The Probert Encyclopaedia of People

GOTHS

The Goths were an ancient Teutonic tribe occupying when first known to history the region adjacent to the Black Sea north of the lower Danube. A people of similar name is mentioned by Tacitus as dwelling south of the Baltic, and Geats or Gauts are known to us from the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf as inhabitants of southern Sweden; but there is no necessary connection between these and the Goths proper. About the middle of the 3rdcentury these began to encroach on the Roman Empire. Having seized the Roman province of Dacia, they were assailed by Decius, whom they twice defeated. In 253 they captured Trebizond, where a large fleet of ships fell into their hands. With this force they sailed down the AEgean and plundered the coasts of Greece and Illyria. They now began to threaten Italy, but in 269 they were defeated with great slaughter by the Emperor Claudius. His successor Aurelian was, notwithstanding, compelled to cede to them the large province of Dacia, after which there was comparative peace between them for many years.

In the 4th century the great Gothic kingdom extended from the Don to the Theiss, and from the Black Sea to the Vistula and the Baltic. About the year 369 internal commotions produced the division of the Gothic kingdom into the kingdom of the Ostrogoths (eastern Goths) and the kingdom of the Visigoths (western Goths). In 396 Alaric, king of the Visigoths, made an irruption into Greece, laid waste the Peloponnesus, and became prefect of Illyria. He invaded Italy and sacked Rome in 409, and a second time in 410. After his death in 410 the Visigoths succeeded in establishing a new kingdom in the southern parts of Gaul and Spain, of which, towards the end of the 5th century, Provence, Languedoc, and Catalonia were the principal provinces, and Toulouse the seat of government. The last king, Roderick, died in 711 in battle against the Moors, who had crossed from Africa, and subsequently conquered the Gothic kingdom.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, by the invasion of Odoacer in 476, the Eastern emperor, Zeno, persuaded Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, to invade Italy in 489. The Goth became king of Italy in 493, and laid the foundation of a new Ostrogothic kingdom, which, together with Italy, comprised Khastia (a part of Switzerland and the Tyrol), Vindelicia (part of Bavaria and Swabia), Noricum (Saltzburg, Stiria, Carinthia, Austria), Dalmatia, Pannonia (Further Hungary, Slavonia), and Dacia beyond the Danube (Transylvania, Walachia). This kingdom came to an end in 554. Subsequently the Goths both here and in Spain entirely disappeared as a distinct people.

Christianity appears to have taken root early among the Goths settled in Moesia, a Gothic bishop being mentioned as present at the council of Nicaea in 325. Their form of Christianity was Arianism, which was patronized by their protector Valens, and certainly adopted by their bishop, Ulfilas. The introduction of Christianity among the Goths, and the circumstance of their dwelling near, and even among civilized subjects of the Roman Empire, greatly contributed to raising them in civilization above the other German tribes. Bishop Ulfilas, in the 4th century, translated, if not the whole, at least the greater part of the Bible into Moeso-Gothic, using an alphabet which he formed out of those of the Greeks and Romans. Unfortunately only a small portion of this translation has come down to us; but this is quite sufficient to enable us to form an opinion of the language at that time, and is of the highest value from a philological point of view. Besides this translation there exist a few other monuments of the language, which are, however, of minor importance. Gothic was one of the Teutonic tongues, being accordingly a sister of Anglo-Saxon and English, German, Dutch, Danish, etc. Being committed to writing earlier than any other Teutonic language, Gothic exhibits peculiarities entirely its own, and hence its value in the study of Teutonic philology in general. It is richer in inflections than any other of the Teutonic tongues. Swedish is the least like the Gothic of all the Germanic dialects, and notwithstanding the name Gothland there is no evidence to show that the Goths ever formed part of the population of Scandinavia.
Research Goths