Getae as Goths

Cristian Mocanu crismoc at smart.ro
Wed Apr 11 09:40:11 UTC 2001


AFAIK, Herodot calls Getae "the bravest among Thracians", going on to list
some of their negative features in the very next paragraph. There is a
pretty common belief that the Getae and the Dacians defeated by Trajan were
the same people.Two things would be interesting in line of the postings on
this topic:
             a)What is the evidence supplied  for the Iranian origin of the
Getae (other than the 2-nd century AD confusion identifying all "Barbarian"
ihabitants of the Black Sea Coast (formerly called Getai by their Greek
neighbors in Histria, Messembria, Tomis etc. ) with the Scythi?
              b) What does Dio Cassius (a Greek writing in Greek about
Trajan's conquest of Dacia) call the defeated population in the original
text? "Getae" or something else? According to other hypothesis "Getae" was
the name used by Greeks, for what Romans called "Daci" (the latter name is
incidentally supposed to derive from IE *dhawo-s "strangler,wolf" as the
Dacians are depicted on Trajan's column in Rome as wearing wolf-head-shaped
adornments in battle).
                The solution to both points is beyond my bibliographical
reach at the moment, so I would appreciate any help.

God bless,

Cristian



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