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Gepids
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=== Before the arrival of the Huns === [[File:Roman Empire 125.png|thumb|right|300px|The Roman empire under [[Hadrian]] (ruled 117–138), showing the location of the '''Gepidae''' (Gepids) East Germanic tribe, then inhabiting the region around the mouth of the Visula ([[Vistula]]) river, Poland.]] The Gepids were the "most shadowy of all the major [[Germanic peoples]] of the migration period", according to historian Malcolm Todd.{{sfn|Todd|2003|p=142}} Neither [[Tacitus]] nor [[Ptolemy]] mentioned them in their detailed lists of the "barbarians" in the first and second centuries AD. They first appear only in the late {{nobr|3rd century AD}}, and by this time they are already living in or near the area where they remained for the rest of their known history. According to a common interpretation of the unreliable ''[[Augustan History]]'' of Emperor [[Claudius Gothicus]] (VI.2), Gepids were among the "[[Scythian]]" peoples conquered by the emperor when he earned his title "Gothicus": "''peuci trutungi austorgoti uirtingi sigy pedes celtae etiam eruli''". These words are traditionally edited by modern editors to include well-known peoples "''[[Peuci]], [[Greuthungi|Grutungi]], [[Ostrogoths|Austrogoti]], [[Tervingi]], [[Vesi|Visi]], Gipedes, [[Celts|Celtae]] etiam et [[Heruli|Eruli]]''".{{sfn|Christensen|2002|pp=201–212}}<ref name=Bona_The_Gepids_before_Hun_Rule/>{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=246}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Historia Augusta: The Life of Claudius (6.2.) |publisher=Loeb Classical Library (on LacusCurtius) |date=11 February 2014 |url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Claudius*.html#ref25 |access-date=27 May 2015}}</ref> The same source also says that Emperor [[Marcus Aurelius Probus|Probus]], who ruled between 276 and 282, settled Gepid, Vandals, and Greuthungi prisoners of war in the Roman Empire in the Balkans.{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=246}}{{sfn|Southern|2001|p=129}} In the 11th [[panegyric]] to emperor [[Maximian]] given in [[Trier]] in 291, which is also the first time the [[Tervingi]] and [[Taifali]] were mentioned, the passage described a battle outside the empire where the Gepids were on the side of the [[Vandals]], attacked by Taifali and a "part" of the Goths. The other part of the Goths had defeated the [[Burgundians]] who were supported by Tervingi and [[Alemanni]].<ref>{{harvtxt|Pohl|1998|p=131}}; {{citation|title=In Praise of Later Roman Emperors: The Panegyrici Latini |date=January 1994 |editor1-last=Nixon |editor2=Saylor Rodgers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0WlC_UtU8M4C|pages=100–101|publisher=University of California Press |isbn=9780520083264 }}; {{harvtxt|Christensen|2002|pp=207–209}}</ref>{{sfn|Wolfram|1988|pp=57-59}}<ref name=Bona_The_Gepids_before_Hun_Rule/> They were however "remote enough from the imperial frontier for them not to appear in the [[Laterculus Veronensis|Verona list]] or in the histories of [[Ammianus]] or [[Orosius]]".{{sfn|Goffart|2009|p=200}} Modern historians who write of the Gepids' early history sometimes apply a "mixed argumentation", combining Jordanes' narration with results of archaeological research.{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|pp=245–246}} Historian István Bóna says that the battle mentioned in the panegyric was about 290 in the former province of [[Roman Dacia|Dacia]], equating it to the battle mentioned by Jordanes, involving Fastida.<ref name=Bona_The_Gepids_before_Hun_Rule/> Archaeologist Kurdt Horedt however also equates it to the battle involving Fastida and proposed that the battle took place east of the [[Carpathian Mountains]] after 248 and before the withdrawal of the Romans from the province of Dacia in the early 270s.{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=246}} Walter Pohl only says that the battle must have happened between 248 and 291, and could have been inside or outside the curve of the Carpathians, though he feels it is obvious that it must be in the region of the formerly Roman province of [[Dacia]] in [[Transylvania]].{{sfn|Pohl|1998|p=132}} The Gepids' history in the {{nobr|4th century}} is unknown, because no written source mentioned them during this period.{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=247}}{{sfn|Goffart|2009|p=200}} The silence of the Roman sources suggests that their homeland did not border on the Roman Empire.{{sfn|Goffart|2009|p=200}} On the basis of Jordanes' reference to the "rugged mountains" of the Gepids' land, historians locate it near the Carpathians, along the upper courses of either the [[Tisza]] or the [[Dniester]] rivers, in the late {{nobr|3rd century}}.{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=246}} The exact date of the Gepids' settlement in the [[Carpathian Basin]] cannot exactly be determined.{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=247}}{{sfn|Opreanu|2005|p=119}} Archaeologist István Bóna says they were present in the northeastern region already in the 260s.<ref name=Bona_The_Gepids_before_Hun_Rule/> According to Coriolan H. Opreanu, they seem to have arrived around 300.{{sfn|Opreanu|2005|p=119}} Archaeologists Eszter Istvánovits and Valéria Kulcsár write that no archaeological evidence substantiates the Gepids' presence before around 350.{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=247}} Graves from the {{nobr|4th century}} which yielded swords, lances and shields with iron boss were unearthed in cemeteries between the rivers Tisza and [[Körös River|Körös]] (in present-day north-eastern Hungary and north-western Romania).<ref name=Bona_The_Gepids_before_Hun_Rule/>{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=247}} Many scholars (including Kurdt Horedt, István Bóna and Coriolan H. Opreanu) attribute those graves to Gepid warriors.<ref name=Bona_The_Gepids_before_Hun_Rule/>{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=247}}{{sfn|Opreanu|2005|p=119}} Graves of women from the same cemeteries produced artefacts—including bronze and silver clasps, bone combs, and fibulae—which are similar to objects found in the cemeteries of the nearby "[[Chernyakhov culture|Sântana de Mureș-Chernyakhov culture]]".<ref name=Bona_The_Gepids_before_Hun_Rule/>{{sfn|Kharalambieva|2010|p=247}} István Bóna writes that the spread of these cemeteries shows that the Gepids subjugated the Germanic [[Victohali]], who had previously inhabited the same region, before expanding towards the [[Mureș River]] in the middle of the {{nobr|4th century}}.<ref name=Bona_The_Gepids_before_Hun_Rule/>
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