Ansila of the Greuthungi

From the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy page on Hungary:

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/HUNGARY.htm#_Toc146273199

ACHIULF (Goth Generation 9)

Iordanes names "Achiulf et Oduulf" as the sons of Athal[32].

a) ANSILA (Ostrogoth Generation 10)

Iordanes names "Ansila et Ediulf, Vultuulf et Hermenerig" as the sons of Achiulf[33].

b) EDIULF (Ostrogoth Generation 10)

Iordanes names "Ansila et Ediulf, Vultuulf et Hermenerig" as the sons of Achiulf[34].

c) VULTWULF (Ostrogoth Generation 10 Theodoric lineage)

Iordanes names "Ansila et Ediulf, Vultuulf et Hermenerig" as the sons of Achiulf[35].

d) HERMENRICH (Ostrogoth Generation 10 Eutaric lineage)

Iordanes names "Ansila et Ediulf, Vultuulf et Hermenerig" as the sons of Achiulf[39].

References:

[32] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[33] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[34] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[35] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[36] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[37] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[38] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[39] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

From Jordanes' Getica:

http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#visi

XIV

(79) Now the first of these heroes, as they themselves relate in their legends, was Gapt, who begat Hulmul. And Hulmul begat Augis; and Augis begat him who was called Amal, from whom the name of the Amali comes. This Amal begat Hisarnis. Hisarnis moreover begat Ostrogotha, and Ostrogotha begat Hunuil, and Hunuil likewise begat Athal. Athal begat Achiulf and Oduulf. Now Achiulf begat Ansila and Ediulf, Vultuulf and Hermanaric. And Vultuulf begat Valaravans and Valaravans begat Vinitharius. Vinitharius moreover begat Vandalarius;

(80) Vandalarius begat Thiudimer and Valamir and Vidimer; and Thiudimer begat Theodoric. Theodoric begat Amalasuentha; Amalasuentha bore Athalaric and Mathesuentha to her husband Eutharic, whose race was thus joined to hers in kinship.

(81) For the aforesaid Hermanaric, the son of Achiulf, begat Hunimund, and Hunimund begat Thorismud. Now Thorismud begat Beremud, Beremud begat Veteric, and Veteric likewise begat Eutharic, who married Amalasuentha and begat Athalaric and Mathesuentha. Athalaric died in the years of his childhood, and Mathesuentha married Vitiges, to whom she bore no child. Both of them were taken together by Belisarius to Constantinople. When Vitiges passed from human affairs, Germanus the patrician, a cousin of the Emperor Justinian, took Mathesuentha in marriage and made her a Patrician Ordinary. And of her he begat a son, also called Germanus. But upon the death of Germanus, she determined to remain a widow. Now how and in what wise the kingdom of the Amali was overthrown we shall keep to tell in its proper place, if the Lord help us.

--------------------------

From the English Wikipedia page on the Greuthungi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greuthungi

The Greuthungs, Greuthungi, or Greutungi were a Gothic people of the Black Sea steppes in the third and fourth centuries. They had close contacts with the Thervingi, another Gothic people from west of the river Dnestr. They may be the same people as the later Ostrogoths.

Etymology

"Greuthungi" may mean "steppe dwellers" or "people of the pebbly coasts".[1] The root greut- is probably related to the Old English greot, meaning "gravel, grit, earth".[2] This is supported by evidence that geographic descriptors were commonly used to distinguish people living north of the Black Sea both before and after Gothic settlement there and by the lack of evidence for an earlier date for the name pair Tervingi-Greuthungi than the late third century.[3] It is also possible that the name "Greuthungi" has pre-Pontic Scandinavian origins.[3] It may mean "rock people", to distinguish the Ostrogoths from the Gauts (in what is today Sweden).[3] Jordanes does refer to an Evagreotingi (Greuthung island) in Scandza, but this may be legend. It has also been suggested that it may be related to certain place names in Poland, but this has met with little support.[3]

History

Jordanes, a mid 6th Century historian identifies the 4th Century Greuthungi with the 5th-6th Century Ostrogothi. Jordanes also describes a large Greuthung kingdom in the late 4th century, but Ammianus Marcellinus, a late 4th Century historian, does not record this. Many modern historians, including Peter Heather and Michael Kulikowski, doubt that it was ever particularly extensive (and suggest one or more smaller kingdoms).[4][5]

Archaeology

In time and geographical area, the Greutungi and their neighbors the Thervingi correspond to the archaeological Chernyakhov Culture.

Settlement pattern

Chernyakhov settlements cluster in open ground in river valleys. The houses include sunken-floored dwellings, surface dwellings, and stall-houses. The largest known settlement (Budesty) is 35 hectares.[6] Most settlements are open and unfortified; some forts are also known.[citation needed]

Burial practices

Chernyakhov cemeteries include both cremation and inhumation burials; among the latter the head is to the north. Some graves were left empty. Grave goods often include pottery, bone combs, and iron tools, but almost never any weapons.[7]

Relationship with the Ostrogoths

The division of the Goths is first attested in 291.[8] The Greuthungi are first named by Ammianus Marcellinus, writing no earlier than 392 and perhaps later than 395, and basing his account of the words of a Tervingian chieftain who is attested as early as 376.[8] The Ostrogoths are first named in a document dated September 392 from Milan.[8] Claudian mentions that they together with the Gruthungi inhabit Phrygia.[9] According to Herwig Wolfram, the primary sources either use the terminology of Tervingi/Greuthungi or Vesi/Ostrogothi and never mix the pairs.[8] All four names were used together, but the pairing was always preserved, as in Gruthungi, Austrogothi, Tervingi, Visi.[1]

Both Herwig Wolfram and Thomas Burns conclude that the term Greuthungi was a geographical identifier used by the Tervingi to describe a people that described itself as the Ostrogoths.[1][10] This terminology therefore dropped out of use after the Goths were displaced by the Hunnic invasions. In support of this, Wolfram cites Zosimus as referring to a group of "Scythians" north of the Danube who were called "Greuthungi" by the barbarians north of the Ister.[11] Wolfram concludes that this people was the Tervingi who had remained behind after the Hunnic conquest.[11] On this understanding, the Greuthungi and Ostrogothi were more or less the same people.[10]

That the Greuthungi were the Ostrogothi is also supported by Jordanes.[12] He identified the Ostrogothic kings from Theodoric the Great to Theodahad as the heirs of the Greuthungian king Ermanaric. This interpretation, however, though very common among scholars today, is not universal. The nomenclature of Greuthungi and Tervingi fell out of use shortly after 400.[8] In general, the terminology of a divided Gothic people disappeared gradually after they entered the Roman Empire.[1]

References

1. ^ Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, trans. T. J. Dunlop (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988), p. 25.

2. ^ Thomas S. Burns, A History of the Ostrogoths (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 30.

3. ^ Wolfram387–388 n58.

4. ^ Heather, Peter, 1998, The Goths, Blackwell, Malden, pp. 53-55.

5. ^ Kulikowski, Michael, 2007, Rome's Gothic Wars, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pp. 54-56, 111-112.

6. ^ Heather, Peter and Matthews, John, 1991, The Goths in the Fourth Century, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, pp. 52-54.

7. ^ Heather, Peter and Matthews, John, 1991, Goths in the Fourth Century, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, pp. 54-56.

8. ^ Wolfram, 24.

9. ^ Wolfram, 387 n52.

10. ^ Burns, 44.

11. ^ Wolfram, 387 n57.

12. ^ Heather, 52–57, 300–301.

Ben M. Angel's summary:

Although Ansila and Ediulf's name has made it to modern day through the help of Jordanes, this is little that we know about them, other than they lived in the 4th century in present Ukraine.