[gothic-l] Re: Christensen's book on the Goths

[Ravi Chaudhary]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "faltin2001" <dirk at s...> wrote:
> I have had a first quick read-through of the new book by Arne Soby 
> Christensen „Cassiodorus Jordanes and the History of the Goths", 
> Museum Tusculum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2002. 
> another view:


 Ravi: I posted the above on the Jathistory list, here is a response 
I got:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JatHistory/message/598

Ravi

Sunny Singh writes:

 just a supplement - I have indeed studied 
Christensen very carefully, and I caught the caveat, which 
undoubtedly may be an important hole in this individual's theory. 

As a repeat, A.S. Christensen of the University of Copenhagen, argues 
that the identification of the Goths with the Getae by the classical 
writers is erroneous (Christensen 2002). However, Christensen still 
comments on the following point made by Jakob Grimm:

J. Grimm was the last to defend an opposing view, based on the 
argument that the Getae are mentioned during early Antiquity. They 
later disappear completely, while the Goths appear in the sources at 
approximately the same time. Was it conceivable that the Getae just 
suddenly disappeared? His point is, of course, that a certain people 
were initially referred to as Getae and later came to be called Goths 
(Christensen 2002: 247). 

Is it not that that Grimm was on to something? Does this not imply 
that Goth is a new name for the same people? Why is this point simply 
smoothed over?

Another authority, this time a respectable linguistic scholar in his 
own day, Bosworth, makes the same assertion as Grimm:

According to the opinion of many Scandinavian antiquaries, the Goths 
who overran the Roman empire, came from Scandinavian or Sweden; but 
Tacitus speaks of no Goths in Scandinavia, and only of Suiones, which 
is the same name that the Swen-skar (Swedes) apply to themselves at 
the present day. It is therefore more probable, as some learned 
Swedes acknowledge, that the when the Goths wandered towards the west 
and south of Europe, some of them, in early times, crossed the Baltic 
and established themselves in the south of Sweden and the island of 
Gothland. We know from Tacitus, just cited, that the Goths that the 
Goths were in Pomeralia and Prussia, near the Vistula, about A.D. 80
 
(Bosworth 1848: 113-114).

Is it not fitting to examine this view? Best Wishes, 

Bosworth, J. The Origin of the English, Germanic and Scandinavian 
Languages, and Nations. London. Longman, Brown, Green, and Longsman: 
1848.

Christensen, A.S. Cassidorus Jordanses and the History of the Goths 
Studies in a Migration Myth. Copenhagen. Museum Tusculanum Press: 
2002. 

PS - Please see Wolfram's book on Goths, for a more balanced view and 
a more honest approach. 



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