Ermanaric; la, Ermanaricus or ''Hermanaricus''; ang, Eormanrīc ; on, Jǫrmunrekkr , gmh, Ermenrîch (died 376) was a

Greuthungi The Greuthungi (also spelled Greutungi) were a Gothic people who lived on the Pontic steppe between the Dniester and Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

who before the Hunnic invasion evidently ruled a sizable portion of

Oium Oium was a name for Scythia, or a fertile part of it, roughly in modern Ukraine, where the Goths, under a legendary King Filimer, settled after leaving Gothiscandza, according to the ''Getica'' by Jordanes, written around 551. It is generall ...

, the part of

Scythia Scythia (Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe. Hi ...

inhabited by the Goths at the time. He is mentioned in two Roman sources: the contemporary writings of

Ammianus Marcellinus Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquity (preceding Procopius). His work, known as the ''Res Gestae ...

, and in ''

Getica ''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae oths'), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'', written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the o ...

'' by the sixth-century historian

Jordanes Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history ('' Romana'') a ...

. He also appears in a fictionalized form in later

Germanic heroic legend Germanic heroic legend (german: germanische Heldensage) is the heroic literary tradition of the Germanic-speaking peoples, most of which originates or is set in the Migration Period (4th-6th centuries AD). Stories from this time period, to which ...

s. Modern historians disagree on the size of Ermanaric's realm.

Herwig Wolfram Herwig Wolfram (born 14 February 1934) is an Austrian historian who is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History and Auxiliary Sciences of History at the University of Vienna and the former Director of the . He is a leading member of the Vienna Sc ...

postulates that he at one point ruled a realm stretching from the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...

to the Black Sea as far eastwards as the Ural Mountains. Peter Heather is skeptical of the claim that Ermanaric ruled all Goths except the Tervingi, and furthermore points to the fact that such an enormous empire would have been larger than any known Gothic political unit, that it would have left bigger traces in the sources and that the sources on which the claim is based are not nearly reliable enough to be taken at face value.

Etymology

The first element of the name ''Ermanaric'' appears to be based on the Proto-Germanic root ''*wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/ermunaz, ermena-'', meaning 'universal'. The second element is from the element ''*-wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/rīks, rīks'', Gothic language, Gothic ''wikt:𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃, reiks'', meaning 'ruler'; this is found frequently in Gothic royal names.

In Roman sources

According to Ammianus, Ermanaric was "a most warlike king" who eventually committed suicide, faced with the aggression of the Alans, Alani and of the Huns, who invaded his territories in the 370s. Ammianus says he "ruled over extensively wide and fertile regions". Ammianus also says that after Ermanaric's death, a certain Vithimiris was elected as the new king. According to

' ''

'', Ermanaric ruled the realm of

. Jordanes describes him as a "Gothic Alexander the Great, Alexander" who "ruled all the nations of

and Germania as they were his own". Jordanes also states that the king put to death a young woman named Sunilda (Svanhildr) with the use of horses, because of her infidelity. Thereupon her two brothers, Sarus and Ammius, severely wounded Ermanaric, leaving him unfit to defend his kingdom from Hunnic incursions. Variations of this legend had a profound effect on medieval Germanic literature, including that of England and Scandinavia (see Jonakr's sons). Jordanes claims that he successfully ruled the Goths until his death at the age of 110. Edward Gibbon gives the version of Ammianus and Jordanes as historical, reporting that Ermanaric successively conquered, during a reign of about 30 years from AD 337 to 367, the Thervingi, west-goths, the Heruli, the Venedi and the Aestii, establishing a kingdom which ranged from the Baltic Sea, Baltic to the Black Sea; and died at the age of 110 of a wound inflicted by the brothers of a woman whom he had cruelly executed for her husband's revolt, being succeeded by his brother Vithimiris.

In Germanic sources and legends

Ermanaric appears in a variety of different

s. Iormunrek (Jörmunrekkr) is the Norse form of the name. Ermanaric appears in Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology, Scandinavian legend. In the former, the poem Beowulf focused on the image of "Eormenric's wiles and hatred". He is described in the tenth century poem Deor as a powerful but treacherous king: "We have heard of the wolfish mind of Eormanric: far and wide he ruled the people of the realm of the Goths: he was a cruel king".Deor, quoted in J R R Tolkien, ''The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun'' (London 2009) p. 322-323. The death of Svanhildr (Svanhildr Sigurðardóttir) and Ermanaric's (Jörmunrek) subsequent death at the hands of Jonakr's sons occupies an important place in the world of Germanic legend. The tale is retold in many northern European stories, including the Icelandic Poetic Edda (Hamðismál and Guðrúnarhvöt), Prose Edda and the Volsunga Saga; the Norwegian Ragnarsdrápa; the Danish Gesta Danorum; and the German Nibelungenlied and Annals of Quedlinburg. In the Norse ''Thidreks Saga'', translated from Low German sources, Ermanaric is ill-advised by his treacherous counsellor Bicke, Bikka, Sifka, or Seveke (who wants revenge for the rape of his wife by Ermanaric), with the result that the king puts his own wife to death for supposed adultery with his son;J. R. Tanner ed., ''The Cambridge Medieval History Vol VI'' (Cambridge 1929) p. 839 he is thereafter crippled by his brothers-in-law in revenge.Tom Shippey, ''The Road to Middle-Earth'' (London 1992) p. 16 In the Middle High German poems ''Dietrichs Flucht'', the ''Rabenschlacht'', and ''Alpharts Tod'' about Dietrich von Bern, Dietrich of Bern, Ermanaric is Dietrich's uncle who has driven his nephew into exile. The early modern Low German poem ''Ermenrichs Tod'' recounts a garbled version of Ermanaric's death reminiscent of the scene told in Jordanes and Scandinavian legend.Millet 2008, p. 475

Name

Ermanaric's Gothic name is reconstructed as ''*Airmanareiks''. It is recorded in the various Latinized forms: * in

' ''

'', he is called ''Ermanaricus'' or ''Hermanaricus'', but some of the manuscripts even have ''Armanaricus'', ''Hermericus'', ''Hermanericus'' etc. * in Ammianus' ''Res gestae'', he is ''Ermenrichus'' (his name occurs only once). In medieval Germanic heroic legend, the name appears as: * Old English language, Old English ''Eormenric'' in ''Beowulf''; the alternative spelling ''Eormanric'' occurs in the poems ''Deor'' and ''Widsith'', * Old Norse ''Jǫrmunrekkr'' ** (or, borrowed from Low German) ''Ermenrekur'', Old Swedish ''Ermenrik'' or ''Ermentrik'' in the Swedish ''Thidrekssaga, Didrik Saga'', * Middle High German ''Ermenrîch''. Since the name ''Heiðrekr'' may have been confused with Ermanaric through folk etymology, Ermanaric is possibly identifiable with ''Heiðrekr Ulfhamr'' of the Hervarar saga.

Notes

References

Works cited

* * * {{Authority control 260s births 376 deaths Gothic kings Amali dynasty Gothic warriors English heroic legends Ancient people who committed suicide 4th-century Gothic people 4th-century monarchs in Europe Longevity claims