Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/589

 tori, Scriptores Rerum Ital. i. 222–242) is a compendium of the history of the world, of little value, and only important as indicating the strong feeling of the Goth Jordanis that the power of the Roman empire was to last to the end of time.

(2) The de Getarum Origine et Rebus Gestis is one of the most important works written during the period of the Teutonic settlements in Western Europe. In amount of matter it may equal about 20 pages of this Dict. Its contents are most conveniently arranged under four heads (cf. Ebert. p. 532).

1 (c. i. 13). The work opens with a geographical account of the world and in particular of N. Europe and the island "Scandza." Jordanis then identifies the Goths with the Scythians, whose country he describes, and praises their learning and bravery. He then recounts their wars with the Egyptians and Amazons, and, identifying the Goths with the Getae, describes the deeds of Telephus and Tomyris. Cyrus, Xerxes, Alexander the Great, Caesar and Tiberius are mentioned. With chap. 18 he suddenly passes to the devastation of the banks of the Danube by the Goths and their victory over the Romans. He then pauses to give fuller details about the royal Gothic race of the Amali.

2 (c. 14–23). He carries the genealogy of the Amali down to Mathasuentha, the granddaughter of Theodoric and widow of Vitigis, who had just married, as he tells us, Germanus brother of Justinian. He then returns to the Goths and their movement into Moesia and Thracia. Claiming for the emperor Maximus a Gothic father, he thus raises the Goths to high honour. The deeds of Ostrogotha are then related, the victory over the Gepidae, the expeditions to Asia Minor, and Geberich's conquest of the Vandals. After Geberich came Hermanaric conqueror of the Heneti and many other tribes.

3 (c. 24–47). This division begins with an account of the Huns, their victory over the Goths, and the death of Hermanaric. He traces the separation of the Visigoths from the Ostrogoths, and follows their history. He shortly recounts Alaric's invasion of Italy, and introduces the story of Attila's invasion of Gaul and defeat. The battle of Châlons is described at considerable length. At the close of the section he describes the subjugation of Italy by Odoacer and the deposition of Augustulus.

4 (c. 48–60). Jordanis now returns to the Ostrogoths, once more mentions the defeat of Hermanaric, and this leads him to speak of the death of Attila. He describes the movement of the Ostrogoths into Pannonia, the reign of Theodemir and the birth of Theodoric. The dealings of Theodoric with Zeno, his entrance into Italy and his victory over Odoacer are recounted. The outline of the fortunes of the Goths in Italy is related very briefly, and the work closes with the captivity of Vitigis, and another mention of the marriage of Mathasuentha with Germanus.

His own words in the dedication of the de Getarum Origine or History of the Goths, convey an impression that he had written an abstract from memory of a three days' reading of the History of the Goths by Cassiodorius, adding extracts of his own from Latin and Greek writers, and that the beginning, middle, and end of the work were his own composition. It might certainly have been supposed that the preface at least was the composition of Jordanis himself. But the most convincing evidence of the writer's want of originality has been shewn by the discovery made by Von Sybel with reference to this preface (Schmidt, Zeitschrift für Geschichte, vii. 288). It is largely a literal copy of the introduction by Rufinus to his trans. of Origen's Comm. on Romans.

If the general view of the History of the Goths by Jordanis, first propounded by Schirren, and afterwards worked out by Köpke, Bessel, and others, be true, the place of Jordanis as a historian is but low. He does not acknowledge several authorities whom he largely uses and displays an array of authorities whom he only knows at second-hand. But it must be remembered that Jordanis does not claim originality, except under the clause in the preface ("initium finemque et plura in medio mea dictione permiscens"). The substratum of the whole work must still be ascribed to Cassiodorius. Is it, then, possible to disentangle the work of Cassiodorius from the setting in which Jordanis has placed it? A complete separation can, from the circumstances of the case, hardly be possible. Yet we may be tolerably sure that, though many of the extracts bear the traces of the treatment and colouring of Jordanis, enough remains of the lost work to bring us in to close contact with the mind and words of Cassiodorius, and, to a certain extent, to enable us to understand his purpose in his great work.

The history of the Goths was certainly completed before the death of Athalaric in 534 (Variae, ix. 25); Köpke and others suppose c. 533. Since the discovery of the Anekdoton Holderi, however, it has become practically certain that the Gothic History of Cassiodorius was composed some years before 533; probably not later than 521.

In two passages of his Variae Cassiodorius refers to his Gothic History. By far the more important passage, of which nearly every word helps to shew his purpose, is in ix. 25, where Cassiodorius describes his History in a letter addressed nominally by king Athalaric to the senate in 534.

Cassiodorius clearly shews that his primary object was not literary, but political. He saw the growing antagonism between Goths and Romans and Theodoric's efforts to lessen it. He saw the king trying to combine the old and the new elements and to form a kingdom in which both could live with mutual respect. He determined to assist by his writing his master's plans. He would try to draw the Goths and Romans together by shewing that both nations were alike honourable for the antiquity of their race and the glory of their history. He would tell the Goths of the greatness of the Roman empire, with whom they fought in ancient days, and would shew the Romans that the kingly family of the Amali was as noble as any Roman house. No one was better fitted than he to write a history of the Goths. His real knowledge of ancient writers, his constant opportunities of converse with the king and Gothic nobles, his