The Origin and Deeds of the Goths

The Origin and Deeds of the Goths (Latin: De origine actibusque Getarum), often referenced by the name assigned to it by Theodore Mommsen: Getica, was written by the churchman, Jordanes, probably during his detention in Constantinople by Justinian, and was published in AD 551. It claims to summarize a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the origin and history of the Gothic people, the now lost Gothic History. In his Preface Jordanes presents his plan

"to condense in my own style in this small book the twelve volumes of Senator on the origin and deeds of the Getae from olden times to the present day."

Jordanes admits that he did not then have access to those twelve volumes, and could not remember the words. He added things of his own authorship according to the sense that he remembered (he says). Thus none of the work is in the words of Cassiodorus, and there is no way now to discern which incidents came from him. The work is sometimes ascribed to Cassiodorus but most recognize Jordanes as its author.

The Getica is significant as the only remaining source on the origin of the Gothic people who for a time dominated east Europe and were dispersed by the Huns.

Time and place of authorship

Jordanes tells us in Getica that he interrupted work on the Romana (see under Jordanes) to write Getica, and then finished Romana. Jordanes states in Romana that he wrote it in the 24th year of the emperor Justinian, which began April 1, 551. In Getica he mentions a plague of nine years previous. This is probably the plague that began in Egypt in 541, reached Constantinople in 542 and went on to Italy in 543.

Importance

Because Cassiodorus' original version has not survived, Jordanes' work is one of the most important sources for the period of the migration of the European tribes, and the Ostrogoths and Visigoths in particular, from the 3rd century CE. Cassiodorus' work claims to have the Gothic "Folk songs" -- the Carmina Prisca (Latin) -- as a prime source. Recent scholarship regards this as highly questionable. The main purpose of the original work (Cassiodorus's) was to give the Gothic ruling class a glorious past - to match the past of the senatorial families of Roman Italy.

The book is important to some medieval historians because it mentions the campaign in Gaul of one Riothamus, "King of the Brettones," who was possibly a source of inspiration for the early stories of King Arthur.

The classic edition is that of 19th-century German classical scholar Theodor Mommsen (in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, auctores antiqui, v. ii.). The best surviving manuscript was the Heidelberg manuscript, written in Heidelberg, Germany, probably in the 8th century, but this was destroyed in a fire at Mommsen's house. The next of the manuscripts in historical value are the Vaticanus Palatinus of the 10th century, and the Valenciennes manuscript of the 9th century.

Sources

Jordanes himself

Former notarius in a Danubian state ruled by the Goths and churchman in a nation also ruled by the Goths (Italy), Jordanes was in a position to know traditions concerning the Gothic peoples without necessarily relying on anyone else. As he was rewriting Cassiodorus' work under the same name but without reference to the text, he must have been his own strongest source.

Cassiodorus

The kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy, imposed at first by conquest under Alaric, became a union of Goths and native Italians, in which the Italians accepted their lot with grace and the Gothic kings tried their level best to achieve a just and lasting peace. The presence in the east of significant forces of the Roman empire, based at Constantinople, and determined to win back the territory wrested from them, served as a destabilizing factor that eventually doomed Gothic rule in Italy.

Cassiodorus was a native Italian (Squillace, Bruttium), who rose to become advisor and secretary to the Gothic kings in various high offices. His and the Goths' most successful years were perhaps the reign of Theodoric. The policy of Theodoric's government at that time was reconciliation and in that spirit he combined Italians into the government whenever he could. He asked Cassiodorus to write a work on the Goths that would, in essence, demonstrate their antiquity, nobility, experience and fitness to rule.

Theodoric died in 526 and Cassiodorus went on to serve his successors in the same capacity. He had not by any means forgotten the task assigned to him by his former king. In 533 a letter ostensibly written by King Athalaric to the senate in Rome, but ghosted by Cassiodorus, mentions the great work on the Goths, now complete, in which Cassiodorus

"restored the Amali with the illustriousness of their race."

The work must have been written at Ravenna, seat of the Gothic kings, between 526 at latest and 533.

What Cassiodorus did with the manuscripts after that remains unknown. The fact that Jordanes once obtained them from a steward indicates that the wealthy Cassiodorus was able to hire at least one full-time custodian of them and other manuscripts of his; i.e., a private librarian (a custom not unknown even today).

Jordanes says in the preface to Getica that he obtained them from the librarian for three days in order to read them again (relegi, "I reread"), which indicates that he had read them once before. The times and places of these readings have been the concern of many scholars, as this information possibly bears on how much of Getica is based on Cassiodorus.

There are two main theories, one expressed by the Mierow source below, and one by the O'Donnell source below. Mierow's is earlier and does not include a letter cited by O'Donnell.

Gothic sovereignty came to an end with the reconquest of Italy by Belisarius, military chief of staff for Justinian, ending in 539. Cassiodorus' last ghost writing for the Gothic kings was done for Witiges, who was removed to Constantinople in 540. A number of token kings ruled from there while Belisarius established that the Goths were not going to reinvade and retake Italy (which was however taken again by the Lombards after Justinian's death).

According to Mierow, Cassiodorus retired in 540 to his home town of Squillace, where he used his wealth to build a monastery with school and library, Vivarium. The subsequent wars never got as far as there. Jordanes read and later reread the work on the Goths at the library there prior to the detention of pope Vigilius at Constantinople, which Jordanes came to share.

O'Donnell cites a letter of Vigilius dating from 550 in Constantinople naming Senator as one of numerous persons who attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Rusticus and Sebastianus to go along with Vigilius' capitulation to Justinian in condemning the Three Chapters. Vigilius was forced to excommunicate them. If Senator was in Constantinople in 550 he probably went there with Witiges and did not found Vivarium until the return of the pope's entourage to Italy.

The latter view raises as many questions as it answers. Are we to believe Cassiodorus ported his manuscripts around with him under arrest? Why was Jordanes allowed only three days? Since they all had plenty of time on their hands, why did not Cassiodorus superintend the work personally? Why did not Justinian seize and destroy the anti-imperial manuscripts of Cassiodorus? The process of reconciling all the evidence to fill in the gaps goes on.

Jordanes tells us in the preface that he used incidents from Cassiodorus but not the words.

Authors cited by Getica

The events, persons and peoples of Getica are put forward as being up to many centuries prior to the time of Jordanes. Taken at face value, they precede any other history of Scandinavia.

One of the major questions concerning the historicity of the work is whether the identities mentioned are as ancient as stated or date from a later time. The evidence allows a wide range of views, the most skeptical being that the work is mainly mythological, or if Jordanes did exist and is the author, that he describes peoples of the 6th century only.

These questions are the same as for nearly any ancient source. If we are to discredit ancient sources we are left with no ancient history, but only with ancient mythology. On the whole ancient historians have found it preferable to grant some credibility to the sources and then try to distinguish what is more and less credible.

Jordanes does cite some writers well before his time, to whose works he had access but we do not, and other writers whose works are still extant. Mierow gives a summary of these, which is reviewed below, and also states other authors he believed were used by Jordanes but were not cited in Getica (refer to the Mierow source cited below).

It seems clear that, while acceptance of Jordanes at face value may be too naive, a totally skeptical view is not warranted. For example, Jordanes says that the Goths originated in Scandinavia. If any credibility at all is to be assigned to him, that statement is probably fact. Mierow's list of cited authors is summarized as follows:

Ablabius. Otherwise unknown author of a work Gothorum gentis ("of the Gothic people"), now lost.
Dexippus on the Vandals and the Heruli.
Dio, either Dio Cassius or Dio Chrysostom, author of another Getica. Description of Britain in Jordanes.
Fabius. Otherwise unknown, author of a work including the siege of Ravenna, now missing.
Josephus in IV.29, brief mention of the Goths as Scyths.
Livy, brief mention in II.10.
Lucan on the Amali, V.43.
Pompeius Trogus, now known only in Justinus' epitome of Historiae Philippicae.
Pomponius Mela.
Priscus. Events concerning Attila.
Ptolemy on Scandinavia in Getica Part III.
Strabo. Authority on Britain.
Symmachus. Copies of his copies from Julius Capitolinus on Maximin.
Tacitus. Authority on Britain.
Vergil.

The late Latin of Jordanes

The early Late Latin of Jordanes evidences a certain variability in the structure of the language, as though the author no longer had a clear standard of correctness. The time is too early to identify a direction of change toward any specific Romance language. None had appeared yet. This variability, however, preceded the appearance of the first French, Italian, Spanish, etc. After those languages developed, the scholastics gradually restored classical Latin as a means of scholarly communication.

Jordanes refers to himself as agramaticus before his conversion. This obscure statement is sometimes taken to refer to his Latin. Variability, however, characterizes all Late Latin, and besides, the author was not writing just after his conversion (for the meaning of the latter, see under Jordanes), but a whole career later, after associating with many Latin speakers and having read many Latin books. According to him, he should have been gramaticus by that time. More likely, his style reflects the way Latin was under the Goths.

Some of the variabilities are as follows (Mierow):

Orthography. The spelling of many words differs from the classical, which Jordanes would certainly have known. For example, Grecia replaces Graecia; Eoropam, Europam; Atriatici, Adriatici.

Inflection. Substantives migrate between declensions; verbs between conjugations. Some common changes are fourth to second (lacu to laco), second declension adjective to third (magnanimus to magnanimis), i-stems to non-i-stems (mari to mare in the ablative). Gender may change. Verbs may change voice.

One obvious change in a modern direction is the indeclinability of many formerly declined nouns, such as corpus. Also, the -m accusative ending disappears, leaving the preceding vowel or replacing it with -o (Italian, Romanian), as in Danubio for Danubium.

Syntax. Case variability and loss of agreement in prepositional phrases (inter Danubium Margumque fluminibus), change of participial tense (egressi .. et transeuntes), loss of subjunctive in favor of indicative, loss of distinction between principle and subordinate clauses, confusion of subordinating conjunctions.

Semantics. A different vocabulary appears: germanus for frater, proprius for suus, civitas for urbs, pelagus for mare, etc.

External links

English translation

Charles Christopher Mierow (translator). The Gothic History of Jordanes. In English Version with an Introduction and a Commentary, 1915. Reprinted 2006. Evolution Publishing, ISBN 1889758779. ^*

Charles C. Mierow. The Gothic History of Jordanes. Princeton: University Press, 1915. (Reprinted at Cambridge: Speculum Historiae, 1966.)

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