Getae and Dacians? Are they the same? Or is this unknowable?

[Alanus]

Back to you, Razvan

Your idea of a "fluid ethnicity" is very well put. That's exactly what "Gothicism" appears to be, an ever-changing human mass bound into a single culture for self-protection.
However, the Gothic Bible was written by Ulfilus prior to 383 (the year he died), so it would be the 4th century and at a time when the Goths were still dominent in Dacia. (Walachia to Transylvania?) I do not know where Isidor got his sources, probably Jordanes; and although the Dacians had to be a large portion of the Gothic entity, the Goths must have been "created" from far more than Dacian stock. I think a good portion were also Sarmato-Alanic. You are probably familiar with the reoccuring achaeological mentions of "Gothic shoe buckles," common in the graves found in Dacia and the Balkans. However, the same buckles are also found in Sarmatian phase III and phase IV graves in the Crimea and Kuban. The last location was never Gothic as far as I know, which indicates that maybe "Gothic buckles" could just as well be Sarmatian, OR that Sarmatians were a significant element within the Goths.

The same goes for Cappadocians. Ulfilas was a Cappadocian Goth whose grandparents (along with other Cappadocians taken in raids) were the foundation for Gothic Christianity. This evolved earlier on than most modern historians have assumed. It has been said (most recently on the History Channel :roll: ) that Fritigern's Tyrfingi Goths were introduced to Christianity AFTER crossing the Danube and at the insistance of Valens. If we look closely at the sources, we discover that Fritigern was an Ulfilian Christian years before the 376 crossing. His name "Frithigairns" meant "he who has gained faith" ie "born again as a Christian." He was most likely a former federate Roman officer, obviously familiar to the highest officers in that region. Directly after the end of the Athanaric-Valens war in 369, Fritigern led Roman troops against Athanaric who had just started his second persecution of Christians. This was probably in conjuntion with Junius Soranus, a Cappadocian by birth and the Dux Primor of Scythia Minor. This is when the bones of Saint Saba and others were retrieved and taken back to Roman territory, a date that had to be around 370. The first (340s) and second Christian persecutions (369-70) are testimony to a significant Arian element within Gothic society prior to the Goths being accepted into the Eastern Empire.

Everyone (aka recent historians) seems to have missed this tidbit, and it changes our modern view of exactly the kind of people that Fritigern's Goths were. They were a most amazing people, the first major "barbarian" culture outside the Roman Empire to convert to Christianity. That they would be Dacian, Germanic, Alanic, Cappadocian, Slavic, Mordwine, should come as no surprise when we consider where they lived prior to 376. What I think is quite amazing-- the Goths were a coalition of disparate peoples, and this is unique (or almost unique if there are other examples) in ancient times.

I might add that the Gothic Church celebrated a "feast day" in rememberance of Fritigern and the Christian martyrs.