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

[Alanus]

Back to you, Rumo

BUT the Thracians and Dacians were NOT TRYING TO FIT INTO GREEK SOCIETY. They were only INFLUENCED by the Greeks. There is a huge difference. As opposed to this, the "joiners" (and there were many!) into Gothic society wanted to, HAD to, fit into the gens. The gens was the all. If you couldn't navigate within the politics and economics of the gens, you lost. You never went anywhere in that society. For this reason, just as my grandparents did, the newcomers needed to learn the language of the dominent (call it "royal") clique. I think we are talking about two different causes and effect, Influence and Absolute Need.

Actually my tongue was in cheek when I mentioned why Ulfilas' bible was written in Gothic. He was trying to reach All the Goths, not just the hierarchy. Primarily he was an evangelist; and the many presbyters who preached north of the Danube attest to this philosophy. He wanted not to preach to the choir, but to all of "his" people, the very and only reason he translated the bible from Greek.

This was not an isolated phenomenon but a full scale evangelism, just as Bishop Amantius later conducted with the Alans in Pannonia. In Gothia itself, we find two persecutions aimed at stamping out Christianity, first by Aoric and later by his son Athanaric. This latter purge appears to have been the reason that Fritigern recieved help from Valens and the riparian troops stationed at the Danube in the very early 470s. This purge was a hot one, and it attests to a growing Christian populace within Gothia. We had torchings, one church (tents really) burned with its presbyter, another torched with the entire laity perishing. We find drownings and stonings. So the bible of Ulfilas was written for a "mass" audience (pardon the pun :lol: ), even though most Goths were illiterate. It was the tool of evangelistic presbyters.

But the fact is many Goths could read, perhaps both Latin and Greek. Both Athanaric and Fritigern navigated through negotiations with the Romans on several occasions. Even Aoric (who lived for some years in Constantinople) may have been literate. Both Safrax and Alatheus were at least versed in Latin (perhaps even Persian), and Alaric was fluent in it. We tend to think of them as "barbarians" but there was a sizable Gothic population living in Constantinople prior to the 5th century, and Constantine's royal guard (the Scholae) was made up of Tyrfingi.

The other point I want to touch on is the Goth's Scandia origin. Your research is commendable. But, like the authors you're quoting, a very important point has been missed by looking at and referring ONLY to Greek and Roman sources. An entirely seperate group of links arrived from Scandia itself! How can this be explained, if the Goths had no old cultural ties to the north? (an idea that is only a theory) I have mentioned the Old Edda and the Gotsaga, both of which were formed within a barbarian society outside Romano-Greek influence. In fact neither Greeks or Romans, nor Cassidorus, nor Jordanes, had access to these old legends. They were local in origin and stayed localized (much like Beowulf).

In the Hervar Saga (fm the Old Edda), we find the sword Tyrfing-- the same sword worshiped by the Tryfingi Goths who named themselves after it. This is a direct cultural link between the Geats and the Goths. And it is totally outside the Romano-Greek sphere. It's not theory. It's folk record. And it cannot be ignored or disputed, or even refutiated. It doesn't matter whether Hervar or her father Argantar were real people or not. We cannot dismiss Tryfing (one of which was probably Excalibur).

The Hervar Saga was finally written down in pagan Iceland. That's a long way from Rome. Admittedly I know less about the Gotsaga, in which the losers are forced to migrate south into Russia and the Black Sea litoral. This is a record of over-population, the soil of Gotland unable to sustain everyone. Frankly, I don't think Wolfram even used these sagas an an argument for the Goths coming from Scandia. And likewise, our more modern "revisionist" scholars, Heather, Halsell, or whomever, have avoided these "records," probably because the sagas refutiate their theories. Perhaps I'm wrong in this, and perhaps the saga-Gothic connection has been discussed and I (in my ignorance) am not aware of it. :wink:

In this light-- the Tyrfing/Tryfingi link in the sagas-- we really don't have to argue over the authenticity of anything compiled in the Origo Gothia. This includes fighting the Egyptians and all the other rot that was added for glory. The Origo Gothia isn't even needed. And all of our good men (Heather, Halsell, etc.) can toss it into the "circular file."