served in the museum at Avignon. It is to the following effect: Σεγομαρος Ουιλλονεος τοουτιους Ναμαυσατις ειωρον Βελησαμι σοσιν νεμητον.[1] That is to say, Segomaros (son) of Willo, toutias of Nîmes, made Belisama this grove. It is not certain whether toutius meant merely a citizen or some public official among the people of Nîmes. Perhaps the latter view is preferable, and I would suggest that Toutates in a somewhat similar way meant king. We have a Teutonic parallel of the same etymological[2] origin in the Gothic thiudans, βασιλεύς, Norse 'thjoᵭann,' 'a king,' and A.-Saxon theoden, which also meant a king or lord: both the Norse and the A.-Saxon words are found only in poetry, which is an indication that they are very ancient formations, going back probably far behind the time of Ulfilas, as may be shown by approaching the question from another direction: the word touta and its congeners entered into many proper names, and when the Romans had to write these names they represented the Teutonic dental as they did the Gaulish one, as a simple t: witness Caesar's Teutones, Ammianus Marcellinus' Teutomeres, Eutropius' Teutobodus, and Floras' Teutobochus. Now in Teutones or Teutoni we have the plural as given by Roman authors of the word 'thiudans,' 'thjóᵭann' and 'theoden;' and that a people should have given themselves such a name as Teutones,[3] meaning kings, will surprise
- ↑ Stokes in Kuhn's Beitræge, i. 451, ii. 107; Becker, ibid. iii. 162.
- ↑ Also a parallel of a different etymological origin in the Old Norse fylkir, a poetic word for king, derived from fólk; and the derivation of the word king itself, Anglo-Saxon cyning, is in point, though it involves several difficulties. See Kluge, s. v. König.
- ↑ The singular of this word would be the Teutonem, which Holder has preferred, in his recent edition of the Germania, to the more usual Tuisconem or Tuistonem.
