A study of the myth of the origins and early history of the Goths as told in the Getica written by Jordanes in AD 551. Jordanes claimed they emigrated from the island of Scandza (Sweden) in 1490 BC, thus giving them a history of more than two thousand years. He found this narrative in Cassiodorus' Gothic history, which is now lost. The present study demonstrates that Cassiodorus and Jordanes did not base their accounts on a living Gothic tradition of the past, as the Getica would have us believe. On the contrary, they got their information from the Greco-Roman literature only. The Greeks and Romans, however, did not know of the Goths till the middle of the third century AD. Consequently, Cassiodorus and Jordanes created a Gothic history partly through an erudite exploitation of the names of foreign peoples, partly by using the narratives about other peoples' history as if they belonged to the Goths. The history of the Migrations therefore must be reconsidered.

Arne Søby Christensen is an associate professor of History, University of Copenhagen. He is the author of Lactantius the Historian: An Analysis of De Mortibus Persecutorum (1980).

Dansk
Disputats om myten om goternes historie, der i Jordanes' skrift Getica fra 551 hævdes at begynde med deres udvandring fra Scandza (Sverige) i 1490 f.Kr. Han har fundet denne beretning i Cassiodors nu tabte Goterhistorie. Søby Christensen viser, at Cassiodor og Jordanes ikke bygger deres fremstillinger på en levende gotisk tradition, som det påstås i Getica. De hentede derimod deres informationer fra den græsk-romerske litteratur, der vel at mærke ikke kendte til goterne før midten af det 3. årh. e.Kr. De skabte således en gotisk historie ved lærde konstruktioner ud fra et navnemateriale og beretningerne om andre folks historie, som de fandt i deres forlæg. Vores forståelse af folkevandringernes historie må derfor revideres.

Arne Søby Christensen er lektor i Historie på Københavns Universitet. Han har også skrevet Lactantius the Historian: An Analysis of De Mortibus Persecutorum (1980).

Pressen skrev
"Christensen's clear and systematic presentation makes the book a significant contribution to the literature on the formation of the early historical peoples of Europe."
- Peter S. Wells, University of Minnesota, The Historian

"In the present salutary work, Christensen grapples in passing with the first and second problem and concentrates on examining the possibility that Gothic tradition shaped the form of Jordanes' narrative and depiction of events. The task is carried out systematically. It is hard to fault the conclusion, namely that Jordanes’ ‘narrative is fictitious, a fabrication in which the omnipotent author himself has created both the framework and the content of the story’. This conclusion has been made before but never with the meticulous thoroughness of Christensen’s examination of possible contexts in which one might reasonably expect Gothic tradition to reveal itself, if in fact it had been utilized by Jordanes.
The value of the book is not merely its negative conclusion about the use of socalled Gothic tradition. In contextualizing the main problem, Christensen helpfully lays out many of the contentious issues in the literary representation of the Goths. Central motifs in the detection of Gothic tradition are considered: the identity of Jordanes and the career of Cassiodorus; the Amal genealogy of the Ostrogothic rulers of Italy (the prime candidate for Cassiodorus’ input and. Gothic tradition); the fourth-century realm of Ermanric; early divisions of the Goths; the Getica’s Scandinavian ethnography; and, of course, the historical events themselves, not only as recounted by Jordanes, but also by ancient historians and Isidore of Seville. Other subjects, just as interesting but not as central to the debate, receive detailed attention, such as the relation of the third- and fourth-century Goths to the flawed and frustrating ethnographic detritus of the early Empire and the relation of the Goths in late antique thought to Judaeo-Christian biblical history (the enigmatic Gog and Magog were occasionally identified with them). Thus, there is much to be learned here even by those only peripherally interested in the issue of Gothic tradition. An interesting aspect of Christensen’s historiography are references to Scandinavian scholarship that, for language reasons, is frequently overlooked in reporting modern controversies."
- Alexander Callander Murray, University of Toronto, The International History Review

"Christensen är skarpsinnig och mestadels övertygande i sin källkritiska djupdykning i Geticas grumliga vatten."
- Dick Harrison, Historisk Tidskrift, Sverige

"Christensen weist in seinem von Museum Tusculanum Press gediegen gestalteten Buch gelehrt und detailliert nach, aus welchen Quellen Jordanes geschöpft hat und wie er mit diesem umgegangen ist."
- Beat Näf, Gnomon, bd. 78, 2006

"Das vorliegende Werk stellt einen wesentlichen Fortschritt der Frühmittelalter- und der Germanenforschung dar. Man muss den Verfasser zu seiner Leistung beglückwünschen und darf hoffen, dass seinem Buch die gebührende Aufmerksamkeit zuteil wird. Es zeugt von gründlichster Behandlung des Gegenstands, selbständigen Gedanken und dem Mut, die herrschende Meinung in die Schranken zu fordern."
- Dr. Matthias Springer, Namenkundliche Informationen 89/90, Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2006