http://cs6205.userapi.com/u3027699/...rly-Germans.pdf - англичанин о ранних германцах, ничего конкретного о первых упоминаниях историками:
The peoples known to the Classical Mediterranean world as the Germani
were relative latecomers to history. Mediterranean writers knew little of
the peoples who inhabited north and central Europe before the second
century bc. The earliest surviving references to those peoples make no
mention of Germans. In the fifth century bc, the Greek world was conscious
of a major barbarian people in west and central Europe; it called
them Keltoi (Celts). Herodotus relates that they were the most westerly
of European peoples and that the Danube had its source in their territory.
He also knew about the nomadic Scythians on the steppes of
western Russia, far more indeed than he knew about the Celts.
Hekataeus also mentions Celts, in the eastern Alpine region known as
Noricum (now mainly occupied by Austria). But neither Herodotus nor
Hekataeus refers to Germans, or other major barbarian peoples. A
century later, Ephorus named the four great barbarian nations known to
him: Celts, Scythians, Persians and Libyans. By the late fourth century
bc, knowledge of the remoter parts of Europe was growing. At some
date, probably about 320, Pytheas of Marseilles sailed around Britain
and along the north European coast, possibly rounding Jutland and
entering the western Baltic. His journey was so astonishing an achievement
that contemporary and later writers refused to believe his account,
and what survives of it amounts only to quotations by others.2 Much of
what Pytheas is said to have recorded is geographically reliable, though
1 The literature on the origins and early development of the early Germanic peoples is
mountainous and still increasing. Footnotes to this volume have been kept to a modest
number. It is hoped that the bibliography will enable the reader to explore the field further.
2 B. Cunliffe, The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek (London 2001).
it is scanty on the northern European mainland. He is chiefly of interest
to us because he may have been the first Mediterranean observer to
distinguish Germanoi from Keltoi.
In the two centuries after Pytheas’ voyage, remarkably little was added
to the canon of information on the northern peoples. The first clear indication
of peoples who were distinct from the Celts and who came from
far to the north of them was registered late in the second century bc,
when a huge and miscellaneous throng of northerners, including Cimbri
and Teutones, swept southward and endangered the northern frontiers
of the Roman world. At about this time, in his Histories, Poseidonius of
Apamea distinguished the Germans from the Celts and the Scythians. It
is known that Poseidonius visited Gaul and northern Italy, but he clearly
had no first-hand knowledge of lands and peoples further north. His
sources can only be guessed at, but we should not assume that they were
outstandingly well informed. Nor should we assume that what Poseidonius
wrote about the Germans had a powerful influence on later writers
such as Caesar and Strabo, as many modern scholars have done. That
his information was used is certain, but by the first century bc there will
have been other sources for the northern peoples. A generation after
Poseidonius, Rome was to come into contact with the western Germans,
thus inaugurating a long relationship which would lead ultimately to the
transformation of Europe.