[gothic-l] Re:

[Sunny]

Dear Albareiks and others, 

First of all, I appreciate your fair-mindedness and objectivity in 
this discussion.  We are not here to cause problem, simply learn more 
about the origins of the Goths, which has been shrouded in mystery 
since Jordanes' Getica (why not Gothica? Jordanes was a Goth 
himself).  In any event


"Sunny and Ravi have been arguing not that the Goths were Jats, but 
that the
Jats and Goths are both descendents of the Getae. Why have you tried 
to
twist their argument?"

Precisely.

"Though I do not agree with Ravi and Sunny, I do admire their
spirit of open mindedness and their exploration of different ideas."

Neither am I completely bent on the identification between the Goths 
and Getae, or the Goths and Scythians, but the shear fact that 
classical writer like Dexippos, Orosious, Cassidorus, Isidore of 
Seville, Jordanes, etc. mention the Scythians or the Getae and that 
as Dirk suggests many well-respected writers up to present have 
been "misled" shows there must by some reason for Pinkerton, Grimm, 
Rawlinson, Tod, Kephart (1960), etc. to make their identification.  I 
don't think we can close the door on the Scythians, they had 
incredible mobility as horse-mounted nomads and left very little of 
Eurasia unexplored.  

Even the most modern writers namely Wolfram (1988) and Christensen 
(2002) can't close the book on the Getae or Scythians.   Dirk is 
certainly not the first to slam the door shut on Scythians - much of 
modern scholarship suggests that the classical writers were guilty of 
manufacturing history. Hogkin and Mierow, for example, have suggested 
this and actually rejected portion of the Getica as erroneous.  In 
response, Calvin Kephart writes rather emphatically, "Cassidorus was 
correct in identifying the Getae of Northern Thrace and chief western 
Scythians (other than the Skolotic Kimmerians) after 634 BC as the 
Gothic nation, and it was erroneous for both Hodgkin and Mierow to 
reject chapters V-XIII of the Getica as a source of Gothic History 
(Kephart 1960: 466-467)."  

A little more recently, Littleton and Malcor, in a rather interesting 
and controversial book on Arthurian Legends entitled From Scythia to 
Camelot, argue that the core of the Arthurian legends were actually 
Iranian and came to Europe from the Sarmatians and Alans; they 
respond to a claim by author Goffart:

"According to Goffart, the Romans thought of the Goths as `Scythians' 
because they inhabited and used `Goth' as a new term for the same 
people instead of thinking of a new people on the old land.  In 
actuality the Romans may have known what they were talking about, 
given the number of Sarmatian and Alan tribes that were allied with 
the various tribes of Goths (Littleton and Malcor 2000: 27)."

So were the classical writers guilty of manufacturing history or ---?

Kephart, C. Races of Mankind Their Origin and Migration. New York. 
Philosophical Library: 1960.

Littleton C. and Malcor, L. From Scythia to Camelot. New York. 
Garland Publishing: 2000.

Regards,



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