father's share and his own in all the later or contemporary events, provided him with ample material. In the earlier part of the work we can clearly see from Jordanis how the political theory of Cassiodorius was worked out. He adopted the belief that the Getae and the Goths were the same nation. Further, he accepted the identity of the Goths with the Scythians, a theory stated by several Greek writers. Thus the Goths were brought into contact or conflict with the great nations of antiquity and even the Amazons appear as Gothic women. Yet even with all the notices he could collect from Greek or Roman authorities and the stories and sagas he heard at the court of Ravenna, his stock of accurate information about the early history of the Goths cannot have been large. The very theory with which he wrote shews that much must be accepted with reserve.
Thirty years later the Gothic bishop, in his adaptation of the work, shewed that he rested his hopes of the future quite as much on the Roman empire as on the Gothic race itself. However little individuality as a historian Jordanis may have had, it lay with him to choose and adapt his extracts from Cassiodorius in accordance with his own feelings, and there is enough of himself in the work to enable us to catch something of his spirit. For him the end of the great struggle between Goths and Romans had come; the war between Totila and Belisarius, or Narses, which was yet going on, had no supreme interest. The race of the Amali, with which he was connected and on which all his hopes were centred, had ceased to rule the Goths. His desires for the future rested rather on the union of the brother of the emperor with the granddaughter of Theodoric than on the issue of a struggle which he probably and rightly thought hopeless. His Catholic sympathies, rejecting the idea of an Arian ruler, and his family pride, alike contributed to this result. Three times he alludes to the marriage of Mathasuentha, widow of Vitigis (with whom she had been brought captive to Constantinople), to Germanus, brother of the emperor Justinian (cc. 14, 48, 60). In c. 60 he tells how Germanus died, leaving an infant son: "Item Germanus: in quo conjuncta Aniciorum gens cum Amala stirpe spem adhuc utriusque generis Domino praestante promittit."
Jordanis was the first since Tacitus to treat the history of the Teutonic nations from their side. The eternity of the Roman empire had impressed itself on the mind of Jordanis. The idea, therefore, that the Goths were equally learned and ancient must have been a support to him (and others like him) when Theodoric was ruling almost as a miniature emperor in Italy. But the thought of a union between the imperial family and the Amali could alone satisfactorily reconcile his hopes for the great family to which he belonged and his belief in the church and empire of Rome. This traditional belief in the empire and church was destined never to be altogether broken in Italy. After two centuries of struggles between rival principles in church and state the next Italian ecclesiastic who attained importance as a historian, Paulus Diaconus, himself, like Jordanis, of Teutonic race, was able to witness the return of imperial power of old Rome and to have friendly intercourse with the new Teutonic emperor. To Jordanis the first Teutonic historian of a Teutonic race such a possibility was unknown, and he could only fix fruitless hopes on a union of the Greek and the Goth to solve his difficulties. For the spirit of the age and times which we thus seem to gather from Jordanis's work we owe him a debt of gratitude, and also for his preservation, if only in a broken form, of fragments from the greatest work of Theodoric's great secretary.
The most important editions of the History of the Goths are: Muratori, Scriptores Rev. Ital. i. 189–241 (Medial. 1723). Migne, Patr. Cursus, lxix. Appendix to works of Cassiodorius. Jordanis, de Getarum Origine et Rebus Gestis, ed. C. A. Closs (Stuttg. 1861). In the Monumenta Germaniae the two works of Jordanis are undertaken by Mommsen himself. Neues Archiv. D. G. F. ältere Deutschen Geschichtskunde, ii. 5.
III. Life.—Jordanis tells us that his grandfather was notary to Candac, chief of the Alani in Moesia, that he himself was a notary before becoming an ecclesiastic, that he was of the Gothic race and apparently connected with the royal family of the Amali. We know from his own writings no more, and nothing further can be absolutely certain. But a discovery, first made by Cassel, has led to an extremely important and very highly probable conjecture about his identity. The name of one Jordanes Crotonensis, bp. of Crotona (now Cotrone) in Bruttium is found, with those of several other bishops, appended to a document sometimes called the Damnatio Theodori, issued by pope Vigilius in Aug. 551 at Constantinople. If this should be our Jordanis, it becomes exceedingly probable that the Vigilius to whom the Chronicle of Jordanis is dedicated and sent, along with the History of the Goths, is pope Vigilius. Vigilius was pope from 537 to 555. He had been made pope by the influence of Belisarius at Rome, at the request of the empress Theodora. After the issue of the Three Chapters by Justinian, which Vigilius apparently dared not sign when in Italy, the pope was summoned to Constantinople, which he reached on Christmas Day, 547. He was retained at Constantinople, or in the neighbourhood, for seven years, till he at last obtained permission from Justinian to return to Italy. At Constantinople he was much persecuted by the emperor and his party, who tried to force him to sign a confession of faith in accordance with their views. He was bold enough to excommunicate the bp. of Caesarea, and then, fearing the emperor's wrath, took sanctuary in the basilica of St. Peter in Constantinople. While in this church with his companions, and, among others, several Italian bishops, he issued (Aug. 551) the document in which the name of Jordanes, bp. of Cotrona, is found.
Several considerations make it exceedingly probable that Jordanis wrote his work at Constantinople. His almost complete ignorance of the later and contemporary events in Italy is thus explained, and his detailed acquaintance, shewn in several passages, with the affairs of the empire accounted for.
