Goths And Gothic Identity In The Ostrogothic Kingdom 223
classical languages, Amalasuentha spoke her “native tongue”.109 In Procopius,
Belisarius orders Bessas, an imperial commander of Thracian Gothic origin, to
converse with the Goths “in the language of the Goths”, and later there is an
account of Goths speaking to each other “in their native tongue” as they rescue
an imperial soldier and a fellow Goth from a hole into which they had fallen.110
It is made clear that the imperial soldier could not speak Gothic. For some,
the fact that the sources reveal Gothic being spoken in both military and court
contexts indicates that the language was widely known by the Goths of Italy.111
Others are less convinced, arguing that every account of the spoken lan-
guage that modern commentators call Gothic derives from a military setting,
including those concerning Theoderic and his family because they came from
the Balkan military world. Given this, ‘Gothic’ was probably the military pidgin
cant of the Mediterranean armies, a mix of Greek, Latin, and Germanic ele-
ments, the product of the intermingling of soldiers of diverse backgrounds in
the 5th and 6th centuries.112 It should not be thought of as widely known or
as the primary language of the people our sources call Goths. Latin held that
distinction, a language known by all inhabitants of Italy regardless of origin.113
This can be inferred because the sources never indicate that communication
was a problem. Liberius is not known to have spoken Gothic, but had no trou-
ble leading troops. Many of Cassiodorus’ letters are addressed to people with
Germanic names and they were written in Latin. The ‘Gothic’ language (“never
called ‘Gothic’ in the sources that attribute it to any given individual”) is not
commensurate with a sense of communal identity among Theoderic’s origi-
nal followers.114 Further, it need not have had any relation to written Gothic,
which it is argued was an archaic and ritualistic formulation used only in reli-
gious and liturgical contexts. When uttered aloud in an Arian church service, it
would have been perceived as a mystical and impenetrable code, just as mod-
ern Catholics encountered Latin before Vatican II.115
This latter point is disputed, however, and connected to the larger question
of Gothic religion in relation to group identity. There is no sound philological
109 Cassiodorus, Variae 5.40.5, 8.21.6–7, 11.1.6.
110 Procopius, Wars 5.10.10, 6.1.11–20.
111 Wolfram, Goths, p. 325.
112 Amory, People and Identity, pp. 102–8.
113 Ibid., pp. 86 f.; so, too, Arnold, Theoderic and the Roman Imperial Restoration, p. 138 and
n. 91 who argues for the prevalence of Latin. Goths “might” speak Gothic, but this was not
a meaningful barrier between them and Italo-Romans.
114 Amory, People and Identity, p. 107.
115 Ibid., p. 248.