Alaric and the Goths

[spittle]

I have just watched the ANCIENT ROME series again (still God-awful but we Romanophiles are hardly spoilt for choice). At the beginning of the Fall of Rome episode the narration states that Alaric and the Goths had no choice but to leave their original homeland on the north coast of the Black Sea. But there is no clue given as to why they had to leave.

 

Anyone care to fill in a few gaps?

[Primus Pilus]

I have just watched the ANCIENT ROME series again (still God-awful but we Romanophiles are hardly spoilt for choice). At the beginning of the Fall of Rome episode the narration states that Alaric and the Goths had no choice but to leave their original homeland on the north coast of the Black Sea. But there is no clue given as to why they had to leave.

 

Anyone care to fill in a few gaps?

 

Presumably because of their enemy the Huns, who were moving west. I'm not aware of any droughts or related environmental concerns that forced them to migrate.

[Honorius]

ya as PP was saying, the Huns were pushing on the Ostrogoths and the ostrogoths were defeated and some tried to flee pushing on the visigoths.. who then moved across the Danube

[docoflove1974]

Maty's Enemies of Rome has a good, solid chapter devoted to Alaric and the reasons for the Gothic migrations...I do recommend it.

[Divi Filius]

The instigators of migrations are manifold and often a mixture of everything rather than one particular reason. Perhaps overpopulation, perhaps natural reasons(drought or loss of resources), perhaps war, perhaps the chance of better opportunities, perhaps a black hole caused by the fall of a given people.

 

The Goths seem to have been part of a greater movement; and once we answer the Goths, we ask ourselves: what caused the Huns to move?

[DecimusCaesar]

It is worth noting that some recent scholarship is attempting to overthrow the old belief that the Goths originated in Scandza (Sweden) as the Gothic historian Jordanes noted. Arne Soby Christensen cliams that Jordanes and Cassiodorus based their works not on Gothic tradition as they would like us to believe, but on Greek and Roman literature, which is not exactly reliable - considering that they were dealing with events far outside their borders.

 

I'd really like to get a hold of this work, although it is far too expensive. It'd be worth reading just to see how it would reshape our understanding of the Gothic migrations.

[Divi Filius]

Kulikowski proposes the same thing.

[caldrail]

The Goths seem to have been part of a greater movement; and once we answer the Goths, we ask ourselves: what caused the Huns to move?

 

Its highly likely they were forced to by prevailing weather conditions. This would have impacted on their usual herding and raiding activities, and quite possibly the availability of food and water was becoming scarce. Also, the huns were beginning to group in larger social units and this does usually inspire conquest.

[Maty]

If anyone fancies a look at the source material, there's a pretty useful text here

 

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html

 

JORDANES

 

THE ORIGIN AND DEEDS OF THE GOTHS

 

translated by Charles C. Mierow

 

I've not checked it against my library copy, but the text seems to be as I remember it.

[spittle]

The Goths seem to have been part of a greater movement; and once we answer the Goths, we ask ourselves: what caused the Huns to move?

 

According to Terry Jones (Monty Python) The Barbarians the wave of migrations was started by rampaging Mongols who displaced Huns who dislaced OstroGoths who displaced VisiGoths........

I take Terry Jones' theories lightly. He is so determined to be revisionist that he sometimes ignores the obvious in order to push any Anti-Roman idea.

[Northern Neil]

I have just watched the ANCIENT ROME series again (still God-awful but we Romanophiles are hardly spoilt for choice). At the beginning of the Fall of Rome episode the narration states that Alaric and the Goths had no choice but to leave their original homeland on the north coast of the Black Sea. But there is no clue given as to why they had to leave.

 

Anyone care to fill in a few gaps?

I think a knock - on effect of Hunnish migration might be the reason for this. Regarding the homeland of the Goths, I believe that south eastern Sweden (Gotland) was the original ancestral homeland.

[spittle]

So what were the reasons for going from Sweden to the Black Sea region?

How long had they been left Sweden?

How long had they lived in the Black Sea region/

 

And that brings us back to the original question concerning their migration from the Black Sea and the Sack of Rome.

[Northern Neil]

So what were the reasons for going from Sweden to the Black Sea region?

How long had they been left Sweden?

How long had they lived in the Black Sea region/

 

And that brings us back to the original question concerning their migration from the Black Sea and the Sack of Rome.

They had a kingdom stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea by about 200AD, and there are reports of them cheerfully torching the cities of Asia Minor throughout the third century. When pressure was put on their borders by tribes fleeing from the Huns, I think they may have in the early stages given up their lands on the Baltic and retained the more productive lands around the Black Sea as a means of damage limitation. Eventually as we all know, direct pressure from the Huns themselves made it neccessary for them to leave these lands and make them seek refuge in the Empire itself.

 

As an interesting footnote, many of these goths were in fact descended from Roman captives taken from the Asia Minor raids of the previous century (if I had my books handy just now I could name some) and they were fluent and literate in Latin. Maybe this is the source of their grievances about not being allowed to settle in the Empire in the first instance, and afterwards only grudgingly, as second class subjects. They may have by then considered themselves part Roman, and entitled to inclusion in the Roman world.