Jordanes

The Origin and Deeds of the Goths Jordanes

Jordanes, as he himself tells us a couple of times, was of Gothic descent and wrote this work as a summary of Cassiodorus' much longer treatment of the history of the Goths. Because Cassiodorus' book no longer survives, Jordanes' treatment is often our only source for some of the Gothic history it describes. He wrote the Getica during the later stages of the reign of Justinian, not too long after the demise of the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. Jordanes divided his work, apart from the brief introduction and conclusion, into four main sections (reflected in the contents below). These are 1) a Geographical Introduction; 2) the United Goths; 3) the Visigoths; 4) and the Ostrogoths. Other large sections, such as the discussion of the Huns, he treats as digressions of a sort (the more interesting or important of these have been added to the contents below). Mierow prefaces his translation with a detailed literary analysis of all the topics in the text; this is not, however, reproduced here.