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

[Tore Gannholm]

The common opinion is that the Heruls probably lived somewhere in southern
Denmark - Northern Germany (I can't find that Procopius claims that they
originated from Thule) and when the Goths moved from the Vistula area to
the Black Sea area the Heruls followed in their steps. After that various
Roman sources tell about the Heruls together with or dominated by the Goths.
The Heruls as well as part of the Goths (Ostrogoths) were subdued by the
Huns. When Attila died on his wedding night and the Hun empire dissolved
the Heruls formed their own kingdom in present day Hungary. When they we
beaten by the Lombards about 505 Prokopius says that part of the tribe
moved to where they had heard there were good lands, Ultima Thule, the
farthest away lands known from the Roman Empire. (Iceland and Greenland
were not inhabited at that time.)

Origin of Svear:
"The Heruls (jarlarna) was a Scandinavian people that together with Gutans
or the Goths, as the Romans called them, ravaged the Black Sea, Asia Minor
and the Mediterranean from the 4th century. After having been subdued first
by the Goths and later by the Huns, those emigrated Heruls, middle of the
5th, century founded a state in upper Hungary. There are several stories
how the Heruls ravaged the coasts of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean,
alone and together with the Goths, why they must be considered as good
seamen. They were sought after soldiers in the Roman Imperial Guards.
According to Roman sources they were a more primitive people than other
Germanic peoples. The troops of Odovakar that assumed power in the Western
Empire in 476 contained, according to sources, to a large extent Heruls.
That state was, however, soon overrun by the Ostrogoths.
Prokopios says (See note 2) that some years later the Herul state in upper
Hungary was smashed. He thinks of the Heruls, that had emigrated to the
south of Russia and to start with had been under the Ostrogoths and the
Huns but after the fall of the Hun Empire had erected an independent state
on the north side of the Danube on the border of present time Mähren and
Hungary. About the year 505, after quarrelling with the Lombards, they were
forced to leave this area. Some of the Heruls settled in Illyria under the
protection of the Eastroman Emperor, but others could not, says Prokopios,
decide to cross the Danube but settled in the furthest parts of the
inhabited world. They returned to Thule (the Scandinavian penin-sula) and
settled next to the Gauts at the same time as a powerful Svea state with
strong kings emerged in the Lake Mälar Area.
Guided by numerous members of its royalty they passed all the native lands
of the Slavic peoples (probably from lower Danube to upper Vistula and
further west), marched from here through a large part of vacant land and
came to a people called the Varner. From there they came to the sea,
crossed the sea and went to the island Thule where they settled.
Thule is a very large island, Prokopios continues, over ten times as large
as Britannia. The largest part is desolate, but in the inhabited parts
there are thirteen populous tribes, who each has a king. One populous tribe
was the Gauts and it was next to them that the Herulic newcomers settled.
Much later - guesses are both at the end of the 520s and the middle of the
540s - it happened that the king of those Heruls remaining in the south was
killed and that these Heruls in order to get a new king of the old line
sent messengers to the part of the tribe that lived in Thule. Here they
found many of royal blood and chose the one they liked most. During the
journey south, however, he fell ill and died in the lands of the Danes. In
order not to return empty handed the messengers were forced once more to go
to Thule. By this action they became so much delayed that their principals
gave up hope and were persuaded by Emperor Justinianus to take as their
king a young Herul educated in Constantinople. When finally the messengers
from Thule returned with their proposed king, the imperial protégé was
deserted in favour of the newcomer."

Note 2 (page 14)
Prokopios, who was born at the end of the 5th century, was a lawyer in
Constantinople and from the year 527 private secretary to the military
commander Belisarius on his campaigns against inter alia the Ostrogoths in
Italy. He says that there are 13 populous tribes in Thule (the Scandinavian
peninsula), each with its own king. He says: "A populous tribe among them
was the gautoi, next to where the arriving Heruls settled". Prokopios says
that the Heruls who lived in northern Hungary under Cæsar Anastasius'
(491-518) rule attacked the Lombards. However, they were beaten and their
king was killed. The Heruls were therefore (about 505) forced to leave
their homesteads. Some of them crossed the Danube into Roman territory,
where Anastasius allowed them to settle. The remaining part of the Heruls
moved northwards. Through the countries of the Varner and Danes they
reached the ocean, over which they sailed to Thule.
In the same chapter, Prokopios  gives a short mention of the Heruls that
had immigrated to the Scandinavian peninsula. This is, by the way,  the
last historical mentioning about Scandinavia by a Greek-Roman writer. "Thus
the Heruls, that lived on Roman soil and had slained their king, sent some
of their most distinguished men to the island Thule in order to find and if
possible bring back a man of royal blood. When they came to the island they
found many of royal blood." According to professor Wessén: "The flourishing
and numerically strong royal family in Thule, that is mentioned above, is
apparently the same under whose guidance part of the Eastherulian tribe,
thirty years earlier, had undertaken its march to Scandinavia."


>Dirk!
>
>--- In gothic-l at y..., dirk at s... wrote:
>>
>> (snip)
>>
>> Similarly, Procopius'- most likely invented - story of a Herulic
>> migration to Thule belongs to the same category, as A. Cameron
>> (Procopius and the Sixth Century) shows. Britain, Thule and Scandza
>> were the islands in the Northern Ocean were all northern barbarians
>> came from according to the Roman mental map and where all
>barbarians
>> should return to according to Procopius.
>
>Where did Procopius claim the Heruls originally came from
>Thule/Scandinavia? As far as I know he only wrote their ancestral
>homes were beyond the Ister (Danube). If a Scandinavian origin was
>his point, why didn't he write it? Actually the Illyrian Heruls who
>didn't serve Justinian escaped to the Gepides in Dacia beyond the
>Ister just before Procopius finished his "Gothic Wars". Therefore the
>claimed purpose was fulfilled without a lie about Thule.
>
>If the migration to Thule was a lie, why did he tell about a Herulian
>king Datius returning from Thule to Illyria a few years before he
>wrote his book? Wasn't it a little risky? As far as I can see he
>would in this case loose all his credibility if someone knew the
>Herulian mercenaries - which most of the army did.
>
>Some Scandinavian historians even regard a Herulian origin in
>Scandinavia as a misreading of Jordanes. I can't say if this argument
>has any value.
>
>Troels
>
>
>
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