Epithets used for Theodosius, for Constantinople, etc.

[d.faltin at HISPEED.CH]

I think the address "dude" comes across rather quaint and inappropriate, but anyway. 
  
 No you are wrong Oscar. It is well documented that other barbarians joined the Goths in great numbers. The historical sources mention slaves joining the Tervingi/Vesi of the late 4th early 5th centuries. Later, you find the Ostrogoths incorporating parts of the Alamanni that fled from Frankish attacks and of course there  are many individual references to mixing and mingling. I remember one of these edited conference volumes on the Visigoths (I have to get the reference), where the participants agree that at most 50% of the Goths in western Europe were ethnic Goths.
  
 Also, their is no evidence that "the Goths" (I suppose you are talking about the followers of Alaric) were a Mafia. Their precise nature is unknown, with some hirstorians arguing that they were probably much like a Roman army. Indeed, Alaric's greatest ambition seemed to have been to become a Roman general.
  
 The Ostrogothic struggle against the Byzantines is another example of alliances, cooperations and integration not to mention the successive attempts by Gothic leaders to sell out their people in return for Roman favours. 
  
 As for the language. I agree that the Alaric Goths will have spoken Gothic, i.e. East Germanic. However, it is in my view very likely that many and especially the elites were bilingual with the use of Gothic diminishing rapidly in the course of the 5th century among those Gothic groups in Gaul and later Spain.
 Importantly, there have never been "the Goths" only very diverse groups of East Germanic people that Romans identified as "Goths" and more often than not as "Scythians". How these people identified themselves is in many cases unknown.
  
 As for this "together we live, together we die"- nonsense ... no comment :-)
  
 Cheers,
 Dirk
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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