[Edit] Proto-history [edit] Jordanes

Jordanes, a confessed descendant of the Goths, recounts their early legends (which may be based on history) as they were "told in their early songs, in almost historic fashion."^[8] His description of the songs fits the saga, a form of oral poetry used by the Germanic peoples to recount history, parallel to the epic poetry of other illiterate peoples.

According to Jordanes, the earliest migrating Goths sailed from Scandza under King Berig^[9] in three ships^[10] and named the place at which they landed after themselves. Today (says Jordanes) it is called Gothiscandza ("Scandza of the Goths").^[11] From there they entered the land of the Ulmerugi (Ulmrugi]] were spread along southern coast of Baltic Sea, drove them further east Prussia, and also subdued the Vandals, their neighbors. The island of Rügen, the city of Rügenwalde are reminders of the Rugians.

As for the location of Gothiscandza, Jordanes says^[12] that one shipload "dwelled in the province of Spesis on an island surrounded by the shallow waters of the Vistula." Today's Gdansk, a large city, is at the mouth of the Vistula, but the terrain has changed due to the deposition of mud. The origin of the city remains undetermined. The name is generally conceded to be from "Goth" but not necessarily from Gothiscandza. That this is a legend of the origin of Gdansk cannot be ruled out.

Under their 5th king, Filimer, son of Gadaric, the Goths entered Oium, a land of bogs, part of Scythia,^[13] defeated the Spali and moved to the vicinity of the Black Sea.^[14] There they became divided into the Visigoths ruled by the Balthi family and the Ostrogoths ruled by the Amali family.^[15] Ostrogoths means "eastern Goths" and Visigoths means "Goths of the western country."^[16]

[Edit] Jordanes and Orosius

The Getae were also assumed to be the ancestors of the Goths by Jordanes in his Getica written at the middle of the 6th century, this statement was based on early Orosius writings ^[17]

[Edit] Pliny

Independent confirmation of Jordanes' account in some cases itself needs confirmation: specifically the passage attributed by Pliny^[18] to the voyager Pytheas, in which the latter states that the "Gutones, a people of Germany," inhabit the shores of an estuary of at least 6,000 stadia (the Baltic Sea) called Mentonomon, where amber is cast up by the waves. Lehmann (mentioned above under Etymology) accepted this view but a manuscript variant states Guiones rather than Gutones.^[19] No other trace of Guiones has even been found.

In Pliny's only other mention of the Gutones^[20] he says that the Vandals are one of the five races of Germany, and that the Vandals include the Burgodiones, the Varinnae, the Charini and the Gutones. The location of those Vandals is not stated, but there is a match with his contemporary Ptolemy's east German tribes.^[21] As those Gutones are put forward as Pliny's not Pytheas', the early date is unconfirmed, but not necessarily invalid.

[Edit] History

Main article: Gothic and Vandal warfare

A 19th century artist's rendition of campaigning Goths as described by their 3rd - 4th century Roman adversaries.

Major sources for Gothic history include Ammianus Marcellinus' Res gestae, mentioning Gothic involvement in the civil war between emperors Procopius and Valens of 365 and recounting the Gothic refugee crisis and revolt of 376-382 and Procopius' de bello gothico, describing the Gothic War of 535-552.

In the 3rd century, there were at least two groups of Goths, the Thervingi, and the Greuthungi. The Thervingi launched one of the first major "barbarian" invasions of the Roman Empire from 262, sacking Byzantium^{[not in citation given]} in 267.^[22] A year later, they suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Naissus and were driven back across the Danube River by 271. This group then settled north of the Danube and established an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia. In 332 Constantine, in order to enforce the Roman Empire border, helped the Sarmatians to settle on the north banks of the Danube to defend against the Goths' attacks. 100,000 goths were killed in battle, and Ariaricus, the son of the King of the Goths, was captured. In 334 Constanine evacuated 300,000 Sarmatians from the north bank of the Danube (after a local revolt of the sarmatian's slaves),still in 335-336 Constantine continued the Danube campaign, defeating many goth tribes. ^[23][24][25] Both the Greuthungi and Thervingi became heavily Romanized during the 4th century by the influence of trade with the Byzantines, and by their membership of a military covenant centered in Byzantium to assist each other militarily. They converted to Arianism during this time. Hunnic domination of the Gothic kingdom in Scythia began in the 370s,^{[citation needed]} and under pressure of the Huns, the king of the Thervingi,^{[citation needed]} Fritigern in 376 asked the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens to be allowed to settle with his people on the south bank of the Danube. Valens permitted this, and even helped the Goths cross the river,^{[citation needed]} probably at the fortress of Durostorum, but following a famine the Gothic War (376-382) erupted, and Valens was killed at the Battle of Adrianople.

The Visigoths were one of two main branches of the Goths, (the Ostrogoths being the other) during the fifth century. Together these tribes were among the Germanic peoples who disturbed the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period. A Visigothic force led by Alaric I sacked Rome in 410. Honorius granted the Visigoths Aquitania, where they defeated the Vandals and by 475 ruled most of the Iberian Peninsula.

The Ostrogoths in the meantime freed themselves of government of the Huns following the Battle of Nedao in 454. At the behest of emperor Zeno, Theodoric the Great from 488 conquered all of Italy. The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early sixth century under Theodoric the Great, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom following the death of Alaric II at the Battle of Vouillé in 507. Procopius, writing at this time, interpreted the name Visigoth to mean "western Goths", and the name Ostrogoth as "eastern Goth" which corresponded to the current distribution of the Gothic realms.

The Ostrogothic kingdom persisted until 553 under Teia, when Italy briefly fell back under Byzantine control, until the conquest of the Langobards in 568. The Visigothic kingdom lasted longer, until 711 under Roderic, when it had to yield to the Muslim Umayyad invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andaluz).