[gothic-l] Christensen's book on the Goths

[faltin2001]

I have had a first quick read-through of the new book by Arne Soby 
Christensen „Cassiodorus Jordanes and the History of the Goths", 
Museum Tusculum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2002. 

The book is based on the author's PhD thesis and consists of 391 
pages. I found the book very interesting. If Wolfram shows us how 
incredibly much we know about the Goths, Christensen shows us how 
incredibly little we really know about the Goths. The book is, in my 
view in a modern critical historiographic tradition, similar to 
authors like Goffart and Hachmann. As such the author analysis and 
revaluates many aspects, which others have come to accept as given. 

In the first chapter, the author sets out the problem. The author 
shows that Jordanes's Getica has become to be regarded as the 
autorative source on Gothic history. The author shows that Swedish 
Gothicism was based on the Getica and its veracity. The author poses 
the question why scholars had become to value the writing of a rather 
insignificant and limited author like Jordanes over that of a far 
more erudite scholar like Isidore of Seville. The answer is that 
Jordanes claims to have based parts of his Getica on real Gothic 
traditions (carmina prisca).

Chapter 2 deals with the literature that mentions the Goths prior to 
Cassiodorus/Jordanes. The author establishes that Roman and Greek 
sources knew very little about the Goths, especially did they know 
nothing about the origins of the Goths. The author also reminds us 
that identifications like the Gotones with the later Gothi should not 
be taken for granted. There is no definite proof that these were 
really the same people, only circumstantial evidence, some of which 
does not fully convince. 

In Chapter 3, the author analysis Cassiodorus' writing like the 
Chronica and Variae. The author shows that all information about the 
Goths in these works was taken from classical sources. There is no 
sign of a Gothic tradition in these works. Chapter 4 deals with 
Jordanes' background and other works.

In Chapter 5, the author analysis the Amal genealogy. He shows that 
the genealogy which starts in the time of Domitianus cannot have been 
a Gothic tradition. The king Dorpaneus, which Jordanes/Cassiodorus 
made into an Amal, was in fact not even a Goths. Jordanes Getica is 
essentially out of line with contemporary authors like Tacitus. The 
author also shows that identifications like Gapt with Gaut and Hulmul 
with the Danish Humble are not convincing, and have been given very 
controversial treatment in the literature.

In Chapter 6, the author deals with the Gothic kingdom of Ermaneric. 
The author shows that all the information here was borrowed from 
Ammianus Marcellinus and was essentially not a Gothic tradition. The 
famous name list of subjugated peoples was very controversially 
interpreted in the literature. At least some of the names were 
invented, probably by Cassiodorus and/or inspired by the tales of 
Aesti emissaries at the court of Ravenna. Alas, they were not handed 
down by Gothic tradition. The perplexing thing is that Ermaneric was 
not praised in the Gothic carmina prisca either. 

Chapter 7 reproduces the evidence and argument to show that the 
various names of the Goths (Vesi, Ostrogoths, Greuthungi, Tervingi) 
were not ancient at the time of Cassiodorus. Instead, they only 
appeared at the end of the 4th century and do not predate the 
onslaught of the Huns, which is in contrast to the claims by 
Jordanes. 

Chapter 8 deals with various aspects of the Goths' time in Scythia as 
reported in the Getica. The author shows that the various elements 
were borrowed from other Roman and Greek sources. Even the episode 
with the  Halirunnae, are essentially a Christian motif that cannot 
have been passed down by Gothic tradition. The author also deals with 
the personal names of Goths reported by Jordanes, such as the king 
Telephus. The author states that Jordanes realised that he mentioned 
many non-Gothic names in the early history of the Goths. Hence, he 
introduced the apology stating that it is not uncommon for one people 
to borrow the names from others. The conclusion to this chapter is 
that there is no genuine Gothic tradition reaching back to this time 
in Scythia reflected in the Getica. What is more, Jordanes, who 
himself claimed to be a Goth could not contribute anything from this 
own experience. 

Chapter 9 deals with the migration from Scandza. The author provides 
a thorough discussion of the names of Scandzian tribes as reported in 
the Getica. The conclusion here is that these names do not provide 
any support for a migration of the Goths from Scandinavia. Many of 
the names have been made up by Cassiodorus. The author states that 
nothing in the Scandza section can be linked to the Goths or Gothic 
tradition. This is important since one argument in the past was that 
the name of the Goths was preserved in Scandinavian place names like 
Gotland, Oestergoetland and Vestergoetland. Instead, the author shows 
that Cassiodorus in his research for the History of the Goths came 
across not only the names Getae and Magog to which he linked the 
Goth, but also the name Gautai in Ptolemy. This coincidental name 
similarity with the Gautai inspired him to place the origin of the 
Goth in Scandza. The author cites H.F. Nielsen (1997) "There are no 
tenable philological arguments supporting a particular Gotho-Nordic 
branch of Germanic, nor are there consequently any such arguments 
supporting a Gothic migration from Scandinavia, as is sometimes 
presented to be".

In Chapter 10 the author analysis the migration episode in more 
detail. Again, he finds no evidence that suggests that the report of 
Berig leading three ships of Goths (one of Gepids) from Scandza to 
Gothicscandza, has anything to do with genuine Gothic traditions. The 
Goths of the time had no such memory and the story is fabricated by 
Cassiodorus. For example, Isidore of Seville provided various 
possibilities for the origin of the Goths, but he knew nothing of 
Scandza either. Even the name Berig may have been borrowed from Dio, 
who reported about a certain Berikos, who was driven to flee the 
island of Britannia at the time of Claudius I. 

In Chapter 11, the author demonstrates that even important recent 
events like the battle of the Catalaunian fields was not retold on 
the basis of Gothic traditions. Instead Cassiodorus relied only on 
Roman authors for information about such a pivotal event in recent 
Gothic history.

Chapter 12 concludes the book. The author stated that the Getica does 
not present a genuine Gothic history on the basis of Gothic tales or 
songs. Instead it is a fabrication, bases on various Roman and Greek 
sources and the wrong identification of the Goths with the Getae, the 
biblical Magog and the Gautai mentioned in Ptolemy. What is important 
is that the Goths had no notion of a common origin from Scandinavia 
prior to Cassiodorus' invention of such a history. The final 
sentences read " Parting is often a painful process, as in this case, 
where we must relinguish something we have grown accustomed to 
regarding as Gothic history. Accepting the loss can also be quite 
challenging. Yet, if Cassiodorus created this part of Gothic historty 
out of nothing, or rather, if he formed it by creatively using the 
histories of other peoples and employing his own imagination, then 
what we are losing is hardly the history of the Goths. It is merely 
the author's fabrication fading away. On the other hand, it is 
extremely interesting to investigate, from a contemporary 
perspective, the narrative Cassiodorus was able to create and 
presumably have accepted as the history of the Goths 
"

Overall, I think that this is an important book. It shows that the 
one basis that linked the Goths with Scandinavia is only a 
fabrication of an early 6th century Roman. The author even shows that 
philological evidence for a Gothic link to Scandinavia does not 
exist, just as there is no basis for linking them with the Getae and 
the biblical Magog. Thus, the Getica which had dominated all research 
on the Goths for centuries cannot be used to write the early history 
of this people. 


Cheers
Dirk


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