[gothic-l] Re: Analogy between fate of Eruli and Burgundians?

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

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:
> (To Dirk)
> The part of your message dealing with the "mass
> slaughter" of Burgundians by the Huns in 437 was
> truncated in reply. But it's worth a brief comment
> isn't it? I don't see how this supports your view of
> Procopius on the double mass slaughter of the Eruli.
> The Burgundians went on to create a significant
> kingdom which lasted until 534. My understanding was
> that Gundahar's defeat only involved a part of the
> Burgundian army. And that is how I think Procopius
> should be read with respect to the Eruli. Perhaps the
> Erulian state collapsed in 509 not so much because of
> a "mass slaughter" of its warriors by the Lombards,
> but because it was a gathering of heterogeneous
> elements, led by the most energetic and aggressive
> "predator types" (for lack of a better term). The most
> violent among them decided to take on the Lombards,
> but not all went along with the idea. So we might
> assume that "most" of the group that faced the
> Lombards were indeed slaughtered, but that still left
> quite a few . These were unable to find an integrating
> ideology or programme to continue their earlier
> community, and so it disintegrated, with some going
> south to the Goths, others to Rugiland etc., and still
> others "back home" including those who wound up in
> southern Sweden.

This is worth a thought.

Our other source of this battle, Paulus Diaconis, who knew Procopius'
version or his source, told another story about the background, and
in his version Rodolphus did not even take part in the battle, but
stayed in the camp and was killed afterwards. Procopius told he had
to start the war because of a kind of a threatening uprise.

Paulus is not a reliable source, but neither is Procopius when it
comes to events being historical at his time as he as other
historians of that time was uncritical against his sources. I do not
think we have got the truth about the events in 509-512 AD.

This does not mean that we can't trust Procopius about events in the
540'ies, when he had no chance or motive to manipulate. He knew of
course in his position the exact numbers of soldiers in the Roman
army of that period including the Herulian soldiers and also the size
of the enemies, and when Dirk object against such figures referring
to unrealistic figures in the past (Anglo Saxons and Vandals in
earlier mails) this argument has no relevance.

Troels




You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/