Fwd: Re: Fwd: [gothic-l] Names of Heruls

[Troels Brandt]

Iusteinus, Bertil, George and Dirk

Although very different your answers were a great help to me.
 
I hope it appeared from my mail, that I was aware of the problems 
using such corrupted names to trace an origin, and I agree, that a 
singular name will never tell you the origin of the man himself. 
However a list of 18 names might indicate some other general traces – 
if such influence exists - than Germanic corrupted by Latin and 
Greek, or might reveal that there are no indications of a strong 
Gothic or other Germanic connection at all.

As 7 names out of 18 can be totally interpreted in Germanic language 
and 4 others contain probably Germanic elements, I believe it is 
possible to conclude that there is no evidence showing that the 
Heruls never were a Gothic people or a Germanic tribe following at 
least in the end the Ostrogothic route – which does not mean they are 
proved to be Germanics as pointed out by George. 

Of the remaining 7 names Visandus is recognised as a later Germanic 
name (Visander), which does not tell anything about the origin, and 
some people try to make Ochus to be Oche or Ox, but other refer 
(including Aordus) to a Persian origin – which in the theory could be 
correct as the Heruls had lived at the Black Sea side by side with 
Alanes (and joined them at the Hunnic Campagne) and were often used 
as mercenaries in Asia Minor. Datius is sometimes mentioned as a 
Latin corruption of Danus, but other refer to Latin names. Are Dacius 
or Dag (Day) other possibilities? The U-dominated Uligagus is 
regarded as a clear corruption by David, but Felix Dahn regarded this 
as an early version of Wolfgang, and the uncommented Aluith, Arufus 
and Aruth use all the wowels A-U in an identical way in a short name. 
However the 7 names are not explained, which is according to the 
theory that the names can not give us an unequivocal answer about the 
people. 

Actually my questions was earlier initiated by the claim from Dirk, 
that the names Datius and Ochus belonged to a Milanese bishop and a 
Persian king. This should according to Dirk prove or at least 
indicate that Procopius had invented the whole story about the 
Herulian migration to Thule, including the Herulian prince returning 
from Thule in Procopius' own time. Also David Salo (and earlier 
S.Sonderegger) mentions these two names as having no Germanic 
character, but the 7 unexplained names and the general remarks and 
references from Iusteinus and Bertil confirm that the 2 very short 
names can not be used as evidence against Procopius, who was a 
Byzantine writing names in Greek, he had heard in a foreign language.

Troels
 



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