[gothic-l] Re: Tracing the Eruli

[george knysh]

--- "Troels Brandt <trbrandt at post9.tele.dk>"
<trbrandt at post9.tele.dk> wrote:
> I am glad to see that you and Vladimir found new
> angles in the
> eternal discussion I initiated mentioning Goffart to
> Dirk.
/...../ the Heruls are not
> archaeologically
> identified in the area of Singidunum (Alexander
> Kiss), though we are
> sure that an important group moved from Moravia to
> Dacia Ripensis and
> Singidunum.
>
> One reason could be that they really were a new
> people formed as a
> mix of two or more people in the border areas of the
> Chernyakhiv
> Culture - as the ethymology of Ablasisus could
> indicate.

*****GK: A few things need to be kept in mind here.
Let us assume that Ablabius' borrowed Dexippan
etymology is proof of the Erulian location for the
period of the ca. 250's (if they are the earlier
"Borani") or the ca. 260's (when they emerge under
their ethnonym). We would have to conclude that the
Eruli were a fundamentally "Germanic" people (their
leading elements, their name) distinguished from other
such by a FUNDAMENTALLY different culture from the
outset, and one which is in practice INDISTINGUISHABLE
from that of the Iranic Alani. This is not in
principle impossible, though Ockham's razor would not
favour it. There is however an archaeological
difficulty here. Bezuglov and Kopilov [I can give you
the references to their work if you like]have
demonstrated that in the mid-3rd c. AD a new Itanic
(Alanic) population (Ammianus' "Tanaitae")appeared on
the Lower Don, migrating there from the area of the
plains further east...We would thus have to assume
that this numerically dominant population was (or
became) Erulian. Again a problem with the razor.
Remember also that the Cc (to use Vladimir's useful
abbreviation) initially did not move beyond the Dnipro
r. (period 230 through ca. 330 AD). Only in the "era
of Ermanaric" (as per Mahomedov)[=ca.330-375] do we
see a massive expansion east of the Dnipro, BUT ONLY
IN THE STEPPE-FOREST area, not in the steppes, which
remain the preserve of the Iranic cultures. We would
thus have to make a third assumption (which Ockham's
razor would again have problems with): namely that the
Eruli RETAINED their "Iranic" culture even after their
conquest by Ermanaric and incorporation into his
realm... Add to this the historical attestation of
Ammianus Marcellinus (very reliable and close to the
events in question) that the basin of the Don was
politically controlled by the Alanic Tanaitae at the
time of the Hunnic onslaught (ca. 375 AD) and we have
a further problem: i.e. if Ermanaric conquered the
Eruli they could not have been located at the mouth of
the Don, since that territory was not included in his
"uberes pagos".== Now I don't have any difficulty in
dismissing the Dexippan "etymology" since I view it as
erroneous. And there is nothing to indicate the
location of the original Eruli in the "swamps" of
Maeotis except this dubious etymology. The subsequent
history of the Eastern Eruli in the West is not really
dependent on it, and the mixed ethnic nature of the Cc
is fully compatible with the quality of the later
Erulian society. As indicated in an earlier posting,
however, there IS a way of maintaining the link
between Eruli and the lower Don (the proof is not
conclusive but arguable), viz., that they are
represented by the Cc settlements which appear here in
the first half of the 5th century. On that scenario,
the Eruli would have been moved there by the Huns, and
subsequently followed both Alans and Huns to the West.
When Jordanes wrote of "Ermanaric's Empire" he
arbitrarily assumed that the Eruli conquered by the
Golden Scythian were already on the Lower Don in the
mid-4th c. and earlier (rather than only from ca. 400
AD), a notion which the Ablabian utilization of
Dexippos reinforced. This little Jordanic "error" was
not particularly significant given the notion that
Ermanaric "ruled all the nations of Scythia and
Germania". Of course the problem of Erulian
archaeological continuity [East, Danube,
North]remains, whatever the scenario. I see no problem
in accepting the basic elements of the Procopius
account supplemented by Jordanes. In my view (subject
to correction) the simplest explanation is to have a
fairly substantial number of Erulians (not hundreds
but thousands, probably tens of thousands)trek
northward into southern Sweden, establishing
themselves "nest to" (not "among" since they retained
their political independence and identity) the Gauts.
This became their "propriae sedes" in Scandinavia
during the period ca. 510-ca. 548 AD. Some time during
548-551 there was a major war with the Danes, the
result of which is reported by Jordanes as the loss of
their "propriae sedes" by the Eruli. What happened to
them afterwards has not been historically recorded. So
we must rely on the evidence of archaeology and sagas
etc. to emit hypotheses (as do Troels and others). The
only certain thing is that this loss of their "sedes"
led to the abandonment of a collective identity
enjoyed by the Eruli for some 300 years.*****




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