Possible map of Scandza, with a selection of tribes
Scandza was described as a "great island" by Gothic-Byzantine historian Jordanes in his work Getica. The island was located in the Arctic regions of the sea that surrounded the world.[1] The location is usually identified with Scandinavia.
Jordanes was a Roman citizen living in Constantinople but described himself as being of Gothic descent. His Getica, written in 551 AD, gives a history of the Goths, beginning in Scandza from where they later migrated to Gothiscandza, near the mouth of the Vistula River. The Swedish archaeologist Göran Burenhult describes this account as a unique glimpse into the tribes of Scandinavia in the 6th century.[2]
Geographical description through history
Map of the Scandiae islands by Nicolaus Germanus for a 1467 publication of Cosmographia Claudii Ptolomaei Alexandrini
Early Greek and Roman geographers used the name Scandia for various uncharted islands in Northern Europe. The name originated in Greek sources[citation needed], which used it for a long time for different islands in the Mediterranean region.[3] In the Iliad the name denotes an ancient city in Kythira, Greece.[4] The first attested written use of the name for a Northern European island appears in the work of Roman Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia of c. AD 77.[5] Pliny described "Scandia" as an island located north of Britannia.[6] This island does not appear to be the same as the island Pliny calls "Scatinavia", located near Cimbri. In Claudius Ptolemy's Geographia, written in the 2nd century AD, Scandia is described as the most easterly of the Scandiae islands, a group of islands located east of the Cimbrian peninsula.[7] This is the region where Pliny had located "Scatinavia".
When Scandinavian scholars became familiar with the Roman records in the Middle Ages, Scandiae was used as an alternative Latin name for Terra Scania. The early 13th-century Latin paraphrase of the Scanian Law bears the title Lex Scandiae provincialis.[8]
Jordanes referred to Ptolemy's description of Scandia "as a great island shaped like a juniper leaf" (i.e. long and not round) "having bulging sides and which tapered down in the south at a long end".[1] He also referred to Pomponius Mela's description of Codanonia (called Scatinavia by Pliny the Elder) which was located in the Codanian Gulf (probably Kattegat). "This island was in front of the Vistula and that there was a great lake" "from which sprang the river Vagus". "On the western and northern side it was surrounded by an enormous sea", "but in the east there was a land bridge which cut off the sea in the east forming the Germanic Sea". "There were also many small islands" (the Swedish and Finnish archipelagos) "where wolves could pass when the sea was frozen. In winter the country was not only cruel to people but also to wild beasts. Due to the extreme cold there were no swarms of honey-making bees."
In the 16th century, Olaus Magnus, a Swedish cartographer familiar with Pliny's writings, created a map where he placed the name "Scandia" in the middle of today's Sweden. In Olaus Magnus' map, the name denotes an area including "Svecia" (Svealand), "Gothia" and "Norvegia" (Norway), where he places various tribes described by the ancient geographers.
In the north, there was the nation of the Adogit (perhaps referring to the inhabitants of Hålogaland in Norway or the people of Andøya[9]) who lived in continual light during the midsummer (for forty days and nights) and in continual darkness (for as long) during the midwinter. Due to this alternation they go from joy to suffering (the first description of the Scandinavian winter depression). The sun moreover seemed to pass along the horizon rather than rise from below.
Jordanes names a multitude of tribes living in Scandza, which he named a womb of nations (loosely translated), and says they were taller and more ferocious than the Germans (archaeological evidence has shown the Scandinavians of the time were tall, probably due to their diet). The listing represents several instances of the same people named twice, which was probably due to the gathering of information from diverse travellers[10] and from Scandinavians arriving to join the Goths, such as Rodwulf from Bohuslän.[11] Whereas linguists have been able to connect some names to regions in Scandinavia, there are others that may be based on misunderstandings.[2]
On the island there were the Screrefennae (i.e. Sami peoples[9]) who lived as hunter-gatherers living on a multitude of game in the swamps and on birds' eggs.
There were also the Suehans (Swedes) who had splendid horses like the Thuringians (Snorri Sturluson wrote that the 6th-century Swedish king Adils had the best horses of his time). They were the suppliers of black fox skins for the Roman market and they were richly dressed even though they lived in poverty.
There were also the Theustes (the people of the Tjust region in Småland), Vagoths (probably the Gutes of Gotland[12]), Bergio (either the people of Bjäre Hundred in Skåne, according to L Weibull, or the people of Kolmården according to others), Hallin (southern Halland) and the Liothida (either the Luggude Hundred or Lödde in Skåne, but others connect them to Södermanland[13]) who live in a flat and fertile region, due to which they are subject to the attacks of their neighbours.
Other tribes were the Ahelmil (identified with the region of Halmstad[14]), the Finnaithae (Finnhaith-, i.e. Finnheden, the old name for Finnveden), the Fervir (the inhabitants of Fjäre Hundred) and the Gautigoths (the Geats of Västergötland), a nation which was bold and quick to engage in war.
There were also the Mixi, Evagreotingis (or the Evagres and the Otingis depending on the translator), who live like animals among the rocks (probably the numerous hillforts and Evagreotingis is believed to have meant the "people of the island hill forts" which best fits the people of southern Bohuslän[15]).
Beyond them, there were the Ostrogoths (Östergötland), Raumarici (Romerike), the Ragnaricii (probably Ranrike, an old name for the northern part of Bohuslän) and the most gentle Finns (probably the second mention of the Sami peoples[16] mixed for no reason). The Vinoviloth (possibly remaining Lombards, vinili[17]) were similar.
He also named the Suetidi; a second mention of the Swedes[16][18] It can also be relevant to discuss if the term "Suetidi" could be equated with the term "Svitjod".[19] The Dani were of the same stock and drove the Heruls from their lands. Those tribes were the tallest of men.
↑ Rubekeil, Ludwig (2002). "Scandinavia in the light of ancient tradition". In The Nordic Languages: an international handbook of the history of the North Germanic languages. Eds. Oskar Bandle et al., Vol I. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2002. ISBN3-11-014876-5, p. 601.
↑ Blackie, John Stuart (1866). Homer and the Iliad. Notes, Philological and Archaeological. Edmonston and Douglas, 1866. Digitized 30 August 2006.
↑ Helle, Knut (2003). "Introduction". The Cambridge History of Scandinavia. Ed. E. I. Kouri et al. Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN0-521-47299-7.
↑ Herzog, Johann Jakob et al. (1896). Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche. J. C. Hinrichs Theology, published 1896. Digitized 15 November 2006.
Jūratė Statkutė de Rosales (2004) Balts and Goths: the missing link in European history, translation by Danutė Rosales; supervised and corrected by Ed Tarvyd. Lemont, Ill.: Vydūnas Youth Fund.
Burenhult, Göran (1996) Människans historia, VI.
Nerman, B. Det svenska rikets uppkomst. Stockholm, 1925.
Ohlmarks, Å. (1994). Fornnordiskt lexikon
Ståhl, Harry (1970) Ortnamn och ortnamnsforskning, AWE/Gebers, Uppsala.
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.
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. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history (Romana) and the other on the Goths (Getica). The latter, along with Isidore of Seville's Historia Gothorum, is one of only two extant ancient works dealing with the early history of the Goths.
Scandinavia is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. In English usage, it can sometimes also refer more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula, or more broadly to all of the Nordic countries, also including Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.
The Rugii, Rogi or Rugians, were a Roman-era Germanic people. They were first clearly recorded by Tacitus, in his Germania who called them the Rugii, and located them near the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Some centuries later, they were considered one of the "Gothic" or "Scythian" peoples who were located in the Middle Danube region. Like several other Gothic peoples there, they possibly arrived in the area as allies of Attila until his death in 453. They settled in what is now Lower Austria after the defeat of the Huns at Nedao in 454.
The Geats, sometimes called Goths, were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited Götaland in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the late Middle Ages. They are one of the progenitor groups of modern Swedes, along with Swedes and Gutes. The name of the Geats also lives on in the Swedish provinces of Västergötland and Östergötland, the Western and Eastern lands of the Geats, and in many other toponyms.
The Swedes (probably from the PIE reflexive pronominal root *s e, "one's own [tribesmen/kinsmen]"; Old English: Swēon) were a North Germanic tribe who inhabited Svealand in central Sweden and one of the progenitor groups of modern Swedes, along with Geats and Gutes. They had their tribal centre in Gamla Uppsala.
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.
Agder is a county (fylke) and traditional region in the southern part of Norway. The county was established on 1 January 2020, when the old Vest-Agder and Aust-Agder counties were merged. Since the early 1900s, the term Sørlandet has been commonly used for this region, sometimes with the inclusion of neighbouring Rogaland. Before that time, the area was considered a part of Western Norway.
The Fenni were an ancient people of northeastern Europe, first described by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania in AD 98.
King Rodulf was king of the Heruli kingdom on the Middle Danube in the period around 500, and possibly of Scandinavian origin. He died in a battle with the neighbouring Lombards which led to the splitting up of the Heruli. He is probably the same Heruli king that Theoderic the Great wrote to in two surviving letters, in one of which Theoderic "adopted" him with a gift of arms. Less certainly, he is also sometimes equated to a King Rodulf that Jordanes mentions as having come from Scandinavia to Italy, to join Theoderic.
Ranrike was the old name for a part of Viken, corresponding to southeast Norway and the northern half of the modern Swedish province of Bohuslän. When folklore and culture is concerned the usage has been revived to refer to northern Bohuslän.
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 Gutes were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting the island of Gotland. The ethnonym is related to that of the Goths (Gutans), and both names were originally Proto-Germanic *Gutaniz. Their language is called Gutnish (gutniska). They are one of the progenitor groups of modern Swedes, along with historical Swedes and Geats.
The Charudes or Harudes were a Germanic group first mentioned by Julius Caesar as one of the tribes who had followed Ariovistus across the Rhine. While Tacitus' Germania makes no mention of them, Ptolemy's Geographia locates the Charudes (Χαροῦδες) on the east coast of the Cimbrian peninsula.
The Hilleviones were a Germanic people occupying an island called Scatinavia in the 1st century AD, according to the Roman geographer Pliny the Elder in Naturalis Historia, written circa 77 AD. Pliny's Scatinavia is generally believed to have referred to the Scandinavian peninsula, which in the 1st century AD had not yet been fully explored by the Romans and was therefore described as an island. Pliny wrote that it was an island "of a magnitude as yet unascertained". The Hilleviones lived in the only part of the island that was known, and according to Pliny, they thought of their 500 villages as a separate (alterum) world.
The Daukiones (Greek) or Dauciones (Latinization) were a Germanic tribe mentioned by Ptolemy (2.10) as living in Scandia, i.e. Scandinavia.
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.
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. Although the Goths have disappeared as a people, their name has survived in various appellations up to the present day.
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 by historians seeking evidence of real historical events involving the Goths and other peoples mentioned in these stories.
Concerning the origin of the Goths before the 3rd century, there is no consensus among scholars. 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 Rumania, Moldava, and Ukraine. They replaced other peoples who had been dominant in the region, such as especially the Carpi. 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.
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