[gothic-l] Re: Names of Heruls-Goffart-J.Svennung-midnight sun-

[faltin2001]

> he
> > thougth.
>
>     Einar; This is one of your misunderstandings. I said ; I do not
> think he believed....
> And; I think.....
> At least I am not making claims like Goffart who claims to know what
> every individual Goth knew and knew not. And claiming knowing what
> everybody else knew too.


Einar,

you cannot seriously believe that Goffart would be such a fool to
proclaim that he knows what every individual Goth knew or did not
know. Once you reached this conclusion from reading his book, you
should have made a plausibility check and ask yourself: am I
mis-understanding something or is this Harvard Professor completely
incompetent;-)

I could already see from your comment on a passage from page 95 of
Goffart's book, that you have seriously mis-interpreted him.





> The writing of the time of Procopius paints a different
> > picutre. Knowledge about ethnographic and geographic situation in
> > Scandinavia were extremely limited at the time of Procopius,
> > testifying to the fact that hardly anybody made the journey
> directly.
>
>    Einar; I notice that you say; hardly anybody.
> >
>
> > > If somebody really believed such stories,then I suggest it was
> the
> > > more uneducated citizen of the Roman Empire in Italy,kids and
> nobody
> > > else.
> >
> >
> >
> > Procopius was not writing for the more uneducated citizens of the
> > Roman Empire. They could not read and would not read his accounts
> > anyway. He wrote for the most highly educated classes of th
Empire,
> > members of the senatorial elite, of which Procopius saw himself as
> > member.
> >
> >  Einar; That does not mean that they believed those stories.
> >
> >
> > Again, you are too apologetic for Procopius. Because you clearly
> want
> > to believe certain bits, causes you to overlook the
inconsitencies,
> > just like Cameron described.
>
>    Einar; My world picture is not just black and white, but
somewhere
> in between. I find his account of the travel of the Heruli and
> related writings,reasonably trustworthy.

> I am not judging his other writings.



That is absolutely fine and nobody said that you are not entitled to
this view. I have a different view and provided indications and
evidence to support it. If we cannot agree, we will have to disagree,
its not the end of the world.





> >
> >
> >
> seen. The sun shows itself differently because
> > > it
> > > > is passing through the southern signs, and whereas to us the
> sun
> > > seem
> > > > to rise from below, it seems to go around them along the edge
> of
> > > the
> > > > earth."
> > >
> > > >    Einar; This is interesting. But this does not prove
> anything.
> > > Both Jordanes and Procopius were descriping exactly the same
> thing.
> > > No wonder they used similar terms.Is it?
> >
> >
> >
> > Of course not, because they knew the same geographical sources.
>
>   Einar; Do you have any evidence to support this claim?
>
> Apart from that then their descriptions are very much different.

> The similarities are not there. They both say 40 days. Apart from
> that there is no similarity.
>
> And I do not think that you have any idea, if they used the same
> sources in these case. Who says they did?




Why always this frontal attack?
A good analysis of the geographical sources available and used by 6th
century authors is provided by Rolf Hachmann  in 'Die Goten und
Skandinavien'. The argument is based on philological comparisons and
rather complicated.







> They both knew about the 40 days. Apart from that there are no
> connections or similarities to bee seen.
>
>
>
> > > > Both knew the length of 40 days and nights. Both described the
> sun
> > > > passing along the horizon. And both will likely have used the
> same
> > > > ancient geographical source. Perhaps Procopius really did
speak
> to
> > > > somebody who had figured out how to measure the length of the
> day
> > > > in this circumstances, or who even came from there; impossible
> to
> > > say
> > > > given the bias that he displayed in other comments.
> > >
> > >   Einar; This does not prove anything. Both mentioning the 40
> > > days,could be a coincidence. Not impossible.
> >
> >
> >
> > Once again, they used the same sources - no coincidence they had
> the
> > same data.
>
>   Einar; You do not have any idea if they used the same source or
> not. Their descriptions are not similar at all. The only similarity
> is that they both say; 40 days.


See Hachmann, as stated above.
In general, there is no need for abrasiveness here. We can both be
wrong or right.

Also, I said that it is not impossible that Procopius really did speak
to somebody from Scandinavia. However, the fact that knowledge about
Scandinavia was extremely limited at his time indicates (according to
Hachmann, Svennung and others) that direct contact was very rare.


cheers
Dirk



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
See What You've Been Missing!
Amazing Wireless Video Camera.
Click here
http://us.click.yahoo.com/75YKVC/7.PDAA/ySSFAA/wWMplB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/