Getica
The Getica begins with a discussion of a large island named Scandza, which faces the mouth of the Vistula river and had been described by the writers Claudius Ptolemy and Pomponius Mela.
Jordanes reports this island to be the original home of many different peoples including the Goths, who have swarmed like bees from there (16-25).
Jordanes commences the history of the Goths with the emigration of a Gothic king named Berig with three ships from Scandza to Gothiscandza (25, 94), in the distant past.
The less-fictional part of Jordanes' work begins when the Goths encounter Roman military forces in the 3rd century AD.
Modern scholars have struggled to find any confirming evidence that his claims about such sources can give credibility to the more doubtful parts of the work.
[4] In a passage that has become controversial, he identifies the Venedi, a people mentioned by Tacitus, Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy, with the Slavs of the 6th century.
Since as early as 1844,[9] this passage has been used by some scholars in eastern Europe to support the idea that there was a distinct Slavic ethnicity long before the last phase of the Late Roman period.
Although there is a range of views, the earliest parts of the narratives are considered mainly mythological, and the account becomes more reliable as it approaches the 6th century.
[12][13] Some scholars claim that, while acceptance of Jordanes' text at face value may be too naïve, a totally skeptical view is not warranted.
Although the chronology is untenable, one Austrian historian, Herwig Wolfram, believes that there might be a kernel of truth in the claim, proposing that a clan of the Gutae may have left Scandinavia and contributed to the ethnogenesis of the Gutones in eastern Pomerania (see Wielbark culture).
[15] On the other hand, a Danish scholar, Arne Søby Christensen, claims that the Getica is an entirely fabricated account, and that the origin of the Goths that Jordanes outlines is a construction based on popular Greek and Roman myths, as well as misinterpretation of recorded names from Northern Europe.
[16] Canadian scholar Walter Goffart suggests another incentive, arguing that the Getica was part of a conscious plan by Justinian I and the propaganda machine at his court to affirm that the Goths and their barbarian cousins did not belong to the Roman world, thus justifying the claims of the Eastern Roman Empire to hegemony over the western part.
[22] He goes on to say that he added relevant passages from Latin and Greek sources, composed the Introduction and Conclusion, and inserted various things of his own authorship.
[8] Cassiodorus was a native Italian (Squillace, Bruttium), who rose to become advisor and secretary to the Gothic kings in various high offices.
He asked Cassiodorus to write a work on the Goths that would, in essence, demonstrate their antiquity, nobility, experience and fitness to rule.
The fact that Jordanes once obtained them from a steward indicates that the wealthy Cassiodorus was able to hire at least one full-time custodian of them and other manuscripts of his; i.e., a private librarian (a custom not unknown even today).
The times and places of these readings have been the concern of many scholars, as this information possibly bears on how much of Getica is based on Cassiodorus.
A number of token kings ruled from there while Belisarius established that the Goths were not going to reinvade and retake Italy (which was however taken again by the Lombards after Justinian's death).
Some common changes are fourth to second (lacu to laco), second declension adjective to third (magnanimus to magnanimis), i-stems to non-i-stems (mari to mare in the ablative).
