Filimer was an early Gothic king, according to Jordanes. He was the son of Gadareiks and the fifth generation since Berig settled with his people in Gothiscandza. When the Gothic nation had multiplied Filimer decided to move his people to Scythia where they defeated the Sarmatians. They then named their new territory Oium, meaning "in the waterlands". This migration would have allegedly taken place about 2030 years before Jordanes wrote his "Origin of the Goths".[1]
The archaeological record shows that the population of the Gothic Wielbark culture (Poland) had indeed moved and settled in Ukraine and mixed with the previous populations of the Zarubintsy culture, where they formed the Chernyakhiv culture. This cultural movement is identified as the migration of the Goths from Gothiscandza to Oium, but not all scholars find the evidence compelling.[2]
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Jordanes (XXIV:121) also relates that Filimer expelled the witches, who were called haliurunnas. These witches were condemned to seek refuge far away and were said to have given birth to the first Huns.
The Danish scholar Arne Søby Christensen has suggested that the name Filimer was made up by Cassiodorus,[3] a suggestion that was favourably received among historians.[4]
References
- ^ Jordanes, Charles Christopher Mierow (ed.), Getica 313
- ^ Michael Kulikowski (2007), Rome's Gothic Wars, pp. 63, 64, ISBN 0521846331
- ^ Arne Søby Christensen (2002), Cassiodorus, Jordanes, and the History of the Goths. Studies in a Migration Myth, pp. http://www.mtp.hum.ku.dk/details.asp?eln=200114, ISBN 978-87-7289-710-3
- ^ Alexander Callander Murray (2004), "Review of "Cassiodorus, Jordanes..."", The International History Review, XXV: 805