or (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "On banquets of barbarians" or "On barbarian guests") is an

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mille ...

preserved in the (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Codex Parisinus Latinus, 10318) of the

Latin Anthology The ''Latin Anthology'' is a modern name given to a collection of Latin verse, from the age of Ennius to about 1000, formed by Pieter Burmann the Younger. Nothing corresponding to the Greek Anthology is known to have existed among the Romans, thou ...

, copied in Italy 800 AD. It is noted for containing a few words in a Germanic language that historians believe to be

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

Vandalic Vandalic was the Germanic language spoken by the Vandals during roughly the 3rd to 6th centuries. It was probably closely related to Gothic, and, as such, is traditionally classified as an East Germanic language. Its attestation is very fragm ...

: in either case, this makes it a rare attestation of medieval

East Germanic East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

Origins and language

The poem's date of composition is unknown, but postulated to be penned between the sixth and eighth century AD. Although the text states that it is referring to Goths ''per se'', several features mark the Germanic words as Vandalic, and it is likely that the text simply uses the term 'Gothic' loosely: correspondingly,

Procopius Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gener ...

refers to the

Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe ...

, Vandals,

Visigoths The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is ...

, and

Gepids The Gepids, ( la, Gepidae, Gipedae, grc, Γήπαιδες) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion a ...

as "Gothic nations" and opines that they "are all of the

Arian Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...

faith, and have one language called Gothic".

Text

Translation of the Germanic words in the epigram is disputed, but the text means something like:

Metre

There is no doubt that the text is hexametrical, although there has been dispute about the

scansion Scansion ( , rhymes with ''mansion''; verb: ''to scan''), or a system of scansion, is the method or practice of determining and (usually) graphically representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse. In classical poetry, these patterns are ...

. One likely interpretation is thus:Magnús Snædal,
The "Vandal" Epigram
, in ''Filologia Germanica/Germanic Philology'', 1 (2009), 181-213 (p. 207). Īntĕr "ĕ, īls" Gŏtĭ, cūm "scăpĭ, ā mătzĭ, ā iā , drīncăn!" nōn āu, dēt quīs, quām dīg, nōs ē, dīcĕrĕ, vērsūs. Cāllĭŏ, pē mădĭ, dō trĕpĭ, dāt sē , iūngĕrĕ , Bācchō. nē pĕdĭ, būs nōn , stēt , , ēbrĭă , Mūsă sŭ, īs.

References

{{Authority control East Germanic languages Vandals Gothic language Medieval Latin poetry Poems about drugs