Gepids

According to the Geography of Ptolemy , the gepids lived among the Baltic tribes, on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, in the vicinity of gelons and melanchlens .

Jordan gave an explanation regarding the origin of the name “Gepida”, based on a typical medieval “ etymology ”, that is, on phonetic similarities and random, tense comprehension. According to the tradition fixed by Jordan (he writes “fertur”, which means it was a legend), the word “hepids” comes from the Gothic or Gepid word “gepanta”, “lazy”. The Gepids, along with the Goths, moved from the island of Scandza to the mouth of the Vistula ; one of the three ships on which the gepids were on the road lingered and went ashore later than the other two: he showed himself to be “lazy,” “gepanta” (navis). This version without criticism was accepted by the Russian historian V. N. Tatishchev ^[1] .

Müllengof (Deutsche Altertumskunde) did not find any - neither German nor Gothic - a verb with the meaning of delay, lag, lazy, similar to the word "gepanta". He admitted that this word could be called a type of slow-moving ship, but did not see any connection between the mentioned term and the name "gepids".

The ethnic name “gepids” was once again explained in the widely known “ Etymologies ” or “Origines” of Isidore of Seville (circa 560-636). Isidore, who collected, and partly invented himself a number of fantastic, but appreciated in the Middle Ages, “etymologies”, artificially linked the name of the Hypida hepida with the Latin word “pedes” (“legs”); “Gipedes pedestri proelio magis quam equestri sunt usi et ex hac causa ita vocati” - “Hipeds use foot combat rather than horse fighting, and that’s why they are called.”

Both explanations, as an example of a typical medieval “etymology”, cannot be taken seriously; they testify that to some writers, although emerging from the thick of the Germanic world, the barbarized Latin education made it difficult to understand this ethnic term. Isidore of Seville, a resident of Spain , is not familiar with hepids: in the 560s, hepids, exhausted by a long struggle with the Lombards (Jordan speaks of one of the battles of the middle of the VI century , as the most cruel after the "days of Attila "), were subjugated by the Avars , and some left the lombards . But for Jordan, the gepids were contemporaries; before his eyes they did not fight for life, but for death they fought with the Lombards; he knew that they met in battle with the Ostrogoths , communicated with their neighbors with their sklevens , and in the past they were allies of the Huns .

Procopius , speaking of the "Gothic tribes", puts among them in the first place the Goths (Ostrogoths), then the Vandals , Visigoths and Gepids. Jordan emphasized the kinship of the Gepids with the Goths: he writes that, no doubt, they come from the Goths; he calls gepids "cousins" of the Ostrogoths. According to Jordan, the Gepids migrated with the Ostrogoths to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea and settled in the Vistula delta; the islet, occupied by them at the mouths of this river, was called “Gepedoios” in their language.

Presumably, in the II century, the Gepids migrated from Scandinavia to the southern coast of the Baltic Sea , from where they replaced the Burgundians ^[2] . Then, after the Goths, they began to move to the southeast and in 210 settled in Dacia ^[3] (according to other sources in 250 ^[4] ). The movement of gepids from the lower Vistula to the south was led by King Fastida . He fought his tribe through the Burgundian region and probably met resistance during the advancement of numerous tribes of the Union of Lugia , who lived south.

The first clash of Gepids with Roman troops took place in the famous battle in 269 near Naiss, when Emperor Claudius II utterly defeated a large association of Germanic tribes (Goths, Heruli , Songkids , Gepids) that ravaged Lower Moesia , Thrace , Macedonia .

After a collision with the troops of Proba (276–282 years), part of the gepids, according to the biographer of the mentioned emperor, was resettled, along with the Grevtungs and Vandals, to the territory of the empire, south of the Danube . Hepid campaigns from northern Dacia were associated with their desire to advance south. Due to an unsuccessful battle with the Goths near the city of Galta in Upper Olta, around 290 the Gepids had to remain in their former places.

As Jordan has repeatedly and quite distinctly reported, the area of ​​distribution of hepids never entered west of Potissia ; they did not appear in Pannonia , with the exception of the banks of the lower reaches of the Sava (city of Sirmium ). The Gepids are the only Germanic tribe that has moved less west than others. Jordan provides data on the territory occupied by gepids in his time, invariably preceding his words with the adverb “nunc” - “now”. The territory of which Jordan speaks was taken by the Gepids thanks to the efforts of their king Ardarich .

The borders of the region inhabited by gepids are outlined by the Jordan three times: when describing the whole of Scythia , when describing specially ancient Dacia, when determining places that were briefly occupied by vandals (in the same Roman Dacia). According to Jordan, the Gepids within Scythia were the first, counting from the west, tribe. The places occupied by them, he denotes the lines of the rivers. From the north and from the north-west their land goes around Tissa, in the east - crosses Olt , from the south the Danube serves as the border. It is as if in the grid of these rivers (“introrsus illis”, inside them) Dacia is enclosed, protected by steep “Alps” (the Jordan word means “mountains”, but the Carpathian mountains are meant), which rise like a crown or crown.

The same image of the "crown of mountains" encircling the country was repeated by Jordan when describing the ancient Roman province - Trajan's Dacia , which was then called Hepidia - because it is "known to own" ("possidere noscuntur") hepatids.

In former times, this region was adjacent to the following tribes: Aroxolans - from the east, Yazigi - from the west, Sarmatians and basterns - from the north. Jordan, speaking of the temporary capture of Hepidia by the vandals, calls completely different tribes: then (tunc), he writes, "there lived a Goth, from the west - Markomann , from the north - germundun ." And again, as in the first description, the author returns to a clear geographical feature - to rivers. Now (nunc), he says, there are gepids, along the rivers of Marisia, Miliare, Gilpil and Grisia, the latter being superior to all of the above. From the south, the region is limited to Istrom (Danube). Of these rivers, which are the rivers of the Tissa basin, Marisia is the modern Marosh (the largest left tributary of the Tissa) and Grisia is Körös (also the left, but more northern than the Marosh, tributary of the Tissa); it is not possible to identify the modern ones with the Miliare and Gilpil rivers.

Understanding the names in this text of Jordan is helped by a comparison with the later ( 10th century ) testimony of Konstantin Porfirorodny , who listed a number of Hungarian rivers: “the first river is o TimhshV, the second is o TouthV, the third is o MorhshV, the fourth is o KrisoV and another river is h Titza. " As you can see, the rivers are definitely indicated here: Timis (flows into the Danube a little lower than Tissa), Marosh and Tissa; the second river cannot be identified, and the fourth - o KrisoV - corresponds to "Grisia" (Jordan) and modern Körös.

Procopius repeatedly indicates which territory was occupied by gepids in his time. After the Goths left, the Gepids occupied Dacia, and later they managed to capture the area around Sirmia and Singidunum and take control of these cities, that is, the Gepids were already on the right bank of the Danube, which is confirmed by words that literally mean "inside and outside the Istra River."

Sometimes Jordan is reproached for talking about the land occupied by gepids, using old maps and, thus, reflecting a situation that is not appropriate for his time. This rebuke is hardly fair. Gepids indeed for several centuries (since the III century) have been associated with the territory of Dacia; they continued to possess it under Jordan, although they advanced southwest, capturing Singidunum and Sirmius. Procopius clearly states that the Gepids “took the city of Sirmiy and almost all of Dacia” and that Sirmium lies at the very borders of Dacia, that is, the area around this city merges with the southwestern part of Dacia. The areas of Sirmia and Singidunum were the most important part of the empire's defense against the Transdanubian barbarians and at the same time were the subject of contention between themselves (that is, between the Gepids and Goths). Here, on the Danube, there was the main crossing across the river, and the Gepids, owning these places, ensured the passage of the enemies of the empire to the right bank of the Danube.

Ardaric was a close ally and, moreover, an adviser to Attila ; he sent his army in 451 to the Catalan fields on the side of the Huns . But after the death of their leader (in 453 ), Ardaric did not want to submit to his sons, raised his insurgit and a number of other tribes against the Huns and in the victorious battle on the Nedao River ( 454 ) conquered the Hun lands on the left bank for the Gepids The Danube, mainly on the Tisza, - in the old terminology - "the limits of all of Dacia."

To the west of them, in Pannonia , the Ostrogoths were located (until the end of the 5th century ). By the beginning of the VI century, in addition to eastern Hungary and western Romania, they owned the lands of modern Serbia . The Gepids became the federates of the empire and remained so until the middle of the VI century, when Jordan wrote that "to this day the tribe receives this usual gift from the Roman emperor." However, the gepids by the same Jordan are called "rivals of the Romans" for the reason that, being the federates of the empire, they were the worst enemies of the Lombards, and the latter were supported by Constantinople (the Lombards , unlike the rivals, were allies of the empire).

According to the story of Procopius, during one of the largest campaigns of the Sklavians on Illyrik in 551–552, the hepids sent (dieporqmeusan) them across the Danube, taking a golden statir by their head. Probably, they also transported the six thousandth army, which, led by Hildigis, proceeded from the region of the Sklavs to Italy in order to fight against Justinian I on the side of the Ostrogoths and Totila (541–552); it consisted of sklagen and a number of gepids. The monograph by Diculescu (S. S. Diculescu, Die Gepiden) is devoted to the analysis of historical evidence of the Gepid tribe.

In 567 , the Byzantium-assisted hepids were defeated by the Lombards in alliance with the Avars. Avars take control of the Tisza Valley. The state of gepids is destroyed.

• Fastida (about 250 years)
• Ardaric (died about 460 years old) - Companion of Attila
• Giesm (died earlier than 488 years)
• Trapstyle (up to 488 years ^[5] )
• Trazarich (488 - not earlier than 504 years)
  • Gunderit (not earlier than 504 years)
• Gelemund (Elemund) (died before 549 years)
• Torisvint (circa 548-560)
• Kunimund (c. 560-567)

• Gepids // New Encyclopedic Dictionary : In 48 volumes (29 volumes were published). - SPb. , Pg. , 1911-1916. .
• Jordan On the origin and deeds of the Getae (Russian translation and Latin original).
• Mullenhof K.V. Deutsche Altertumskunde (Berlin, 1870-1891).
• Comments by Skrzhinsky E. Ch. On the “Getics” of Jordan .
• Isidore of Seville . Etymology (in Latin).
• Procopius of Caesarea . The war with the Persians. War with the Vandals. Secret story. Aletheia, St. Petersburg - 1998, ISBN 5-89329-109-3 .
• Konstantin Bagryanorodny . On the management of the empire / Under. ed. G. G. Litavrina, A. P. Novoseltseva. Greek text, translation, comments. M., 1991.