MARCOTAXUM

Un lieu non identifié de G. Bretagne. Supposé en Ecosse, au nord du Mur d'Antonin.

... où il est question d'une racine celtique *marco = cheval.

NB : le logiciel du serveur ne permettant pas l'utilisation des caractères grecs, je propose à ceux qui le désirent d'aller à ma page des noms de lieux M :

http://marikavel.org/lieux/lieux-m.htm


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* Rivet & Smith, p. 412-413 :

SOURCE.

- Ravenna, 10812 : MARCOTAXON.

DERIVATION

The first element is British *marco (or according to Whatmough * marca, with -a masculine as in druida, etc. : DAG 574), meaning 'horse', from which derive Welsh march, Breton marc'h, with cognates in Old Irish marc, Old High German marh and English mare, etc. (Holder II. 419). Watson in CPNS 441 cites the same word in Welsh Marchnant 'horse-brook' and Gaelic Marcaidh 'horse-stream', which occurs several times in Scotland. Ancient names in which this element appears are Marcodurum > Düren (Germany) and Marcomagus > Marmagen (between Cologne and Trier, Germany), and the personal name Marcomaro (Holder II. 422); in Germania Magna was the tribe Markomnoi (= Marcomani : Ptolemy II, I I, I I, etc.). See also H. Birkhan, Germanen und Kelten , . .(Vienna, 1970), 393-416.

The second element is identified by Holder II, 1778 with that found in Old Irish tais 'soft, gentle', but it seems better for the sense to follow Williams (now Pokorny 1055) in identifying a root *tag-, found in Greek tagew, tassw, taxis 'to rule, order, array', present in the names of Taximagulus who ruled part of Kent (Caesar) and Tasciovanus, father of Cunobelinus; also in the place-name Tasinemetum in Noricum (a site near Villach). The sense of the British name is thus 'horse-array', 'with evident reference to a historical or legendary event' (R&C); but it might be more mundanely an assembly-point for cavalry, or a horse-trading fair.

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JCE