Re: When Getae equaled Goths

--- In cybalist@..., "stevelong02" <x99lynx@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> 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 in
> > Jordanes/Cassiodorus stems from the authority of
> > Paulus Orosius (cf. Getica,44.)
>
> First, sorry for popping in and out of the list like this and not
> finishing up on things I may have promised to do here, but time has
> been a terrible problem.
>
> Next, let me take issue with George here.
>
> Neither Jordanes nor Orosius seem to be the first to connect the
> Goths and the Getae.

*****GK: Hello Steve! Welcome back. Thanks for your most interesting
review. But you're not really taking issue with me here, since I did
not claim that either Jordanes or Orosius were the first to make this
connection. I said that Jordanes' point was backed up by a reference
to Orosius.==== I've been having problems with the reception of e-
mails from yahoogroups lists, and am reduced to looking at home pages
to keep up with the most recent posts. But as soon as your copy
arrives, I'll try to comment on some other aspects of it. Do stick
around, not just for this, but in general. Your posts were always
quite stimulating in spite of our occasional differences of
opinion.*****

In fact, it may have been a fairly common thing

> to refer to the Goths as Getae for some three hundred years before
> Jordanes.
>
> I have some old notes here. In the early fourth century, Aelius
> Spartianus in his Life of Caracalla wrote regarding his subject's
> triumphal names: "For when he assumed the surnames Germanicus,
> Parthicus, Arabicus, and Alamannicus..., Helvius Pertinax, son of
> Pertinax, said to him in jest, or so it is said, "Add to the

others,

> please, that of Geticus Maximus also"; for he had slain his brother
> Geta, and Getae is a name for the Goths, whom he conquered, while

on

> his way to the East,..."
>
> So it seems there was talk of "Getae" = "Gothi" only about 50 years
> after Dexippus' first fragmentary reference to Goths in Greek texts.
>
> Claudian (born @ 370 AD) also use Getae and Goth interchangeably in
> his lives of the emperors. And there is also the inscription on

the

> triumphal arch regarding Alaric quoted by Gibbon:"...but in less

than

> seven years, the Gothic conquerors of Rome might read, if they were
> able to read, the superb inscription of that monument, which

attested

> the total defeat and destruction of their nation.... 'Getarum
> nationem in omne aevum domitam,...' So it would appear that the
> inscribers of that arch also thought the Goths were Getae.
>
> It seems probable from all this that the Goths as Getae was not a
> mere convenient connection made centuries later. In fact, I don't
> think anyone we know of did not connect Goths and Getae before

maybe

> 1400AD.
>
> What's even more interesting perhaps is that the name Getae (as
> referring to anyone else but the Goths) also seems to mysteriously
> disappear at the same time the name Goth appears. I've asked on
> other lists and in private posts for anyone to contradict me on

this.

>
> No one has so far. (Not to say someone couldn't, but no one has.)
> The same is true for the sometimes repeated assertion that there is
> some kind of evidence that the Goths destroyed the Getae. I've

never

> seen that evidence either.
>
> One problem really is that the name "Getae" floats around a lot in
> the ancient texts. They are a different kind of Thracians among
> Thracians in Herodotus. And they are a group among groups along the
> Danube in Arrian and Strabo. When Dacians are mentioned in Strabo,
> they are kind of like Getae from west of the Getae.
>
> Both Herodotus and Strabo also mention the "desert of the Getae" or
> no-man's land northeast of the Danube. And that might suggest that
> "Getes" was a place as well as it was a people at some earlier

point

> in time. And for ancient writers that could be the reason for

giving

> the name. The Goths WERE Scythians in the sense that they lived in
> Scythia at one point. That Roman who wrote of living among the

Huns

> as a hostage used the names Huns and Scythians interchangeably.
> Obviously, these ancient people weren't quite as sticky about using
> such names as we would have hoped them to be.
>
> The Goth/Getae connections given above proves nothing. But it does
> leave open possibilities. And these kind of possibilities of

course

> can't be eliminated with any kind of real certainty.
>
> My own idea in this direction is that maybe the name Getae became
> connected with Germanic language speakers north of the Danube
> sometime before the "coming of the Goths." Not exclusively or at

all

> times. But just enough to make it comfortable for writers well
> before Jordanes to use the name interchangeably. I think the key

to

> that connection had something to do with a group called the

Bastarnae.

>
> My other sneaking suspicion is that Theodoric, big fan of
> Tacitus, wanted nothing geneaologically to do with the Bastarnae or
> Peucini, whom Tacitus insulted viciously for mixing with

Sarmatians.

> And that may explain why the Bastarnae name mainly disappears from
> Jordanes (and presumably his source, Cassiodorus) and possibly

other

> texts that would have impugned Theodoric's bloodline, which needed

to

> be as "pure" as the Julians.
>
> But, before 150AD, the Bastarnae/Peucini were a major factor north

of

> the Danube and along the Black Sea. They apparently controlled the
> mouth of the Danube- the Isle of Peuci - which would seem to be a
> serious piece of real estate. They were mercenaries and were hired
> by a Macedonian king to remove the Dardanii and allegedly to attack
> Rome. In connection with the attack on Olbia, their name is used
> together with the Getae. They are allies of the Dacians and
> effective protectors of the Bosporian kingdom in battles against
> Rome.
> And Strabo and Tacitus tells us they were Germanic speakers.

Perhaps

> East Germanic speakers like the Goths.
>
> And perhaps even Jordanes slips up once. He tells us that a later
> Gothic king raised an army that included "Goths and Peucini from

the

> isle of Peuci." We don't otherwise hear of Goths in the island of
> Peuci and don't know how they got there.
>
> If Theodoric had the Bastarnae stricken from the family tree

because

> they mixed-married, he had a gap to fill in time and location.

There

> was no memory of any migration in the second century AD from

Poland.

> And the Scandinavian origin thing starts to our knowledge with
> Jordanes. But the only living memory of the Goths mentioned by
> Jordanes were songs sung of being called "Pilleati"

and "Capillati" -

> a clear connection to the Dacians. So, perhaps Goths as Bastarnae
> and Getae as Dacians at some point shared some common cultural,
> religious or other connection that neighbors and allies often do.
> That would allow Theodoric via Cassiodorus to adopt the Getae as

the

> "pure" ancesters so important to the new "birthright" kings.
>
> However, given the situation on the Danube described by Strabo in

the

> century before Christ, it doesn't sound like anyone was free of
> "inter-mingling," especially with the Thracians:
>
> "The language of the Daci is the same as that of the Getae. Among

the

> Greeks, however, the Getae are better known because the migrations
> they make to either side of the Danube are continuous, and because
> they are intermingled with the Thracians...
> For at the present time these tribes [Scythians and Sarmatians], as
> well as the Bastarnian tribes, are intermingled with the Thracians -

> more indeed with those outside the Danube, but also with those
> inside... " - Strabo, Geography, 7.3
>
> Steve Long
>
>
>
>
> ......................................