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history. The detour has been important. It looked at the way modern accounts of Gothic migration, whether they claim to be supported by historical, archaeological or linguistic evidence, are all in one way or another echoes of Jordanes’ sixth-century Getica. Consciously or not, modern narratives of Gothic migration are rooted in the very old quest for Germanic origins, a quest to give northern Europe a past independent of Roman history. Unfortunately, as we have seen, contemporary evidence supports neither migration stories nor any narrative derived from Jordanes. On the contrary, it suggests that – like the Franks and the Alamanni further west along the frontier – the Goths were a product of the Roman frontier itself. That conclusion not only makes sense of the evidence of the late third century, it also fits in well with the much better understood evidence of the fourth century.

In the first three decades of the fourth century, as we shall see in this and the next chapter, the Goths became the indisputable masters of the lower Danube, from the eastern edge of the Carpathians to the fringes of the Caucasian steppelands. Language itself began to acknowledge these facts. Thus, by the 320s, the lower Danube was known as the ripa Gothica, the Gothic bank. Soon thereafter, we find the Greek word Gothia designating the tract of land beyond the Danube, a word that was imported into the Gothic language as Gutthiuda, the Goths’ word for their own lands. This tremendous extension of Gothic power was not inevitable. Instead, the Goths were encouraged to become so powerful because it was useful to the political schemes of successive Roman emperors for them to do so. In other words, just as the Goths themselves were created by the political pressures of life in a Roman frontier zone, so Roman emperors made the fourth-century Goths what they were. The revolutionary reign of Diocletian marks the turning point.

Map 3. The Roman Empire of Diocletian.

Map 4. Asia Minor, the Balkans and the Black Sea region, showing Roman cities and Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov sites mentioned in the text.

Diocletian’s New Roman Empire

In the course of the 290s, Diocletian transformed the Roman empire beyond recognition. A governmental revolution grew out of the emergency measures which Diocletian undertook piecemeal in order to keep himself secure on his throne. The cumulative effect of such measures was enormous. It removed many of the systemic causes of disorder that had plagued the third-century empire, and thereby created the powerful Roman state with which the fourth-century Goths had to deal. As we have seen, the first important step that Diocletian took was to appoint Maximian as his fellow augustus, or co-emperor, in 285. The point of this measure was to multiply the imperial ability to deal with many different threats at one time. An emperor who was on the spot and seen to be doing his job was a powerful disincentive to usurpation by a local governor or general. Diocletian took this principle still further, by appointing two junior emperors, called caesars, as a complement to the two senior augusti. Together, these four emperors would form an imperial college in which the actions of each emperor would symbolically be the actions of all four: a law issued by one emperor was issued in the name of all four, and when one emperor won a victory, all four took the victory title associated with it. This college of four emperors is known to scholars as the tetrarchy (‘rule of four’ in Greek). For as long as it lasted, the new tetrarchy of Diocletian and Maximian, with their caesars Constantius and Galerius, ensured that an emperor was on hand in nearly every trouble spot of the empire, ready to suppress a looming threat and thereby discourage any local response that might challenge the hold of Diocletian and his colleagues on their thrones. The tetrarchic system was also meant to ensure a smooth succession, as a caesar would be waiting to succeed a senior augustus should the need arise.

Diocletian’s reform of the imperial office was accompanied