Goths
This article is about the Germanic tribes. For the late 20th century youth subculture see Goth.
Our only source for early Gothic history is Jordanes' Getica, (published 551 CE), a condensation of the lost twelve-volume history of the Goths written in Italy by Cassiodorus. Jordanes may not even have had the work at hand to consult from, and this early information should be treated with the highest degree of caution. Cassiodorus was well placed to write of Goths, for he was an essential minister of Theodoric the Great, who apparently had heard some of the Gothic songs that told of their mythic origins, related in turn by Jordanes with the remark "for so the story is generally told in their early songs, in almost historic fashion." The Gothic bards accompanied themselves on a stringed instrument that Latin writers associated with the cithara, which was more familiar to them.
The Goths own tradition was they had originated in Scandza which was separated by the Baltic sea from the mainland of Europe. They battled with, and temporarily subjugated, the ancestors of the Slavs (there were many Gothic loanwords in proto-Slavic), who lived between the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea and ultimately settled in 'Scythia' a vast undefined region that includes modern Ukraine and Belarus. A united tribe until the third century, it was during that period that they split into the eastern Goths or Ostrogoths and the western Goths or Visigoths.
Though many of the fighting nomads who followed them were to prove more bloody, the Goths were feared because the captives they took in battle were sacrificed to their god of war (who was likely to have been either Tiu or Wodan), and the captured arms hung in trees as a token-offering. Their kings and priests came from a separate aristocracy, according to Cassiodorus/Jordanes, and their mythic kings of ancient times were honored as gods. Their mythic lawgiver, named Dicineus, traditionally dated about the 1st century BCE, ordered their laws, which they possessed by the 6th century in written form and called belagines.
A force of Goths launched one of the first major "barbarian" invasions of the Roman Empire in 267 CE. A year later, they suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Naissus and were driven back across the Danube River by 271. This group then settled on the other side of the Danube from Roman territory and established an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia, as the Visigoths. In the meantime, the Goths still in the Ukraine established a vast and powerful kingdom along the Black Sea. This group became known as the Ostrogoths.
The Goths were briefly reunited under one crown in the early sixth century under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great, who became regent of the Visigothic kingdom for nearly two decades.
For the later history of the Goths, see Visigoths and Ostrogoths.
Origins
The question of the origin of the Goths has been discussed for a long time. Modern scholarship mostly rejects the idea that the Goths originated in Scandinavia. The 6th century Getica, written by Jordanes on the basis of the now lost history of the Goths by Cassiodorus, envokes several origin options, including the Getae, the biblical Magog and the island of Scanza. These are, however, topoi of ancient historiography and they don't reflect a real authentic tradition. Therefore, the earliest evidence for the Goths puts them at the Vistula from around 0 CE. The material culture associated with these Goths (or better Gotones) is typically identified with the Wielbark/Willenberg culture. This culture shifted south-eastwards towards the Black Sea area from the mid-2nd century.
It is a matter of dispute whether the Geats, a people living in the Geatish lands in Sweden, did satisfy this alleged connection. The word "Geats" (Anglo-Saxon Geatas) and the Swedish word "Götar" (East Norse Gøtar) both represent the expected outcome of proto-Germanic *Gauta-. This is different from the reconstructed root *Gut- which seems to be the origin of "Goth," which appears earliest in forms such as "Gutthones" in Greek ethnography. Philologists have reconstructed *Gut-þiuda, the "Gothic people," as a likely original form of the name. The reconstructed root *Gut- is, however, identical to that of Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea. Older scholarship argued for a linguistic connections between Gothic and Old Norse, while Gutnish, the dialect of Gotland was regarded as a form of Gothic. Yet, this theory is nowaydays no longer accepted. Instead, Old Norse is not closer to Gothic than any other Germanic dialect.
''See also: Gothic language, Gothic alphabet, Getae and Gepidae
Compare Gothic architecture, which has no historical connection with the Goths