HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

82 JOAQUÍN MARTÍNEZ PIZARROinvolving them in wars with the Egyptians (47), the Trojan war (60),wars against the Persians or Parthians led by Cyrus, Darius, andXerxes (61–64), and in wars against the Macedonian empire (65–66).At the same time, and often by means of the speculative etymologyof his age, Jordanes manages to turn the Parthians (48), the Amazons(49), the Gepids (94–95), and the Huns themselves (121–22) intodescendants of the Goths. This move is made easier by Jordanes’sassumption that the Goths were identical with the Getae or Thracians,an opinion common in late antiquity ( Jordache [1983]). If the Gothsdo not struggle against the rising Roman Empire, it is because theyare at the time being educated by their philosopher-king Diceneus(69–72). The first clash with Rome comes under Domitian, and notlong after that the empire is paying the Goths a regular subsidy.Whenever this is withheld, the Goths devastate Eastern provinces.They are adopted into the Roman army under Constantine andmake it possible for the emperor to dedicate himself to the raisingof his new capital. Under the Amal Ermanaric, the Huns conquerthe Gothic territories north of the Black Sea; while the Visigothsmove into imperial lands, the Ostrogoths are forced to become satellitesof the Huns.The second section, on the Visigoths, presents what is on thewhole a favorable view of this tribe, starting from their settlementin Moesia and conversion to Arian Christianity (for which Jordanes,following Orosius VII, 33, 19, blames the emperor Valens; 131–33).Alaric’s sack of Rome in 410 is explained by a treacherous attackagainst him led by Stilicho at Pollentia (154–55). The narrative centerof this section and of the book as a whole is a very full accountof the battle of the Catalaunian Fields in 452, with Aetius and theVisigoths together on one side and the Huns, led by Attila and supportedby his Ostrogothic subjects, on the other (184–218). Variousepisodes are narrated dramatically, which contrasts with Jordanes’susual style: Athanaric’s visit to Constantinople and his extravagantpraise of the city and the empire (143–44) and Attila’s speech to histroops at the Catalaunian Fields (202–06) are especially notable. TheGetica has been regarded as a relic of Ostrogothic traditions (presumablygoing back to Cassiodorus and the court of Ravenna), butthis section on the Visigoths is in fact longer and more favorable toits subjects than the chapters on the Ostrogoths that follow. It hasbeen suggested recently (Heather [1991], 63–66) that Jordanes mayhave used here a separate Visigothic source that has not survived.