Heather vs. Wolfram

[Michael Erwin]

I know that the English translation colors my understanding of the  
Gothic word; a 'people' is rarely as clearly-bounded as a 'tribe.'  
But Gutthiuda at least seems to have had rather blurry edges; were  
the Alans Goths? were the Gepids?

Wolfram views the Thervingi-Visogoths and Greuthungi-Ostrogoths as  
lasting divisions centered around the Balthic and Amal lines  
respectively. Heather has several criticisms of the Wenskus-Wolfram  
model:

(1) Roman policy focused on the Thervingi, along the danube, and not  
the Greuthungi, although Wolfram's model implies that the Greuthungi  
were several times more extensive, and therefore more powerful as a  
political unit, than the Thervingi.

(2) Heather lists twelve known 'Gothic' groups who entered the Empire  
(1998, p.53) (although I'm not convinced of the Gothicness of the  
Radagasius group); of these two are Therving, three are Greuthung,  
and the remainder are probably not Therving.

(3) Known Chernyakhov settlements seem to show more than one major  
political center east of the Dnestr.

(4) Cassiodorus or Jordanes is making up the Ermaneric-Theodoric  
connection for propaganda value.

Heather suggests that the Thervingi and Greuthungi were only two of  
several Gothic groups, but  the two closest to the Roman frontier.


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