either Cæsar or Crassus. In dealing, however, with the words of Quintilian, it will be seen that there are two assumptions. That either Cæsar or Crassus considered the Cimbri to be Gauls we infer from the following passage:—"Rarum est autem, ut oculis subjicere contingat (sc. vituperationem), ut fecit C. Julius, qui cum Helvio Manciæ sæpius obstrepenti sibi diceret, jam ostendam, qualis sis: isque plane instaret interrogatione, qualem se tandem ostensurus esset, digito demonstravit imaginem Galli in scuto Mariano Cimbrico pictam, cui Mancia tum simillimus est visus. Tabernæ autem erant circum Forum, ac scutum illud signi gratiâ positum." Inst. Orat. vi. 3. 38. Pliny tells the story of Crassus (39. 4.). Although in this passage the word upon which the argument turns has been written galli, and translated cock, the current interpretation is the one given above.—Vid. not. ed. Gesner.
In the same author is preserved the epigram of Virgil's called Catalecta, and commented on by Ausonius of Bordeaux. Here we learn that T. Annius Cimber was a Gaul; whilst it is assumed that there was no other reason to believe that he was called Cimber than that of his being descended from some slave or freedman of that nation:—"Non appareat affectatio, in quam mirifice Virgilius,
Corinthiorum amator iste verborum,
Ille iste rhetor: namque quatenus totus
Thucydides Britannus, Atticæ febres,
Tau-Gallicum, min-, al- spinæ male illisit.
Ita omnia ista verba miscuit fratri.
Cimber hic fuit a quo fratrem necatum hoc Ciceronis dictum notatum est; Germanum Cimber occidit."—Inst. Orat. viii. 3. cum not.
Dic, quid significent Catalecta Maronis? in his al-
Celtarum posuit, sequitur non lucidius tau-,
Et quod germano mistum male letiferum min-.—Auson.
Undoubtedly the pronunciation here ridiculed is that of the Gauls, and it is just possible that in it is foreshadowed the curtailed form that the Latin tongue in general puts on in the present French. Again, the slave whose courage failed him when ordered to slay Caius Marius is called both a Gaul and a Cimbrian by Plutarch, as well as by Lucan. In the latter writer we have probably but a piece of rhetoric (Pharsalia. lib. ii.)
Amongst tribes undoubtedly Gallic the Nervii claimed descent from the Teutones and Cimbri. The passage of Tacitus that connects the Nervii with the Germans connects them also with the Treveri. Now a well-known passage in St. Jerome tells us that the Treveri were Gauls:—[a]Νέρβιοι ἠσαν δὲ Κίμβρων καὶ Τευτόνων ἀπόγονοι].—Appian, iv. 1. 4. "Treveri et Nervii circa adfectationem Germanicæ originis ultrò ambitiosi sunt, tamquam, per hanc gloriam sanguinis, a similitudine et inertiâ Gallorum separentur." German. 28. Finally, in the Life of Marius by Plutarch we have dialogues between the Cimbri and the Romans. Now a Gallic interpreter was probable, but not so a German one.
Such are the notices bearing upon the ethnography of the Cimbri. Others occur, especially amongst the poets; of these little or no use can be made, for a reason indicated above. Justin speaks of embassies between Mithridates and the Cimbri. Suetonius connects the Cimbri with the Gallic Senones; he is writing however about Germany, so that his evidence, slight as it is, is neutralized. Theories grounded upon the national name may be raised on both sides; Cimbri may coincide with either the Germanic kempa=a warrior or champion, or with the Celtic Cymry=Cambrians. Equally equivocal seem the arguments drawn from the descriptions either of their physical conformation or their manners. The silence of the Gothic traditions as to the Cimbri being Germanic, proves more in the way of negative evidence than the similar silence of the Celtic ones, since the Gothic legends are the most numerous and the most ancient. Besides this, they deal very especially with genealogies, national and individual. The name of Bojorix, a Cimbric king mentioned in Epitome Liviana (lxvii.), is Celtic rather than Gothic, although in the latter dialects proper names ending in -ric, (Alaric, Genseric) frequently occur.
Measuring the evidence, which is in its character essentially cumulative, consisting of a number of details unimportant in themselves, but of value when taken in the mass, the balance seems to be in favour of the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones being Gauls rather than Germans, Celts rather than Goths.
An argument now forthcoming stands alone, inasmuch as it seems to prove two things at once, viz. not only the Celtic origin of the Cimbri, but, at the same time, their locality in the Chersonese. It is brought forward by Dr. Pritchard in his 'Physical History of Mankind,' and runs as follows:—(a.) It is a statement of Pliny that the sea in their neighbourhood was called by the Cimbri Morimarusa, or the dead sea=mare mortuum. (b.) It is a fact that in Celtic Welsh mor marwth=mare mortuum, morimarusa, dead sea. Hence the language of the Cimbric coast is to be considered as Celtic. Now the following facts invalidate this conclusion:—(1.) Putting aside the contradictions in Pliny's statement, the epithet dead is inapplicable to either the German Ocean or the Baltic. (2.) Pliny's authority was a writer named Philemon: out of the numerous Philemons enumerated by Fabricius, it is likely that the one here adduced was a contemporary of Alexander the Great; and it is not probable that at that time glosses from the Baltic were known in the Mediterranean. (3.) The subject upon which this Philemon wrote was the Homeric Poems. This, taken along with the geography of the time, makes it highly probable that the original Greek was not [a]Κίμβροι], but [a]Κιμμέριοι]; indeed we are not absolutely sure of Pliny having written Cimbri. (4.) As applied to Cimmerian sea the epithet dead was applicable. (5.) The term Morimarusa=mare mortuum, although good Celtic, is better Slavonic, since throughout that stock of languages, as in many other of the Indo-European tongues (the Celtic and Latin included), the roots mor and mori mean sea and dead respectively:—"Septemtrionalis Oceanus, Amalchium eum Hecatæus appellat, a Paropamiso amne, qua Scythiam alluit, quod nomen ejus gentis linguâ significat congelatum, Philemon Morimarusam a Cimbris (qu. Cimmeriis) vocari scribit: hoc est mare mortuum usque ad promontorium Rubeas, ultra deinde Cronium." (13.)