The Austalian (and NZ and Korean) scholar Hyun Jin Kim points out something very interesting. The name Radagaisus, in addition to appearing all over Suavic countries (in its Suavic spellings such as Radhošť), also appears – if it be the same name – among the Sarmatians (something that well known for quite a while – it appears in von Pauly and in my favorite Keltomaniac list of lists – Alfred Holder’s Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, volume 2). We find it at CIG (Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum) volume 2, part IX (Inscriptiones Sarmatiae cum Chersoneso, Taurica et Bosporo Cimmerio), at number 2070 (CIG was the Prussian precursor to IG) in the form Rathagosos. Here it is:
Incidentally, this is courtesy of Kharkiv university library (Potocki). It comes from Olbia, that is Ὀλβία Ποντική, a Greek colony just east of Odessa. It was already shown by Désiré-Raoul Rochette (Rochettus) in his Antiquités Grecques du Bosphore Cimmérien:
Hyun Jin Kim also makes an interesting point in relation to the discussion of the Sarmatian – Goth connection citing an often overlooked statement by Procopius that I posted before:
“The Greuthungi Goths and even some of the other East Germanic tribes such as the Vandals and Gepids were in fact so thoroughly Sarmatianized that Procopius in the sixth century AD would argue that they were in fact separate from the Germanic peoples and were originally Sarmatians and Getae.”
The cite is this:
“Now while Honorius was holding the imperial power in the West, barbarians took possession of his land; and I shall tell who they were and in what manner they did so. There were many Gothic nations in earlier times, just as also at the present, but the greatest and most important of all are the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepaedes. In ancient times, however, they were named Sauromatae and Melanchlaeni; and there were some too who called these nations Getic. All these, while they are distinguished from one another by their names, as has been said, do not differ in anything else at all. For they all have white bodies and fair hair, and are tall and handsome to look upon, and they use the same laws and practise a common religion. For they are all of the Arian faith, and have one language called Gothic; and, as it seems to me, they all came originally from one tribe, and were distinguished later by the names of those who led each group. This people used to dwell above the Ister River from of old. Later on the Gepaedes got possession of the country about Singidunum and Sirmium, on both sides of the Ister River, where they have remained settled even down to my time.”
Procopius (History of Wars, Book III, chapter 2)
As for the historical records of Radagaisus, well, that’s a topic for another blogpost.
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