[gothic-l] Re: What happened with the Vandalic and Ostrogothic Kingdoms?

Tue Apr 3 10:10:12 UTC 2001

--- In gothic-l at y..., andreas.schwarcz at u... wrote:
> For the end of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy I repeat my 
> messages from the end of January, 2001: 
> Apart from Ludwig Schmidt´s essays on the last   Ostrogoths, 
> which may not be understandable to everybody, because they were 
> written in German, I would advise  to read the English translation 
of 
> Agathias, The Histories (Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 
> Series Berolinensis vol.IIA. Berlin, New York 1975). Agathias 
> continued the relation of Procopius about Justinian's wars and he 
> described in the first two books the invasion of the Alamans and 
> Franks into Italy at the instigation of the rebellious Goths. Book 1 
> starts with the terms of peace to the Goths granted by Narses after 
> king Teja´s death: the survivors of the battle at mons Lactarius 
> were granted the undisturbed possession of their properties and 
> became subjects of the emperor. They went home to Tuscany, 
> Liguria and other regions in Italy.  After that a party among them 
> instigated a rebellion and sought the help of the Merovingian kings, 
> who sent an army under the Alamannic dukes Butilinus and 
> Liutharis to Italy. Most of the Goths in Italy joined this 
rebellion. 
> The most prominent of those Goths was Aligern, the younger 
> brother of king Teja, who took hold of the fortress of Cumae and the 
> royal treasure of the Ostrogoths (thereby claiming the throne as 
> successor to his dead brother). The byzantine general Narses 
> quickly managed to stamp out the rebellion in Tuscany and allowed 
> those who capitulated to remain undisturbed in their possessions. 
> In the spring of the next year Aligern began negotiatians with 
> Narses and came to terms with him, handing over Cumae and the 
> royal treasure for a command in the Roman army and joining forces 
> with Narses, who eventually managed to defeat Butilinus and 
> Liutaris. The last Gothic rebels fought on under a leader called 
> Ragnaris, but surrendered, too, after their commander's death. 
> Only those were sent off to Constantinople by Narses (Agathias, 
> Histories, II 7), all the others, who did not rebel or who had 
> surrendered earlier like Aligern, were allowed to keep their 
> possessions in Italy and to stay. Agathias, Histories, I 6, 
expressly 
> states that after the battle of mons Lactarius and the death of Teja 
> all Goths went home to their possessions in Italy, which had been 
> guaranteed to them by Narses. Agathias does not mention any 
> kind of emigration at this moment at all. As I previously wrote, we 
> may suppose regular intercourse and travelling to and fro in the 
> time of the Visigothic kings Theudis and Theudegisel. Theudis at 
> least surely was an Ostrogoth and he lead an Ostrogothic army 
> into Spain in the time of Theoderic. All the information Agathias 
> gives states that most of the Goths stayed in Italy and some were 
> sent as soldiers to Constantinople, which is confirmed by the 
> evidence collected by Ludwig Schmidt in  two articles on this 
> theme with an identical title, "Die letzten Ostgoten", the last 
> Ostrogoths, one in 1923 and the other in 1943. You will find them 
> in Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Geschicht 3(1923) 443-455 and in 
> Abhandlungen der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 
> Phil.hist.Kl. Jahrgang 1943  Nr.10, 1-15.
> 
> The fate of the Vandals was a bit different. Already Belisar had 
> brought several thousand of them to Constantinople after the 
> capitulation of king Gelimer, recruited  the best of them in his 
> personal troups and formed five regiments out of the rest, who 
> were sent to the East to fight against the Persians. After a series 
> of rebellions most of those remaining in North Africa were also 
> deported to Constantinople by the byzantine Generals Solomon 
> and Artabanes.
>  
> For further information see: Herwig Wolfram, Die Goten. Von 
> den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des 6. Jahrhunderts. München, 
> 3.Aufl., 1990
> Peter Heather, The Goths. Oxford 1996
> For the Vandals:
> Christian Courtois, Les Vandales et l'Afrique. Paris 1955
> Hans-Joachim Diesner, Das Vandalenreich. Stuttgart 1966
> Ludwig Schmid, Die Geschichte der Vandalen. München, 
> 2.Aufl., 1942
> 
> Kind regards
>                Andreas Schwarcz 
> Ao.Univ.Prof.Dr.Andreas Schwarcz
> Institut für österreichische Geschichtsforschung
> Universität Wien
> Dr.Karl Lueger-Ring 1
> A-1010 Wien
> Österreich
> Tel.0043/1/42-77/272-16
> Fax 0043/142-77/92-72

Hello Andreas et. al.

for the Vandals the following internet page gives a brief (but neat) 
summary of their kingdom and the fate of the same.

http://www.warhorsesim.com/papers/VandalCarthage.htm

By chance I once spoke to a historian in Tunisia, who told me that 
there is virturally no notable buiding activity under the Vandals in 
Tunesia, except for the rebuilding (scaling down) and occational 
repair works on exsisting Roman and perhaps Punic buidings. 

In general, for the question of what physical remains their are of 
especially some of the smaller Germanic kingdoms, which have left no 
buildings or written documents, I would like to draw the attention to 
their coins. In several instances, coins are almost the only tangible 
set of 'documents' or 'monuments' left by these peoples, which can 
be attributed beyond doubt (other than most other artefacts). 

For example, the Vandals started minting of imitative Roman siliquae 
in the name of Honorius  under Geiseric and Hunerich, while 
Gunthamund, Thrasamund, Hilderic and Gelimer all put their names on 
coins. Gunthamund even minted full siliquae of 100 nummi. Gold coinage 
is virutally unknown of the Vandals, but 3 solidi in imitation of Zeno 
are in existence (one in my collection) that originate from Sardinia 
and authors like Blackburn and Grierson agree that they are the only 
gold coins that can be called Vandalic with some justification. There 
is also a municipal coinage of Carthage introduced under the Vandals, 
including folles, half-folles, 4-nummi, and nummi pieces. 
Interestingly, the Vandals (or better the administration under the 
Vandals) revived pre-Roman Punic imagery (horse-head etc.) for the 
Cartagenian City coinage.

For the Suevi a similar point can be made. I believe there is 
virtually no Suevic architecture in modern Portugal, but their are a 
range of (very rare) Suevic coins which may be regarded as 'tangible 
primary monuments' to their existence. These include two coins (a 
siliqua and a tremissis) with the names of Suevic kings (Reckilar and 
Audeca) (I have one Suevic solidus in the name of Honorius but 
attributable to the time of Reckilar).

Interestingly, even the historically somewhat elusive Gepids, who 
certainly have not left any architectual or documental evidence have 
left us a number of rare coins, minted in the area of Sremska 
Mitrovica (I have a half-siliqua). One recently discovered group can 
even be attributed to Cunimund, as it shows his initials.

cheers
Dirk

PS: Thanks Andreas for the response to my literature question!

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