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

[Alanus]

My good man Rumo,

Where do you think the Huns originated? I'll bet my last teeth, they arrived from the steppes; and if the steppes have not moved appreciably in their geographical location, I would say the Huns originated upon the Eurasian steppes. This is confirmed by the Russians, who have followed the Hunnic archaeological trail, east to west.

You balk at the idea of "mass migrations." That's the way the Irish came to New York. It's the way the Scots landed in New England and Virginia. It's the way the Huns followed a leader-class into Europe, and it's the same way a similar leader-class consolidated disenfranchised tribes and people into a society that became known as the Goths. 8)

To you, the Goths were not based upon any discernable Germanic ethnos, even though:
a. The Goths spoke a East Germanic language.
b. The books of the Goths were in written in a Germanic tongue.
c. The names of the two highest Gothic families were Germanic.
d. The personal nomen of every noble and influential Goth was Germanic.

A crash course in Sociology would more than hint that the dominent factor in Gothic society was Germanic, regardless of what type of wheel-thrown cup they drank from. As for Peter Heather? Watch his goofy actions and scenarios on the "History" Channel, and then tell me that the man has a cranial capacity higher than a chimpanzee. :twisted:

The Goths in the Fourth Century already has its detractors; and when the bell rings at the end of the last round, portions of that book will be considered rubbish. On a happy note , I'm glad you ressurrected this thread. It's entertaining.

[Robert Vermaat]

Do we talk about the same guy? http://www.yale.edu/classics/faculty/matthews_j.html

Evidently not! My apologies! :oops:
I stand corrected, this John Matthews is not the one I had in mind! 'My' Matthews was the mythologist, this gys is clearly an expert in the field.

Damn those names. We already had two Speidels, now we have two Matthews.... :lol:

[Alanus]

Rumo,

My apologies too. I thought John Matthews was the guy who was interviewed in the special features section of King Arthur the movie... not the other John Matthews. Don't ask a nasty old fart like me what I think of King Arthur the movie. :roll:

[Rumo]

To you, the Goths were not based upon any discernable Germanic ethnos, even though:
a. The Goths spoke a East Germanic language.
b. The books of the Goths were in written in a Germanic tongue.
c. The names of the two highest Gothic families were Germanic.
d. The personal nomen of every noble and influential Goth was Germanic.

A crash course in Sociology would more than hint that the dominent factor in Gothic society was Germanic, regardless of what type of wheel-thrown cup they drank from.

You say "Germanic ethnos" but you only adduce linguistic evidence (and I don't understand why is sociology relevant at this point). Are modern Americans (speakers of American English, a Germanic language) a "Germanic ethnos"? Are Magyars an "Ugric ethnos"? Are Angolans a "Romance ethnos"? hock:

Also:
- we only know that some of the Goths spoke Gothic, an East Germanic language.
- we only know few texts and glosses in Gothic (while some "books of the Goths" were written in Latin like the histories of Cassiodorus and Jordanes).
- and certainly not "every noble and influential Goth" had a Germanic name. Many of them had Roman names, but not only. From Otto Mänchen-Helfen's World of the Huns (1973), chapter IX:

• Tutizar was a Goth and Ragnaris a Hun, but Tutizar is not a Gothic name and Ragnaris is Germanic. The Byzantine generals who in 493 fought against the Isaurians were Apsikal, a Goth, and Sigizan and Zolban, commanders of the Hun auxiliaries. Apsikal is not a Gothic but a Hunnic name; Sigizan might be Germanic. Mundius, a man of Attilanic descent, had a son by the name of Mauricius; his grandson Theudimundus bore a Germanic name. Patricius, Ardabur, and Herminiricus were not a Roman, an Alan, and a German as the names would indicate, but brothers, the sons of Aspar and his Gothic wife. There are many such cases in the fifth and sixth centuries. Sometimes a man is known under two names, belonging to two different tongues. Or he has a name compounded of elements of two languages. There are instances of what seem to be double names; actually one is the personal name, the other a title.

I'll add here two other Gothic names which might be non-Germanic: Saphrax (a Gothic commander in late 4th century) and Andag (a 5th century Goth mentioned by Jordanes, allegedly having an Amal lineage).

As for the later histories of Visigoths and Ostrogoths and their Germanic names (at least some of them are not convincingly East Germanic), we don't know how much they continue the traditions of the Gothic society and culture from 3rd-4th centuries. There was a considerable number of Germanic speakers in the Western and Central Europe and we can rightfully suspect some of them became Goths (as many others became Romans). Ethnic identity is fluid, relative, sometimes even opportunistic and transactional.

Where do you think the Huns originated? I'll bet my last teeth, they arrived from the steppes; and if the steppes have not moved appreciably in their geographical location, I would say the Huns originated upon the Eurasian steppes. This is confirmed by the Russians, who have followed the Hunnic archaeological trail, east to west.

As many scholars would agree today, the Huns were a mixture of different people speaking different languages. So there's no single origin, no single mass migration.
I found a persuasive reinterpretation of the "Hunnic shock" in Guy Halsall's Barbarian MIgrations and the Roman West, 376-568 (2007), chapter 6, "The Gothic crisis". Here the Huns are no longer the deux ex machina as we find them to be in most historical narratives, but some opportunistic invaders in the context of a severe Gothic crisis, invaders who eventually merged with the indigenous elements to become the so-called European Huns.

As for archaeology, I wouldn't trust too much interpretations relying on Gustaf Kossinna's principles :wink:

You balk at the idea of "mass migrations." That's the way the Irish came to New York. It's the way the Scots landed in New England and Virginia. It's the way the Huns followed a leader-class into Europe, and it's the same way a similar leader-class consolidated disenfranchised tribes and people into a society that became known as the Goths.

Instead of Irishmen in New York, I'd rather look at Bulgarians preserving the name brought by some steppe invaders which were eventually linguistically assimilated by their subjects. The Bulgar leaders shifted from steppe nomads to post-Byzantine (paraphrasing Byzance après Byzance) tsars (< caesar). Magyars are also an interesting case, preserving both their language and name, but transforming fast into a powerful Catholic kingdom.

Mass migration has many problematic aspects. While archaeology and written sources can prove a substantial colonization of North America by waves of European settlers and African slaves, they don't prove it for Goths and Huns.
Eastern Europe had indigenous societies which weren't exterminated nor chased away. What happened to them?
Also can we really have swarms of "Germans" (Franks, Alemanni, Goths, Burgunds, Vandals, etc. - for most of them there were postulated groups of tens or hundreds of thousands) flooding from some plentiful spring somewhere in Central or Northern Europe? Can we imagine hordes of Xiongnu (as some scholars assume) following their leaders some 5000 km west, just to find a new home near some Pannonian swamps? How many of the medieval European crusaders didn't reach their much closer destination, with all the apparent enthusiasm and having definite targets?

As for Peter Heather? Watch his goofy actions and scenarios on the "History" Channel, and then tell me that the man has a cranial capacity higher than a chimpanzee. :twisted:

The Goths in the Fourth Century already has its detractors; and when the bell rings at the end of the last round, portions of that book will be considered rubbish. On a happy note , I'm glad you ressurrected this thread. It's entertaining.

I'd like to see also some arguments, not only mudslinging.

[Rumo]

I'd like to share also a fragment from Guy Halsall's aforementioned book about identities and Goths:

• In a late antique situation who, within a mobile and fluid group of Goths could gainsay the claim of a Roman provincial to have had a Gothic grandfather?
  The fact that individuals possess a series of identities, which we might think of as ethnic, and can order and reorder them in terms of importance, further facilitates such strategies. There were members of numerous ethnic groups within Theoderic’s Ostrogoths. Here people had been accepted as Gothic despite additional identities.
  

There's a footnote referencing Herwig Wolfram's History of the Goths (1988), p. 300-2, where we find a poly-ethnic "Ostrogothic people" including Roman but also "Rugian, Herulian, Scirian, Turcilingian as well as Suevic, Sarmatian and Taifalian elements", with notable individuals having not only Germanic or Roman, but also Alan (Candac) and Celtic (Bacauda) names.

[Alanus]

Hailog, Rumo

Actually I said that the "dominent factor in Gothic society was Germanic." I didn't say the Goths were Germanic, since they were a polyethnic people. I had already mentioned (in a previous post) the various tribes-cultures that eventually compised the Gutilda, ie Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Dacians, etc., that you quoted from Wolfram. I agree with Haskall. A perfect example would be Bishop Ulfilas himself-- the man who evidently wrote the Gothic Bible in a Germanic language so that all the Goths couldn't understand it. He came from a group of Cappodocians who had infused with the Goths (first as the unfree) in the 3rd century.

You must know what I meant when I said the names of individuals within the high/ruling familes were Germanic. In the Amals we see Achiulf, Oduulf, Valamir, Vidimir, Thiudigotho, Amaliasuintha, Atahalaric, etc. until the end of the Ostrogothos. In the other ruling family (Balths) we find Alaviv, Fritigern, Athaulf, Walia, Theodoric, Frideric, Euric, etc. They all had Germanic names, and these two families can be traced back to the beginning. They were hereditary leaders, and they accepted any person from any ethnic background into their evolving society-- as long as he fought for the gens.

Your long list of non-Gotic names is interesting, and it shows some of the cultures attached or connected to the Goths. However, Safrax was an Alan. And we see the "Romanization" of nomens, a standard social practice and also the method in which names were perceived and recorded by historians of the period.

However, there is little doubt to the origins of the Gothic culture. It came from Scanzia, just as the Tyrfingi Goths worshiped a Scandinavian god in the form of Tyrfing, the "hand of Tyr." Again Tyrfing shows up in the Icelandic "Old Edda," the poetic Edda. Here the sword Tyrfing has reached mystical proportions. In the Gutsaga, we find the tale of overpopulation, when people draw straws, the losers migrating through southern Russia as far as Greece. All of this lines up correctly with the Origo Gothica of Jordanes. The Goths were not liars.

Your asked what "sociology" had to do with it? An old axiom, still used by sociologists, states that when a lesser culture/tribe infuses into a more dominent culture/tribe, the lesser culture adopts the language of the greater culture. This was/is done for social and economic reasons; and it only takes three generations. In this fashion, the dominent warrior society of the Goths-- the Amals and Balths-- retained their Germanic names, heritage, and language until the end of the Gothic polyethnos. I said "heritage," and that was the whole reason the Origo Gothica was written.

This view may not be popular today, in an age where history is rewritten to accomodate the slighted. Yet the pop history of today will fall to someone else's idea of what is "correct" fifty years from now. I took a cheap shot at Peter Heather, a "revisionist" historian who stands on camera, center stage, in socalled "documetaries" on the History Channel. Again, this is pop "history" which isn't history at all. It's "get the viewer's money." In a recent book, Professor Heather pontificates that the one factor in the Huns incredible success (at whatever) was their "asymmetrical bow." He spends three pages, including mathamatical formulae, on just why their bow was (1) extra long, (2) extra powerful, and (3) could shoot to great distances. He doesn't mention that one of three longest shots ever recorded (almost 1,500 feet) came from the Crimea in the 4th century BC, a feat accomplished with a short Scythian bow. He compares the Hun bow with a Turkish bow (used a millenium later), and specifically states that horsemen held their bow "upright in front of them." I would suggest that Prof. Heather might watch something as inane as his mind, like perhaps (duhh) U-Tube and "horse archery." What he failed to realize was the Hunnic bow had "ears" (siyahs) which effectively lengthened the bow and also gave it more leverage. But the crucial factor in any bow is "draw-weight," not length; and all bows in the Hunnic period had ears, including those of the Sarmatians and even the Romans. I know, because I'm an archer-instructor who uses steppe bows several times a week. If he got something as simple as a bow wrong, well what else?

Have a nice day,

[Paullus Scipio]

...I would concur with Alan's views concerning archery ( see article on Parthian Bows in latest edition of "Ancient Warfare" magazine) and add that the ability to fire further (more power ) does NOT lengthen 'practical range' which is limited by the archer's ability. In the case of Horse archers, regardless of the type of bow with which they are equipped, the practical/effective range for mounted horse-archers on a moving horse is around 50 metres....though firing at a 'massed' target might take place at longer ranges.

I would point out however that just because Peter Heather is ignorant of one aspect of ancient history ( archery) may not mean he is ignorant of all aspects.....or does it ? :wink: :wink:

[Alanus]

Hello Paullus,

Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm not intentionally singling out Peter Heather, but all historians (especially revisionists) who write expressly to a pop culture and fill their commentaries with pop phrases, which in another fifty years will sound fairly goofy. (You know what I mean, Bro? Last decade, it was Vern.) A careful annalysis of his The Fall of the Roman Empire shows a simplistic rehash of Gibbon. Quite frankly, I like Gibbon. He carried a brain; and one of my favorite lines is "(Whomever) was conspicuous by his absence." Heather-- in a flash of near genius (but not quite)-- made a statement (damning the Victorians) suitable to his IQ, "More recent accounts have posited large numbers of indigenous British turning themselves into Anglo-Saxons in the same way that they had earlier become Romans. However you see it, characteristic Roman mores and lifestyles quickly disappeared from southern Britain after its ties with the rest of the Roman word were severed."

First off, he uses the pontifical phrase "indigenous British." As opposed to what? Imported British? Foreign British?

Secondly, how does Heather account for the cultural foundations of Wales and Scotland?

In the context of the Goths, we know that the Cappadocians within Gothic culture continued their previous lifestyle and religion for two more centuries (Christianity, and Catholic I believe). I don't think the Saxons ever "conquered" the Britons; the two cultures wrestling over geographical locales yet finally sharing common ground. But to state that the Britons "turned themselves into" something else is sheer unlogic. (Charles Darwin would find a chuckle in that one.) And to say that the Romano-Brit's lifestyles "quickly disappeared" is nonsense. We know it continued for two more centuries, which I don't equate with "quickly."
If Heather's views on the very nature of a bow is misguided, and his assessment of the Britons is simplistic, then what else is faulty in his modes of deduction?
Or to phrase it another way, "What is it about Heather that's conspicuous by its absence?"

[Paullus Scipio]

Oh, dear....not looking good for Peter Heather is it ?

Of course, indigenous populations never entirely disappear ( genocide is thankfully rare in history! ) and the arrival of new 'conquerors' usually ends ( especially in ancient times) with a blending of ethnic groups/cultures etc.....as modern DNA research has already established.

I also share your distaste for "buzz/pop" words, and simplistic explanations that are cliches, and used because they are easily digested. On that note, the latest issue of Ancient Warfare contained an article which referred to Romans v Parthians as "assymetric warfare". I'm not sure if use of this recently invented modern American military term is another example of "buzz/pop" words, or a clever application of a modern term to an age-old problem !

"What is it about Heather that's conspicuous by its absence?"

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Alanus]

Hello again Paullus,

Originally I wasn't planning to "pick on" Professor Heather. He just happens to be the perfect example of "new age" historiscy, ie "let's find a brilliant analysis that hasn't been used before, no matter if its bunk." But really, there are a bunch of these guys out there, and they are all making money and reputations by tearing apart the "old guys."

What I was trying to point out to Rumo was the long recorded aspect of a genuine "Germanic ethnos" within the Gothic hierarcy, aka "ruling families." If they came from Scandia, if they worshiped Germanic gods, if they read a Bible in the Germanic language, if they themselves spoke a Germanic tongue, and if the ruling families had Germanic names? What should we think? Perhaps they were Spaniards just practicing a foreign language so they could visit the Temple of Walhalla without being too conspicuous.

So in the final overview, it's not all about language. It's about roots; it's about where your ancestors came from. This great pride in heritage was exactly why the Origo Gothica was written by Cassiodorus for Theodoric and then carefully copied and expounded upon by Jordanes, a Mosian Goth. And to me, even though it might not be exactly correct in our "modern" historical context, it all boils down to an "original Germanic ethnos." Certainly Peter Heather would never use the term. :wink:

"Assymetric warfare"? hock: That's a new one. But what about all the readers who aren't using the metric system? We can change it to "assyfootic" or maybe "assyinchic." How about "assyardic"? That's the ticket, there! :lol:

[Paullus Scipio]

Originally I wasn't planning to "pick on" Professor Heather. He just happens to be the perfect example of "new age" historiscy, ie "let's find a brilliant analysis that hasn't been used before, no matter if its bunk." But really, there are a bunch of these guys out there, and they are all making money and reputations by tearing apart the "old guys."

....another reason for this, referred to elsewhere on RAT IIRC with regard to history, especially ancient history is "PhD syndrome".....a PhD has to be original in some way, and by now many thousands of theses, many pretty wacky, have been churned out by eager PhD students working with the same few texts, and desperately trying to find something new to say......a built-in flaw in the education system !! :x

[Alanus]

"PhD Sydrome" does nail it on the head.
This is probably why we're getting a number of refudiations of previous Gothic histories. The biggest bandwagon theory is that they originated "somewhere else," not Scandinavia. Rumo swallows this stuff, but the serious scholars, men like Herwig Wolfram, who knew his subject and the languge, equated the Goths with the Gutones and the many linguistic variations. Of course, today postulating anything remotely "Germanic" is persona non grata.

But for me, the proof in the pudding is not "perfect" written history. It's the Singers of Songs, the oral history that Cassiodorus used. It's the Old Edda and the Gotsaga which date back to heaven know's when. These are from what I call "cultural memory'" or "tribal memory." In all and each, we find truth. Perhaps they were exagerated, boastful, but they were a reasonably honest attempt at recording Scandian history, of which the Goths played an important part. These guys weren't shooting for a PhD; they were just trying to record a family saga.

I would imagine that most writers of the "PhD syndrome" have overlooked these old verbal histories/legends in favor of scenaric arguments involving Pliny's "inaccuracies," or perhaps "reevaluating" archaeological interpretations. "Let's not just rewrite history; let's rewrite archaeology."

The upside to all of this is we end up with "entertainers" like Professor Heather-- good for a belly laugh. And maybe next time, in the "second edition, revised," he'll get it "righter."

Fact is Pliny didn't get it 100% right, so what makes us think we can rewrite it again for the umteenth time and finally get it right?
Let's ask Sun Tzu: "There is no history. Only stories."

[Justin of the New Yorkii]

This thread is a great read. Thanks for mentioning so many sources.

Also can we really have swarms of "Germans" (Franks, Alemanni, Goths, Burgunds, Vandals, etc. - for most of them there were postulated groups of tens or hundreds of thousands) flooding from some plentiful spring somewhere in Central or Northern Europe? Can we imagine hordes of Xiongnu (as some scholars assume) following their leaders some 5000 km west, just to find a new home near some Pannonian swamps? How many of the medieval European crusaders didn't reach their much closer destination, with all the apparent enthusiasm and having definite targets?

I have wondered about how Northern Europe managed to produce such a large excess population, given the agricultural conditions there. Earlier historians contrasted the "impoverished" soil of Germania with the relative fertility of Gaul, Iberia etc., and Caesar mentions vast stretches of uninhabited land. Not that Germania was literally impoverished; it produced amber and other things of value, but the one thing it seems to have lacked was the fertile soil needed to support a large population.
Did the weather change, or their agricultural methods or something else? Or were those tribes around 300 AD not really migrating by necessity, but just invading by choice?
Or maybe I just have the wrong idea about the population that could be supported there at the time.

On that note, the latest issue of Ancient Warfare contained an article which referred to Romans v Parthians as "assymetric warfare". I'm not sure if use of this recently invented modern American military term is another example of "buzz/pop" words, or a clever application of a modern term to an age-old problem !

Really, all warfare is assymetric, though the term does have its uses.

[diegis]

Well, first, about the original topic, Getae and Dacians. There are no doubt there is one and the same people, or, as couple "new" historians bring a more critical point of view (thus not too spread) is that they was two regional parts of the same peoples (something as Spartans and Athenians have diferent names, but was both greeks, or Suebii and Marcomanii have diferent names but was both germanics), or Dacians was a a part of Getae who at some point impose their name over all Getae, Getae being the name used by greeks to designed the northern branch of Thracians. They speak the same language, have the same religion, and archeological culture is one and the same on their teritory. Burebista was called by greeks historians "the first and biggest of all thracian kings" and a "getae man", but in the same time romans call his kingdom/empire Dacia, and Caesar mention that Germans are neighbours with Dacians in Hercinic Forest. Probably the most correct view is one of Dio Cassius, who said that "we (Romans) call them Dacians, as they call themselves too, even if i know that some greeks call them Getae, wheter is correct or not". As well, Traian wrote his memoirs (unfortunately lost) about his war with Dacians, called "De bello Dacico", and his personal doctor who joined him in this wars, Criton, wrote his own ones, but called "Getica" (unfortunately lost too, like pretty much almost any writings about those wars). Not sure from which come this Getae name, but greeks also used the term "Keltoi" for Celts, even if i dont think Celts ever call themsleves like that. The only confusion come with Masagetae tribe, who had the Getae name in it, but have iranic elements too (some rulers name, etc.). Most probably this was a mix betwen a Getae/Dacian tribe and a Scythian one. Similar views are for ex. about Cimbri and Teutoni, as being a Germano-Celtic mix, or Bastarnae (the same).
About Getae and Goths, i think the things are more clear now. Goths was a mix from several diferent peoples, including Germanics, Dacians, Sarmatians, etc., formed in III century AD under an important Roman influence as well. Archeology didnt show any important migration (or even conection) from Scandinavia, related with the culture atributed to Gths (Santana de Mures/Cherneakov) thus is not sure from where the germanic part come from (the only one who mention this migration is Jordanes, probably inspired by roman legend of Eneas who come from a far and legendary place, Troia, since Jordanes wrote another book called "Romana"). As well, because of the presence of Dacians among this conglomerat called Goths, some ancient writers (usualy just Jordanes is mentioned) use the name Getae as well for them, but ofcourse they wasnt 100 % Getae. And, as well more then probably (as even archeology show again), after the Goths leave the Danube area, most of their Dacian part stay (this probably not quite all), as this was their homeland.
About goths writing, from what i know the first writing atributed to them is so called Codex Argenteum, dated in VI AD (so after they leaved Dacians areas), and just presumly a copy of Ulfila bible. From what i read, other writings atributed to them are controversial, and they writed in fact more in latin ( Jordanes, Isidor from Sevilla, etc.). As well, no one related too much the Goths with Germanics in ancient times, not even Jordanes (who never mention goths as being germans in his Getica), and if roman emperors or generals, after fight with tribes as Suebi, Cherusci, Chati, Marcomani, Alemani, etc., always received the title "Germanicus Maximus", when fight against Goths they took the title of "Goticus Maximus", sometimes even "Geticus Maximus", so i think that Goths, even have a clear germanic part, was so mixed with other peoples (Dacians, Sarmatians, etc.) that was considered as something diferent.

[Justin of the New Yorkii]

Not sure from which come this Getae name, but greeks also used the term "Keltoi" for Celts, even if i dont think Celts ever call themsleves like that.

I get your point about the term Getae, but the first line of Caesar's De Bello Gallico says:
"All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third."

The only confusion come with Masagetae tribe, who had the Getae name in it, but have iranic elements too (some rulers name, etc.). Most probably this was a mix betwen a Getae/Dacian tribe and a Scythian one. Similar views are for ex. about Cimbri and Teutoni, as being a Germano-Celtic mix, or Bastarnae (the same).

Let's not forget the Thyssagetae, who are really hard to pin down, but probably lived somewhere near the southern Ural Mountains.