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Ermanaric
Ermanaric (died 376) was a Greuthungian king who before the Hunnic invasion evidently ruled a sizable portion of Oium, the part of Scythia inhabited by the Goths at the time. He is mentioned in two Roman sources: the contemporary writings of Ammianus Marcellinus, and in ''Getica'' by the sixth-century historian Jordanes. He also appears in a fictionalized form in later Germanic heroic legends. Modern historians disagree on the size of Ermanaric's realm. Herwig Wolfram postulates that he at one point ruled a realm stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea as far eastwards as the Ural Mountains. Peter Heather is skeptical of the claim that Ermanaric ruled all Goths except the Tervingi, and furthermore points to the fact that such an enormous empire would have been larger than any known Gothic political unit, that it would have left bigger traces in the sources and that the sources on which the claim is based are not nearly reliable enough to be taken at face value. E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Germanic Heroic Legend
Germanic heroic legend () is the heroic literary tradition of the Germanic peoples, Germanic-speaking peoples, most of which originates or is set in the Migration Period (4th-6th centuries AD). Stories from this time period, to which others were added later, were transmitted oral literature, orally, traveled widely among the Germanic speaking peoples, and were known in many variants. These legends typically reworked historical events or personages in the manner of oral poetry, forming a Germanic Heroic Age, heroic age. Heroes in these legends often display a heroic ethos emphasizing honor, glory, and loyalty above other concerns. Like Germanic mythology, heroic legend is a genre of Germanic folklore. Heroic legends are attested in Anglo-Saxon England, medieval Scandinavia, and medieval Germany. Many take the form of Germanic heroic poetry (): shorter pieces are known as heroic lays, whereas longer pieces are called Germanic heroic epic (). The early Middle Ages preserves only a sm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Amali
The Amali – also called Amals, Amalings or Amalungs – were a leading dynasty of the Goths, a Germanic people who confronted the Roman Empire during the decline of the Western Roman Empire. They eventually became the royal house of the Ostrogoths and founded the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Origin The Amal clan was claimed to have descended from the divine. Jordanes writes: Now the first of these heroes, as they themselves relate in their legends, was Gapt, who begat Hulmul. And Hulmul begat Augis; and Augis begat him who was called Amal, from whom the name of the Amali comes. Athal begat Achiulf and Oduulf. Now Achiulf begat Ansila and Ediulf, Vultuulf and Ermanaric. This provides the following stemma for the earliest rulers of the Goths, before outlining in more detail the two divisions that arose from the son, Achiulf of Athal, the last in this early lineage: Gapt or Gaut is the Scandinavian god of war. Hulmul or Humli-Hulmul, is considered the divine father of the Danish p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Vithimiris
Vithimiris was a king of the Greuthungi, ruling for some unspecified time in the area of present-day southern Ukraine. He succeeded to Ermanaric, meaning that he probably reigned in 376. Ammianus Marcellinus, the only known source on him, states that after Ermanaric's death he tried to resist the Alani, who were allied with the Huns, with the help of other Huns hired as mercenaries. He did so "for some time" (), but eventually, "after many defeats" (), he died in battle. It is then assumed that he most probably ruled in 376, possibly also in 375. According to Herwig Wolfram, Vithimiris was "certainly not" the son of Ermanaric. His son Viderichus was too young at that time to rule, so the actual reign was in the hands of Alatheus and Saphrax, his subordinate commanders, as Michael Kulikowski labels them. There is also a parallel story of these events, told by Jordanes, the only other author to mention Ermanaric. However, Jordanes does not know Vithimiris; he narrates that after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Svanhildr
Svanhildr is the beautiful daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun in Germanic heroic legend, whose grisly death at the hands of her jealous royal husband Ermanaric was told in many northern European stories, including the Old Norse '' Poetic Edda'' (''Hamðismál'' and '' Guðrúnarhvöt''), ''Prose Edda'', and '' Völsunga Saga''; the skaldic poem '' Ragnarsdrápa''; the Danish Latin '' Gesta Danorum''; and the German Latin '' Annals of Quedlinburg''. She was "the most beautiful of all women", and was married to Ermanaric (''Jörmunrekkr'') the king of the Goths. She was accused of infidelity with the king's son, Randver. Because of this Ermanaric had her trampled to death under horses. Her mother made her half-brothers Hamdir and Sörli exact revenge for her death, a story which is retold in ''Hamðismál'' and '' Guðrúnarhvöt'', Bragi Boddason's '' Ragnarsdrápa'', in the '' Völsunga saga'' and in '' Gesta Danorum''. Jordanes wrote in 551 AD that Ermanaric, king of the Got ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ammius
Hamdir (Old Norse: ), Sörli (O.N.: ), and Erpr (O.N.: ) were three brothers in Germanic heroic legend who may have had a historic basis in the history of the Goths. Legend According to the Edda and ''Völsunga saga'', Hamdir and Sörli were the sons of Gjuki's daughter Guðrún and King Jonakr (O.N.: ). Erpr was the son of Jonakr from an earlier marriage. Svanhildr, the daughter of Sigurðr and Guðrún, was also raised by Jonakr. King Jörmunrekr (Ermanaric) proposed to Svanhildr through his son Randver, but the treacherous Bicke said that Randver tried to win Svanhild's love. Consequently, Jörmunrekr sentenced Randver to death by hanging and had Svanhildr trampled to death by horses. Guðrún then agitated her sons Hamdir and Sörli to avenge their half-sister, and tells them not to hurt the stones on the road. When Sörli and Hamdir met Erpr en route, they did not understand his riddles and, thinking him arrogant, killed him. During the night, they arrived and they cut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Greuthungi
The Greuthungi (also spelled Greutungi) were a Goths, Gothic people who lived on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Pontic steppe between the Dniester River, Dniester and Don river, Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic people, who lived west of the Dniester River. To the east of the Greuthungi, living near the Don river, were the Alans. When the Huns arrived in the European Steppe region in the late 4th century, first the Alans were forced to join them, and then a part of the Greuthungi. Alans and Goths became an important part of Attila's forces, together with other eastern European peoples. Many Greuthungi, together with some Alans and Huns, crossed the Lower Danube to join a large group of Tervingi who had entered the Roman Empire in 376. These peoples defeated an imperial army in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, and came to a settlement agreement within the Roman empire by 382 AD. The original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Chernyakhov
The Chernyakhov culture, Cherniakhiv culture or Sântana de Mureș—Chernyakhov culture was an archaeological culture that flourished between the 2nd and 5th centuries CE in a wide area of Eastern Europe, specifically in what is now Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and parts of Belarus. The culture is thought to be the result of a multiethnic cultural mix of the Geto- Dacian, Sarmatian, and Gothic populations of the area. "In the past, the association of this Chernyakhov culture with the Goths was highly contentious, but important methodological advances have made it irresistible." The Chernyakhov culture territorially replaced its predecessor, the Zarubintsy culture. Both cultures were discovered by the Czech-Russian archaeologist Vikentiy Khvoyka, who conducted numerous excavations around Kyiv and its vicinity. With the invasion of Huns, the culture declined and was replaced with the Penkovka culture (or the culture of the Antes). Similarities have been noted between the Cher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Oium
Oium was a name for Scythia, or a fertile part of it, roughly in modern Ukraine, where the Goths, under a legendary King Filimer, settled after leaving Gothiscandza, according to the ''Getica'' by Jordanes, written around 551. It is generally assumed that the story reproduced by Jordanes contains a historical core, although several scholars have suggested that parts of it are fictional. Name etymology Jordanes does not give an etymology, but many scholars interpret this word as a dative plural to a noun, widespread in the Germanic languages, whose Proto-Germanic reconstruction is *''awjō'' and which means 'well-watered meadow' or 'island'. (The same noun is also found in ''Scatinauia'', the Latinised name of an island in Northern Europe mentioned in Pliny the Elder's ''Naturalis historia'', from which the names of Scandinavia and Scania originate.) This noun is generally derived from the Proto-Germanic word *''ahwō'' 'water; stream, river' (whence Gothic 'river'), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Gothic Language
Gothic is an extinct language, extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the ''Codex Argenteus'', a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizeable text corpus. All others, including Burgundian language (Germanic), Burgundian and Vandalic language, Vandalic, are known, if at all, only from proper names that survived in historical accounts, and from loanwords in other, mainly Romance languages, Romance, languages. As a Germanic language, Gothic is a part of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is the earliest Germanic language that is attested in any sizable texts, but it lacks any modern descendants. The oldest documents in Gothic date back to the fourth century. The language was in decline by the mid-sixth century, partly because of the military defeat of the Goths at the hands of the Franks, the elimination of the Goths ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Alans
The Alans () were an ancient and medieval Iranian peoples, Iranic Eurasian nomads, nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today North Caucasus – while some continued on to Europe and later North Africa. They are generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae. Modern historians have connected the Alans with the Central Asian Yancai of China, Chinese sources and with the Aorsi of Ancient Rome, Roman sources. Having migrated westwards and becoming dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, the Alans are mentioned by Roman sources in the . At that time they had settled the region north of the Black Sea and frequently raided the Parthian Empire and the South Caucasus provinces of the Roman Empire. From the Goths broke their power on the Pontic Steppe, thereby assimilating a sizeable portion of the associated Alans. Upon the Huns, Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around , many of the Alans migrated w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
