De origine actibusque Getarum (The Origin and Deeds of the Gothsor the 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 origin and history of the Gothic people, which is now lost. However, the extent to which Jordanes actually used the work of Cassiodorus is unknown. It is significant as the only remaining contemporaneous resource that gives the full story of the origin and history of the Goths. Another aspect of this work is its information about the early history and the customs of Slavs.
In this book, Spracklen and Spracklen use the idea of collective memory to explore the controversies and boundary-making surrounding the genesis and progression of the modern gothic alternative culture. They suggest that the only way for goth culture to survive is if it becomes transgressive and radical again.
Translated by Charles C. Mierow. De origine actibusque Getarum, or the Getica, is a summary of the now lost account by Cassiodorus of the origin and history of the Gothic people. It tells of the great battles between the Goths and Romans, of the First Great Race War against Europe waged by the Huns under Attila, the Gothic involvement in the great sacking of Rome-and much, much more. Jordanes' work is the single most important source on the origin and migration of the Goths, Ostrogoths and Visigoths. Starting with a fictionalized account of Gothic origins and travels, the Getica then deals with the very real story of the first meeting between Roman and Gothic forces on the eastern borders of the Empire in the present-day north Balkans. It tells of the initial clashes between Roman and Goth, and of how they were eventually forced to become allies against the invasion of Europe by the Asiatic hordes under Attila the Hun. Once that invasion was warded off, the story continues with the adventures of the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, Gaul, Spain, the last Gothic rulers of the Western Roman Empire, their part in the final fall of Rome and their descendant's role in the Eastern Roman Empire. The Getica is, even after 1,500 years, still a riveting read and brimming with adventure, despair, heroism and incredible deeds which helped shape Europe, and a vital source for early Gothic, Slavic, Roman and Hunnish history. This version has been completely reset and follows the identical margin notes, introduction and literary overview of Charles C. Mierow's Princeton University edition. About the author: Jordanes (sixth century AD) was a Goth whose immediate family came from Moesia, or modern northern Bulgaria, when it was on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. Little else is known about his life or death except that he was a high-level notarius, or civil servant who turned to history writing as a hobby after being converted to Christianity.
Jordanes' "The Origins and Deeds of the Goths" or Getica is a history of the early years of the Goths and was a summary of an earlier and longer work, but is now the only surviving narrative of this subject from the ancient world. Translated by Charles C. Mierow. First published in 1908.
The Vikings descended upon Europe at the close of the 8th century, invading the continent's western seas and river systems, trading, raiding and spreading terror. In the north, they settled Iceland and Greenland and reached North America. In the east, Swedish Varangians established a river road to the Orient. With the collapse of the Viking commercial empire, Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries struggled to survive, their hardships exacerbated by internal strife, foreign domination and the Black Death. This book details the development of Scandinavia--Sweden in particular--from the end of the Ice Age, through a series of prehistoric cultures, the Bronze and Iron ages, to the Viking period and late Middle Ages. Recent research suggests a Swedish origin of the Goths, who helped dismember the Roman Empire, and evidence of Swedish participation in the western Viking expeditions. Special attention is given to Eastern Europe, where Sweden dominated commerce through the conquest of trade towns and the river systems of Russia.
Rome's Gothic Wars is a concise introduction to research on the Roman Empire's relations with one of the most important barbarian groups of the ancient world. The book uses archaeological and historical evidence to look not just at the course of events, but at the social and political causes of conflict between the empire and its Gothic neighbours. In eight chapters, Michael Kulikowski traces the history of Romano-Gothic relations from their earliest stage in the third century, through the development of strong Gothic politics in the early fourth century, until the entry of many Goths into the empire in 376 and the catastrophic Gothic war that followed. The book closes with a detailed look at the career of Alaric, the powerful Gothic general who sacked the city of Rome in 410.
Writing the Barbarian Past examines the presentation of the non-Roman, pre-Christian past in Latin and vernacular historical narratives composed between c.550 and c.1000: the Gothic histories of Jordanes and Isidore of Seville, the Fredegar chronicle, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, Waltharius, and Beowulf; it also examines the evidence for an oral vernacular tradition of historical narrative in this period. In this book, Shami Ghosh analyses the relative significance granted to the Roman and non-Roman inheritances in narratives of the distant past, and what the use of this past reveals about the historical consciousness of early medieval elites, and demonstrates that for them, cultural identity was conceived of in less binary terms than in most modern scholarship.
