author
active 6th century Jordanes
Writing in the 6th century, this Eastern Roman historian preserved one of the most important surviving accounts of the Goths. His short works became lasting sources for late Roman and early medieval history.
1 Audiobook
The Origin and Deeds of the Goths
by active 6th century Jordanes
About the author
Jordanes was a 6th-century writer and former imperial official, probably of Gothic background, who wrote in Latin during the age of Emperor Justinian. He is best known for Getica, a concise history of the Goths completed in 551, and for Romana, a summary of Roman history.
What makes him especially important is that Getica preserves material from a larger Gothic history by Cassiodorus that no longer survives. Even though scholars debate how Jordanes used his sources and where he simplified or reshaped them, his work remains central for anyone studying the Goths, the late Roman world, and the transition into the early Middle Ages.
Very little is known about his personal life with certainty, and no clear portrait of him survives from his own time. What endures is the value of his writing: a brief, vivid link to a world of shifting kingdoms, imperial politics, and cultural change.