ABSTRACT
In this recent study (2002) Goffart counters the arguments of Wolfram (among others). In the preceding selection we saw how Wolfram objected to some of the conclusions of Goffart’s 1988 book The Narrators of Barbarian History. In this article, Goffart returns to some of his earlier arguments and also develops new methodological criticisms of Wolfram and his followers. In reading this essay, and in thinking back to Wolfram’s two selections, it is important to try to discern what is actually at issue: Is it Germanic prehistory? Or ways of reading sixth-century texts? Do Goffart and Wolfram always engage directly with each other’s arguments? Does this scholarly quarrel help us to understand the formation of the Goths, or of any other Germanic people?
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