Getica

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Getica[1] or The Origin and Deeds of the Getae (Goths) written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD,[2][3] claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the origin and history of the Gothic people.

Variants

Synopsis of the work

The Getica begins with a discussion of a large island named Scandza, which faces the mouth of the Vistula river and had been described by the writers Claudius Ptolemy and Pomponius Mela. Jordanes reports this island to be the original home of many different peoples including the Goths, who have swarmed like bees from there (16-25). Jordanes commences the history of the Goths with the emigration of a Gothic king named Berig with three ships from Scandza to Gothiscandza (25, 94), in the distant past. In the account of Jordanes (or Cassiodorus), Herodotus' Getian demi-god Zalmoxis becomes a king of the Goths (39). Jordanes tells how the Goths sacked "Troy and Ilium" just after they had recovered somewhat from the war with Agamemnon (108). They are also said to have encountered the Egyptian pharaoh Vesosis (47). The less-fictional part of Jordanes' work begins when the Goths encounter Roman military forces in the 3rd century AD. The work concludes with the defeat of the Goths by the Byzantine general Belisarius, which was recent in the time of Jordanes. Jordanes states that he writes to honour those who were victorious over the Goths after a history of 2030 years.

Importance

Because the original work of Cassiodorus has not survived, the work of Jordanes is one of the most important sources for the period of the migration of the European tribes, and the Ostrogoths and Visigoths in particular, from the 3rd century AD. Cassiodorus had claimed to have the Gothic "folk songs" — carmina prisca (Latin) — as an important source.

Jordanes stated that Getae are the same as the Goths, on the testimony of Orosius Paulus.[4] In a passage that has become controversial, he identifies the Venedi, a people mentioned by Tacitus, Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy, with the Slavs of the 6th century. Since as early as 1844,[5] this passage has been used by some scholars in eastern Europe to support the idea that there was a distinct Slavic ethnicity long before the last phase of the Late Roman period. Others have rejected this view because of the absence of concrete archaeological and historiographical data.[6]

The book is important to some medieval historians because it mentions the campaign in Gaul of one Riothamus, "King of the Brettones," a possible source of inspiration for the early stories of King Arthur.

Some scholars claim that, while acceptance of Jordanes' text at face value may be too naive, a totally skeptical view is not warranted. For example, Jordanes writes that the Goths originated in Scandinavia in 1490 BC. One Austrian historian, Herwig Wolfram, believes that there might be a kernel of truth in the claim, if we assume that a clan of the Gutae left Scandinavia long before the establishment of the Amali in the leadership of the Goths. This clan might have contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Gutones in eastern Pomerania (see Wielbark culture).[7] Another example is the name of King Cniva, which David S. Potter thinks is genuine because, since it doesn't appear in the fictionalized genealogy of Gothic kings given by Jordanes, he must have found it in a genuine 3rd-century source.[8]

A manuscript of the text was rediscovered in Vienna in 1442 by the Italian humanist Enea Silvio Piccolomini.[9]] Its editio princeps was issued in 1515 by Konrad Peutinger, followed by many other editions.[10]

The classic edition is that of 19th-century German classical scholar Theodor Mommsen (in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, auctores antiqui, v. i.). The best surviving manuscript was the Heidelberg manuscript, written in Heidelberg, Germany, probably in the 8th century, but this was destroyed in a fire at Mommsen's house on July 7, 1880. Subsequently, another 8th-century manuscript was discovered, containing chapters I to XLV, and is now the 'Codice Basile' at the Archivio di Stato in Palermo.[20] The next of the manuscripts in historical value are the Vaticanus Palatinus of the 10th century, and the Valenciennes manuscript of the 9th century.

Jordanes' work had been well known prior to Mommsen's 1882 edition. It was cited in Edward Gibbon's classic 6 volumes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), and had been earlier mentioned by Degoreus Whear (1623) who refers to both Jordanes' De regnorum ac temporum successione and to De rebus Geticis.[11]

Connection of Jats and Goths

References

  1. Mierow, Charles C., ed. (1908), Jordanes. The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, Princeton University, translation
  2. Heather, Peter (1991), Goths and Romans 332-489, Oxford, pp. 47–49 (year 552)
  3. Goffart, Walter (1988), The Narrators of Barbarian History, Princeton, p. 98 (year 554)
  4. Mierow, Charles C., ed. (1908), Jordanes. The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, Princeton University, translation
  5. Schafarik, Pavel Josef (1844), Slawiche Alterthümmer, vol. 1, Leipzig, p. 40
  6. Curta 2001, p. 7; also pp.11-13 for an analysis of Schafarik's ideas in the context of his age as well as their revival by later Soviet historiography.
  7. (Herwig 1988, p. 40), (Goffart 2006, pp. 59–61) harshly criticized this view
  8. Potter, David Stone (2004), The Roman Empire at Bay AD 180–395, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-10058-5,p.245
  9. Thomas, William; Gamble, Miller (1927), The Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Its Inheritance in Source-valuation and Criticism, Washington: Catholic University of America, Pp vi, 202, 59.
  10. Smith, William (1870), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 2, archived from the original on 2007-04-05
  11. Degoreus Whear (1623), De Ratione Et Methodo Legendi Historias