Too Civilized to Revert to Savages? A Study Concerning a Debate about the Goths between Procopius and Jordanes

The story by Jordanes about the migration of Goths from Scandza is a matter of a vivid and long standing discussion between historians. Most scholars argue that it is a part of the Gothic tribal tradition. There is, however, another interpretation according to which it is a part of a debate between Jordanes and Procopius of Caesarea on the future of Barbarians. In this respect, the story seems to be nothing but a narrative strategy whose only purpose was to persuade the reader to share Jordanes’s point of view. In this study I try to show that the story about the migration of Goths was a sophisticated argument which gave a clear message to the Constantinopolitan audience that Goths were no longer Barbarians and they belonged to the civilized world.