[gothic-l] Re: Baltic Amber

[James Young]

Thanks Ingemar,

Somebody from one of Hermanric's vassal states murdered him, right? Just before a battle with the Huns on the Don or the Dneiper? The Huns killed his replacement and subjugated the Ostrogoths and other tribes. Then Athanaric and the Visigoths out of Dacia tried to stop them at the Dniester. They failed. Despite an agreement to stay out of the Empire after the Procopius debacle, Athanaric runs to Constantinople where he gets murdered. There is another reference to Athanaric as a short term leader of the Visigoths in Moetia after Fritigern dies, but before Alaric. I don't know if that is the same guy.

The idea of kings is more of an eastern philosophy while in the west elected judges still ruled smaller groups of communities. Alaric is I think the first king of the Visigoths and he is from the Balthus family who's royalty, like the Amani family (Hermanric, et al) is from the east Fritigern and Athanaric are great western leaders at thi time of hermanric, but they weren't kings.

Jim

Ingemar Nordgren <ingemar at nordgren.se> wrote:
--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, James Young <daddio52 at s...> wrote:
> Ingemar,
>
> Do you think Hermanric, the Ostrogoth, was trying to cut the Huns
out of the northern silk routs?
>
> Were there two Athanarics?
>
> Jim

Hi Jim,

I've never heard of that. The extent of his supposed realm only is
suggested by Cassiodorus/Jordanes and hence we know little of it.
Archaeology shows the way the Goths spread from the North but
archaeological finds do not suggest a Gothic control of the silk
routes in the time of Ermanarik - as far as I know anyway. He had work
enough to try to stop the Hunnic onslaught after they were driven
westwards themselves. As you know he didn't succed and Balamber took
over and made the Ostrogoths subordinated allies. Concerning the
kindins Athanarik there was only one but Jordanes mentiones him in one
context rather as Gothic/Ostrogothic king than Vesigothic kindins but
in another section he is Vesigothic. It needs kind of interpretation
when reading Getica.

Best
Ingemar



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