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

[george knysh]

--- "Dr. Dirk Faltin <dirk at smra.co.uk>"
<dirk at smra.co.uk> wrote:
> > > Procopius tells us that the Illyrian Heruls
> > > harrassed the local Roman
> > > provincials. This alone could have been enought
> for
> > > slaves and minor
> > > peasants to join the marauding groups of Heruls.
> >
> > GK: A comment in passing. The "joiners"
> would
> > have been very few indeed, since otherwise this
> would
> > have precipitated a social crisis. So in a very
> real
> > sense this red herring by Dirk doesn't matter in
> the
> > least, and does not influence retroactive
> computation
> > of Illyrian-Erulian strength on the basis of
> > Procopius' figures of 3000+1500.
>
>
>
> George,
>
> this is a completely empty argument it seems to me.
> Just because you
> assume that this would cause a 'social crisis' you
> reject the
> possibility of Roman slaves and disgruntled tax
> payers to join the
> remaining Heruls. Large numbers of slaves, mine
> workers and
> agricultural labourers have joined Visigoths and of
> the Sueves of
> Spain we hear that they once even joined forces with
> very large
> groups of Bacaudae, yet we never hear that his has
> caused any 'social
> crisis'. You cannot reject an argument just because
> assume that
> something might have happened, for which you have no
> basis
> whatsoever. Hence, mine is a perfectly valid
> argument and it does
> matter for any attemt to extrapolate tribal
> strength.
>
> Dirk


******GK: No, Dirk. it is your argument which is both
empty and a red herring. It is obviously intended to
question retroactive computations of Erulian military
strength on the basis of the figures given by
Procopius (1500+3000), which you initially had no
means of dealing with other than by asserting
(arbitrarily) that they were inflated. When that
didn't work you tried the route of large "local"
additions to the original Eruli. But as you like to
say whenever you are displeased with someone else's
somewhat more probable speculative reconstructions
(more probable than yours), there is not a shred of
evidence either in Procopius or anywhere else that
this actually happened. In fact, given his nasty
descriptions of the Eruli, it is precisely the reverse
which is the more arguable, and your references to
different situations elsewhere are quite irrelevant to
the issue at hand. *****
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >
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