JORDANE'S
THE ORIGIN AND DEEDS OF THE GOTHS
X
(61) Then Cyrus, king of the Persians,
after a long interval of almost exactly six hundred and thirty years (as
Pompeius Trogus relates), waged an unsuccessful war against Tomyris, Queen
of the Getae. Elated by his victories in Asia, he strove to conquer the
Getae, whose queen, as I have said, was Tomyris. Though she could have
stopped the approach of Cyrus at the river Araxes, yet she permitted him
to cross, preferring to overcome him in battle rather than to thwart him
by advantage of position. And so she did. (62) As Cyrus approached, fortune
at first so favored the Parthians that they slew the son of Tomyris and
most of the army. But when the battle was renewed, the Getae and their
queen defeated, conquered and overwhelmed the Parthians and took rich
plunder from them. There for the first time the race of the Goths saw
silken tents. After achieving this victory and winning so much booty from
her enemies, Queen Tomyris crossed over into that part of Moesia which
is now called Lesser Scythia--a name borrowed from great Scythia,--and
built on the Moesian shore of Pontus the city of Tomi, named after herself.
(63) Afterwards Darius, king of the
Persians, the son of Hystaspes, demanded in marriage the daughter of Antyrus,
king of the Goths, asking for her hand and at the same time making threats
in case they did not fulfil his wish. The Goths spurned this alliance
and brought his embassy to naught. Inflamed with anger because his offer
had been rejected, he led an army of seven hundred thousand armed men
against them and sought to avenge his wounded feelings by inflicting a
public injury. Crossing on boats covered with boards and joined like a
bridge almost the whole way from Chalcedon to Byzantium, he started for
Thrace and Moesia. Later he built a bridge over the Danube in like manner,
but he was wearied by two brief months of effort and lost eight thousand
armed men among the Tapae. Then, fearing the bridge over the Danube would
be seized by his foes, he marched back to Thrace in swift retreat, believing
the land of Moesia would not be safe for even a short sojourn there.
(64) After his death, his son Xerxes
planned to avenge his father's wrongs and so proceeded to undertake a
war against the Goths with seven hundred thousand of his own men and three
hundred thousand armed auxiliaries, twelve hundred ships of war and three
thousand transports. But he did not venture to try them in battle, being
overawed by their unyielding animosity. So he returned with his force
just as he had come, and without fighting a single battle.
(65) Then Philip, the father of Alexander
the Great, made alliance with the Goths and took to wife Medopa, the daughter
of King Gudila, so that he might render the kingdom of Macedon more secure
by the help of this marriage. It was at this time, as the historian Dio
relates, that Philip, suffering from need of money, determined to lead
out his forces and sack Odessus, a city of Moesia, which was then subject
to the Goths by reason of the neighboring city of Tomi. Thereupon those
priests of the Goths that are called the Holy Men suddenly opened the
gates of Odessus and came forth to meet them. They bore harps and were
clad in snowy robes, and chanted in suppliant strains to the gods of their
fathers that they might be propitious and repel the Macedonians. When
the Macedonians saw them coming with such confidence to meet them, they
were astonished and, so to speak, the armed were terrified by the unarmed.
Straightway they broke the line they had formed for battle and not only
refrained from destroying the city, but even gave back those whom they
had captured outside by right of war. Then they made a truce and returned
to their own country.
(66) After a long time Sitalces, a
famous leader of the Goths, remembering this treacherous attempt, gathered
a hundred and fifty thousand men and made war upon the Athenians, fighting
against Perdiccas, King of Macedon. This Perdiccas had been left by Alexander
as his successor to rule Athens by hereditary right, when he drank his
destruction at Babylon through the treachery of an attendant. The Goths
engaged in a great battle with him and proved themselves to be the stronger.
Thus in return for the wrong which the Macedonians had long before committed
in Moesia, the Goths overran Greece and laid waste the whole of Macedonia.
XI
(67) Then when Buruista was king
of the Goths, Dicineus came to Gothia at the time when Sulla ruled the
Romans. Buruista received Dicineus and gave him almost royal power. It
was by his advice the Goths ravaged the lands of the Germans, which the
Franks now possess. (68) Then came Caesar, the first of all the Romans
to assume imperial power and to subdue almost the whole world, who conquered
all kingdoms and even seized islands lying beyond our world, reposing
in the bosom of Ocean. He made tributary to the Romans those that knew
not the Roman name even by hearsay, and yet was unable to prevail against
the Goths, despite his frequent attempts. Soon Gaius Tiberius reigned
as third emperor of the Romans, and yet the Goths continued in their kingdom
unharmed. (69) Their safety, their advantage, their one hope lay in this,
that whatever their counsellor Dicineus advised should by all means be
done; and they judged it expedient that they should labor for its accomplishment.
And when he saw that their minds were obedient to him in all things and
that they had natural ability, he taught them almost the whole of philosophy,
for he was a skilled master of this subject. Thus by teaching them ethics
he restrained their barbarous customs; by imparting a knowledge of physics
he made them live naturally under laws of their own, which they possess
in written form to this day and call belagines. He taught them
logic and made them skilled in reasoning beyond all other races; he showed
them practical knowledge and so persuaded them to abound in good works.
By demonstrating theoretical knowledge he urged them to contemplate the
twelve signs and the courses of the planets passing through them, and
the whole of astronomy. He told them how the disc of the moon gains increase
or suffers loss, and showed them how much the fiery globe of the sun exceeds
in size our earthly planet. He explained the names of the three hundred
and forty-six stars and told through what signs in the arching vault of
the heavens they glide swiftly from their rising to their setting. (70)
Think, I pray you, what pleasure it was for these brave men, when for
a little space they had leisure from warfare, to be instructed in the
teachings of philosophy! You might have seen one scanning the position
of the heavens and another investigating the nature of plants and bushes.
Here stood one who studied the waxing and waning of the moon, while still
another regarded the labors of the sun and observed how those bodies which
were hastening to go toward the east are whirled around and borne back
to the west by the rotation of the heavens. When they had learned the
reason, they were at rest. (71) These and various other matters Dicineus
taught the Goths in his wisdom and gained marvellous repute among them,
so that he ruled not only the common men but their kings. He chose from
among them those that were at that time of noblest birth and superior
wisdom and taught them theology, bidding them worship certain divinities
and holy places. He gave the name of Pilleati to the priests he ordained,
I suppose because they offered sacrifice having their heads covered with
tiaras, which we otherwise call pillei. (72) But he bade them call
the rest of their race Capillati. This name the Goths accepted and prized
highly, and they retain it to this day in their songs.
(73)
After the death of Dicineus, they held Comosicus in almost equal honor,
because he was not inferior in knowledge. By reason of his wisdom he was
accounted their priest and king, and he judged the people with the greatest
uprightness.