[gothic-l] Re: Jordanes and the Scandinavian Eruli

[Troels Brandt <trbrandt@post9.tele.dk>]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:
>  "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.

This is of course one out of several theoretical possibilities, but I
am not aware of any archaeological, historical or mythical support of
this interpretation.

I do not agree, that your suggestion is the most simple correlation.
He used "sedibus expulerunt" which is generally translated as an
expulsion from certain settlements and not a termination of a
kingdom. Actually Procopius used the word "tote" - also indicating
that the Heruls may have moved between their arrival and the reports
following Datius back to Procopius(earlier discussed with Andreas at
Germanic List). Procopius used a lot of actual information about the
Heruls, while Jordanes only mentioned the Heruls a few times in the
past except for this short sentence. There is no reason why Jordanes
should be better informed than Procopius who even finalised his books
a year later than Jordanes. In that case you have to fall back on
different motives, which is not the most simple correlation.

Therefore I do not see any reason to limit the period of Jordanes'
event to 548-51 AD - if this was Jordanes' own sentence.

Troels



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