Getae and Dacians? Are they the same? Or is this unknowable?

[Alanus]

I just said, backed by both archeology and modern scholars writings and ancient writings that Goths was a mixed people (Dacian, German, Sarmatian), having a culture related more with Dacian one, a culture formed from several influences, but with local Geto-Dacians having the leading role. And thats why they was usualy named Getians in ancient time, more then Goths. And i will be glad if you will show me couple writings from that time when Goths (not Greutungi, Tyrfingi, etc., you consider that are Goths), the "classic" Goths, are related or named as "germanic" peoples. I am quite curious to see if you find one. Instead, as i posted before, there are a lot of ancient historians who call them Getae, before Jordanes, and after him as well, and i dont think they all was stupid either and dont know whats about they write there.

Hello, Diegis

Yes, by the third century the Goths increasingly became a mixture of various peoples-- mostly East Germans, Dacians, and Sarmatians (even some Cappadocians). BUT in the beginning, they were a Germanic people. Here's some historic confirmation that comes from two of the oldest and reliable Roman historians, Pliny the Elder and Tacitus who refer to even older writers such as the Greeks, Hecataeus and Pytheus:

"To the north is the ocean [Baltic Sea]; beyond the river Parapanisus where it washes the coast of Scythia. Hecataeus calls it the Amalchian Sea... Xenophon of Lampsacus reports that three day's sail from the Scythian coast there is an island of enormous size called Balcia; Pytheas gives its name as Basilia." Pliny, Book IV. xiii, 94

Here Pliny records info taken from Pytheus and Xenophon at a time when the Goths had yet to begin their migration. "Amalchian" and "Balcia" record the two leading families or gens of the Goths, the Amals and the Balths. In paragraph 100, Pliny says, "There are five German races," the fist being, "the Vandals, who include the Burgodones, Varinnae, Charini and Gutones." So in Pliny's time, the Goths (Gutones) were probably subjects of the Vandals. In Book XXXVII, we find them further north in Pytheas's time (300 BC) and their name misspelled, "Pytheas speaks of an estuary of the Ocean (Baltic)... extending for 750 miles, the shores of which are inhabited by a German tribe, the Guiones [a scribal error, mistaking a "t" for an "i"]."

Writing a century later, Tacitus mentions both Gothic tribes in his Germania, c. 43: The western branch (Tyrfingi) are now in Silesia and northern Hungary, "The Gothini and Osi prove themselves not to be Germans; the first, by their use of the Gallic." Here we see a Celtic cultural infusion, and the Gothini are less "Germanic" than they were earlier. "At an even earlier stage the Goths were affected by a strong Celtic influence, which left its mark above all in their political life. There are Celticisms in the important military and political vocabulary which appear among the Germanic languages only in Gothic." (Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, p. 112)

The other gens (Greutungi) are further north and east in Poland, "Beyond the Lygii are the Gothones, who live under a monarchy, somewhat more strict than that of the other Geman nations, yet not to a degree incompatible with libery." Here we see exactly what Jordanes describes, actual kingships of the royal Amals yet at a much earlier date. This is in contrast to the Gothini/Tyrfingi who were ruled by a Balth magistracy/judgeship until the time of Alaric.

So in the early period, 300 BC to 150 AD, the Goths were a Germanic people who increasingly become influenced by other cultures, first the Celts, then the Sarmatians, then the Dacians, and so forth. In the oldest historical sources, going back to 300 BC, they were referred to as Gutones and Gothini, and not Getae.

Pytheas, Hecates, Zenophon, Pliny, and Tacitus confirm this historic "Gut-Got" structure long before Jordanes was a twinkle in his daddy's eye. The Goths started out "small" and ended up rather "large" and powerful... yet first, and foremost, they were Germans who retained their Germanic language until the end.