[gothic-l] Re: Tracing the Eruli

[george knysh]

--- "Troels Brandt <trbrandt at post9.tele.dk>"
<trbrandt at post9.tele.dk> wrote:
> The people who suddenly sent a big army far away
> with the Bosporanian
> navy were not nomads from the steppes, but people
> knowing boats -
> being newcomers or people without access to the
> Black Sea and
> seagoing vessels themselves from their settlements.
> Starting such
> raids they probably already knew the possibilities
> and the
> Bosporanians - making the most likely possibility to
> be a people at
> the Cc-river-outposts at the Dnepr just having to
> cross 150 km of
> steppe before reaching the sea of Asov.
>
> If the Heruls lived east of Dniestr in 268 AD as
> proposed by
> Mahomedov, it is difficult to explain why they went
> 500 km against
> east along the Black Sea crossing several rivers to
> reach the
> Bosporanian navy and then sailing back again along
> the coast to
> Byzans - unless they ordered a navy to pick them up.
>
>
> In the last case the cooperation should rather be
> due to an alliance
> between Goths, Heruls and Bosporanians. The attacks
> in 267-68 AD
> could be a part of the war between Goths and Romans
> ending up with
> the victorious Aurelean giving up Dacia in 271 AD.
> In this connection
> it should be noticed that the emperor (Gallienus)
> himself commanded
> the Roman army in the battle against the Herulian
> group of
> Naulobates.
>
> I suspect the Scandinavians in the Gothic area to be
> Goths or Eudosi -
>  the latter maybe leaving Jutland around 200 AD
> during the wars there
> (a.o. Illerup) - or earlier - and going southeast
> again along the
> Black Sea when the Huns arrived around 360-370.
>
> Would these Eudosi speak a Westgermanic or a
> Northgermanic language?
>
> Troels

******GK: Something else to keep in mind about the
politics and international relations of southeastern
Europe. The contacts between Gothic peoples and
Bosporani began in the late 2nd c. AD. It seems that
there was a nearly conjoined attack upon the dominions
of the Late Scythian state and its allies. The Goths
defeated the Spali (the ruling class of this state)
and occupied areas previously held by their Slavic
associates in Volynia and on the upper Boh(g). The
Bosporani annexed the Crimean holdings of the
Scythians as well as their Lower Dnipro cities during
the reign of Sauromatos II (174-211). So there would
have been "border" contact between Goths etc. and
Bosporani quite early. At first peaceful. The arrival
of a new player in the mid-3rd c. disturbed this. It
is now felt that the Tanaitae were the major culprit
in the destruction of Tanais (a Bosporan city at the
mouth of the Don) in ca. 251-254. The subsequent
internal revolution in Bosporus, which brought a new
set of rulers to the helm of the state (as reported by
Zosimos) gave the Goths etc. their opportunity. So
they really didn't have to travel 150 or 500
kilometers through hostile country. Zosimos even
intimates that the Goths supported this Bosporan
revolution, and their "reward" was the use of the
Bosporan navy. The Bosporan control of the Lower
Dnipro  still existed in the mid- 3rd c.*****



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