[gothic-l] Re:Heruls

[trbrandt at POST9.TELE.DK]

Hello Andreas

--- In gothic-l at y..., andreas.schwarcz at u... wrote:
> Hello Ingemar and Troels,
> Ingemar, forget your idea, it won't work. Troels is quite
> right with his objections.

Thank you anyway for some interesting informations - Ingemar - 
including your elaborations in the posting following this. I will 
also thank Tore for some Swedish theories I nearly had forgotten.

Personally I have simply given up finding the origin of the Heruls. 
The primary sources I know are too few and uncertain.

> For the Heruls I should like to draw your attention to
> Alvar Ellegard, Who were the Heruli? In: Scandia 53 (1987) pp.5-
> 34, who did quite a good analysis of the sources for them from
> the third to the sixth century, though his conclusion that
> they developed in Bavaria is a bit too sharply drawn.

This is something of an understatement. Here we do not agree.

I have spent a lot of time upon Ellegaard - according to Tore too 
much at my homepage (Chapter 14 and note 98-105) - and I have also 
read the articles from the symphosium in 1992, where Ingemar invited 
Ellegaard and Wolfram a.o.. I have used some of his carefull analyses 
of our sources, but I regard his conclusions as provokations - in 
several cases they do not follow his own sources at all. We need 
scholars like Ellegaard, Goffart and Lukman to criticise the sources 
and to show reverse angels, but often they are going too far being 
cought up by their own reverse scenarioes.  

> As far as I can see we have to distinguish between
> 1) the rather shadowy Black Sea/Maeotis Eluri or Heruli of
> the third and fourth century,

You have to separate this group in two. 
1a) A group ravaging in the Agean Sea in the 3th century according to 
Dexippos and his successors, and
1b) a group ruled by king Alaric and later subdued by Ermaneric in 
the 4th century. 
These groups have different sources and connections.

ad 1a) I have never studied 1a in details - but Bertil Haegmann has 
done this as far as I know. I have to read the articles you recommend 
below before I should make my comments. I am afraid this will take me 
some time before I get them. 

ad 1b) The position the Heruls got in Pannonia must be due to a role 
in the army of Attila. We know the Ostrogoths had an important role 
in the Hunnic army coming from East, and according to Jordanes they 
subdued Alaric just before the Hunns arrived. This is a probable 
explanation how they "got on the train". This is not a proof, but it 
makes much more sense to follow the connection between 1b and 2 
claimed by Jordanes than to reject his descriptions. This was also 
accepted by Wolfram in "History of the Goths".   
 
> 2) the Heruli mentioned in the West of the Empire at the end
> of the third century, in the Notitia dignitatum and possibly
> still in the sixth century in the variae of Cassiodorus and 

> Could also be  
> 3) the Central European Heruli after the end of Attila´s reign and 
> their aftermath treated by Procopius.
> 
> The second and third group may be connected (there are some 
> archeological signs of connections to the Black Sea region in the 
> Central European material)

These archaeological signs should therefore also connect 1b and 2, 
but you have allready been so friendly to send me referrals to 
sources in order to study this further.

> , but it is also possible that only the 
> names are the same taken from the function as a warrior band 
> without ethnic connections.
> 
> For the first group I would like to point out an article by
> Maciej Salamon, The Chronology of Gothic incursions into Asia 
> Minor in the IIIrd century. In: Eos 59 (1971) pp.109-139
> 
> and a volume on the Black Sea coast:
> 
> Die Schwarzmeerküste in der Spätantike und im frühen Mittelalter. 
> Schriften der Balkan-Kommission der Österreichischen Akademie 
> der Wissenschaften. Antiquarische Abteilung Nr.18 (Wien 1992, 
> with two articles on the incursions by me and Eckhart Olshausen).

Kind regards
Troels


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~>
eGroups is now Yahoo! Groups
Click here for more details
http://click.egroups.com/1/11231/1/_/3398/_/981622236/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->

You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.
Homepage: http://www.stormloader.com/carver/gothicl/index.html