[gothic-l] Jordanes and the Scandinavian Eruli

[george knysh]

 "Suetidi, cogniti in hac gente reliquis corpore
eminentiores: quamvis et Dani, ex ipsorum stirpe
progressi, Herulos propriis sedibus expulerunt, qui
inter omnes Scandiae nationes nomen sibi ob nimia
proceritate affectant praecipuum."

If the view that the allusion to the expulsion of the
Eruli by the Danes is an addition by Jordanes to the
text of Cassiodorus, and does not refer to some
mid-3rd century event as previously thought, then the
simplest interpretation is to see here a reference to
an event posterior to the Procopian tale of the
"summoning of a king from Thule" by the Illyrian
Eruli. This summoning is usually dated as of 548 AD.
So the catastrophic termination of the Erulian state
in Scandinavia (located between the Danes and the
Gauts) may correspondingly be dated to the period
548-551 AD. There are other possible views of course,
but they are all less probable that this simplest of
correlations between Jordanes and Procopius. And if
one must be sceptical, I prefer being sceptical about
less probable notions than about more probable ones.



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