Chapter 1
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forms; a more serviceable plough of Roman model was introduced; the distaff, the spindle-whorl, and metal shears were employed for the first time; breeches and sandals were copied from the Roman fashions; the balance and the steelyard arm, both of Roman model, came into use, while the weight system adopted was itself based upon the Roman denarius. (1)
The course of events in Scandinavia in the first two centuries of the Roman Iron Age is, in fact, the simple story of a steady cultural renaissance that was directly due to the spread of the mighty civilization of the Empire. But not all the period of the Roman Iron Age is thus accounted for. Indeed, in the two succeeding centuries influence from another quarter can be discerned as a new and important factor in the development of Scandinavian culture. This novel culture-influence is to be explained not by the advent, or proximity, of a new folk, but by the migration of a section of the Scandinavian peoples who, when the emigrants were finally established at the far-off terminus of their wanderings, maintained a close connexion with their homeland along the route of their migration, and thus transmitted to the north many of the characteristics of the peculiar civilization that was the result of their sojourn in strange lands. These emigrants were the Goths. They had begun to leave their northern home (Götaland in Sweden, rather than the island Gotland) towards the close of the last century before Christ, and after sojourning in the land around the Weichsel mouth they had moved in the second century up this great river and finally made their way to the steppes bordering the Black Sea between the Don and the Danube. At least some of their number are known to have arrived here by A.D. 214, for in that year they came into collision with the Romans on the borders of Dacia.
The attacks of the Goths on the Roman Empire begin in the middle of the third century, but before the period of the Gothic invasion no doubt much that was Roman was absorbed into the Gothic civilization from the provinces of Dacia and Moesia. It is well known that along the Gothic migration-route in north Germany and in Russia numerous hoards of Roman denarii of the late second and early third century have been found, and it is these coins that afford proof of the relations between the Scandinavians and the Goths, for big hoards of them have also been found in the Baltic islands, principally in Gotland that was at this time the leading trading-station for commerce with
1. A. W. Brøgger, Ertog og Øre, Oslo, 1921, especially chap. I.
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eastern Europe; in much smaller numbers the denarii have also occurred in the Scandinavian mainland and in Denmark. (1)
But it is not the Roman influence upon the Goths that matters here, nor even the fact, and it is of greater importance, that in their new homes these people came into contact with the enfeebled civilization of the Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast. For the event of chief interest is that the Goths lived side by side in south Russia with the Sarmatians, a group of oriental nomads of Iranian stock and akin to the inhabitants of northern Persia. These Sarmatians, who were earlier immigrants into south Russia than the Goths, had wrested their lands from the Scythians who had preceded them in this movement westwards, and who were likewise, it is now believed, Iranians. From them the Sarmatians had acquired a distinctive art, peculiar as regards the representation of animal forms and as regards the style of jewellery affected, both this animal form and this jewellery being derived from the arts of the Persians, the Assyrians, and the Egyptians. The Goths, soon after their arrival on the Black Sea, acquired from the Sarmatians a taste for their gay multi-coloured personal ornaments (2) : in fact, this jewellery, distinguished by flashy mosaics of semi-precious stones set in cells, and the bold use of large gems, is sometimes called 'Gothic', the reason being that as a result of its adoption by the Goths it was destined to become a widespread and notable fashion throughout barbarian Europe.
There is, then, the possibility of a quasi-oriental influence acting upon Scandinavia by way of the Weichsel trade-route and through the agency of the Goths. Such an influence can, in fact, be detected in the ready adoption of the 'Gothic' polychrome jewellery, for this seems to have reached the north directly from the Goths by way of the Weichsel route, rather than from Hungary at a later period after the Gothic invasion of the Empire. An effect of such an influence upon small personal ornaments of this kind may seem, indeed, to be unimportant, but actually it is of considerable interest because viking art itself is thought by some to owe not a little to orientalizing tastes.
With the polychrome jewellery another innovation was transmitted from the new Gothic territories back to the north,
1. For the denarius-hoards in northern Europe and Russia, see T. J. Arne and O. Almgren in Oldtide, VII (1918), pp. 207-212.
2. On this subject see the magnificent pioneer-study by Professor Rostovtzeff, Iranians and Greeks in South Russia, Oxford, 1922, especially chap. VIII.
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namely the brooch with the 'returned foot'. This was either invented by the Goths, or an adaptation by them of the provincial Roman or Greek brooches they saw in use, and once introduced into northern Europe it was there copied and developed to an extraordinary extent, being, in fact, the prototype of a long and important series of Teutonic brooches. (1)
More important among the outside contributions to northern civilization in this period is the introduction of the art of writing. The Runic alphabet, or furtharc as it is commonly called, (2) was at first used merely for the scratching of an owner's or artist's name on small personal belongings or for memorial inscriptions of the simplest kind, but it is of high antiquity and seems to have been employed in Scandinavia as early as the middle of the third century A.D. The question of its origin has been the subject of elaborate and sustained discussion, but the verdict of Dr. Carl Marstrander, who has studied the problem with a thoroughness that must
Fig. 11
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1. For the origin of the brooch with the 'returned foot', see Bernhard Salin , Die aligermanische Thierornamenlik, Stockholm, 1904, chap. I.
2. Because the first letters of the Runic system are not a, b, but f, u, r, th, a, r, c.
3. The word erilar is found in five early Runic inscriptions in the north. It is likely that many of the oldest inscriptions here are the work of travellers rather than of the native population.
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Russia and he finds the closest affinities to the Runic characters not in the Greek alphabet, but in Celto-Latin alphabets of the Alpine regions. These last he believes to be based on north Etruscan and Latin systems, and it is the Marcomanni, he contends, situated on the borders of the Romano-Celtic world and already a powerful and important people in the first century, who must have turned them into runes and passed them on to their still unlettered brethren of the north. (1)
No influx of new people in significant numbers altered the character of the population of the north in the Roman Iron Age, and in an archaeological sketch it is sufficient to remark upon the cultural renaissance that took place in this period and that is plainly to be ascribed to an indirect knowledge of Roman civilization. At the same time there is evidence of an unrest disturbing the dwellers in the north, as illustrated by the emigration of the Goths, and at the end of the Roman period, as counterpart to these outward movements, there seems to have been a considerable infiltration of continental Germans, men, that is, of an allied culture and of the same
1. Dr. C. J. S. Marstrander notable paper, Om runene og runenavnenes oprindelso (with French summary) will be found in Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, 1 (1928), p. 85. It should be compared with the work of Holger Pedersen (Aarb., 1923, PP. 37-82; French trans. Mem. Soc. Ant. du Nord, Copenhagen, 1920-4, P-88 ff.), who advocates a Latin origin for Runes through the medium of Gaulish instruction and likewise suggests the Rhine borderlands as the place of invention; in company with Dr. Marstrander he remarks upon certain analogies between the Runic and Ogam systems and thinks that both the Germans and the British Celts derived their alphabets from a common Gaulish source. The leading exponent of the theory of a Latin origin was Ludwig Wimmer (Aarb., 1874, p. I ff.; German version, Die Runenschrift, Berlin, 1887), and the theory until recently widely held of a Greek origin, with the inclusion of a few Latin letters, has been propounded by Otto von Friesen (Om runskriftens härkomst, Uppsala, 1904), and cf. the same author's article in Hoops, Reallexikon der Germ. Alt., IV, 1918-19, s.v. Runenschrift, and his Rö-stenen i Bohuslän och runorna i Norden under folkvandringstiden, Uppsala Univ. Årsskrift, 1924, and by S. Bugge (Norges Indskrifter indtil Reformationen, Afd. I, Oslo, 1905-13). The reader should also note a paper by Sigurd Agrell (Arkiv f. Nordisk Filologi, XLIII, 1927, p. 97). who admits the influence of Greek cursives but is of the opinion that the furtharc is really a reflection of Mithraic symbolism and magic, and that it was evolved in the second century by German soldiers serving in the Roman army; on this subject see also the important studies of Magnus Olsen, e.g. in Rev. de l'hist. des religions, XCVI (1927) and Edda, 1916, and of Magnus Hammarström, Studier i nordish Filologi H. Pipping, XX (Helsingfors, 1929), I, who emphasizes the Celtic influence on the development of the furtharc. For a short discussion of recent theories and a criticism of Marstrander's views see H. Shetelig, Bergens Museums Årbok, 1930, hist.-ant. r., I.
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