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

Sun Dec 29 23:14:08 UTC 2002

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:
> --- "Troels Brandt <trbrandt at p...>"
> <trbrandt at p...> wrote:
> >
> >(Troels) 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.
>
> ******GK: I think the historical interpretation is
> sound enough as I've put it,

It was not my intention to deny that, but we have no OTHER records to
support it.

> *****GK: Not "sedibus expulerunt" but "PROPRIIS
> sedibus expulerunt", which means that the Eruli lost
> all the territory previously "proper" to them. And
> thus their state in the area ended. It was joined to
> the dominions of the Dani. The problem now would be to
> trace the fate of the "expelled".******

It is correct that the Heruls were expelled from their own
settlements, but I do not think that their kingship was so dependent
of a territory as the local people as they had been moving around for
150 years. They could impossibly be agriculturists, so they could
easily move again.

......
> ******GK: The end of their state in the north must
> have been quite an important event. As far as I know
> this is the only military conflict WITHIN SCANDINAVIA
> mentioned by either Jordanes or Procopius.*****

Agree, but neither do we know any other people leaving the sphere of
the Romans to settle in Scandinavia. This could even be an event
connected with the escape of Roduulf to the court of Theodorich -
making it very relevant to be mentioned in this way and in this
chapter of Getica - with Roduulf as the source before 519 AD.

> > There is no
> > reason why Jordanes
> > should be better informed than Procopius who even
> > finalised his books
> > a year later than Jordanes.
>
> *****GK: I disagree. Jordanes was at least partly of
> Gothic origin, and infinitely better disposed towards
> things Germanic than the Byzantine Procopius. The
> latter certainly finalized his work a little later
> than Jordanes, but would not necessarily have thought
> it important to bring his earlier notes up to date
> just to inform his public about events in Scandinavia
> which he did not deem consequential for his purposes.
> He had the same contemptuously dismissal attitude
> about Slavs. The only ones which really interested him
> were those which were at the border.******

They were both supposed to write in Constantinople - but Procopius
closer to court and army. Jordanes wrote about the past of Goths and
Procopius was primarily interested in contemporary details of the
Roman army and the court of Justinian. Even if the Heruls had been
Goths 300 years earlier and they maybe had been allied with Theodoric
40 years earlier, the Heruls had no importance to the Goths in the
540'ies - especially not the Scandinavian Heruls. The argument has
been used that Jordanes wanted to show that these barbarians could
not be sent back, but if the sentence had this contemporary purpose,
he forgot to tell that this was their origin - and neither did
Procopius. Opposite was the conflict very "hot" between the Romans,
the Herulian soldiers in the Roman army and the group following the
Scandinavian Datius/Aordus, when our authors finished their books,
making it much more relevant for Procopius to mention the destruction
of the homebase of the Roman enemy Datius - if this was the case -
than to suppress an already wellknown information of political
reasons opposite 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.
>
> ******GK: Given the points I made above, I don't think
> your conclusion is the simplest explanation of
> Procopius+ Jordanes,

If you refer to my suggestion about an event before the arrival of
the Heruls of Procopius I agree - but if you refer to my general
timeframe 450-550 AD and probably before 540 AD I disagree.

> and continue to hold that the
> most economical interpretation of their texts is the
> view that the Erulian state in Sweden was terminated
> by the Dani ca. 550 AD.*******

I am not sure there was a real Herulian state, when Datius left in
the 540'ies. I think their members of royal blood still had a
dominating role in the society since a member was worth going more
than 2*1100 km for, but their followers were probably in the middle
of an integration-proces with a Scandinavian people, since they never
showed up in myths and archaeology. This happened north of the Dani
since the envoy for a new king was considerably delayed as they had
to go back to the Heruls due to the death of their first candidate at
the Dani. There was no hostility at that time since they did not
avoid the Dani.

If Jordanes' event took place 509-551 AD the first settlements of the
Heruls should be found in the wooded borderareas between Dani and
Gautoi. Archaeological places like Vennebo and Ingelstad are situated
in this region, but to my knowledge there are no significant
Eastgermanic finds from around 500 AD in the region (but ErilaR-
inscriptions nearby) though earlier Swedish archaeologists worked
eagerly with a similar theory based on other reasons than Jordanes -
as presented some years ago by Bertil at this list. This could
indicate an early expulsion.

Troels

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