[gothic-l] Re: Tracing the Eruli

[george knysh]

--- "Dr. Dirk Faltin <dirk at smra.co.uk>"
<dirk at smra.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > We will likely never know, but there are hundreds
of
> > reasons one
> > could come up with
> Maybe the Varnians did not want
> > them?
>
> GK: More likely the Varnians accepted the Eruli
> of Varnian origin. The rest then moved on.




George, we have absolutely no evidence that their
where Eruli of
Varinain origin or that the Varnians accepted any
Eruli. I don't know
where you got that from.

*****GK: Hone your critical faculties a bit, Dirk, or
your “esprit de finesse” if you prefer (following
Pascal)(:=)) Since you must obviously admit, as you do
in another post, that the Eruli were of heterogeneous
composition, there is absolutely no evidence that the
Varnians must be excluded as elements of the Danubian
(or even East European for that matter) Erulian
community; and from the “route to Thule” it is a
wholly permissible inference that there were families
of Slavs, Varnians, Dani, Gauts etc. among the
“Eruli”.******

  Again, we will never
> > know, but whatever we
> > make of it I cannot see how the report by
Procopius
> > can be read as a
> > mass migration of tens of thousands of well
> > organised Heruls.
>
> GK: After further discussion the numbers at the
> start were reduced to ca. 20,000, with the further
> assumption that they diminished as the trek
proceeded,
> so that only a few thousand may actually have
settled
> "next to the Gauts", including many of "the royal
> blood".


Well, this is now already much closer to my original
suggestions.
Note, also when you argued that Procopius would never
have bothered
writing about a 'puny' force of 500 to 1000 warriors.
Yet, in the
Gothic war he reports at length how a Gothic force of
up to 1000 men
held two cities and two Italian provinces.

******GK: (Sigh) Of course Procopius could write about
1000, 100, or even two or three individuals under
appropriate circumstances. The point is that he would
not have bothered to write as much about the Eruli AS
A PEOPLE if they were as insignificant as you
systematically claim them to be.******




GK:The larger number ("Tens of thousands")was
> posited earlier on the basis of the second fantastic
> claim by Procopius, viz., that "most" of the initial
> Herulian contingent which crossed the Danube was
> subsequently slaughtered by the Romans.*****
(Troels)> > The description of their
> > > departure is not strong enough to convince that
> > Procopius really
> > > knew. He was unclear and the "picture" he used
was
> > maybe just
> > > symbolic in order to hide his own lacking
> > knowledge. Therefore I
> > > GUESS they separated already in Moravia trying
> > first the Moravian
> > > Gate against the Vistula, where they were
> > surprised by so many
> > > westgoing groups of Slavs that they preferred to
> > follow the western
> > > route through barren country instead – and
> > guessing is what you are
> > > doing too.
> >
> >
> >
> > (Dirk)This really, is a guess as you say yourself
and as
> > such it lacks any
> > foundation in the sources. I just hope you are not
> > using this guess
> > for further analysis.
>
> GK: You may not have noticed that Troels contends
> that you are also guessing. I agree with him, and
feel
> that his guess has more substance than yours.



Well I am content that you have greatly reduced your
original
estimate to 'a few thousand' Thule Heruls, which is
roughly in line
with my own estimate. Revising once view in light of
better arguments
is an honorable thing to do.

*****GK:Well the less we get into honour the better.
My basic point is that the Eruli after 509 remained a
significant (if not major) power, especially in the
North, and that the various theories propounded by
Troels, Tore, and Einar as to their subsequent
contributions to the development of Scandinavian
politics are preferable to denigrating musings about
them.******





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