Killing the Elderly

[Edmund Fairfax]

The notion that Ermanaric killed himself as a kind of self-sacrifice is sheer fanciful speculation. The only sources that speak of this king -- to wit, Ammianus Marcellinus (31, 3, 1-2) and Jordanes (24, 129-130) -- say nothing about self-sacrifice:


Ammianus Marcellinus (XXXI, 3, 1-2) Yonge translation:

1. Therefore the Huns, after having traversed the territories of the Alani, and especially of that tribe of them who border on the Gruthungi, and who are called Tanaitae, and having slain many of them and acquired much plunder, they made a treaty of friendship and alliance with those who remained. And when they had united them to themselves, with increased boldness they made a sudden, incursion into the extensive and fertile districts of Ermenrichus, a very warlike prince, and one whom his numerous gallant actions of every kind had rendered formidable to all the neighbouring nations. 2. He was astonished at the violence of this sudden tempest, and although, like a prince whose power was well established he long attempted to hold his ground, he was at last overpowered by a dread of the evils impending over his country, which were exaggerated by common report, till he terminated his fear of great danger by a voluntary death.


(Jordanes XXIV, 129-130) Mierow translation:

Now although Hermanaric, king of the Goths, was the conqueror of many tribes, as we have said above, yet while he was deliberating on this invasion of the Huns, the treacherous tribe of the Rosomoni, who at that time were among those who owed him their homage, took this chance to catch him unawares. For when the king had given orders that a woman of the tribe I have mentioned, Sunilda by name, should be bound to wild horses and torn apart by driving them at full speed in opposite directions (for he was roused to fury by her husband's treachery to him), her brothers Sarus and Ammius came to avenge their sister's death and plunged a sword into Hermanaric's side. Enfeebled by this blow, he dragged out a miserable existence in bodily weakness. Balamber, king of the Huns, took advantage of his ill health to move an army into the country of the Ostrogoths, from whom the Visigoths had already separated because of some dispute. Meanwhile Hermanaric, who was
 unable to endure either the pain of his wound or the inroads of the Huns, died full of days at the great age of one hundred and ten years. The fact of his death enabled the Huns to prevail over those Goths who, as we have said, dwelt in the East and were called Ostrogoths.


It is hard to imagine how the king's voluntary death could have helped in practical terms: his demise would have surely destabilized the realm, making the latter more vulnerable and more of a target for foreign invasion. Indeed, Jordanes specifically states that his death "enabled the Huns to prevail".

Edmund





On Thursday, January 30, 2014 12:34:08 PM, Thomas Chelmowski <the_lothian at yahoo.com> wrote:
 
  
The author also talks about sacrificing the king if the people are  having a hard go of it.  
Ermanaric, the Greuthingi Goth king killed himself (a self-sacrifice was suggested in one of the history texts I read) when he was losing to the Huns.  
  If one is true, it makes me think that the other might also be true.
Any suggestions or comments?
Tom



On Thursday, January 30, 2014 9:39 AM, OSCAR HERRE <duke.co at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
 
  
I was curious about their daily habits ....worship, food and farming,.....shelter for themselves,etc.....
feasts and drinking such as wine or whatever they did do relieve themselves......

From: marja erwin <marja-e at riseup.net>
To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2014 10:22 AM
Subject: Re: [gothic-l] Killing the Elderly
 
  
On Thu, 2014-01-30 at 08:17 -0800, the_lothian at yahoo.com wrote:
> 
> Hello All,
> 
> I am reading "Barbarian Rites" by Hans-Peter Hasenfratz.  In his
> chapter on Society and its Values he writes
> 
> The practice of killing the elderly, which is attested among the
> eastern and northern Germanic peoples, was probably connected to the
> idea of sparing "useless mouths" from the fate of a straw death.
> 
> The straw-death referring to dying in your bed. 
> Can anyone help me confirm this before I put it into my novel?
> 
> Thanks,
> Tom

This is the firs I've heard of it. This would, if true, show up in
funerary archaeology, so it should be testable.




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