The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is now Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. From here they conducted raids into Roman territory, and large numbers of them joined the Roman military. These early Goths lived in the regions where archaeologists find the Chernyakhov culture, which flourished throughout this region during the 3rd and 4th centuries.
Jordanes, also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, widely believed to be of Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life.
De origine actibusque Getarum, commonly abbreviated Getica, written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the origin and history of the Gothic people, which is now lost. However, the extent to which Jordanes actually used the work of Cassiodorus is unknown. It is significant as the only remaining contemporaneous resource that gives an extended account of the origin and history of the Goths, although to what extent it should be considered history or origin mythology is a matter of dispute.
According to a tale related by Jordanes in his Getica, Gothiscandza was the first settlement area of the Goths after their migration from Scandza during the first half of the 1st century CE. He claimed that the name was still in use in his own day.
Johannes Magnus was the last functioning Catholic Archbishop in Sweden, and also a theologian, genealogist, and historian.
Oium was a name for Scythia, or a fertile part of it, roughly in modern Ukraine, where the Goths, under a legendary King Filimer, settled after leaving Gothiscandza, according to the Getica by Jordanes, written around 551.
Filimer was an early Gothic king, according to Jordanes. He was the son of Gadaric and the fifth generation since Berig settled with his people in Gothiscandza. When the Gothic nation had multiplied Filimer decided to move his people to Scythia where they defeated the Sarmatians. They then named their new territory Oium, meaning "in the waterlands". This migration would have allegedly taken place about 2030 years before Jordanes wrote his "Origin of the Goths".
The Amali – also called Amals, Amalings or Amalungs – were a leading dynasty of the Goths, a Germanic people who confronted the Roman Empire during the decline of the Western Roman Empire. They eventually became the royal house of the Ostrogoths and founded the Ostrogothic Kingdom.
The "Ballad of Eric" is a ballad found in Latin and Swedish about the Gothic king, Eric. It was once seen as a source for Migration Period history but is now regarded as an inauthentic piece of fakelore created during the 16th century.
The Romana is a Latin book written by Jordanes in the 6th century, being a short compendium of the most remarkable events from the creation down to the victory obtained by Narses, in AD 552, over king Teia. The work has been published under many different titles: De Regnorum ac Temporum Successione, Liber de origine mundi et actibus Romanorum ceterarumque gentium or De gestis Romanorum.
The War of Vesosis and Tanausis is described in Jordanes' Getica, a controversial account of the Goths as happening in remote antiquity when Vesosis, king of the Egyptians, made war against them. Their king at that time was Tanausis.
The belagines were written laws which, according to Jordanes, were given to the Goths by Dicineus / Dekaineos, the Dacian-Getic legislator, Zalmoxian priest at the time of Burebista.
The Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque regibus is a posthumously published, partly pseudo-historical work by Johannes Magnus, Sweden's last Catholic archbishop. In 1554, it was published in Latin by his brother Olaus Magnus.
Ablabius is thought to be either a historian, a geographer or ethnographer, who had written about the Goths, and whose work is cited by the influential 6th century historian of the Goths, Jordanes. Since Jordanes himself states that he based his own work on recollections of reading a work on Gothic history, now lost, composed by Cassiodorus, Ablabius has traditionally been thought of as a source also for the latter work, though this view has met with considerable scepticism.
Vinitharius or Vinithar was possibly a king of the Greuthungian Goths around 375-376 AD. Vinitharius is mentioned by Gothic historian Jordanes in Getica. According to him Vinitharius became the new king of the Greuthungi after the death of Ermanaric (Hermanaric). Ammianus Marcellinus reports that Ermanaric was succeeded by Vithimiris.
In medieval studies, an origo gentis is the origin story of a gens (people). It is not a literary genre of its own, but it is a part of quite extensive works that describe, for example, the history of the respective people. They can also be part of hero epics or biographies.
Arne Søby Christensen is a Danish historian. He is an associate professor in history at the University of Copenhagen.
There were several origin stories of the Gothic peoples recorded by Latin and Greek authors in late antiquity, and these are relevant not only to the study of literature, but also to attempts to reconstruct the early history of the Goths, and other peoples mentioned in these stories.
Haliurunas, haljarunae, Haliurunnas, haliurunnae, etc., were Gothic "witches" who appear once in Getica, a 6th century work on Gothic history. The account tells that the early Goth king Filimer found witches among his people when they had settled north of the Black Sea, and that he banished them to exile. They were impregnated by unclean spirits and engendered the Huns, and the account is a precursor of later Christian traditions where wise women were alleged to have sexual intercourse and even orgies with demons and the Devil.
Vadamerca or Valadamarca may have been a Gothic princess and Goth royal family member by birth, and consort of the Rex Hunnorum Balamber, possibly the first ruler of the Huns. The only extant source that mentions her or Balamber is Jordanes' Getica, and it is possible that both are unhistorical.
