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The Goths in the Fourth Century
Of all the Germanic Peoples who were later to carve out successor kingdoms to the Roman empire, much more is known of the Goths than of any other group in the period before the great migrations of the late fourth and early fifth centuries. The Goths are thus of unique importance in our evaluation of the kinds of changes that these migrations worked upon the tribal neighbours of the Roman empire, as well as upon the Roman empire itself. This volume brings together many of the most important historical texts, the majority of them (speeches of Themistius, the Passion of St Saba, and evidence relating to the life and work of Ulfila) not previously available in English translation. Also included are representative selections, with commentary, from the Gothic New Testament, and, with ample illustration, from the so-called Sintana de Mures/Chernjachov culture associated with Gothic occupation of the transDanubian regions in the third and fourth centuries. Taken as a whole, these sources throw much light upon the political, social, and religious organisation of the Goths, and on the nature of their relations with the Roman state in the period before their fateful crossing of the Danube in 376.
202 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1991
180 people want to read
About the author
Peter Heather
22 books241 followersPeter Heather is currently Professor of Medieval History at King's College London. He has held appointments at University College London and Yale University and was Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History at Worcester College, Oxford until December 2007.
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July 21, 2024Perhaps you've lain awake at night wondering how well you'd cope if zapped back in time to fourth century Romania, or maybe at idle moments the question has crossed your mind - just how hard was it to become an early Christian martyr?
If so, these and many other persistent, nagging worries can be easily resolved by tucking into Heather & Matthews' book The Goths in the Fourth Century which combines a mismatched rag bag of surviving tatters of information about the Goths to provide as complete a source book as possible without Ammianus Marcellinus' history, Jordanes' Gothic History, or colour illustrations of the Codex Argenteus.
Gathered here are extracts from the New Testament translated into Gothic by Ulfila - the oldest text in a Germanic language - presented in parallel columns with Tyndale's 16th century translation into English with notes on the facing page. My first thought was that this was a bit of a gimmick, but then again, a thousand years between Ulfila and Tyndale, five hundred between Tyndale and us gives a sense of the stretch, variety and family resemblance of these Germanic languages.
Reading through the entire collection: the extracts from the bible, the Life of St. Saba, the orations, the letters, the summary of a lost church history (each written by a man with a radically different idea about the relationship between the constituent parts of the Trinity) I was struck again by how much hard work there is in creating a narrative history. Many of these sources are ungenerous, the letters dealing with (apparently) the translation of the relics of St.Saba are a vacuous collection of polite phrases that manage to entirely avoid saying anything specific . Such unforgiving material has to be read virtually upside down and sideways in a mirror to glean a meagre crumb of information on the Goths.
The summarised church history preserves a bare page and a half on Ulfila that comes down to us through a religious opponent, the Gothic Bible survives in fragments from as far a field as Egypt and in palimpsests. Yet in their time these were hugely significant. Despite these scant remnants, the Goths are the best documented of all the invaders to pour down on the Roman empire from the wet and windy north.
St.Saba's life demonstrates just how much hard work was involved in becoming a martyr. There seems in church history a general inclination, even by heartless pagans ,spoiler> presumably in response to the sanctity of the future martyr , to give the faithful a second chance, while the faithful have to dig deep and achieve new depths of obnoxiousness in order to claim their heavenly reward. Even at the last, the men detailed to execute Saba want to let him go, Saba himself is the one who insists that they martyr him, thus interpreting love thy neighbour as thyself in a manner unfamiliar, he seems genuinely perplexed that the pagans won't martyr another Christian who was also taken captive. It is not always easy to die for your faith in the fourth century. However had St Saba lived in the Christian Roman empire, he would have found plenty of Orthodox Christians ready to persecute him for his heretical beliefs on the nature of the Trinity.
There's also a nice discussion of the archaeological evidence from the region settled by the Goths before they crossed the frontier into the Roman empire. It is a little out of place perhaps amongst the other source material but nonetheless an entertaining summary. The evidence turned up by the spade is as easy to understand as the surviving evidence of the pen. The society seems to have been in transition, marked by changing burial practises. The Goths lived alongside the non-Gothic peoples who had lived in the region of modern Romania before the Goths had arrived, but the nature of their interrelationship is unknown. Many seem to have been relatively poor, with few rich burials, many lived in houses dug out of the earth and covered over by a wooden roof, others in the kind of hut more familiar in European history - a long shed divided into two rooms; with animals living in one room, with human inhabitants in the other. And there to the south of them where the lands of the Roman empire, rich in wine, olive oil and mustard...who could resist all that?
Not an introductory work on the Goths, but a good little book if you want to get an impression of how and using what sources historians write the introductory books that can seem so clear, definitive and certain.
If so, these and many other persistent, nagging worries can be easily resolved by tucking into Heather & Matthews' book The Goths in the Fourth Century which combines a mismatched rag bag of surviving tatters of information about the Goths to provide as complete a source book as possible without Ammianus Marcellinus' history, Jordanes' Gothic History, or colour illustrations of the Codex Argenteus.
Gathered here are extracts from the New Testament translated into Gothic by Ulfila - the oldest text in a Germanic language - presented in parallel columns with Tyndale's 16th century translation into English with notes on the facing page. My first thought was that this was a bit of a gimmick, but then again, a thousand years between Ulfila and Tyndale, five hundred between Tyndale and us gives a sense of the stretch, variety and family resemblance of these Germanic languages.
Reading through the entire collection: the extracts from the bible, the Life of St. Saba, the orations, the letters, the summary of a lost church history (each written by a man with a radically different idea about the relationship between the constituent parts of the Trinity) I was struck again by how much hard work there is in creating a narrative history. Many of these sources are ungenerous, the letters dealing with (apparently) the translation of the relics of St.Saba are a vacuous collection of polite phrases that manage to entirely avoid saying anything specific . Such unforgiving material has to be read virtually upside down and sideways in a mirror to glean a meagre crumb of information on the Goths.
The summarised church history preserves a bare page and a half on Ulfila that comes down to us through a religious opponent, the Gothic Bible survives in fragments from as far a field as Egypt and in palimpsests. Yet in their time these were hugely significant. Despite these scant remnants, the Goths are the best documented of all the invaders to pour down on the Roman empire from the wet and windy north.
St.Saba's life demonstrates just how much hard work was involved in becoming a martyr. There seems in church history a general inclination, even by heartless pagans ,spoiler> presumably in response to the sanctity of the future martyr , to give the faithful a second chance, while the faithful have to dig deep and achieve new depths of obnoxiousness in order to claim their heavenly reward. Even at the last, the men detailed to execute Saba want to let him go, Saba himself is the one who insists that they martyr him, thus interpreting love thy neighbour as thyself in a manner unfamiliar, he seems genuinely perplexed that the pagans won't martyr another Christian who was also taken captive. It is not always easy to die for your faith in the fourth century. However had St Saba lived in the Christian Roman empire, he would have found plenty of Orthodox Christians ready to persecute him for his heretical beliefs on the nature of the Trinity.
There's also a nice discussion of the archaeological evidence from the region settled by the Goths before they crossed the frontier into the Roman empire. It is a little out of place perhaps amongst the other source material but nonetheless an entertaining summary. The evidence turned up by the spade is as easy to understand as the surviving evidence of the pen. The society seems to have been in transition, marked by changing burial practises. The Goths lived alongside the non-Gothic peoples who had lived in the region of modern Romania before the Goths had arrived, but the nature of their interrelationship is unknown. Many seem to have been relatively poor, with few rich burials, many lived in houses dug out of the earth and covered over by a wooden roof, others in the kind of hut more familiar in European history - a long shed divided into two rooms; with animals living in one room, with human inhabitants in the other. And there to the south of them where the lands of the Roman empire, rich in wine, olive oil and mustard...who could resist all that?
Not an introductory work on the Goths, but a good little book if you want to get an impression of how and using what sources historians write the introductory books that can seem so clear, definitive and certain.
October 12, 2023
Peter Heather's expertise in the Roman world focuses on the Goths outside their usual scope. It does not deal primarily with their military invasion and adventures throughout the Roman Empire, but it does show us what their life was like. This includes a study of the rich, extensive material culture in the lands encompassing Romania and Ukraine. This comes to the dismay of the Soviets who had hoped it'd turn out to be some sort of evidence for ancient Slavic settlements in the region (womp womp). The Goths' affect on the Christian world and Christianity's affect on the Goths is also examined through letters, martyologies and a translation of the Bible. Some of it can feel heavy as it revolves around theological disputes and the martyologies echo the same format as many others from the early Christian world. However, what stood out was the rebuke against the citizens of Anatolia who'd exploited the chaos of the invasions to engage in the decadence and profit it from it too. In particular is the case of those who'd catch runwaway slaves, their own kinsmen, and return them to the Goths for a reward! Anyway, this book is a good overview before diving deep into the chaos of 5th century Rome and its fall, another of Heather's books and a terrific read.
September 24, 2013
This is probably still the best collection of text and archaeological evidence on the Goths, before they cross the Danube in English. They text contain all the sources except Jordanes and Ammianus Marcellinus (both of which are available elsewhere) and given Peter Heather's view's on Jordanes, it is hardly surprising he decided to exclude him.
The sources are all accompanied by a short introduction to put them in context, which makes them usually easy to understand and are thus very welcome.
However, unless you really like your Fourth century Theology, bring some chocolate, when digesting pages 135-141: Ulfila and the Church Dispute ---there was definitely too much detail about the Arian controversy there for this reviewer. But then I was after the historical and archaeological data.
The sources are all accompanied by a short introduction to put them in context, which makes them usually easy to understand and are thus very welcome.
However, unless you really like your Fourth century Theology, bring some chocolate, when digesting pages 135-141: Ulfila and the Church Dispute ---there was definitely too much detail about the Arian controversy there for this reviewer. But then I was after the historical and archaeological data.
January 4, 2014
I had been reading history of this time period, and the books kept referencing the same original texts. I wanted to find them, and came across this book. When I read the intro, it said they collected the texts in this one volume for that very reason! Therefore, if you're interested in the period at all, this is a perfect book. It even introduces the gothic alphabet, along with samples of the Gothic Bible, with help translating it. A really fantastic resource.
February 2, 2014
Extremely useful work for anyone interested in the Dark Age European period.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews