[gothic-l] Re: Ostrogoths in Italy, Britain or China (or on the moon?)

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

--- In gothic-l at y..., andreas.schwarcz at u... wrote:
> On 1 Feb 2001, at 16:09, dirk at s... wrote:
>
> >

>
> Hello Dirk,
> this passage only means that Belisar answered the proposal of the
> Goths, who wanted an island which Belisar already had conquered,
> by an offer of an island that the Romans already had lost, which is
> not bargaining, but irony. To construe out of that a serious
> argument is pure nonsense and shows a lack of understanding of
> classical literature.


Hello Andreas,

no disagreement here at all, as I made the same point exactly!



> > While, Procopius is a notoriously unreliable informant and we
don't
> > know if this negotiations ever took place, the fact that it is
> > reported in his "Wars"6.6, 27-36, puplished in 551AD, seems to
give
> > some credibility to the proposition that some people at this time
may
> > have thought about this alternative for the Goths. Unless of
course,
> > Belisarius used Britain figuratively in place of any 'unreachable
> > land'.
>
> That Procopius did not even think of Britain as a land for gothic
> immigration is shown by De bello Gothico IV 20 f., where he gives
> a lot of fantastic stories  about Britain, but also mentions it as a
> land, from which the inhabitants, correctly named Angles, Jutes
> and Britans, emigrate in great number to the continent.




Again, total agreement here as I did not suggest that Procopius was
seriously proposing a 'British option'.




> > Or, more likely the 'Britain-story' was invented as part of
Procopius'
> > argument in favour of returing all barbarians to their homelands
(and
> > we know from Jordanes that many people at this time thought that
the
> > Goths came from Britian).
>
> We do not know anything like that at all from Jordanes, who gives
> the land of origin as Skandza.



I took this argument from Goffart who argues that Skandza was
important for Jordanes in order to exclude Britain, which, as Goffart
writes, was believed by many at this time to be the origin of the
Goths.




And where did you find the funny
> idea that Procopius proposed to return all barbarians to their
> homelands?



This view is presented by Avaril Cameron and to some extent by
Goffart. A short formulation of this argument can be found on the
European Archaeology List were a historian (Florin Curta) presents the
same point much nicer than I could.




He was an old soldier and knew that the army needed
> them and used them as soldiers. Read procopius and Agathias
> and you will find that the armies of Justinian consisted of great
> numbers of all kinds of barbarians considered as true and loyal
> soldiers of the empire by those authors.



Completely true, possibly both Goffart and Cameron got it wrong - who
knows. However, their textual analysis does sound convincing and most
of their interpretations are more plausible that those presented by
people who want to read Procopius and the like as historical text
books.

cheers
Dirk





Dr. Dirk Faltin



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