There were several origin stories of the Goths recorded by Latin and Greek authors in late antiquity (roughly 3rd–8th centuries AD), and these are relevant not only to the study of literature, but also to attempts to reconstruct the early history of the Goths, and other peoples related to the Goths. From the perspective of Latin and Greek scholars, the Goths appeared under that name in the region north of the Black Sea and Lower Danube in the third century AD, but even the name of the Goths was not necessarily seen as new, because many such authors saw it as a new form of the name of the Getae who had long lived on the Lower Danube, or a new name for a part of the Scythian peoples who had long lived to their east, north of the Black sea. In the sixth century, Isidore of Seville also accepted this approach.
The earliest surviving written accounts of Gothic origins in the 5th century were by early Christian authors who continued to see the Goths as descendants of the Getae or Scythians, but they also attempted to fit them into biblical understandings of history. In the 6th century Jordanes drew upon these, but went further, giving a chronologically impossible account, which also drew upon older Roman historiography, and apparently Gothic accounts which no longer exist. His account was influential in the Middle Ages, and has often guided modern scholars in their own attempts to understand Gothic origins. In recent generations the strong influence of Jordanes upon the assumptions of scholars has become a topic of controversy.
Jordanes specifically linked the earliest Gothic origins, and therefore also in his account Getic and Dacia origins, to Scandinavia (the "island" of Scandza), and the Vistula estuary. Classical authors who Jordanes specifically cited, had reported the existence of the similarly named Gauts, and Gutones in those places, but his narrative may also have been influenced by lost accounts from the Goths themselves, or from others who were speculating on this topic in the 6th century. Many modern scholars have long seen this migration as a believable explanation of the Gothic name and their Germanic language. Jordanes' Getica has been categorized among the most important examples of the origo gentis (origin of a people) genre of literature as understood for example by historian Herwig Wolfram, but whether this category should be described as a genre has been questioned, for example by Walter Goffart, because of doubts that the authors understood themselves to be following a shared traditional model.
A quite different 6th century account was given by Procopius, who didn't emphasize the possible connection to the Danubian Getae, but instead specified their Scythian ancestry among the Sarmatians and Melanchlaeni who had lived on the eastern edge of the Greek world for centuries, originally near the River Don and Sea of Azov. He considered the Goths, Vandals and Gepids to be one people, only given different names because of their political history, and he saw the Sarmatians and Melanchlaeni as the same people. Like all classical writers including Jordanes he never referred to them as "Germanic peoples" (Germani), which in his account was the old name of the Franks of his time.
Goths as Scythians, Getae and descendants of Magog
The Goths are first noted as living north of the Roman empire's frontier on the Lower Danube in an area which had previously been home to Getae, Carpi, Bastarni and Sarmatians. Much earlier the regions east of the Getae were inhabited by the Scythians, and the term "Scythian" was still used in classical times to refer to inhabitants of the area. All of the surviving Gothic origins stories included elements which connected the Goths to at least some of these previous inhabitants of "Scythia". Already in the first half of the third century, Dexippos, whose history has only survived in fragments, referred to the Goths of his time as Scythians, although from the surviving fragments he did not necessarily intend to assert that all Scythians had the same origins.
The first surviving rationales for equating Goths with Scythians or Getae were by early Christian scholars, Ambrose (about 340–397), Orosius (about 375–420) and Jerome (about 347–420). Ambrose equated the Scythians and Goths with the Biblical Gog and Magog — barbarians who come from the extreme north, where there are islands. Ambrose, in his De Fide II.xvi explains that "Gog" the ruler of "Magog" mentioned in the Book of Ezekiel represented "the Goths" (hoc est Gothis). Gog was the subject of a prophecy in the Bible of an invader from the north, who will come on horseback as a mighty army, and be defeated. Gog and Magog were also associated with islands because God would "send fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles".
According to Arne S. Christensen, one precursor of Ambrose's equation of the Goths with the Biblical Gog and Magog was Josephus (died about 100), who equated the Scythians with the descendants of biblical Magog, who he understood as a person, not a country. This was based upon a passage in the Book of Genesis. A connection between this ancestral Genesis Magog, and the prophesied Gog from Ezekiel, who ruled a country named Magog, or "Gog and Magog" from the similar 1st century AD Book of Revelation prophecy, was made explicit in Jerome. This paved the way for other writers to connect specifically to the Goths, as Scythians, to the biblical account of the ancestry of the Scythians as interpreted by Josephus, although Jerome himself did not do this.
Orosius is among early writers to equate the Goths with Scythians, listing them along with the Huns and Alans as the "Scythians" of his time. Jerome, like his contemporary Orosius, equated the Goths to the earlier Getae, but did not equate them to Gog and Magog, only stating that scholars before him and Orosius had made this equation. Saint Jerome however specifically rejected this equation of the Goths with Gog and Magog. (Nevertheless, Herwig Wolfram believes that with this assertion "he probably invented the identification of the Goths as Getae".) Their contemporary, Saint Augustine, argued that Gog and Magog should not be read as Ambrose had, as Goths, but seen as representing peoples all over the world, not any single specific barbarian people.
Another late 4th century writer who routinely called the Goths "Getae" was the poet Claudian (died about 404).Claudian, Against Eutropius, 2.141. For commentary see
Much later, Isidore of Seville (died 636), in his own History of the Goths, suggested that the connection of the Goths to Magog in Ezekiel must have been assumed by previous authors because of the similarity in sound between "Gog" and "Goth". Similarly, he noted that the word for the Scythians (Skuthoi in transliterated Greek), was itself also similar to the name of the Goths (Guthoi). Isidore did not see these similarities of names as false leads, believing that these indicated the true origins of the Goths.
Procopius Procopius placed the Goths in the category called "Gothic nations" or "Gothic peoples" (). Procopius also seems to have deliberately avoided using the term "Scythian" for the Goths, which he saw as a more general term used for all the nations of the region north of the Black Sea, including newcomers like the Huns and Cimmerians. Instead, according to Procopius, the ancient Gothic peoples were called Sauromatae and Melanchlaeni. Procopius therefore believed there was a continuity between the Gothic peoples of his times, and predecessors who originally lived in the eastern part of their range near the River Don in what is now Russia. While registering the fact that some authors called these Gothic peoples "Getic peoples", which would connect them instead to the ancient Getae of the Lower Danube in the western part of the Gothic range, he didn't follow that approach in his own writing. citing Procopius, Wars, 3.2. Also see Wars, 8.5: "in ancient times, because all the nations who held these regions are called in general Scythians, while a few of them had an additional designation such as Sauromatae or Melanchlaenae or something else".
According to Procopius, the names changed over time, but the Gothic peoples were distinguished from one another by nothing else at all because "they all have white bodies and fair hair, and are tall and handsome to look upon, and they use the same laws and practise a common religion". More specifically, the Gothic peoples of his time, the 6th century, were all of the Arian faith, and had one language called Gothic, and it seemed to him that "they all came originally from one tribe, and were distinguished later by the names of those who led each group". According to him, the most important Gothic peoples in his own time were the Goths (ruling Italy), the Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepids. citing Procopius, Wars, 3.2 Also designated as Gothic peoples by Procopius were the Sciri and Alans and some other peoples who came to dominate the western Roman military before Odoacer took control in the 5th century.Procopius, Wars, 5.1 Furthermore, he described the Rugii of his time as a Gothic people who had joined the Goths of Theoderic the Great when they in turn entered Italy, but they maintained some independence.Procopius, Wars, 7.2 Procopius also noted an isolated Gothic people called the Tetraxitae, who lived on the western shores of the Sea of Azov. They became isolated in the 5th century when the Visigoths and Vandals, who he believed to have also originated in the "Scythian" area, had already moved away and conquered Libya and Spain.Procopius, Wars, 8.5. Also see Wars 3.3: "the Vandals dwelling about the Maeotic Lake, since they were pressed by hunger, moved to the country of the Germans, who are now called Franks, and the river Rhine, associating with themselves the Alani, a Gothic people". The Tetraxitae were still there in the 6th century. (They were not Arians, but rather orthodox Christians, and so he wondered whether they had converted, though he admitted to not being able to give an answer.)Procopius, Wars, 8.4
About 1000 years earlier, the early Greek historian Herodotus had already written about the Getae on the Lower Danube, as well as the Melanchlaeni and Sarmatae near the Don. He specifically described the Melanchlaeni, whose name means "black cloaks", as a non-Scythian people, who practiced the customs of the Scythians. They lived north of the "Royal Scythians" of his time, who lived between the Gerrhus river (Molochna), the Don, and Sea of Azov. The Sauromatae of Herodotus were the early Sarmatians, living in his period to the east of the Royal Scythians, on the eastern side of the Don. According to him they spoke a barbarous form of the Scythian language.Herodotus, 4.20, 4.100-102, 4.107, 4.117 The Sarmatians were a large group of peoples, and several of the Sarmatian peoples such as the Roxolani and Iazyges later moved westwards, becoming the "Scythian" neighbours of the Romans and Getae on the Lower Danube.