Editing Ostrogoths (section)

==6th-century Scandinavian Ostrogoths (Jordanes)==
[[File:Scandza.PNG|thumb|right|Possible map of [[Scandza]] based on [[Jordanes]]' work]]
Jordanes named a people called the Ostrogoths (''Ostrogothae'') in a list of many peoples living on the large island of "Scandza", north of the mouth of the [[Vistula]], which most modern scholars understand to refer to the Scandinavian peninsula. The implication was that these Ostrogoths were living there in the 6th century, during the lifetime of Jordanes or his source [[Cassiodorus]]—the same period when there was a powerful Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. The list itself mentions a [[Rodulf (petty king)|Roduulf]], king of the [[Ranii]] who lived in Scandza near the Dani ([[Danes]]). It says he had despised his own kingdom and came to Italy and then received the embrace of Theoderic the Great there.{{sfn|Christensen|2002|pp=267–268}} This Roduulf has thus been proposed as a possible source of information about Scandinavian peoples, because Cassiodorus was an important statesman at Theoderic's court.{{sfn|Christensen|2002|p=270}}{{sfn|Ghosh|2015|p=49}}{{efn|It has even been suggested that Roduulf is the same king of that name who is known from other sources to have been king of the Danube Heruli until he was defeated by the Lombards some time between 494 and 508. [[Procopius]] and [[Paul the Deacon]] mention him, and Jordanes mentions a king of the Heruli in this period who was adopted as a son in arms by Theoderic, without naming him. Strikingly, Procopius mentions that some of the Heruli nobility migrated to Scandinavia after the defeat of Roduulf, and some of these later returned to the Balkan area (''Gothic Wars'', [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Wars/Book_VI#XIV VI, 14–15]), while in his Scandza list, Jordanes mentions that Heruli had lived near the Dani, like the Ostrogothae he mentions, but had been forced to leave.}}

On the other hand, scholars have come to no consensus about when the list was made, and by whom, nor how to interpret most of the names in the list. Arne Søby Christensen, in his detailed analysis lists three possibilities:{{sfn|Christensen|2002|pp=250–299}}
*that Jordanes believed some Ostrogoths had emigrated north, or...
*that a similar name "Eastern Goths" had been coined in Scandinavia, where there were a people with the related name, the [[Gauts]], or...
*that a source of Jordanes, for example Cassiodorus, had created this form of the name, perhaps having heard of the Gauts.

It has been pointed out by [[Walter Goffart]] that Jordanes (V.38) also digresses specially to criticize stories going around Constantinople, that the Goths had once been slaves in Britain or another northern island, and had been freed for the price of a nag. Goffart argues that Jordanes likely rejected the idea that the Goths should be simply sent north to their alleged land of origin. Goffart points out that Procopius—a contemporary of Jordanes—reports that [[Belisarius]] offered Britain to the Ostrogoths (''Gothic Wars'', [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Wars/Book_VI#VI VI, 6]); Goffart also suggests this may be connected to the stories mentioned by Jordanes.{{sfn|Ghosh|2015|pp=52–53}}{{sfn|Christensen|2002|pp=254, 270}}

Fundamental to the question of the Scandza list, which mentions the Ostrogothae, there has been much scholarly discussion about why Jordanes claimed that Scandinavia was a "womb of the nations",{{sfn|Jordanes|1915|p=57 [4.25]}} and the point of origin to not only the Goths but also many other northern barbarian peoples. Before Jordanes, there was already a Judaeo-Christian tradition equating the Goths and other "Scythian" peoples with the descendants of [[Gog and Magog]], who readers of the [[Book of Ezekiel]] and the [[Book of Revelation]] might otherwise associate with distant islands.{{sfn|Christensen|2002|pp=243–252}}