Concerning the origin of the Goths before the 3rd century, there is no consensus among scholars.[1][2] It was in the 3rd century that the Goths began to be described by Roman writers as an increasingly important people north of the lower Danube and Black Sea, in the area of modern Romania, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine. They replaced other peoples who had been dominant in the region, such as especially the Carpi, and Germanic-speaking Bastarnae. However, while some scholars, such as Michael Kulikowski, believe there is insufficient evidence to come to strong conclusions about their earlier origins, the most commonly accepted proposal is that the Goths known to the Romans were a people whose traditions derived to some extent from the Gutones who lived near the delta of the Vistula in what is now Poland. More speculatively, the Gutones may have been culturally related to the similarly named Gutes of Gotland and the Geats of southern Scandinavia, known from much later historical periods.
The Goths of late antiquity were considered most closely related to the Vandals and Gepids who, like the Goths, originally lived beyond the Carpathian Mountains. At least one classical author, Procopius, stated that these three peoples used the same Gothic language. This language is known by modern scholars to have been a Germanic language. Classical writers did not call them "Germanic" however, but rather categorized the Goths as Scythians and Getae, linking them to their predecessors in the regions they lived in, whose customs they believed to have been similar. Modern scholars agree that the 3rd-century Goths can be seen as one dominant group within an ethnically diverse region, were indistinguishable in their material culture from their neighbours north of the lower Danube and Black Sea.
Among the different types of evidence which are considered most relevant to tracing Gothic origins are their name, their written language, archaeological evidence of links between regions, and classical Greco-Roman ethnographic literature. The Germania of Tacitus has played an important role because it mentions the Gutones in Poland. The only surviving Roman account of Gothic origins has been the Getica of Jordanes, which continues to exert a strong influence.
Since the Second World War, most scholars, accepting parts of the "ethnogenesis" model associated with the Vienna school, have tended to emphasize that the name, language and traditions of Goths of the 3rd century need not imply any a single large-scale migration, or similar ancestral connection, to the Gutones or other peoples with similar names. Some historians, such as Peter Heather, while partly accepting this argument, have nevertheless argued that there must have been a significant stream of movement from Poland towards Ukraine over a long period of time.
Philologists and linguists generally believe that the name of the Goths is derived from a Germanic language, and can be analyzed as the same name as "Gutones", though the name of this earlier and more northern people had a different grammatical form. According to such proposals, the name is derived from an old Germanic verb meaning "to pour", reflected in modern English "gutter" (modern Dutch goot). Various proposals have been made about why the Goths would have been called "pourers".[3][4]
Heather has argued that while this similar name on its own could arguably be an "accidental resemblance", there were also other ethnic names, the Vandals and Rugii, which seem to have moved in a similar way - found in what is now Poland in the 1st century, but found south of the Carpathians near the Goths in subsequent centuries.[5] Another type of evidence strengthening the case for a connection to the north is the language which the Goths used.
The Gothic language, known from their bible translation and fragmentary evidence, is the only clearly attested member of what modern linguists designate as the East Germanic language family, because it was already distinct from the two Germanic families that have survived today, West Germanic and North Germanic, which were originally respectively spoken in the neighbouring regions of what is now northern Germany, and southern Scandinavia, both of which are relatively far from the homeland of the 3rd-century Goths. It is therefore generally believed that the language of the Goths had its origins to the northwest, implying a movement of people from the direction of Poland.
That the Baltic Gutones may also have spoken a Germanic language is implied by Tacitus, in his Germania written around 98 AD. He described the Gotones or Gothones as a part of a group of similar Germanic peoples together with the neighboring Rugii and Lemovii. He reported that this group had some distinct characteristics compared to other Germanic people. These three peoples carried round shields and short swords, and lived between the Baltic Sea and the Lugii. He described them as "ruled by kings, a little more strictly than the other Germanic peoples" [ceterae Germanorum gentes].[6]
On the other hand, the Germanic language of the Goths could have arrived in their region from sources other than the Gutones. Heather points out that Germanic language arrived earlier in the Black Sea region, because Tacitus reports that the Bastarnae living in the Gothic region already in first century.[7] The name and language of the Goths may have even had separate origins. Historian Herwig Wolfram speculated that the Gutones were originally a people under Vandal hegemony in Poland, but that they developed an independent and successful culture under the leadership of a Scandinavian clan who he believed to be the transmitters of the name of the Goths, from the Gutones.[8]
In support of such proposals, in the 6th century Procopius reported the Goths of his time spoke the same language as the Vandals and Gepids, who he described as the most important "Gothic peoples" (plural) apart from the Goths themselves. He writes that “there were many Gothic nations in earlier times just as there are now, but the greatest and most important of all are the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepids.[9] While the geographical origins of the Gepids are not described in classical ethnography, the Vandals were described by early Roman writers as inhabitants of the area between the Oder and Vistula in what is now inland Poland, although various groups of the Vandals later moved into closer contact with the Romans. In 77 AD, Pliny the Elder described the Gutones as a member of the larger group called the Vandili, who are generally believed to be precursors of the later Vandals.[10]
Archaeology
There is a scholarly consensus that the Goths described by the Romans starting in the 3rd century were one of the peoples within the Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov complex of material cultures, which covered a large area including modern Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.[11][12][13][14] While the Goths enjoyed several centuries of hegemony over this region, this culture continued to contain peoples of different ethnicities, speaking more than one language.
The Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov complex exhibits clear evidence of close connections to the archaeological cultures which surrounded it, including the Roman Balkans, the Wielbark culture near the mouth of the Vistula, and the Przeworsk culture in what is now inland Poland and eastern Slovakia. The Wielbark culture is commonly considered to have represented a group of peoples which included the Gutones, and the Vandals are considered to have been present within the Przeworsk culture. There is evidence that the development of the Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov complex was strongly connected to trade routes between the Roman empire to the south, and northern peoples such as the Gutones who supplied commodities such as furs and amber, which came from the Baltic coast.
Favouring a connection between the Wielbark and Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov cultures, archaeologists note that the Wielbark material culture spread southwards in the second century, overlapping with areas which had previously been more distinctly under the influence of the Przeworsk culture, until it reached the northern limits of the Sântana de Mureș-Černjachov culture. In the same period, archaeological evidence also shows signs that groups using Przeworsk materials moved south to the area inside the Carpathians, which is presumed to correspond to the arrival of some Vandal groups into that area, as mentioned by Roman authors.
While Wolfram suggested that the 3rd century Goths had both Przeworsk and Wielbark influences, Kulikowski has argued that it is not necessary to assume any influence from the Wielbark culture, and the Vistula Gutones. As an example of an alternative scenario he suggested that the Germanic-speaking Gothic elite came from the same group of archaeological cultures which contained the Vandals, the Przeworsk culture. In his opinion, even with the similar name, the Gutones would never have been proposed to be ancestors of the Goths if it were not for the strong influence in more recent times of the 6th-century writer Jordanes.[15]
Putting aside recent attempts to find other types of evidence to confirm his story, Jordanes is the original source of the idea that the Goths migrated from the Vistula to an area north of the Black Sea, and also of the idea that before then, their elite had migrated in two boats from Scandinavia under the leadership of a man named Berig, followed by one boat of Gepids. The name Jordanes uses for the "island" of Scandinavia was "Scandza", which can be found mentioned by earlier Roman geographers such as Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy. This account of Jordanes share an ancestral connection to the similarly named Gutes of Gotland and the Geats of southern Scandinavia.
Scholarly discussion about the reliability of Jordanes has focussed upon the questions of his sources, and his aims. Jordanes himself mentioned that he preferred written sources and he explicitly mentioned both older Roman ethnographical works, such as the ones which mentioned the Gutones living near the Vistula, and early works which interpreted passages in the Old Testament. Jordanes had read Josephus and apparently saw his account of the origins of the Scythians as descendants of the Biblical Magog in Genesis as compatible with his own account, though he questioned why Josephus had not specifically named the Goths and given more details.[16] Also influencing Jordanes were the influential christian writers Ambrose (about 340–397), Orosius (about 375–420) and Jerome (about 347–420). Ambrose equated the Scythians and Goths with the Biblical Gog and Magog, barbarians who come from the extreme north, where there are islands.[17] Orosius is among the earliest writers to equate the Goths with Scythians, listing them along with the Huns and Alans as the "Scythians" of his time.[18]
Interpretations
Interpretations of the evidence vary. While many scholars now deny the necessity of assuming any single large migration of Germanic speakers, Heather argues that there must at least have been a significant stream of people who moved over time, including women and children, in order to explain the Germanic language of the Goths. However he accepts that their Germanic language may have arrived there earlier, in the time of the Bastarnae in this same region, who Tacitus described as speaking a Germanic language. In any case, Heather also argues that this must have involved at least some larger unmixed groups, in order to explain the military impact of the Goths.[19]
It could perhaps be seen as a mixed invasion-hypothesis model, where the migrants came in a flow that built momentum over time rather than in a block, where much of the indigenous population remained in place, but where large and mixed groups of migrants asserted themselves vigorously as the new political masters of the landscape.[20]
In contrast, writers such as Wolfram argue that the Gothic name and tradition may have originally applied to a relatively small group of people, whose original language may have been different from that which eventually became dominant among the Goths known to the Romans. Wolfram suspected the Gothic language to have originated among the Vandalic peoples.
That the Goths were a ruling group within a mixed region is widely accepted. However, as part of his argumentation that they originated with the migration of large unmixed groups, Heather also proposed that the Goths continued to be a relatively exclusive group who avoided accepting newcomers into their ranks, or intermarriage:
It is extremely important, moreover, not to forget the general historical context. The Goths and other third-century Germanic immigrants into the Black Sea region won their place by right of conquest, and had come to enjoy the riches of the frontier zone. Given that background, it is unlikely that differences in identity between themselves and those they subdued would have broken down quickly, even if there weren't the same differences in physical characteristics that helped keep Boers and their new neighbours apart in an analogous situation after the Great Trek.[21]
On the other hand, Heather accepted that the need for "military manpower" implied some acceptance of "indigenous groups", who he believed would be accepted as a "lower-grade fighter" class as freemen or freedmen, who had a higher status than slaves, but a lower status than Goths.[22] One distinct aspect of this reasoning which has been compared to the approach of scholars in the 19th and early 20th century, is that Heather assumes that the Goths saw themselves not only as immigrants, but also as specifically Germanic, and understood other Germanic-speaking peoples to be relatives with shared aims. He writes for example that "the hegemony of the Germanic-speakers east of the Carpathians, lost in the overthrow of the Bastarnae and their allies, was restored by the migration of Goths, Rugi, Heruli, and other Germanic-speaking groups in the third century".[22] This position is controversial. Scholars such as Halsall and Kulikowski have been critical of these aspects of Heather's narrative. Kulikowski has written as follows:
[Heather] is right to try to deduce governing apparatus from the actions that kings and chieftains were able to compel their followers to take. This approach, more than anything, goes some way toward justifying his assertion that a broad class of nonaristocratic "freemen" warriors must have existed in many of the barbarian cultures of the first half of the millenium. Yet to claim the point proved and build further hypotheses upon it is not legitimate; he comes perilously close to recreating the old, volkisch notion of an inherent “Germanic” belief in freedom. Throughout, in fact, Heather makes the tacit assumption that evidence from any “Germanic,” “Celtic,” or “Slavic” group can be used to analyze any other “Germanic,” “Celtic,” or “Slavic” group—in other words, that linguistic identity and socioinstitutional behaviors go inevitably together. [...] a great many historical comparanda would support a model that he ignores — that the Goths were formed from a large number of indigenes and a small number of migrants under the pressure of Roman imperialism, and in the shadow of the Empire.[23]
While Heather envisages that the Gothic (or Germanic) elite avoided inter-marriage with other groups, excluding newcomers, other historians have envisaged quite different dynamics. Herwig Wolfram, in contrast, proposed that the strength of the Goths lay in their kingship mentioned by Tacitus. Kings with personal authority could decide questions of tribal membership quickly, and against tradition, making Gothic ethnicity attractive for warriors from other groups, and allowing the Goths to quickly gain in size and power.[24]
In contrast, Heather's vision of small groups of early Gutones building-up military control of points along north-south a trade route has been influential even among scholars critical of the "biological" largescale-migration aspect of his narrative. While critical of Heather's proposals, Guy Halsall's version is as follows:
It seems most likely that in the confusion of the third century and, specifically, the Roman abandonment of the Carpathian basin a Germanic-speaking military elite was able to spread its power down the amber routes into the lands of the Sarmatians, Dacians, and Carpi and found a number of kingdoms, some grouped into a powerful confederacy.[25]
Related Research Articles
The Bastarnae, Bastarni or Basternae, also known as the Peuci or Peucini, were an ancient people who are known from Greek and Roman records to have inhabited areas north and east of the Carpathian Mountains between about 300 BC and about 300 AD, stretching in an ark from the sources of the Vistula in present day Poland and Slovakia, to the Lower Danube, and including all or most of present day Moldava. The Peucini were sometimes described as a subtribe, who settled the Peuke Island in the Danube Delta, but apparently due to their importance their name was sometimes used for the Bastarnae as a whole. Near the sources of the Vistula another part of the Bastarnae were the Sidones, while the Atmoni, another tribe of the Bastarnae are only mentioned in one listing by Strabo.
The Germanic peoples were tribal groups who lived in Northern Europe in Classical Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. In modern scholarship, they typically include not only the Roman-era Germani who lived in both Germania and parts of the Roman empire, but also all Germanic speaking peoples from this era, irrespective of where they lived, most notably the Goths. Another term, ancient Germans, is considered problematic by many scholars since it suggests identity with present-day Germans. Although the first Roman descriptions of Germani involved tribes west of the Rhine, their homeland of Germania was portrayed as stretching east of the Rhine, to southern Scandinavia and the Vistula in the east, and to the upper Danube in the south. Other Germanic speakers, such as the Bastarnae and Goths, lived further east in what is now Moldova and Ukraine. The term Germani is generally only used to refer to historical peoples from the 1st to 4th centuries CE.
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.
The Ostrogoths were a Roman-era Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populations who had settled in the Balkans in the 4th century. While the Visigoths had formed under the leadership of Alaric I, the new Ostrogothic political entity which came to rule Italy was formed in the Balkans under Theodoric the Great.
The Heruli were one of the smaller Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity, known from records in the third to sixth centuries AD. The best recorded group of Heruli established a kingdom north of the Middle Danube, probably including the stretch where Vienna exists today. This kingdom was a neighbour to several other small and short-lived kingdoms in the late 5th century AD and early 6th century, including those of the Sciri, Rugii, Danubian Suebi, and Gepids. After the conquest of this Heruli kingdom by the Lombards in 508, splinter groups moved to Sweden, Ostrogothic Italy, and present-day Serbia, which was under Eastern Roman control.
The Rugii, Rogi or Rugians, were one of the smaller Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity who are best known for their short-lived 5th-century kingdom upon the Roman frontier, near present-day Krems an der Donau in Austria. This kingdom, like those of the neighbouring Heruli and Sciri, first appears in records after the death of Attila in 453. The Rugii, Heruli, Sciri and others are believed to have moved into this region from distant homelands under pressure from the Huns, and become part of Attila's Hunnic empire which also moved and came to be based in this region. The Rugii were subsequently part of the alliance which defeated Attila's sons and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454, giving their kingdom independence. In 469 they were part of a similar alliance who lost to the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia, weakening their kingdom significantly.
The Migration Period, also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman kingdoms.
The Gepids were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary, and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava, and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the Goths and Vandals.
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.
The Sciri, or Scirians, were a Germanic people. They are believed to have spoken an East Germanic language. Their name probably means "the pure ones".
The Wielbark culture is an Iron Age archaeological complex which flourished on the territory of today's Poland from the 1st century AD to the 5th century AD.
The Chernyakhov culture, Cherniakhiv culture or Sântana de Mureș—Chernyakhov culture was an archaeological culture that flourished between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE in a wide area of Eastern Europe, specifically in what is now Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and parts of Belarus. The culture is thought to be the result of a multiethnic cultural mix of the Geto-Dacian, Sarmatian, and Gothic populations of the area. "In the past, the association of this [Chernyakhov] culture with the Goths was highly contentious, but important methodological advances have made it irresistible."
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.
The Gutones were a Germanic people who were reported by Roman era writers in the 1st and 2nd centuries to have lived in what is now Poland. The most accurate description of their location, by the geographer Ptolemy, placed them east of the Vistula River.
Peter John Heather is a British historian of late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Heather is Chair of the Medieval History Department and Professor of Medieval History at King's College London. He specialises in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Goths, on which he for decades has been considered the world's leading authority.
The Goths, Gepids, Vandals, and Burgundians were East Germanic groups who appear in Roman records in late antiquity. At times these groups warred against or allied with the Roman Empire, the Huns, and various Germanic tribes.
The Greuthungi were a Gothic people who lived on the Pontic steppe between the Dniester and Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic people, who lived west of the Dniester River. To the east of the Greuthungi, living near the Don river, were the Alans.
Michael Kulikowski is an American historian. He is a professor of history and classics and the head of the history department at Pennsylvania State University. Kulikowski specializes in the history of the western Mediterranean world of late antiquity. He is sometimes associated with the Toronto School of History and was a student of Walter Goffart.
The name of the Goths is one of the most discussed topics in Germanic philology. It is first recorded by Greco-Roman writers in the 3rd century AD, although names that are probably related appear earlier. Derived from Proto-Germanic *Gutōz ~ *Gutaniz, it is closely related to and probably means the same as the names of both the Geats of southern Sweden and Gutes of Gotland. The implications of these similarities, and the actual meaning of the Gothic name, are disputed in scholarship.
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.
↑ Jordanes, Getica IV 29 is normally translated as: "why he [Josephus] has omitted the beginnings of the race of the Goths, of which I have spoken, I do not know. He barely mentions Magog of that stock, and says they were Scythians by race and were called so by name". However, the original Latin did not mentioned Magog. See Christensen (2002, pp.308–309).
Kulikowski, Michael (2002), "Nation versus army: a necessary contrast?", in Gillett (ed.), On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages
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