Gothograeci

Gothograecia ( gr, Γοτθογραικία, Gotthograikia) was a region in northwestern Asia Minor on the south side of the Sea of Marmara from at least the late 7th century until the mid-10th. It was part of the region of Opsikion in the Roman (Byzantine) Empire. Its inhabitants, the Greek-speaking descendants of a group of Goths, were known as Gothograeci (Γοτθογραίκοι, ''Gotthograikoi'').

The Gothograeci probably originated as an elite mercenary unit in the late 6th century, the ''Optimates''. They garrisoned Constantinople before being resettled in the region of Mysia in the 7th century. By the early 8th century, their "identity based in military activity as well as ethnic differentness adevolved ntoa strong sense of communal identity, and a reputation" as warriors. They were still considered Goths at the time, but this part of their identity was gradually diluted. They gave their name to the region they inhabited and its imprint can still be detected as late as the 12th century.

Origins

There is only one reference to the settlement of Goths in Asia Minor. The Greuthungian Goths under King Odotheus, defeated by the Romans along the lower Danube in 386, were subsequently settled in Phrygia, where they rapidly intermarried with the Phrygians. The Phrygian Goths and Thracian Goths appear to have played a small part in the factional fighting between Arians and Eunomians in and around Constantinople in the 380s. Selenas, bishop of the Goths on the Danube, had a Gothic father and Phrygian mother. In the past the Phrygian Goths were often linked to the later Gothograeci, but this theory is not widely held today.

The elite unit of the ''Optimates'', first attested in the late 6th century under the Emperor Maurice, is sometimes thought to have its origins in the Goths of Radagaisus defeated by Stilicho in 406. According to Olympiodorus, Stilicho recruited a large number, called ''optimates'', to serve in the Roman army. These Gothic ''optimates'' are thought to have been settled in Asia Minor, giving their name to Gothograecia and the later '' thema'' of Optimaton. This is unlikely, however, since it requires soldiers recruited in the west to have settled far to the east, and there is a gap in the records of the Gothic ''optimates'' of well over a hundred years.

John Haldon argues that, while the original Maurician ''Optimates'' were predominantly recruited mainly from among the Goths and to a lesser extent Lombards in Italy and the Balkans, they and their families were only settled in Mysia in the early 7th century under Tiberius Constantine and are unrelated to the Goths of Radagaisus of two centuries earlier. Thus, ''Optimates'' and Gothograeci are originally synonyms. They were Arians and had an Arian church in Constantinople under Tiberius. Popular opposition to their presence in the capital probably hastened their resettlement in Mysia. They may only have been permanently re-settled in the second half of the 7th century. By the time the term ''Gothograeci'' appears in the sources, the ethnic Gothic element among the population may have been "diluted to the extent that only the name had any connection" to the Goths of old.

In the 8th century, the Gothograeci were the leading element of the army of the Opsikion ''thema'', although they may have still belonged to the Optimaton until the reorganization of Constantine V (741–775). Moving the Gothograeci, still renowned for the martial skill, from the Optimaton to the Opsikion may be responsible for the downgrading of the former to a logistical rather than fighting unit. It was probably punitive also for the Gothograeci, who lost prestige when incorporated into a ''thema'' that already included other elite units. This was probably because they were regarded as a threat to the capital owing to their proximity and their participation in a rebellion in 715. It is also probably only with Constantine V's reform that the ''Optimates''' (and hence ''Gothograeci'''s) presence in Constantinople is brought to an end.

Attestations

Writing in the final years of the seventh or first half of the eighth century, Cosmas of Jerusalem provides the earliest evidence of a region called Gothia in Asia Minor. In passage describing the portage of boats across the Thracian Chersonese, he locates the land of Gothia opposite Thrace along the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, near the city of Lampsacus. Its inhabitants he calls Goths:

For there is a place next to Thrace, dry land six miles wide standing between woseas. From there, Thrace is easily accessible to the Goths and Gothia to the Thracians. And the Goths get on their ships—they are made from a single trunk