[gothic-l] Re: Names of Heruls

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., Tore Gannholm <tore.gannholm at s...> wrote:
>
> >> And the statement; "Thus, in Procopius eyes Thule was just fine
for
> >> the animal-like Heruls".
> >
> >>
> >> I am not sure here. Was this statement(the last one) made by;
> >>
> >>   a. A. Cameron?
> >>   b. Procopius?
> >>   c. Are you making this statement?
> >>   d. Someone else?
> >
> >
> >That is obivously my own statement. As Cameron stated, for
Procopius
> >the barbarians should be used and anihilated in wars with other
> >barbarians or they should go to the end of the earth, which is
synonym
> >for Thule at the time. In Procopius view, who described the Heruls
as
> >sodomistic, drunken traitors, the unattractive conditions in Thule
> >will likely have been seen befitting for the Heruls.
> >
> >But let me ask you a question. Do you think that Procopius'
> >description of the Heruls as 'mating with donkeys', 'notorious
> >traitors and drunkards', are not casting some doubts on him as to
his
> >reliability as neutral reporter? His dislike of the Heruls might
> >easily have affected his whole reporting about them. He clearly
made
> >up one bit of information about them, he might have made up more or
> >most of it. We just don't know, meaning that we cannot built futher
> >histories on this report. And therefore, as I said earlier, no
serious
> >book on Swedish history and archaeology regards a migration of
Heruls
> >or other East Germanic groups as a viable theory.
> >
> >cheers,
> >Dirk
> >
>
>
> Dirk,
> If I understand you right if somebody has written something that
seems
> dubious we must consider everything that this person writes as
dubious.
> If you study newspapers today you might find completely different
accounts
> of a specific happening in one paper compared with another.
>
> If you find something in Financial Times that you consider
spectacular the
> result is that Financial Times must be considered a spectacular
paper not
> trustworthy!!



Hi Tore,

I think the situation is slightly different. To keep to your example,
if one of the newspapers reporting about events is at the same time
engaging in extreme propaganda and abuse I would indeed say that all
of its reporting in this context is dubious.




> What you are missing is comparison with other things at the same
time.
> You only look at one writer in isolation.



But no other writer reported about these events.





> If you compare other writers, archaeological excavations and so on
and
> judge them together Procopius might be more interesting.


I come up with something about archaeology later on.

cheers
Dirk



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