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Historia Augusta is much earlier than Jordanes, but it is more likely that its author – much given to invention and word games – conflated two historical names into one than that Jordanes, a much less adventurous writer, expanded a single name into two. Furthermore, the name Argunt is far less plausible than either Argaith or Guntheric.

[5] Zosimus, HN 1.23.

[6] Lactantius, De mort. pers. 4.1, but ascribing the victory to the Carpi.

[7] Zosimus, HN 1.31–35. In this and the following section, I omit references to the later Byzantine traditions preserved in Syncellus, Cedrenus and particularly Zonaras. Although much valuable information is undoubtedly transmitted in these writers from earlier sources, its precise application is not always clear, as is shown by the best treatment of the subject, B. Bleckmann, Die Reichskrise des č. Jahrhunderts in der spätantiken und byzantinischen Geschichtsschreibung. (Munich, 1992), 156–219.

[8] Zosimus, HN 1.35.

[9] Canons 5–10 (PG 10: 1020–48 at 1037–47). There is a complete translation in P. Heather and J. Matthews, The Goths in the Fourth Century (Liverpool, 1991), 1–11. Note that although the Boradoi of Gregory are probably the Boranoi of Zosimus, we should not correct Gregory’s reading to that of Zosimus, as Heather and Matthews do, as the two words may in fact have slightly different significance.

[10] Dexippus, frag. 25 (Jacoby) = 18 (Müller); Zosimus, HN 1.43; 46.

[11] Zosimus, HN 1.45.

[12] Historia Augusta, V. Aurel. 22.2.

[13] Ammianus, RG 31.5.17, in the aftermath of Adrianople, writes nostalgically of Aurelian’s distant successes. For the raids under Tacitus and Probus, see Zosimus, HN 1.63.1.

[14] Tacitus, Hist. 1.4.

[15] G. Woolf, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul (Cambridge, 1998).

[16] Zosimus, HN 1.29–30; Aurelius Victor 32–33; Eutropius 9.7–8; Epitome de Caesaribus 31–32.

[17] For Postumus’ victory see the recently discovered victory altar from Augsburg: L. Bakker, ‘Die Siegesaltar zur Juthungenschlacht von 260 n. Chr. Ein spektakulärer Neufund aus Augusta Vindelicium/Augsburg’, Archäologische Nachrichten 24 (1993): 274–77.

[18] Zosimus, HN 1.42–43; 1.45–46; Eutropius 9.11.

[19] Zosimus, HN 1.63.

[20] Zosimus, HN 1.71–72; Eutropius 9.17–18; Epitome de Caesaribus 37–38; Historia Augusta, V. Prob. 21–22; John of Antioch, frag. 158; 160 (FHG 4: 600).

[21] Aurelius Victor 38.2.

[22] Eutropius 9.18; Historia Augusta, V. Car. 8.

[23] Pan. Lat. 10.4.2; Aurelius Victor 39.18–19; Eutropius 9.20.3. Pan. Lat. 10, delivered by Mamertinus on 21 April 289, is our main evidence for the early campaigns of Maximian.

[24] Pan. Lat. 11.17.1: Tervingi, pars alia Gothorum adiuncta manu Taifalorum.

Chapter Two: The Roman Empire and Barbarian Society

[25] The earliest attestation of the word is an inscription from the 220s: T. Sarnowski, ‘Barbaricum und ein Bellum Bosporanum in einer Inschrift aus Preslav’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 87 (1991): 137–44.

[26] A. Bursche, ‘Contacts between the late Roman empire and north-central Europe’, Antiquaries Journal 76 (1996): 31–50.

[27] M. Speidel, ‘The Roman army in Arabia’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Weltč.8 (1977), 687–730 at 712. This inscription is often thought to refer to a Gothic recruit in Roman service, both because young Guththa’s name may itself mean ‘Goth’ and because he was the son of one Erminarius, a name similar to many recorded later among the Goths. But the main element of the father’s name (Erman- or Herman-) is not found exclusively among later Goths, and naming a child ‘the Goth’ is more likely to reflect the perspective of an outsider than an insider; perhaps Guththa was the child of a Goth in a non-Gothic environment. All of this is speculative, and it is not at all clear that personal names, in very many societies good evidence for familial relationship, are equally useful in establishing connections to a much broader identity such as that of third-century