Tomb of Gothic warrior.

[eugene]

A curious fact: Russian archaeologists have recently discovered a tomb of the 4-th century high-ranked Gothic warrior near Samara (a city in middle Volga area) . So this confirms Iordanes’s information that Merens and Mordens tribes were subjected to Hermanarichus (Mordens, as most researchers think, are ancestors of modern Mordva – a Finno-Ugrian people which lives not far from Samara area).

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I read somewhere that the Goths were Scythians too? Is that also correct?

[Sascha]

I read somewhere that the Goths were Scythians too? Is that also correct?

Yes it is written so by Iordanes, but only to give them a greater ancestry, it is not a factly origin.
Same is from the franks which should be one of the tribes which left Troy if you believe in Gregor of Tours.

[Chlodovicus]

This can be a very interesting thread. I just finished wading through Herwig Wolfram's Geschichte der Goten (English trans), and found it fascinating except for his theories on "ethnogenesis." I am not sure Wolfram thinks we can ever know who the Goths were, or where they originated. Walter Goffart has stated that few of these northern barbarians were German in any real sense regardless of Tacitus, et al.

The ancient historians are sketchy, but they had little to work from....no written language among the tribal swarms and verbal histories which are notoriously unreliable - and changeable. Few of them (Iordanes; Gregory, etc.) had any direct connection with the origins of their peoples, and the Christian chroniclers had agendas above most other things.

I have understood "Scythians" as anyone who emerged from the Steppes. This was a catch-all that could include Alans Huns, Goths and so forth. The Franks are another issue, along with Saxons and nordic peoples. That's another matter.

[Alanus]

You are correct. The standard term for all the peoples living on the other side of the Danube was "Scythians," used by all the historians (Socrates Scholasticus, Zosimus, Sosoman, etc.).

The Goths were more of a "culture" than an actual ethnic group. Wofram stressed this, but he gave perhaps more of a Germanic ethnos than we believe today. The Goths of reality included Alans, Taifali, Sarmatians, Huns, Mordwines (mentioned in the above posts), Dacians, Carpi, Cappadocians-- even Romans and Greeks, once the Goths crossed into the empire. They became a gigantic mobile army, traveling by oxen-drawn wagons, with a talented cavalry, plus thousands of women and children. After the murder of Stilicho in 408, almost 30,000 Roman soldiers went over to this multicultural element.

Yet the leaderships, and especially the kingships (aka "reiks" or generals), had Germanic names: early-on with Filimir, Cniva; then Ermaneric (the king who conquered the Estoni and Mordwines) to Videric; and finally to the later Fritigern, Alaric, Athaulf, Theodoric, etc. This indicates that the ruling class started out as Germanic and ended as Germanic. The Gothic bible was written in an East Germanic language. And the singular connective thread within the huge Sintana de Mures-Cernjachov "culture" appears to be the distinctive Germanic comb that was produced (from deer antler) in at least 15 "factories" located throughout the Gothic dominions.

The first Goth of historical note was Maximinus I, emperor from 235 to 238. He had a Gothic father and an Alanic mother. Then we had the talents of Fritigern, who used the Roman riparians of Thrace to defeat his arch rival Athanaric. Then Fritigern went on to win the battle of Adrianople; and even later he trapped Theodosius in the emperor's own tent. Let us not forget Flavius Alaric, the former Magister Militum of Illyricum who blockaded Rome in 408 and sacked it in 410. Both Fritigern and Alaric were Romanized "barbarians" who proved to be brilliant tacticians. So the Goths were an anachronism: they helped "destroy" the Western Empire, yet became the last "bearers of the Roman flame." :roll:

The finding of a Gothic warrior grave in the mid-Volga region testifies that Jordanes was correct, and that King Ermanaric really did build a huge empire from Poland and Hungary all the way to the Wolga-Fenni. The archaeology of the Cernjachov Culture seems to co-incide. And when all the findings are gathered, it could be that the Gothic story will become the Great Military and Human Tale of the Late Western Empire.

[Chlodovicus]

Alan,

Thanks for the reply. Wolfram's ideas on how these tribal peoples "might have become" what they became left me a bit frustrated. The "primordial events" he mentions seem too contrived and convenient. However, it is he, not I who is the accomplished historian. Maybe it was the translation.

I maintained in another forum that the Goths in general became a part of the defenses of the West, and of the simulacrum of the western empire. I was practically run out of town. :lol:

In reading recent histories of the migration period and the late empire, I was interested to find out that a 6th century mosaic that was thought to be Justinian is actually a representation of Theodoric. Also, as a matter of identity, one historian pointed out that Attila is....a Gothic name. It makes one wonder if a concept like ethnogenesis would have made any sense to these peoples. But then they were too busy being soldiers and aquiring plunder and alotments to pay much attention to such matters. Changing names to appear to be someone else was a common occurrance as recently as after WW II in eastern Europe.

[Alanus]

Hello, Chlodovicus

Any "history" of the Goths must be problematical by the very sense that too little is known about them. Certainly they were an amalgum of peoples who had one common interest, an economic and cultural power outside the Empire. In recent years historians have either ripped into Wolfram or simply ignore him. Understandable, since he presented the old view and actually believed Jordanes. But when we find a high Gothic warrior buried in Samara, possibly even a prince, then what are we to make of Jordanes? Perhaps he is vindicated, and perhaps there is a bit of historicity in his tale.

Like you, on another RAT thread (Are Dacians and Getae the Same?) I took the position that the Gothic hierarchy, the actual kings, at least from the third century forward, had Germanic names. The Gothic Bible as conceived by Ulfilas, was written in a Germanic language. The one tying artifact in the Cernjachov culture was the Germanic comb, manufactured in at least 15 identified sites. My conjecture is that there was a Germanic elite at the top of the Gothic ladder. For this hypothesis, I was also taken to task by another vociferous RAT member who insisted I was full of BS. hock:

This position is unpopular; it smacks of ethnogenisis. Some of the recent anti-Wolfram/Jordanes critics have written much as of late, and I have The Goths in the Fourth Century by Heather and Matthews, then Heather again with The Fall of the Roman Empire, plus Kulikowski's Rome's Gothic Wars, and an extremely interesting translation of Alessandro Barbero's The Day of the Barbarians. All of which avoid the word "German" as if it were graffitio. Kulikowski went so far as to condemn Jordanes as complete fiction, a position he now has to justify after this discovery of the Samara Elite Warrior. :oops:

So who is right and who is wrong? We are wonderously gifted as human animals; and our ancestors and intelllectual predecessors wrote more than fiction. We should never toss out the baby with the bath-water.

Yet, one thing is becoming inextricably clear. The Goths were the greatest military and cultural power outside the Empire. By the year 400, most of the highest ranking Roman generals were actually Goths. We are just beginning to understand that they were a lot less "barbaric" than originally painted. They were extremely Romanized through long-standing trade across the Danube. Fluent in Latin, they could read and write, they had friends in both the Senates and the Church, and they ultimately created a new style of "Rome."

[Robert Vermaat]

on another RAT thread (Are Dacians and Getae the Same?) I took the position that

Guys, shall we agree not to open yet another thread on the origin of the Goths? One suffices, I'd say. :wink: