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

[trbrandt at POST9.TELE.DK]

Hello Dirk

--- In gothic-l at y..., dirk at s... wrote:
> Hello Troels,
>
> your interpretation is certainly possible, but the reason why I
said
> that I don't believe that a Scandinavian origin was Procopius'
point
> is that I am not sure whether Thule can be readily identified with
> Scandinavia. Some authors have tried to identify Thule with Iceland
> or the Orkneys, but given Procopius' generally poor knowledge of
> north European geography I regard it as possible that Thule was
more
> of an abstract concept in the mind of Romano-Greeks like Procopius.
> The same seems to be true for Scandza. Thus, Fredegar placed a
> 'Scatanavia' between the Danube and the Ocean'some where in
> continental Europe, the codis gothanis knows that 'Scatanauge'
> (Scatanav ?) was situated near the Elbe river in proximity to
> 'paterspruna' (Paderborn in Germany), yet all these places are
> readily read to mean modern Scandinavia.

You are right! Procopius did not know much about geography in
Northern Europe and his use of Thule is confusing - and it might be
used as an abstract concept as you say. Scandinavia can be identified
as his Thule primarily using the people he mentioned, and also the
elements he referred from other descriptions of Scandia.

>
> I am sure you know far more than I about the Heruls, but some of
the
> reports about them simply do not square up. For example, the story
> about their re-migration does not sound very probable to me.

They had spent 100 years being subdued by Ermaneric and the Huns.
Then they had success supporting Odoaker and subduing other tribes in
Pannonia. Suddenly they lost everything being defeated first by the
Lombards and then by the Gepides. When they had to chose between
exile in the Christian Byzantium or to find new land farther from the
crowded areas north of Limes, some of them chose exile while a proud
royal family and their supporters went north until they found new
possibilities. Maybe they even had reports from Scandinavia telling
about possibilities as some archaeologists claim to have found traces
of a group of Heruls in Scania in the 5th century (Fabech -
Soesdala) - or reports from their "cousins" the Western Heruls
operating in Scandinavia.

If the Heruls were earlier expelled by the Danes or were a separate
Gothic tribe from Scandinavia a re-migration makes it sound even more
probable to me, but you are welcome to leave out this argument.

Discussing probability you have to take in consideration that the
deputation to Scandinavia returning with Datius took place less than
10 years before Procopius finished his book and that the story about
Suartus must have been well known in Byzans.

 After
> haveing spend centuries away from their supposed northern homeland,
> they pack up their stuff and an entire people decides to move to
> Thule, because they had still claims to their homeland after all
> these centuries. Also, the tale about their gruesome customes seems
> to more than anything, fit Procopius perposes. Goffart maybe wrong
> with his interpretation, but by relating Procopius to the context
of
> contemporary Roman-barbarian relations he provides plausible and
> logical explanations for Procopius' and especially Jordanes'
reports.

I don't think I have to repeat Andreas, but I think Procopios had a
very clear reason to describe the Heruls around the new king Datius
as unreliable. Datius had forced out the Herulian general Suartuas
placed there as a king by Justinian, and Procopius supported in this
way the justification of the following expulsion of this group of
Heruls. Actually Suartuas was one of the three generals Justinian
later sent against the Gepides to whom the Heruls had escaped. That
is one of the reasons why I suspect Suartuas to be one of the sources
Procopius used for his two Herulian chapters.

Troels


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