Why Did Jordanes Write the Getica?*,1

chapter 8 Why did Jordanes Write the Getica?*,1

Getica and Romana2

Jordanes tells us that he wrote the Getica3 because a friend asked him to produce a shortened version of the Gothic History of Cassiodorus.4 We can believe him, but with one qualification—that this is not the whole story. After all, Jordanes was already profoundly interested in history: he was already at work writing a compendium of Roman History, which he had to interrupt to write the history of the Goths. His Roman History has a lengthy introduction which links the world of Greece and Rome with the events of the Bible, with the dat- ing provided by Jerome’s Chronicle. Jordanes therefore wrote secular history, but he located his secular history in a Christian framework. His historiography was up to date, like that of the nearly contemporary Chronicle of Malalas.5 One might also note that while the Getica is composed in the form of a narrative there is little attempt to produce a continuous story. It has some of the discon- tinuity of a chronicle, though it is not composed annalistically, and indeed very little concerned with chronology.

* This article was previously published in Antiquité Tardive 19 (2011), pp. 295–302. 1 I want to thank Geoffrey Greatrex for helpful suggestions and corrections. He is not respon- sible for remaining errors. 2 Jordanes, Histoire de Rome de Romulus à Justinien 753 av. J.-C. à 552 apr. J.-C., suivie de L’Histoire des Goths, trad. H.A. Savagner & R. Fougères, Clermont Ferrand, 2002. 3 New text: F. Giunta and A. Grillone, Jordanes, De origine actibusque Getarum, Rome 1991. See also O. Devillers, Histoire des Goths, introd., trnsl., notes, Paris, 2005. 4 Getica 1: ut nostris verbis duodecem volumina Senatoris de origine actusque Getharum ab olim et usque nunc per generationes regesque coartem. On the identification of Getae and Gothi, see now C. Garcia, Godos y Getas en la historiagrafia de la tardoantigüedad, in Studia Historica: Historia Antigua, 22, 2004, pp. 179–296; also my Making a Gothic History, in Journal of Late Antiquity, 4.2, 2011 (in this volume 101–134). 5 E. Jeffreys, Malalas’ world view, in E. Jeffreys, B. Croke, R. Scott (dir.), Studies in John Malalas, Sydney, 1990, pp. 55–66.

The Getica and the Romana are parallel histories. Each is self-contained. There is very little overlap, and a letter to a certain Vigilius serves as an introduction to both treatises.6 They are not, however, a single work in that Jordanes has not revised the Getica to make its account consistent in detail with that of the Romana. There are a series of blatant mistakes in the Getica, which are not in the Romana. In the Getica, Jordanes fused the usurpers Maximus and Eugenius (Getica 145). He has Rome sacked by Athaulf as well as by Alaric (Getica 159–60). He situates the Vandal king Gaiseric in Spain already around 407 (Getica 153). He places the usurpations Constantine (ad 407) and Jovinus (ad 413) incorrectly (Getica 165) in the reign of the Visigothic king Vallia (ad 415–18). He already has the Vandal king Gaiseric in Africa in 416 (Getica 173), and attributes to Attila a second invasion of Gaul (ibid. 225–26). None of these errors is repeated in the Romana. Jordanes was working on the Romana when he was asked to write an epitome of Cassiodorus’ history of the Goths. So he interrupted work on the Romana to compile the Getica. He only then finished the Romana. The two books were completed in close succession: the latest event in each book hap- pened in 552.7 But since the Romana was finished last, it would have enabled Jordanes to correct some factual errors and omissions he had spotted in his earlier work, but he evidently did not go back to the Getica to correct those errors and omisssions.

The Getica: Jordanes and Cassiodorus

Jordanes’ two histories represent the two peoples, the Goths and the Romans as equals, not as equal in power, or in range of civilization, but as products of a long and glorious history. This perspective had not been created by Jordanes. It was already in the work of Cassiodorus which Jordanes was summarizing.8

6 W. Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History, Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede and Paul the Deacon (AD 550–800), Princeton, 1988, pp. 20–111, makes the point that the two works comple- ment each other. To investigate the views about the world of Jordanes and his aims as writer we must look at both works. 7 Latest event in Getica: Liberius sent with an army to Spain (Getica 303) in spring 552 (see E. Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire, 2, Paris, 1949, pp. 820ff.; J.A.S. Evans, The Age of Justinian, London, 1996, p. 180). Latest event in Romana: the defeat of the Gepids by the Lombards (Romana 386) in 552 (Proc. BG 4.25.14). Neither mentions the defeat and death of Totila in 552. B. Croke, Jordanes and the immediate past, in Historia, 54, 2005, pp. 473–94. 8 Cassiodorus had combined a sequence of narratives involving Scythians or Getae, drawn mainly from Greek historians, into a long excursus which he inserted into the meager