Goths

The Goths (Gothic: *Gut-þiuda, *𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽𐍃, Gutans; Old Norse: Gutar/Gotar; Latin: Gothi; Greek: Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were an East Germanic people, two of whose branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe.

An important source of knowledge of the Goths is Getica, a semi-fictional account, written in the 6th century by the Roman historian Jordanes, of their migration from southern Scandza (Scandinavia), into Gothiscandza—believed to be the lower Vistula region in modern Pomerania—and from there to the coast of the Black Sea. Archaeological evidence from the Pomeranian Wielbark culture and the Chernyakhov culture, northeast of the lower Danube, confirms that some such migration did in fact take place. In the 3rd century, the Goths crossed either the lower Danube or the Black Sea, ravaged the Balkans and Anatolia as far as Cyprus, and sacked Athens, Byzantium, and Sparta. By the 4th century, the Goths had captured Dacia, and were divided into at least two distinct groups separated by the Dniester River, the Thervingi (led by the Balti dynasty) and the Greuthungi (led by the Amali dynasty).