Re: Pagan - etymology?

Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:

> > Date:         Wed, 12 Jul 2000 22:20:26 -0500
> > From: "Thomas R. Wier" <artabanos@...>
>
> > Well, I think we're confusing issues a little. According Cary and
> > Schullard's _A History of Rome_, "[e]ach valley or plateau
> > constituted a pagus with an elective headman (mendix).... [t]he pagi
> > were loosely associated into cantonal associations... and each of
> > these populi formed a touto....". Now, that is the status of the
> > pagus as of, oh, 200 BC; [...]
>
> Very interesting words...
>
> Could pagus be a thematic variant of pax?
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/lexindex?lookup=pagus&type=begin&options=Sort+Results+Alphabetically&lang=la>

Not so much a thematic variant as being etymologically related.  Latin
'pagus' and 'pax' both have the root pak-, pag-, 'to make fast or
firm'.

> Also cf. Greek pagos as in Areopagos.
But that is págos, 'rock, crag, rocky hill', with rising tone, not pâgos, with
rising-falling tone.

Incidentally, that is only the Latin name for it;  the Greeks called it 'ho Areîos
págos', or the Hill of Ares, hardly a peaceful deity.

> I suppose mendix relates to (later?) mendax = lying and mendicus =
> beggar --- if so, the word has come down in the world.
That was actually a typo in my last email -- the title is actually 'meddix'.
So, presumably there is no relation:  it means 'he who cares for, attends to,
a curator, the title of a magistrate among the Oscans'.

> Touto --- is that 3f touto, toutonis? Perseus (Lewis & Short) does not
> list it. But it almost has to be related to Germanic *teuto- as in
> Dutch.
That seems probable, given the meaning.  But I don't know enough about
historical phonological developments in Oscan and Old Latin to say for sure.

> And I wonder about populus vs G folk. I really should get around to
> buying a proper IE etymological book.
Me too.  I have the American Heritage Dictionary of IE roots, but its
index is somewhat disappointing.

======================================
Tom Wier <artabanos@...>
ICQ#: 4315704   AIM: trwier
"Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
======================================