According to a tale related by

Jordanes Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, one on R ...

in his ''

Getica ''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae''), 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 ori ...

'', Gothiscandza was the first settlement area of the

Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is ...

after their migration from Scandza during the first half of the 1st century CE. He claimed that the name was still in use in his own day (c. 551).

Jordanes' account

Jordanes relates that the

East Germanic East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that eas ...

tribe of Goths were led from Scandza by their king Berig. As soon as they had set foot in the land, they named the area ''Gothiscandza''. The slowest of the three ships carried the

Gepids The Gepids (; ) were an East Germanic tribes, East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary, and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava, and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the G ...

, who settled in the "province of Spesis on an island surrounded by the shallow waters of the

Vistula The Vistula (; ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest in Europe, at in length. Its drainage basin, extending into three other countries apart from Poland, covers , of which is in Poland. The Vistula rises at Barania Góra i ...

. This island they called, in the speech of their fathers, Gepedoios". They soon moved to the settlements of the Rugians (''Ulmerugi'', a Germanic tribe which had arrived in the area already before the Goths), who lived on the coast, and they chased them away. Then they defeated their new neighbours, the

Vandals The Vandals were a Germanic people who were first reported in the written records as inhabitants of what is now Poland, during the period of the Roman Empire. Much later, in the fifth century, a group of Vandals led by kings established Vand ...

. After some time, when at least four generations of kings had passed after Berig, and Filimer was the king of the Goths, their numbers had multiplied. Filimer decided that everyone was to leave Gothiscandza and move to a new region named

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 general ...

(

Scythia Scythia (, ) or Scythica (, ) was a geographic region defined in the ancient Graeco-Roman world that encompassed the Pontic steppe. It was inhabited by Scythians, an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people. Etymology The names ...

). The reliability of Jordanes for early Gothic history has been called into question.

Etymology

One interpretation of Gothiscandza is that is a Latinised form of the Gothic ''gutisk-an a'', "Gothic end (or frontier)", since the Goths' territory extended to here. Another interpretation is that ''an a'' means "cape" so that the whole word means "gothic peninsula". It is also possible that the word is a product of conflation of the words ''gothic'' and ''Scandinavia''. Herwig Wolfram mentions "Gothic coast" and "Gothic Scandia" but prefers the latter, thinking that the former is "linguistically questionable".

Identification

History and linguistics

In the 1st century AD, the mouth of the

was indicated as the land of the ''Gutones'' (

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

) or ''Gothones'' (

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

): The names given by Pliny and Tacitus appear to be identical to *''Gutaniz'', the reconstructed

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic languages, Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from ...

form of ''Gutans'', the Goths' and the Gotlanders' name for themselves. The Gothiscandza theme was revived in German scholarship by Gustav Kossinna. Several archaeologists and historians have proposed the theory that the name Gothiscandza was evolved linguistically into Kashubian and other

West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group. They include Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. The languages have traditionally been spoken across a mostly continuous re ...

' rendition of the various historical names of

Gdańsk Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, Data for territorial unit 2261000. it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdań ...

().

Archaeology

In the 1st century a new culture appeared at the mouth of the Vistula, called the Wielbark Culture replacing the local Oksywie culture. The most salient component of Scandinavian influence in the 1st century AD is the introduction of Scandinavian burial traditions such as

stone circles A stone circle is a ring of megalithic standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially Stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being bu ...

and the

stelae A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

, showing that those who buried their dead preferred to do so according to Scandinavian traditions. However, there is also archaeological evidence of previous Scandinavian influence in the area during the

Nordic Bronze Age The Nordic Bronze Age (also Northern Bronze Age, or Scandinavian Bronze Age) is a period of Scandinavian prehistory from . The Nordic Bronze Age culture emerged about 1750 BC as a continuation of the Late Neolithic Dagger period, which is root ...

and the

Pre-Roman Iron Age The archaeology of Northern Europe studies the prehistory of Scandinavia and the adjacent North European Plain, roughly corresponding to the territories of modern Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Northern Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium. ...

, perhaps corresponding to the arrival of Rugians and

. In the 3rd century AD, the Wielbark culture spread into

, where it formed the Gothic Chernyakhov culture.

Norse mythology

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

presents at least two traditions that may be connected to Gothiscandza. The first one, the

Gutasaga Gutasaga (''Gutasagan'') is a saga regarding the history of Gotland before its Christianization. It was recorded in the 13th century and survives in only a single manuscript, the Codex Holm. B 64, dating to , kept at the National Library of Sweden ...

, may refer to the migration of the Goths and the second one, the legend of Dag the Wise, of raids from Scandza.

The Gutasaga

The

relates that when the Gotlanders had multiplied so that the island (

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

, i.e. ''Goth-land'') no longer could support them, they drew lots so that one third of the island's inhabitants had to leave and settle in the south. They eventually settled in the land of the

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

. :''over a long time, the people descended from these three multiplied so much that the land couldn't support them all. Then they draw lots, and every third person was picked to leave, and they could keep everything they owned and take it with them, except for their land. ... they went up the river Dvina, up through Russia. They went so far that they came to the land of the Greeks. ... they settled there, and live there still, and still have something of our language.''

Ynglingatal

The legend of Dag the Wise may convey traditions of attacks by the

Suiones The Swedes (; Old Norse: ''svíar,'' ) were a North Germanic tribe who inhabited Svealand ("land of the Swedes") in central Sweden. Along with Geats and Gutes, they were one of the progenitor groups of modern Swedes. They had their tribal cent ...

in the 2nd or 3rd century. In Scandinavian sources, the territory is called

Reidgotaland Reidgotaland, Reidgothland, Reidgotland, Hreidgotaland or Hreiðgotaland was a land mentioned in Germanic heroic legend (mentioned in the Scandinavian sagas as well as the Anglo-Saxon Widsith) usually interpreted as the land of the Goths. Etymo ...

, a name that followed the Goths during their migrations in the

Norse saga Sagas are prose stories and histories, composed in Iceland and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Scandinavia. The most famous saga-genre is the (sagas concerning Icelanders), which feature Viking voyages, migration to Iceland, and feuds between ...

References

{{Reflist

External links

*Jordanes text in English https://archive.org/details/gothichistoryofj00jorduoft Goths Prehistoric Poland Historical regions