[gothic-l] The extent of Hermanaric's realm

[george knysh]

--- faltin2001 <dirk at smra.co.uk> wrote:
> --- In gothic-l at y..., "Bertil Haggman"
 Personally I prefer to rely
> > on Jordanes here with the information that
> Ermanaric
> > subdued the Aesti, who dwell on the farthest shore
> of
> > the Germanic Ocean, and ruled all the nations of
> Scythia
> > and Germania by his own prowess.

****GK: As an afterthought to this. If you, Bertil,
wish to follow Jordanes, then you must believe that
Hermanaric's Empire stretched all the way to the
Rhine, since that is where "Germania" began (or
ended). Now that is a problem, in that a  ruler who
dominated the entire stretch north of the Roman limes
in the period ca. 350-370 AD could hardly have passed
unnoticed. Yet there is practically nothing about him
in Roman sources beyond Ammianus Marcellinus...If
you're not willing to accept the Rhine border, and
wish to interpret Jordanes more critically (as you
implicitly do by taking the Elbe and Dvina as
boundaries) then there is room for discussion, but one
will have to rely on other sources (or other passages
of Jordanes, as Dirk did).******
>
>(D) If you insist on relying on Jordanes for the size
> and expansion of
> Ermanerich's realm you should note that he said in
> Getica 4.25 "...
> it is said that when half the army had been brought
> over, the bridge
> whereby they had crossed the river fell in utter
> ruin, nor could
> anyone thereafter pass to or from."
>
> This line could be interpreted to mean that
> somewhere between
> Gothiscanza, i.e. the Wielbark region in northern
> Poland, and Oium,
> i.e. the Black Sea area, one part of the Goths lost
> complete contact
> with the other part who stayed behind. Jordanes
> stresses that nobody
> could go back or forth thereafter making it clear
> that in his view
> Black-Sea-Goths never went back north, while nobody
> came from the
> north. This would clearly support the delimination
> of Ermanerich's
> kingdom as set out earlier by George.
>
> However, the bridge episode is likely a methaphor to
> join real memory
> of Scythia with the origo legend favoured by
> Jordanes. In addition,
> it is important to bear in mind that Cassiodorus
> will have had good
> reason to exagerat or believe exaggerated reports
> about the extend of
> the kingdom of Ermanarich. In reality, there were
> most likely several
> hundred kilometeres between the northern-most limit
> of Ermanerich's
> kingdom and the Baltic Sea coast.
>
> Dirk
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>


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