[gothic-l] Re: Tracing the Eruli

Thu Dec 26 21:31:22 UTC 2002

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:
> --- "Troels Brandt <trbrandt at p...>"
> <trbrandt at p...> wrote:
> >
> > One reason could be that they really were a new
> > people formed as a
> > mix of two or more people in the border areas of the
> > Chernyakhiv
> > Culture - as the ethymology of Ablasisus could
> > indicate.
>
> *****GK: A few things need to be kept in mind here.
> Let us assume that Ablabius' borrowed Dexippan
> etymology is proof of the Erulian location for the
> period of the ca. 250's (if they are the earlier
> "Borani") or the ca. 260's (when they emerge under
> their ethnonym). We would have to conclude that the
> Eruli were a fundamentally "Germanic" people (their
> leading elements, their name) distinguished from other
> such by a FUNDAMENTALLY different culture from the
> outset, and one which is in practice INDISTINGUISHABLE
> from that of the Iranic Alani.

In your reasoning you assume that I still believe the Heruls lived at
Tanais - and it may look so. However I have left that generally
accepted theory listening to you and others with better knowledge
about that region than we are used to. Mentioning the border areas
above my assumption was the Lower Dnepr (ON Danp) region, and I also
assume that they were fundamentally a "Germanic" people joined by
some Alans. This should survive Ockham's razor and this people would
be difficult to separate by archaeology from the other Estgermanic
and Sarmath/Alanic people following the Huns to Central Europe.

Dexippos could still believe they were a new people from the area of
the Bosporani as they used the Bosporanian navy when they attacked.
Therefore this misunderstood etymology was established. When this
misunderstanding via Ablasius and Cassiodorus became the "truth" in
the West this might internally be supported by legends of the Alanic
elements of the people with ancestors in that region. Regarding
eventual Norse links this is not a question about where they had
lived but where they believed they had lived - and also Danp (Dnepr)
is wellknown in the Norse legends.

> This is not in
> principle impossible, though Ockham's razor would not
> favour it. There is however an archaeological
> difficulty here. Bezuglov and Kopilov [I can give you
> the references to their work if you like]have
> demonstrated that in the mid-3rd c. AD a new Itanic
> (Alanic) population (Ammianus' "Tanaitae")appeared on
> the Lower Don, migrating there from the area of the
> plains further east...We would thus have to assume
> that this numerically dominant population was (or
> became) Erulian. Again a problem with the razor.
> Remember also that the Cc (to use Vladimir's useful
> abbreviation) initially did not move beyond the Dnipro
> r. (period 230 through ca. 330 AD). Only in the "era
> of Ermanaric" (as per Mahomedov)[=ca.330-375] do we
> see a massive expansion east of the Dnipro, BUT ONLY
> IN THE STEPPE-FOREST area, not in the steppes, which
> remain the preserve of the Iranic cultures. We would
> thus have to make a third assumption (which Ockham's
> razor would again have problems with): namely that the
> Eruli RETAINED their "Iranic" culture even after their
> conquest by Ermanaric and incorporation into his
> realm... Add to this the historical attestation of
> Ammianus Marcellinus (very reliable and close to the
> events in question) that the basin of the Don was
> politically controlled by the Alanic Tanaitae at the
> time of the Hunnic onslaught (ca. 375 AD) and we have
> a further problem: i.e. if Ermanaric conquered the
> Eruli they could not have been located at the mouth of
> the Don, since that territory was not included in his
> "uberes pagos".== Now I don't have any difficulty in
> dismissing the Dexippan "etymology" since I view it as
> erroneous. And there is nothing to indicate the
> location of the original Eruli in the "swamps" of
> Maeotis except this dubious etymology. The subsequent
> history of the Eastern Eruli in the West is not really
> dependent on it, and the mixed ethnic nature of the Cc
> is fully compatible with the quality of the later
> Erulian society. As indicated in an earlier posting,
> however, there IS a way of maintaining the link
> between Eruli and the lower Don (the proof is not
> conclusive but arguable), viz., that they are
> represented by the Cc settlements which appear here in
> the first half of the 5th century. On that scenario,
> the Eruli would have been moved there by the Huns, and
> subsequently followed both Alans and Huns to the West.
> When Jordanes wrote of "Ermanaric's Empire" he
> arbitrarily assumed that the Eruli conquered by the
> Golden Scythian were already on the Lower Don in the
> mid-4th c. and earlier (rather than only from ca. 400
> AD), a notion which the Ablabian utilization of
> Dexippos reinforced. This little Jordanic "error" was
> not particularly significant given the notion that
> Ermanaric "ruled all the nations of Scythia and
> Germania". Of course the problem of Erulian
> archaeological continuity [East, Danube,
> North]remains, whatever the scenario. I see no problem
> in accepting the basic elements of the Procopius
> account supplemented by Jordanes. In my view (subject
> to correction) the simplest explanation is to have a
> fairly substantial number of Erulians (not hundreds
> but thousands, probably tens of thousands)trek
> northward into southern Sweden, establishing
> themselves "nest to" (not "among" since they retained
> their political independence and identity) the Gauts.
> This became their "propriae sedes" in Scandinavia
> during the period ca. 510-ca. 548 AD. Some time during
> 548-551 there was a major war with the Danes, the
> result of which is reported by Jordanes as the loss of
> their "propriae sedes" by the Eruli. What happened to
> them afterwards has not been historically recorded. So
> we must rely on the evidence of archaeology and sagas
> etc. to emit hypotheses (as do Troels and others). The
> only certain thing is that this loss of their "sedes"
> led to the abandonment of a collective identity
> enjoyed by the Eruli for some 300 years.*****

Maybe, but this Jordanes story is a part of the chapter generally
regarded as written by Cassiodorus. The Scandinavian king Roduulf at
the court of Theodoric might be the source for this information and
the event may have taken place before the Heruls of Procopius
arrived. Eastgermanic people were present in Scania (inhabited by the
Danes) in the middle of the 5th century (Heruls or Goths in Soesdala,
Fulltofta and Vennebo according to Fabech). This year the
archaeologists have been buzy in Vennebo and Finnestorp in the
borderlands between the Dani and Gautoi of that time. There is
probably no doubt anymore that these finds are offerings of weapons
in wet areas belonging to defeated armies using a.o. Soesdala
(Untersiebenbrunn) style and Nydam style - but to my knowledge the
archaeologists are still waiting to see a big find detected in the
lake at Vennebo. Some of these finds (the Eastgermanic horse
equipment) may be connected to the Heruls of Jordanes, but they are
probably too early for the Heruls of Procopius.

Troels

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