Getica

The title of the Getica as it appears in a 9th-century manuscript of Lorsch Abbey now in the Vatican Library

De origine actibusque Getarum (The Origin and Deeds of the Getae[n 1]),[1][2][3] commonly abbreviated Getica,[4] written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD,[5][6] claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the origin and history of the Gothic people, which is now lost.[7] However, the extent to which Jordanes actually used the work of Cassiodorus is unknown. It is significant as the only remaining contemporaneous resource that gives an extended account of the origin and history of the Goths, although to what extent it should be considered history or origin mythology is a matter of dispute.


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  1. ^ Costa 1977, p. 32.
  2. ^ De Rebus Geticis: O. Seyffert, 329; De Getarum (Gothorum) Origine et Rebus Gestis
  3. ^ Smith 1870, vol. 2, p.607.
  4. ^ (Mierow 1908)
  5. ^ Heather, Peter (1991), Goths and Romans 332-489, Oxford, pp. 47–49 (year 552)
  6. ^ Goffart, Walter (1988), The Narrators of Barbarian History, Princeton, p. 98 (year 554)
  7. ^ Wolfram 1988, Or in the original Die Goten (München 2001), consistently uses Origo Gothica as a name not only for the work of Cassiodorus, but also, very confusingly, for the Getica. The source is Cassiodorus, Variae 9.25.5: "Originem Gothicam fecit esse historiam Romanam", which can be interpreted in different ways (see Goffart 2006, pp. 57–59). Cassiodorus' lost work is more commonly referred to as Historia Gothorum or History of the Goths by modern scholarship (Merrills 2005, pp. 102, 9)..