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

[Rumo]

Hi all!

Alan, I already presented a brief list of recent titles on Jordanes, however this discussion moves on, so I am selecting some quotes as basis for my further arguments:

• The source for the Gothic migration from Scandinavia is Jordanes' Getica, which is deeply problematic and certainly cannot be used as evidence for migration.(Halsall, 2007, 132-133)

• Another problem is the cherry-picking of particular episodes assumed, a priori, to represent 'Germanic' tradition. Some stories related by Jordanes are believed to represent part of the authentic Gothic 'origin myth', such as the migration from 'Scandza', the defeat of the Ulmerugi who occupied the territory where the Goths made landfall, and so on. Others, however, such as the Goths' defeat of the Egyptians, or the Gothic origins of the Amazons, are quietly left out of the discussion. It has become a key tenet of the study of antique texts that one must analyse them as unified literary compositions, written in response to specific historical circumstances, rather than as passive repositories of age-old tradition. Thus the authors of the works describing barbarian origins deliberately shaped whatever material they had to hand to make the points that they wished to make. There has been much excellent work on the different, specific and complex agenda of these writers.
  [...]
  The idea that these origines and the aspects of ethnic tradition they preserve were a specifically 'Germanic' creation is also deeply problematic. There was a long-standing classical strand of writing about the origins of the different peoples that formed the Mediterranean world. Cato's now fragmentary Origines lay at the heart of this tradition. The stories preserved by later writers citing Cato suggest that these classical origin myths shared a number of features with the supposedly 'Germanic' traditions of the post-imperial period. Aeneas, after all, was a son of Aphrodite (goddesses are also supposed to be important in the early phases of 'Germanic' myth), came to Italy by sea from a land far away, fought the locals and killed the eponymous Latinus. Seven (or eight) generations on, at the origins of Rome, stood Aeneas' descendants, the alliteratively named twins Romulus and Remus. This tradition was still alive and well in late antiquity, as manifested in the anonymous Famous Men of the City of Rome and Origin of the Roman People, both ascribed (erroneously) to Aurelius Victor. It is all too often forgotten that Jordanes himself wrote On the Origin and Deeds of the Roman People (the Romana) to set alongside his Getica (On the Origin and Deeds of the Goths). This classical tradition had a vital, but usually ignored, role in shaping the legends written about the creation of the post-imperial peoples.
  There are immense problems with the 'melting pot' use of selected elements of diverse works to create a systematic 'Germanic' tradition. That said, it is important not to reject everything contained within these sources as sixth-century and later literary fictions. It is probably going too far to suggest that Cassiodorus and the others invented all of these tales from scratch. Some probably did have their origins in legends that circulated in Germania, though we cannot now know which, or how closely they resemble their progenitors. Many stories may well have been circulating at the time that a writer composed his account and, if they were, it seems reasonable to surmise that they might have served the sorts of functions that Wolfram and others suppose in the creation of a body of tradition, the knowledge and acceptance of which was key to incorporation within a group. What this does not mean, though, is that they ever formed a coherent body of tradition, or even a single, generally accepted mythic narrative. Jordanes, for example, alludes to other stories that were circulating about the Goths. If he had only chosen to follow the legend of the Goths’ migration via Britain, in analogous fashion to Gregory of Tours’ repetition of the tale that traced the Franks to Pannonia, one imagines that the historiography of the post-imperial period would have been that much simpler and less controversial! For one thing, no one would have tried to hammer the archaeological record into supporting such a notion. Late antique authors picked and chose elements and wove them into their own creations.
  Some aspects of the ethnogenesis model nevertheless seem uncontroversial. The creation of stories, legends, and 'history' that told of how a people had come into being and of their struggle with old enemies – especially when justifying continued hostility to an out-group – are well-enough attested as part of the process of unification of groups. [...] Peter Heather clearly demonstrated that the 'traditions' represented in Jordanes’ work were not age-old but the inventions of a new dynasty. Yet subscription to the ideology manifested in such stories was a very important component of membership of the political community of the Goths and, thus, lay at the heart of the formation of this 'people'. (Halsall, 2007, 459-62)

• The basic contention of this book is that nothing in the first third of Jordanes' Getica has anything whatsoever to do with a history of the Goths. This was the part in which Jordanes described the emigration of the Goths from Scandza in the year 1490 BC, outlining their history until they became divided into two groups after the Hunnic assaults in the mid-370s - the part of his narrative that was allegedly based on a Gothic tradition, a Gothic Stammessage or Wandersage. We found no evidence to support the truth of this allegation. Where the account did incorporate authentic historical events, they had been borrowed from other historical contexts in the literary originals, and they only related the histories of other peoples. (Christensen, 2002, 318)

• Moreover, the whole discussion is expressed in the conceptual framework and nomenclature of Greco-Roman geography. When the Goths give the name "Gothiscandza" to their landing place on the European coast, they precisely conform to the concept embodied in Livy's story that Evander and Aeneas, on attaining Italy, each gave the name of Troy to his landing place. As for Scandza itself, the idea that an authentic Gothic tradition should have referred to an island of that name is no more plausible than that hoary legends among native peoples of North America should refer to the State of Alaska or the Yukon Territory, let alone to Hudson's Bay. Jordanes had a use for Scandza. The narrative momentarily pauses so that he might assure Castalius, the patron just addressed in the preface, that this island was the starting point of the history he wished to learn. Scandza mattered because it excluded the British alternative. (Goffart, 1988, 89)

• For the rest, a careful sifting of the evidence, by Heather as well as Christensen, does not confirm the belief that descent from Scandinavia was a lively memory among the Goths or the Amal family. (Goffart, 2006, 66)

So it seems that Heather is in a good company 8) and that there is doubt about the origins of Goths, about their Scandinavian origins, about the truthfulness of Getica, about those "Gothic songs" (for Goffart their mention is just "an ethnographic cliché").

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.

That's only what Jordanes has to say. Amals might have been the most important Gothic family in 6th century Italy and have mostly Germanic (but not necessarily East Germanic) names, however that doesn't mean the Goths from the 3rd century were led by Amals or only by Germanic speaking families.

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.

Saphrax was a general of the Goths for Ammianus. Many others were just called Goths. Consequently I'd say it's not just about attaching or connecting to the Goths, but about being Goths.

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.

This axiom just doesn't work for the known history, so how can we apply it for the unknown history (that of the prehistoric Goths)?