From: tgpedersen
Message: 12756
Date: 2002-03-19
>I appreciate the consistency of your imagery, but please forgive me
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> *****GK: Sounds as though someone is picking up that
> ragged whip again and looking with interest at that
> pile of old horse bones with an itch in the wrist...
> The (mis)identification of Goths and Getae in1. Jordanes identification of Scythians with Goths is wrong.
> Jordanes/Cassiodorus stems from the authority of
> Paulus Orosius (cf. Getica,44.) The work in question
> {"Historiarum adversus paganos libri septem" completed
> ca. 418) is unfortunately not available on line (to my
> knowledge at least). But that is not the only massive
> misidentification in the GETICA. Equally absurd is the
> contention that the Goths and Scythians are one and
> the same, and that consequently one may incorprate
> into Gothic history whatever one finds convenient in
> Roman and Greek authors concerning the Scythians of
> yore. Pompeius Trogus is a good milk, as are others,
> and we find Jordanes turning the Roman's account of an
> ancient struggle between Scythians (in Trogus' sense)
> and Egyptians, into a struggle betwen Goths and
> Egyptians. The Amazons become Gothic women, and
> Tomyris becomes a Gothic Queen... Priskos has limited
> utility here, since his "Royal Scythian" Huns can't be
> turned into Goths (:=))Jordanes does not give an
> explicit authority for this second major
> misidentification (Scythians=Goths), but any number of
> late authors might have been responsible.
> Reconstruction of genuine Gothic history in
> Jordanes/Cassiodorus must begin by jettisoning these
> ancient errors (Goths=Getae; Goths=Scythians) and rely
> on those elements in his account which can be linked
> to the true historical Goths, those mentioned for the
> first time in the writings of 1rst c. AD authors.*****
>