GOTHS (in Latin Goti, Gothi, Gothones, or Guttones), a great branch of the Germanic family of nations, who, on their first appearance in history, are described as occupying the country about the mouth of the Vistula, north of the Lygii. They are spoken of under the name of Guttones, and as inhabiting the coast of the Baltic as early as the time of Pytheas, the Massilian navigator, who seems to have been a contemporary of Alexander the Great. After this, several centuries pass away, during which we hear nothing of the Goths, until we find them mentioned in the Germania of Tacitus, under the name of Gothones, and as still inhabiting the coast of the Baltic. After the time of Tacitus they are not mentioned again until the reign of Caracalla, when Spartianus speaks of them under the name of Gothi, from which our Goth is formed, and which is evidently a more correct form of the name, as we know from the Gothic bishop, Ulphilas, who lived in the fourth century of the Christian era, that the Goths called themselves by the name
Goths. of Gutthiuda. But what is more interesting and important than all this, is the fact, that under Caracalla we find them no longer on the Baltic but on the coast of the Black Sea, about the mouths of the Danube, in a country which many centuries before had been occupied by the Getæ, a Thracian people. This circumstance has given rise to much confusion both with ancient and modern writers, who, identifying the Goths with the Getæ, or at least calling the former by the name of the latter, led many to the belief that the Goths were a Thracian or even a Sarmatian tribe. But all we know of the history and the language of the Goths does not leave a shadow of a doubt as to their Germanic character; they had no connection whatever with the Getæ, whether we regard these latter as Thracians or as Sarmatians. Some again have identified them with the Gothini, and believed them to be Celts, because Tacitus describes the Gothini as speaking a Celtic dialect. But Tacitus is innocent of this confusion, as he speaks of the Gothini and Gothones in the same chapter as two distinct tribes, calling the former Celts and the latter Germans. We must therefore assume that during the period between Tacitus and Caracalla the Goths had migrated from the coasts of the Baltic southwards to those of the Black Sea. Caracalla, during an expedition to the east, is said to have defeated them several times. For some time after this they appear to have remained quiet, but the Emperor Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-235) found them to be very troublesome neighbours, and endangering the safety of the province of Dacia, for they were animated by the same hostile feelings towards the empire as the more western German tribes on the Upper Danube and the Rhine. In the reign of the Emperor Philippus (A.D. 244-249) they not only succeeded in conquering the province of Dacia, but even penetrated into Mæsia, where they laid siege to the city of Marcianopolis, and compelled it to pay a large sum of money for their departure. Not long after this they invaded Mæsia a second time, and although they were at first (B.C. 250) obliged to retreat before the legions of Decius, they soon after returned and destroyed the whole Roman army, and sacked the town of Nicopolis at the foot of Mount Hæmus (Balkan). Without thinking of the possibility of their return being cut off, the Goths pushed forward into Macedonia, and advanced as far as the pass of Thermopylæ in Greece; but here they met a most determined resistance, and were forced to return to the north. Near the town of Abrutum in Mæsia, they met Decius with a fresh army; but the emperor was slain and his army annihilated, A.D. 251. Meanwhile the Goths extended their dominion on the coasts of the Black Sea, and having made themselves masters of the Crimea, they formed a formidable navy consisting of numerous flat boats. With this they boldly sailed to all parts of the Euxine and took possession of the towns of Pityus and Trapezus, in the harbour of which latter city they captured many vessels, with which they sailed to the sea of Azow, A.D. 258. In the following year they directed their attacks against the wealthy cities on the Thracian Bosphorus, and conquered Chalcedon, Nicomedia, Nicea, Prusa, Apamea, and Cius. A third expedition which they undertook with 500 ships was still more disastrous to the empire; they attacked and destroyed Cyzicus, crossed the Ægean Sea, and landed at the port of Athens; all the country from the south of Peloponnesus as far as Thessaly and Epirus was fearfully ravaged, and the whole of the Illyrian peninsula was devastated. At length, wearied of their long toils and dangers, a portion of them returned by land through Mæsia to their own country; the remainder returned by sea along the coast of Asia Minor, spreading devastation wherever they appeared. But they found it impossible to remain inactive for any length of time, and, in A.D. 268, entered upon a still larger maritime enterprise, during which, although they made unsuccessful attacks on Tomi and Marcianopolis, and although they
Goths. sustained great losses in the Thracian Bosphorus and on the coasts of Asia Minor, they yet succeeded in devastating Crete and Cyprus, and produced great distress at Cassandria and Thessalonica, which were besieged by them. At length, however, the Emperor Claudius, in A.D. 269, gained a great victory over the Goths near the town of Naissus, whence he obtained the honourable surname of Gothicus. Few only returned to their country on the Black Sea, but under the two following emperors they nevertheless continued to harass the adjacent parts of the empire, and in A.D. 272 Aurelian thought it proper to give up to them the large province of Dacia. There now followed a period of nearly 50 years during which the Goths did not engage in any fresh undertaking against the empire, except that in the reign of Tacitus they undertook an unsuccessful expedition into Colchis and Asia Minor. About the time when Constantine had overcome all his opponents the Goths again took the field against the Romans; their king, Araric, in A.D. 331, crossed the Danube, and although he gained some advantages in the first engagement, he was worsted in a second; and, as at the same time the Goths had to quell an insurrection of their own subjects in the Crimea, Araric concluded peace with Constantine. This peace was faithfully kept, and as long as the family of Constantine occupied the imperial throne the Goths never molested the empire, and Hermanric, the successor of Araric, was never engaged in war against the Romans. It was not till the reign of Valens that both parties were again involved in a war, which lasted three years, from A.D. 367 to 369, and in which the Goths appear to have gained some advantages over their enemies. At the time when the Huns appeared, the south-western portion of the Goths, alarmed at the approach of the savage hordes, implored the emperor of the East to allow them to settle in the empire, and place themselves under his protection. The request was granted, and in A.D. 375 these Goths, commanded by two of their chiefs, crossed the Danube and entered the empire; the eastern portion of the Goths, who had made the same request, were refused admission into the empire. If the emperor had kept his promise, the western Goths (or, as they are more commonly called, the Visigoths) might have become useful subjects; but being provoked by the ill treatment they experienced at the hands of their pretended protectors, they took up arms, defeated the Roman legions, and, having formed connections with a division of Goths engaged in the service of the emperor, and with a portion of the eastern Goths or Ostrogoths, fought a great battle near Adrianople, in which the Emperor Valens lost his life. The Goths then marched upon Constantinople, which, however, was well defended; and then turning westwards, advanced as far as the Julian Alps. In the reign of Theodosius I. (A.D. 379-395) the Goths continued their ravaging expeditions both in the north and south; and although they sustained many a defeat, still they maintained themselves in Thrace as well as in Dacia, and their strength was repeatedly increased by the arrival of kindred tribes from the north. The court of Constantinople perceiving the impossibility of subduing these formidable barbarians, at last formed the plan of winning them over, and amalgamating them with the empire. Whole swarms of Goths now entered the armies of the empire; but after the death of Theodosius those who were stationed in Thrace, commanded by their bold chief, Alaric, broke up, and without meeting with any great obstacle, advanced through the pass of Thermopylæ towards Thebes and Athens, Corinth, Argos, and Sparta, all of which were plundered. When the work of destruction was complete they turned northward towards Epirus, where they remained. During this same period the Ostrogoths, under their chief, Guinas, made an attempt to seize Constantinople, and place their own leader upon the imperial throne, but they were forced to retreat across the Danube. Notwith-
standing the acts of hostility committed by Alaric in Greece, he was invested by the emperor with the dignity of Duke of Illyricum, in which capacity he made his first invasions of Italy in the years A.D. 400-404. His example was followed by Radagaisus, who crossed the Alps with an immense host of Goths. Alaric even advanced as far as Rome, and penetrated into southern Italy, where his career terminated. The emperor of the West then purchased peace of the Visigoths by ceding to them, in B.C. 412, the southern part of Gaul. They accordingly evacuated Italy, and, after a short period of rest, Athaulf, the successor of Alaric, led his Goths across the Pyrenees into Spain; there he was assassinated. His successor, Wallia, assisted the Romans in their struggles against the Vandals and Alani in Spain, and was rewarded by the whole of Aquitania from Tolosa to the ocean being given up to him. The empire of the Visigoths now gained consistency on both sides of the Pyrenees during the reigns of their kings Theodoric I., Thorismund, and Theodoric II.; and in the second half of the fifth century king Euric raised it to its highest prosperity. The kings of the Visigoths, now ruling over Spain and a great portion of Gaul (France), resided sometimes at Toulouse, sometimes at Arles, and sometimes at Bordeaux; but, after the death of Euric, the Visigoths in Gaul were gradually driven across the Pyrenees by another set of German conquerors—the Franks—who ultimately succeeded in making themselves masters of the country, and giving it the name which it still bears. In Spain, however, the Visigoths maintained themselves for two centuries longer, until, in the end, the Moors overthrew their kingdom, and established Mohammedanism in the south of Spain. The institutions and language of the Goths in Spain have completely disappeared, and at the present moment there are scarcely any traces of the dominion of the Goths in Spain.
We have already observed that the Emperor Valens refused to allow the Ostrogoths to enter the empire in A.D. 375; but the terror of the Huns, and the desire to take revenge, soon after tempted the Ostrogoths to take by force of arms what had been denied to their request. Accordingly they crossed the Danube in defiance of the Romans, and many made of them common cause with the ill-treated Visigoths. But when the latter turned southward, the Ostrogoths marched into Pannonia. At the time when the Visigoths were establishing their power in Gaul and Spain, about A.D. 386, a new swarm of Ostrogoths under a chief, Edotheus, was in commotion in the country about the Lower Danube, but while attempting to cross the river they were completely defeated. During the ascendancy of the Huns, the Ostrogoths, with the exception of some bands following Attila into Gaul, committed no act of hostility against Rome; but after the destruction of the power of the Huns, we find them, commanded by three brothers, Walamir, Theodemir, and Widimir, in Pannonia, which was ceded to them by the Romans. The Eastern empire was obliged several times to purchase peace of the barbarians; and in one of these transactions Theodoric, a son of Theodemir, then a boy of seven years old, was given up to the court of Constantinople as a pledge that the peace should not again be disturbed. After the death of Walamir, Widimir led his hosts into Italy, where he maintained himself a long time; his son, however, on succeeding his father, was induced by the Emperor Glycerius to quit Italy and join the Visigoths in the west. Theodemir and his son Theodoric, who had in the meantime returned from Constantinople, harassed the Eastern empire by repeated predatory incursions, after which the country between the Lower Danube and Mount Balkan—that is, Lower Mœsia—was given up to them. Theodoric was now the ruler of his nation, and his capital seems to have been the town of Nova. For a time things went on tolerably well; but when the western empire was overturned, and Odoacer had set himself up as
the ruler of Italy, Theodoric was induced by Zeno, emperor of Constantinople, to invade Italy and expel the usurper. Accordingly, in A.D. 489, Theodoric led his hosts from Lower Mœsia to the west, and was successful in establishing an Ostrogothic kingdom on the ruins of that of Odoacer in Italy. The power thus formed and recognized by the court of Constantinople was irresistible, and the prestige of Theodoric's name secured his kingdom, as long as he lived, against all foreign aggression. But the approach of his death, A.D. 526, was the signal for the dissolution of his empire. His family was distracted by internal feuds; and being at the same time attacked from without, the kingdom, though bravely defended, in the end fell into the hands of the emperor of the East, and the Ostrogoths ceased to be an independent kingdom, A.D. 555. The Longobards and other German tribes, who had assisted in the destruction of the Ostrogothic kingdom, now established themselves in their turn in the north of Italy, and founded the Longobardic or Lombardic kingdom.
During the migrations of the Goths from north to south, and from east to west, some branches of the nation having during their residence in a country become aware of the advantages of a settled mode of life, remained behind, while their brethren went forth in search of new adventures. The most celebrated among the former were the Mœsogoths, a branch of the Visigoths, who remained behind in Mœsia at the time when the great body of their nation migrated westward; but they were by no means quiet neighbours of the empire; for under their king, Theodoric (not to be confounded with the Ostrogoth), they extorted money and honours from the Roman emperor. The Gothic Tetraite were a branch of the Ostrogoths who remained behind about the Lower Danube, and preserved their national peculiarities for a long time. Besides these, however, there are several other tribes, such as the Gepidæ, Taifalæ, Guthrungi, Greutungi or Grutungi, and others, which, notwithstanding their distinctive names, must be regarded as belonging to the great nation of the Goths. In fact, the nation appears to have been divided into a great number of subdivisions with special names, each of which was at first governed by its own chief. Some of these smaller tribes forming a closer connection among themselves ultimately united into larger bodies under one common ruler. This gave rise to the two great divisions into which we afterwards find the nation divided—the western and the eastern Goths, the former occupying the fertile and woody districts of the west, and the latter the sandy steppes of the east. The western Goths are called by the ancient writers Wisigothi, Vuisigothi, Wesegothee, or Wesigothee, and the eastern Austrogothi or Ostrogothi. Zosimus and Ammianus Marcellinus apparently did not know these names and divisions of the Gothic people; Jornandes, on the other hand, goes too far in assuming that the distinction of Visigoths and Ostrogoths existed even at the time when the nation still dwelt on the Vistula. The complete separation of the two branches did not take place until the power of the Ostrogothic king, Hermanric, was crushed by the Huns who came from the distant east.
As the Goths were unquestionably Germans, their religion and language were in all points of importance the same as those of the other German tribes. Christianity was gradually introduced among them even before the time of Constantine the Great, for, at the council of Nicaea, A.D. 325, a Gothic bishop of the name of Theophilus was present. This fact would seem to suggest, that they belonged to the orthodox or Catholic Christians; but it is quite certain that, in the reign of the Emperor Valens, Arianism predominated among them. Attempts, however, to crush Christianity were still made from time to time by their rulers. Thus, Athanaric, the chief of the Thervingi, the principal tribe among the Visigoths, did all he could to exterminate the
Goths. new religion, and cruelly persecuted those who disobeyed his commands. But no man did more firmly to establish Christianity among his countrymen than the Mæso-Gothic bishop Ulphilas, about the middle of the fourth century, who invented a Gothic alphabet, by a combination of those of the Greeks and Romans, adapting it to the Gothic language. When this was accomplished, he translated the Scriptures into the Mæso-Gothic, a translation which is still extant in part, and is the most ancient written specimen of any of the various German dialects. A somewhat incomplete MS. of this work, which was probably written about 150 years after the time of Ulphilas, and is known under the name of Codex Argentens, exists in the library at Upsala in Sweden; another likewise imperfect MS. is preserved in the library of Wolfenbüttel, under the name of the Codex Carolinus. This translation and separate portions of it have often been printed, and are invaluable to the student of philology. The best edition is that of Gabelentz and Læwe, bearing the title, Ulfila Veteris et Novi Testamenti Vers. Goth. Fragmenta quæ supersunt cum Commentario et Glossario, Altenburg, 1836, 4to. Besides this translation of the Bible, there are a few other literary productions, which show that the connection of the Goths with the Greeks and Romans was not without a considerable influence in inspiring the barbarians with a love of literature. It is owing to this influence that, independently of the radical identity between the classical and Gothic languages, a number of Greek and Latin words are found in the work of Ulphilas. Another Goth who distinguished himself as a writer, though he composed his work in Greek, was the priest Jorandes, who, according to some, was Bishop of Ravenna, and wrote a history of the Goths—De Rebus Geticis—from the earliest times, down to the year A.D. 552. This work is the most important we have on the history of the Goths. He regards the nation as having come from Scandinavia, which, he says, was their original home. The fact of there having been Goths in the country now called Sweden, is sufficiently well established, and is evident from several local names, as Gothland, Gothenburg, and others; but it is much more probable to suppose that Goths migrated or sailed to Scandinavia at the time when they still occupied the country about the Vistula, than that Scandinavia should have been their original home. The literary character, or rather their aptitude for literature, is further attested by the fact, that the Visigoths had written laws as early as the time of Euric, when no other German tribes can be supposed to have been even acquainted with the art of writing. It is probably this superiority of the Goths over all other German tribes, that has led some modern writers to apply the term Gothic to all things connected with the ancient Germans; and even to speak of Saxons and other tribes as members of the Gothic stock; but such a usage is not warranted by anything we know about the Goths. In order to give the reader some idea of the Gothic language in the fourth century of our era, we shall here quote the Lord's Prayer from Ulphilas' translation, with a literal translation, which cannot fail to show the relationship of the Gothic to other German dialects:—
Atta unar thu in himina weihai narno thein. Quinosai
Father our thou in heaven, hallowed name thine. Come
thidunastus theins. Wairthai ulipa theinz, sue in himina jak ana
kingdom thine. Be done will thine, as in heaven as on
airthai. Hlaif unsarana thana sinteian give uns
earth. Bread our the perpetual or daily give us
himadaga. Jak afet uns thotei skulans rijina, swance jak
to-day. And forgive us what guilty we are, as also
weis afetun thoin skulam unsarais. Jak ni briggais uns in
we forgive the trespasses ours. And not bring us into
fraistubnoj, ak lauri uns of thaussa ublin, unte theina ist
temptation, but deliver us of the evil, for thine is
thidanzardi jak matha jak wultur in aiwins. Amen.
kingdom and might and glory for ever. Amen.
There are also some documents belonging to the Ostrogoths of the time of their dominion in Italy, especially one which is preserved at Naples, and another at Arezzo; both were composed about the end of the fifth, and the beginning of the sixth century. Among the numerous modern works which the reader may consult are, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Aschbach, Geschichte der Westgothen; Manso, Geschichte der Ostgothen in Italien; Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme. (L. 8.)