Готланд Эрманариха: остроготы в Восточной Европе на рубеже Древности и Средневековья

Chapter X “Ermanaric’s kingdom — an early ‘barbarian state” contains the reconstruction of Ostrogothic statehood formation based on the analysis of the whole set of narrative, linguistic and archaeological sources. Paragraph 1 contains the analysis of Ermanaric’s regnum. According to Jordanes’ account, Ermanaric was the sixth descendant of legendary Amalus and obtained a royal status by inheritance (in regno successit). Time of Ermanaric’s reign most likely fell on the period of 333—375 AD. Evidence of Ammianus and Jordanes leave no doubt that Ermanaric created a very large politico-military formation, which included a considerable part of Eastern Europe between the Lower Don region occupied by Alani-Tanaitae and the Dniester marking the boundary with the domain of Visigoths. Judging by a list of tribes conquered by Ermanaric (Get., 116-119), his ‘empire’ was very polyethnic (Goths, Heruli, Vandali, pre-Slavs — Venetiae, Aestiorum natio, Galindi). Perhaps, arctoi gentes also depended on Ermanaric’s kingdom. Therefore there is no cause to call Ermanaric’s domain as an ‘alliance of tribes’, as was traditionally accepted in Soviet science, since sources do not offer any evidence of their alliance relations with Ostrogoths. Vice versa, virtually all these peoples (excluding Aesti) turned out to be included in Ermanaric’s kingdom as a result of conquest. Huge extent of the territory controlled by Ermanaric and a great deal of dependant peoples serve as a direct evidence of the measure of his rule. Probably, it is also testified by his name, which could be a title (Erman — ‘great’ and riks — ‘king’) emphasizing the might of the last Ostrogothic ruler.

According to ancient Germanic tradition, Ostrogothic king ruled his people as a rex Gothorum. (Getarum) (Get., 118). But when describing Ermanaric’s deeds Jordanes uses Latin verbs imperare (Get., 120) and servlre (Get., 118-119) denoting absolute character of his royal power over the conquered peoples. The king wielded a supreme military authority. It is interesting that Jordanes wrote that the last Ostrogothic ruler forced all the conquered peoples suisque parère legibus fecit (Get., 116). He knew the genuine Gothic name of these legibus — belagines (Get., 69). Most probably, these were conventional rules used for legal proceedings within Goths themselves. However, it is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that Ostrogoths had a popular assembly like Germanic thing (Get., 129).

In Paragraph 2 Ermanaric’s kingdom is considered in the light of modern theories of potestarity. According to the typology of early polities, Ermanaric’s regnum had several features of an early state, but not those of a complex chiefdom. Numerous archaeological data denote the increase of cultural and social complexity of Ostrogothic society in IV^h century AD, which is more characteristic for a stage of civilization. Probably, this explains the fact that Chernyakhov culture turned out to be the most developed among all the barbarian cultures of Late antiquity. Ermanaric’s empire’ demonstrated a historical possibility for formation of a ‘barbaric kingdom’ beyond the territory of Roman provinces, in East-European Barbaricum. But, unlike classical barbarian states of V—VI^th centuries AD, it did not have a nutrient Roman medium, towns and other institutions of old civilization, though the IV^th century Goths managed to assimilate a lot from that.

Most of Soviet scholars who rested upon the Marxist concept of history a priori assigned the Ostrogothic society to a stage known as a breakdown of tribal society (A.R. Korsunsky, E.A. Rikman, E.A. Symonovich, V.D. Baran, etc.). B.D. Grekov, B.A. Rybakov, V.I. Dovzhenok defined the Chernyakhov society as a forming early-feudal one. Recently some scholars started to lean towards a conclusion that this society was already at the stage of ‘proto-civilization’ (M.Y. Braychevsky, О. M. Prikhodnyuk). In our opinion, formation of an integrated archaeological culture occupying a vast territory and having several significant features characteristic for a stage of civilization is very indicative. In this regard classic Chernyakhov culture of IV^th century AD may be considered as some kind of a ‘state’ culture of Ermanaric’s kingdom being a result and a material reflection of complex consolidation of various tribes and peoples within the framework of forming Gothic potestarity with preservation of certain local peculiarity in the provinces.