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I have created this workpage for collection of quotations used in the Goths article, related articles, talk-page discussions and the many different places drafts have been made. At least for now, the intention is to focus only upon the question of pre-3rd century Gothic origins. This is because...

  • (a) the same quotes keep getting repeated, and often in ways which clog the talk page and
  • (b) as discussed many times, there are concerns about sources being misinterpreted, making improvement of the Goths article, and related ones, extremely difficult, especially for editors called in to look at RFCs.

At the time of creating this workpage the main recent discussion requiring consideration of sources has been concerning the question of what can be said about Goths before the 3rd century, when Roman sources describe them as living near the Danube and Black Sea for the first time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:24, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note, this page should not be used for lower quality sources (twitter accounts, blogs, primary DNA research, short dictionary articles, asides by academics writing outside of their recognized speciality etc). We are LUCKY that at least there are ENOUGH good sources for this topic.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:52, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No academic consensus about pre-3rd century Goths

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Especially Michael Kulikowski is identified with criticism of all speculations about this, but many agree with him partly or completely, and his expertise is respected.

Examples showing agreement there is no consensus.
  • Steinacher 2017, p. 50. "Bei der historischen Beurteilung ist nun entscheidend, welche Rolle man den Wanderungsberichten in den Getica des Jordanes zugesteht, bzw. ob man eine gotische Identität und damit Geschichte schon vor dem 3. Jahrhunderd annimmt. In diesen Fragen ist sich die Forschung nicht einig." (Similar sentence in 2018 article.)
  • Heather 2010, pp. 113–115. "So, game, set and match, you might think, to migration? Well, not exactly. It has recently been argued by Michael Kulikowski that the traditional view of the developing situation north of the Black Sea is 'text-hindered' fantasy." [...] "Two elements of the argument are convincing. First, there's not the slightest doubt that socioeconomic and political reorganization - 'development'- were and important dimension of the story [...] 'Second, Kulikowski is right enough that little reliance can be placed on Jordanes." [...] "in theory it might be possible to explain the rise of Gothic domination north of the Black Sea in the third century as the re-emergence of those Germanic groups who had been subordinated here in the first."
  • Florin Curta 2020 quotes Kulikowski approvingly: "The idea that the Goths migrated out of northern Europe to the fringes of the Empire rests “mainly on the evidence of a single ancient source, the Getica of Jordanes, around which complicated structures of scholarly hypothesis have been built”.[Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, p. 41.] One could argue in principle that the Sântana de Mureş-Černjachov culture came into being “because of a migration out of the Wielbark regions, but one might equally argue that it was an indigenous development of local Pontic, Carpic, and Dacian cultures”.[Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars, p. 67.]" [...] "Goffart and Kulikowski are right to point out that a text-hindered archaeology will never effectively contribute to the debate surrounding migration."

The 3rd century was at least a cultural reboot: a new version of the Goths

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According to the widely accepted position of Wenskus, Wolfram, etc, the Black Sea Goths were in effect a newly founded people in most senses of the word, despite their name having an older tradition. "Biologically" distinct peoples can share one tradition.

Examples
  • Wolfram p.13: The Goths of the third century were considered a new people to whom the old Scythian name applied. No ancient ethnographer made a connection between the Goths and the Gutones. The Gutonic immigrants became Goths the very moment the Mediterranean world considered them Scythians.
  • Wolfram p.23: "whenever the Gutones and Guti are mentioned, these terms refer to the Goths these terms refer to the Goths on the continent before their migrations to the Black Sea."
  • Wolfram, p.44: "the acculturation of the Goths to the Pontic area and their ethnogenesis "at the shores of the Black Sea" are simultaneous and mutually depent processes: In other words, we should speak of the Goths only after the Gutonic immigrants had become "Scythians" at the Black Sea."
  • Steinacher, Rom und die Barbaren, p.27: Jene Völker, die dann in der Spätantike und dem Frühmittelalter eine bedeutende Rolle spielen sollten, also die Goten, Vandalen, Franken, Alemannen, Gepiden, Heruler and andere Völker, begannen gerade im 3. Jahrhundert hervorzutreten.
  • Steinacher, Rom und die Barbaren, p.48: Dass die römischen Quellen dort [an das Schwarze Meer] im Vorfeld de Imperium, im 3. und 4. Jahrhundert Goten lokalisieren, steht fest.

Jordanes is the main source for all ideas about pre 3rd-century Goths, but can not be trusted

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Heather represents the most "pro Jordanes" position among modern experts, but he also agrees that Jordanes can not be trusted.

Examples
  • Heather 1998, pp. 9–10. "Modern approaches to the history of the Goths have been decisively shaped by the survival of one particular text: the Origins and Acts of the Goths or Getica of Jordanes.
  • Kulikowski 2006, p. 212. "The Gotones mentioned in Tacitus, Germania 44.1 and located somewhere in what is now modern Poland would not be regarded as Goths if Jordanes' migration stories did not exist."
  • Kulikowski 2006, p. 67. "Wielbark cultural elements are no more numerous in the Sântana-de-Mureș/Černjachov culture than are the many other cultural traditions that make it up. It is only the text of Jordanes that leads scholars to privilege the Wielbark connection."
  • Halsall pp. 132-133. "The source for the Gothic migration from Scandinavia is Jordanes' Getica, which is deeply problematic and certainly cannot be used as evidence for migration."
  • Guy Halsall, "Ethnicity and early medieval cemeteries / Etnicidad y cementerios altomedievales" in Archaeology and ethnicity. Reassessing the “Visigothic necropoleis”, dossier a cura di Juan Antonio Quirós Castillo, in “Arquelogía y territorio medieval”, 18 (2011), pp. 15-27 https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/141655686.pdf "just about every scholarly analysis of the Getica has rejected its account of the Goths’ Scandinavian origins"
  • Heather, Peter (1994). Goths and Romans 332–489. Oxford Scholarship Online. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198205357.001.0001. ISBN 9780198205357. p.32: "Despite the undeniably Gothic nature of some of its material then, any reconstruction of Gothic history between 350 and 500 based on the Getica will be misleading."
  • Christensen, Arne Søby (2002). Cassiodorus, Jordanes and the History of the Goths. Museum Tusculanum Press. ISBN 9788772897103 p. 349: "Today we are able to conclude that this narrative is fictitious, a fabrication in which the omnipotent author himself has created both the framework and the content of the story."

Evidence which does not come from Jordanes

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Note that Kulikowski, for example, argues that there is none.

Language

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Widely accepted as important, but not decisive, even for Heather.

  • Halsall 2007, p. 133. "The Goths clearly spoke an east Germanic language [...] This probably implies some migration into the region (although there were people regarded as 'Germanic' in the region before), probably during the third century, when imperial sources first attest the Goths north of the Danube. Where these newcomers came from cannot now be ascertained but the territory of the Wielbark culture is probable, though not on the basis of the archaeological evidence."
  • Heather 2010, pp. 114–115: there is no doubt that the new Gothic masters of the landscape were Germanic-speakers. The Gothic Bible translation was produced for some of them by Ulfila, the descendant of Roman prisoners captured by the Goths from Asia Minor, and its Germanic credentials are irrefutable. [...] This, of course, was not the first time the Germanic-speakers had provided the dominant population stratum in the region. The Bastarnae, subdued by the Sarmatians around the beginning of the first millenium, had also been Germanic. So in theory it might be possible to explain the rise of Gothic domination north of the Black Sea in the third century as the re-emergence of those Germanic groups who had been subordinated here in the first.

The similar name of the Gutones

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Philologists think the name is related, and also the names of the Gauts and Geats. But this on its own is not decisive evidence of real migration even for Heather. (A moving name only implies a prestige attached to that name.) However, he argues that at least for the move from Baltic to Black Sea, there are other similarly moving tribal names, increasing the chances that a reasonable number of people actually moved.

  • Heather 2010, p. 115: "In the period of Dacian and Sarmatian dominance, groups known as Goths – or perhaps 'Gothones' or 'Guthones' – inhabited lands far to the north-west, beside the Baltic. Tacitus placed them there at the end of the first century AD, and Ptolemy did likewise in the middle of the second, the latter explicitly among a number of groups said to inhabit the mouth of the Vistula. Philologists have no doubt, despite the varying transliterations into Greek and Latin, that it is the same group name that suddenly shifted its epicentre from northern Poland to the Black Sea in the third century."
  • Heather 2010, pp. 115–116. "The Rugi, like the Goths, had occupied part of the Baltic littoral in the time of Tacitus, and the likliest location for Vandals in the same period is north-central Poland, to the south of the Goths and Rugi." [...] "If 'Goth' was the only Germanic group name from north-central Europe to shift its location in these years you might get away with the argument that it's a case of accidental resemblance [...] but it isn't only Goth."

Archaeology

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There IS consensus about the POST 3rd century Goths being part of the Cheryakhov culture

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Examples
  • Kaliff 2008: "the different Gothic tribes appearing in historical sources from the 3rd and 4th century, [...] who are archaeologically visible as the Černjachov and Sîntana de Mureș Cultures."
  • Halsall 2007, p. 132. "Archaeologically, the Gothic confederacy is associated with the Sîntana de Mureș-Černjachov culture which spreads from Romania through Moldavia [sic] to the Ukraine."
  • Steinacher 2018 p.412: Wo Steppe und nördlicher gelegene Waldzone aneinandergrenzen, sind mehr als 2.000 Fundstellen einer als Sântana de Mureş-Černjachov bezeichneten Kulturgruppe bekannt. Diese Funde sind auf dem Gebiet der heutigen Republiken Ukraine, Moldau und Rumänien verbreitet.
  • Heather 2010, p. 117. "The really striking development in the north Pontic archaeology of this period, however, was not the further spread of the Wielbark system per se, but the generation of a series of new cultural systems incoporating some Wielbark features. The most important of these was the Cernjachov, which by the middle of the fourth century had spread over a huge area between the Danube and the Don." [...] "Chronologically, as well as geographically, its remains coincide with Gothic dominion in the late Roman period as described in trustworthy contemporary sources, and it is now universally accepted that the system can be taken to reflect the world created by the Goths - and probably our older Germanic-speakers too - north of the Black Sea."

The culture compared to the earlier Gutones, and the Vistula story in Jordanes, is the Wielback culture

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Examples showing recognition that this position is common, but also criticized
  • Kulikowski p. 63 gives Volker Bierbrauer's reasoning as the "extreme", but clearly articulated, example, which is accepted "without acknowledging the fact" by many archaeologists and historians: "the Sântana de Mureş-Černjachov archaeological culture is Gothic; some of its characteristics - particular brooch and ceramic types, a tendency not to place weapons in graves - are similar to those of the Wielbark culture, which was centred on the Vistula and lasted from the first to the fourth century A.D.; the Wielbark culture must therefore also be Gothic."
  • Kulikowski p.67: It is only the text of Jordanes that leads scholars to privilege the Wielbark connection. Indeed, if Jordanes did not exist and we were dealing with truly prehistoric cultures, it is highly unlikely that anyone would draw the same connection. NOTE: as one example of an alternative theory which might have arisen without Jordanes, Kulikowski suggests "Przeworsk-culture warriors from the west" as possible immigrants; i.e. the culture which is also associated with Vandals, who classical authors also associated with the Gothic language.
  • Heather 1998, pp. XIV, 2, 21, 30. "[The] Goths are met in historical sources... [in] northern Poland in the first and second centuries... Goths are first mentoned occupying territory in what is now Poland in the first century AD... The history of people labelled "Goths" thus spans 700 years, and huge tracts of Europe from northern Poland to the Atlantic ocean... [T]he Wielbark culture.... took shape in the middle of the first century AD... in Pomerania and lands either side of the lower Vistula... [T]his is the broad area where our few literary sources place a group called Goths at this time... Tacitus Germania 43-4 places them not quite on the Baltic coast; Ptolemy Geography 3.5.8 locates them east of the Vistula; Strabo Geography 7.1.3 (if Butones should be emended to Gutones) broadly agrees with Tacitus... The mutually confirmatory information of ancient sources and the archaeological record both suggest that Goths can first be identified beside the Vistula. It is here that this attempt to write their history will begin."
  • Wolfram 1990, p. 12. "Archaeologists equate the earliest history of the Goths with the artefacts of a culture named after the East Prussian town Willenberg-Wielbark.";
  • Heather 2010, p. 104. "[I]s now generally accepted that the Wielbark culture incorporated areas that, in the first two centuries AD, were dominated by Goths, Rugi and other Germani.";
  • Christensen 2002, p. 40. "They are normally identified with the Goths (the Wielbark culture)."
  • Halsall 2007, p. 132. The Černjachov culture is a mxiture of all sorts of influences but most come from the existing cultures in the region. It has been argued that it evolves directly from the Wielbark culture of the lower Vistula and that the spread from Vistula to Černjachov is archaeological proof of the Goths' migration from the shores of the Baltic. This notion should not be entirely rejected by it needs considerable modification. The source for the Gothic migration from Scandinavia is Jordanes' Getica, which is deeply problematic and certainly cannot be used as migration for migration. The Wielbark culture begins earlier than the Černjachov but its later phases cover the same period as the latter. There is no chronological development from one to the other. Furthermore, although the Wielbark culture does spread up the Vistula during its history, its geographical overlap with the Černjachov is minimal. These facts make it improbable that the Černjachov culture was descended from the Wielbark. [...] This evidence will not support the idea of a substantial migration. [NOTE: Halsall accept that there is evidence of contact such as trade, and also finds the linguistic evidence important. He accepts something like the scenario of Heather, but does not think so many people need to have moved.]
  • Kokowski 2011, p. 71-77. "Goths occupied a vast territory encompassing the lands from the Lower Vistula in the north, large parts of eastern Poland and west-ern Belorussia, territories of Ukraine reaching in certain parts beyond the Dnieper River, Bessarabia and large parts of what is now Romania... In this territory four Gothic cultures were distinguished: the Wielbark culture, the Chernyakhov culture, Sîntana de Mureş culture and the Masłomęcz group. Their origins are linked with gradual movement of Gothic communities to the south-east... The Wielbark culture developed on the basis of the Oksywie culture, which developed in times until the birth of Christ, being affected by Scandinavian influences. Since the last quarter of the 1st century a demographic ‘explosion’ has been observed in the area inhab-ited by this community, which resulted in the occupation of the neighbouring territories. It is claimed that newcomers from Scandinavia had their part in the expansion of this culture... The second stage of the expansion of the population of the Wielbark cul-ture took place in times after the end of Marcomannic wars in 180 AD... The population left the provinces... but took lands east of the Middle Vistula reaching Podolia and Volhynia... Thus, the culture reached a new ‘cultural background’ in the form of, predominant in this area, Vandal population of the Przeworsk culture... This... can attest to some significant stage of the conflict between migrating Goths and native Vandals... The result of entering new territories is discernible in changes which occurred in the Wielbark culture... Further expansion in eastern direction to the territories of present-day Ukraine resulted in the emergence of a new cultural phenomenon – the Chernyakhov culture... It took place in the times from around 230 AD... The most important dates from this period of history of the Gothic cultural circle refer, above all, to the expansiveness of Gothic tribes..."

CONTRAST TO WOLFRAM:

  • Wolfram p. 40 proposes a "Gutonic ethnogenesis within the Lugian cultural community" who were partly Celtic, and correspond to the Przeworsk neighbouring culture: "If these reflections are correct, we can suggest the following approximate chronology for the political history of the Gutones: during the first half of the first-century A.D. the Gutones were part of the Celtic-dominated Lugians; then in the second half of the century the Germanic Vandals became predominant. At the turn of the first century the Gutones broke away from the Lugian-Vandal community and expanded their territory east of the Vistula."

Archaeological evidence is not decisive for pre-3rd century Goths

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Heather argues that the archaeological evidence is not useless for this question. Not everyone agrees with that, and Heather does not dispute that it is problematic and needing to be treated with caution.

  • Heather 2010, p. 165. "Given that identity is fundamentally subjective, located internally in the self-consciousness of individuals and their relationships with one another, then material culture similarities are neither here nor there."
  • Heather 2010, pp. 110–111. "In my view, however ... the archaeological evidence is more compelling than the anti-migrationist reading suggests. ... In short, you're never likely to get more than an ambiguous reflection of migration from archaeological evidence, so that archaeological ambiguity can itself never disprove the possibility of a migration having occurred."
  • Halsall 2007, p. 133. "The Goths clearly spoke an east Germanic language [...] This probably implies some migration into the region (although there were people regarded as 'Germanic' in the region before), probably during the third century, when imperial sources first attest the Goths north of the Danube. Where these newcomers came from cannot now be ascertained but the territory of the Wielbark culture is probable, though not on the basis of the archaeological evidence."
  • Halsall 2007, p. 133. "This [archaeological] evidence will not support the idea of a substantial migration."
  • Steinacher 2018, p. 414. "Der archäologische Befund weist insgesamt nicht auf große, geschlossene Wanderungen, sondern auf längerfristige Migrationsbewegungen kleiner, mobiler Gruppen."
  • Andrew Poulter, 2007. "Invisible Goths within and beyond the Roman Empire" in: Drinkwater, J. and Salway, B., eds., Wolf Liebeschuetz reflected, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2007.tb02387.x 169-182: "Although there is no consensus, most would not go so far as to argue that a ‘Gothic identity’ did not exist in the fourth century: that ‘the Goths’ were an association of various ethnic groups based upon mutual interest and that the tradition of a Germanic origin was invented by Jordanes in the sixth century.” But, given that the ancient sources still allow for such widely differing interpretations, it is no surprise that historians seeking unambiguous and explicit evidence for the arrival of the Goths within the Roman Empire should turn to archaeology. Archaeology, when required to answer an historical problem, is all too able to provide answers. Unfortunately, however, it can provide plausible corroboration for whatever view a particular historian already believes. But the truth is that the archaeological evidence for the Goths is no more substantial than ‘the emperor’s new clothes’."

Archaeologists often work from the assumption that Jordanes is correct

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Also see quotes above concerning the influence of Jordanes.

  • Kulikowski p. 64: "why should the Wilebark-Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov connection seem so self-evident to so many scholars? One answer is an old methodology that seeks to explain changes in material culture by reference to migration. The other is Jordanes."
  • Kulikowski p. 66: "the question has remained the same [...] can one prove or disprove Jordanes? For an archaeologist of the Goths such as Michel Kazanski, this is not even a question: the text of Jordanes tells us the Goths were at the Baltic, then in the Ukraine; therefore the material culture of both regions must be Gothic and we should study it as such."

Archaeologists generally accept the Vienna ethnogenesis model (no mass migration, not biological)

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True mass migration is no longer considered likely

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It is now especially considered unlikely for Scandinavia (though Heather has given a sort of weakened "invasion hypothesis" explained in more detail separately below). See the quotes.

  • Steinacher, Roland (2017), Rom und die Barbaren. Völker im Alpen- und Donauraum (300-600), p. 48: Sicher ist nur, dass der Goten/Gutonen/Gauten- ebenso wie der Rugiername prestigeträchtig und prominent war, Unterschiedliche Verbände könnten sich solcher alter Namen bedient haben. [para] Die Archäologie ist sich groben Zügen darüber einig, dass ab der zweiten Hälfte des 2. Jahrhunderts materielle Kultur und Bestattungsbräuche aus dem Weichselgebiet Ähnlichkeiten mit jenen vom nördlichen Rand der pontischen Steppenzone aufweisen. Umstritten ist, ob die Gründe für diese Parallelen in der Möbilität kleiner mobiler Verbände, grösseren Migrationsbewegungen (wie man früher allgemein annahm) oder schlicht in Kulturtransfer zu finden sind. Für die traditionelle Vorstellung spielt dabei insbesondere der spätantike Gechichtsentwurf des Jordanes aus dem 6. Jahrhundert eine Rolle... Rough trans: The only thing sure is that the Goten/Gutonen/Gauten [name], as with the Rugii name, carried prestige and was prominent. Different groups may have decided to use such old names. Archaeology is basically in agreement that in the 2nd half of the 2nd century, culture and funeral norms from the Vistula area were similar to those from the northern edge of the pontic Steppe zone. What is debated is whether the reason for these parallels is the mobility of small bands, or large migration movements (as used to be generally accepted), or simply a culture transfer. For the traditional account, Jordanes plays a role.
  • Kulikowski p. 66: In 1970, Rolf Hachmann disproved the Scandinavian connection on archaeological grounds, thereby making necessary new theories of ethnogenesis such as we have looked at earlier.
  • Heather 2010, p. 20. "Under the old view of unchanging closed group identities, if group X was suddenly encountered in place B rather than place A, it was only natural to conclude that the whole group had moved. Once it is accepted that group identities can be malleable, then in principle only a few - maybe even a very few - of group X need have moved to provide a core around whom a population from disparate sources then gathered."
  • Halsall 2007, p. 134. "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."
  • Steinacher, Hintergründe und Herkommen der Barbaren am Schwarzen Meer im 3. Jahrhundert n. Chr. p.414: Die Frage ist jedoch die der Quantität und ob man nun einfach Gutonen und Goten gleichsetzen kann. Meiner Ansicht nach ist eher von einer stetigen Neuverhandlung bzw. Neudefinition gutonischer bzw. gotischer Identität auszugehen.
  • Heather 2010, pp. 124–125: "Even Jordanes, in fact, preserves an echo of this more complex reality, All his accounts of Gothic migration incorporate a strong motif of sociopolitical fragmentation."
  • Wolfram 1990, p. 37: "the question is not whether Scandinavia was the "original homeland of the Goths"; at best it is whether certain Gothic clans came from the north across the Baltic Sea to the Continent".

Heather's model of an semi-migration ("flow") from Baltic to Black sea

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Among the best known scholars Heather comes closest to arguing for a significant movement of people, but only for the movement from the Baltic to the Ukraine. This mainly relies on evidence from 3rd century and after, and so an essential part of the argument is that, in exact opposite to Wolfram, Heather argues that the Goths excluded new members from their ethnic circle. (In)famously, Heather compares the Goths to the Afrikaners and keeps referencing an assumed pure Germanic "freeman" class (a narrative which has been negatively compared to 19th century romanticist narratives).

  • Heather 2010, p. 127: But not all third-century activity is explicable in terms of small groups of a few hundred. The Gothic leader Cniva could not have defeated the Emperor Decius [...] Some of the action can be explained in terms of warbands, but not all of it.
  • Heather 2010, p. 128: Groups numbering just a few hundreds could never have achieved so much.
  • Heather 2010, p. 130: The extent to which groups of Germanic immigrants incoporated women and children at different stages of the expansionary process still requires detailed study. But one striking contribution of the Wielbark system to the Cernjachov was precisely in the field of female costume ... not found among Dacian-speaking groups of the Carpathians before the third century [CAUTION: Not a straightforward argument, because the Chernyakhov complex was in "Scythia", not Dacia at all, and in that region it did show continuity with older cultures.] ... The point is confirmed by the fact that the Goths, at least among these migrants maintained their Germanic language over several generations [CAUTION: Not a straightforward argument either, see Heather quote above saying Germanic language could have been from the Bastarnae. Also consider Kulikowski suggestion of common roots with the Vandals.]
  • Heather 2010, p. 133: They clearly were flows of population, not the single pulses envisaged by the invasion-hypothesis model, and some of the action, especially in the early phases, was probably carried out by war bands. [...] Not as simple as the old invasion hypothesis, and not as antiseptic as an elite transfer, the Germanic takeover of the Black Sea region hovers somewhere between the two. [...] This much, however, is only an interim conclusion.
  • Heather 2010, p. 165: The fact that the remains of the Cernjachov system are broadly similar right across the board does not mean that there were not distinct group identities within it. <para> 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. NOTE: this racial purity speculation is what distinguishes Heather from Wolfram, who believed the Goths became militarily powerful quickly by pragmatically allowing the integration of new Goths.

COMPARE:

  • Wolfram pp. 41-2 gives a completely different speculation which is non-racial and apparently based on medieval norms: The strength of the Goths lay in the kingship whose authority noticeably surpassed that usually found among Germanic peoples. As the central authority of the wandering tribe, the king could employ the resources of his smaller tribe more effectively than the leading stratum of larger, kingless tribal groups could use theirs. The Goths developed a great attraction for non-Goths - as, for example, for the Galindi from the Baltic area - because the Gothic kings decided questions of tribal membership quickly and on occasion against tradition. Finally, the Gothic kingship had the ability not only to form the exercitus Gothorum as a polyethnic group but also to structure it on the basis of retainership.
  • Steinacher, Roland (2017), Rom und die Barbaren. Völker im Alpen- und Donauraum (300-600), p. 48: Sicher ist nur, dass der Goten/Gutonen/Gauten- ebenso wie der Rugiername prestigeträchtig und prominent war, Unterschiedliche Verbände könnten sich solcher alter Namen bedient haben. [para] Die Archäologie ist sich groben Zügen darüber einig, dass ab der zweiten Hälfte des 2. Jahrhunderts materielle Kultur und Bestattungsbräuche aus dem Weichselgebiet Ähnlichkeiten mit jenen vom nördlichen Rand der pontischen Steppenzone aufweisen. Umstritten ist, ob die Gründe für diese Parallelen in der Möbilität kleiner mobiler Verbände, grösseren Migrationsbewegungen (wie man früher allgemein annahm) oder schlicht in Kulturtransfer zu finden sind. Für die traditionelle Vorstellung spielt dabei insbesondere der spätantike Gechichtsentwurf des Jordanes aus dem 6. Jahrhundert eine Rolle... Rough trans:The only thing sure is that the Goten/Gutonen/Gauten [name], as with the Rugii name, carried prestige and was prominent. Different groups may have decided to use such old names. Archaeology is basically in agreement that in the 2nd half of the 2nd century, culture and funeral norms from the Vistula area were similar to those from the northern edge of the pontic Steppe zone. What is debated is whether the reason for these parallels is the mobility of small bands, or large migration movements (as used to be generally accepted), or simply a culture transfer. For the traditional account, Jordanes plays a role.
  • Kulikowski, "Nation versus Army: A Necessary Contrast?" p.71 footnote 9 writes: "Note that Peter Heather, ‘Disappearing and Reappearing Tribes’, in Strategies of Distinction, pp. 105-11, wishes to revive a biological approach to ethnicity." This article by Heather indeed argues that in dangerous times peoples avoiding mixing with others in marriage etc (citing a comment by Procopius about the Rugians) and cooperating with peoples of similar background, rather than becoming parts of bigger alliances.

References

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