Editing Getica (section)

{{Short description|Literary work by Jordanes on the origin and history of the Gothic people}}
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[[File:Incipit de origine actibusque getarum.PNG|thumb|upright=2|The title of the ''Getica'' as it appears in a 9th-century manuscript of [[Lorsch Abbey]] now in the [[Vatican Library]]]]
'''''De origine actibusque Getarum''''' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae''{{refn|Late antique writers commonly used [[Getae]] for [[Goths]] mixing the peoples in the process.|group="n"}}),{{sfn|Costa|1977|p=32}}<ref>''De Rebus Geticis'': O. Seyffert, 329; ''De Getarum (Gothorum) Origine et Rebus Gestis''</ref>{{sfn|Smith|1870|loc=vol. 2, p.607}} commonly abbreviated '''''Getica'''''<ref name="name1">{{harv|Mierow|1908}}</ref> ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|ɛ|t|ɪ|k|ə}}), written in [[Late Latin]] by [[Jordanes]] in or shortly after 551 AD,<ref>{{citation| first =Peter|last =  Heather | title = Goths and Romans 332-489| publisher = Oxford|year = 1991 | pages = 47–49 (year 552)}}</ref><ref>{{citation| first = Walter |last = Goffart | title = The Narrators of Barbarian History|publisher =  Princeton |year = 1988 |page = 98 (year 554)}}</ref> claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by [[Cassiodorus]] of the origin and history of the [[Goths|Gothic people]], which is now lost.{{sfn|Wolfram|1988|loc = Or in the original ''Die Goten'' (München 2001), consistently uses ''Origo Gothica'' as a name not only for the work of Cassiodorus, but also, very confusingly, for the ''Getica''. The source is Cassiodorus, ''Variae'' 9.25.5: "Originem Gothicam fecit esse historiam Romanam", which can be interpreted in different ways (see {{harvnb|Goffart|2006|pp=57–59}}). Cassiodorus' lost work is more commonly referred to as ''Historia Gothorum'' or ''History of the Goths'' by modern scholarship ({{harvnb|Merrills|2005|pp= 102, 9}}).}} However, the extent to which Jordanes actually used the work of Cassiodorus is unknown. It is significant as the only remaining contemporaneous resource that gives an extended account of the [[Origin stories of the Goths|origin and history of the Goths]], although to what extent it should be considered history or origin mythology is a matter of dispute.