ABSTRACT
Vulfila, the bishop of the Goths, invented the Gothic letters. Describing the ethno-political situation in the aftermath of the battle of Nedao, Jordanes finally mentions other Goths called the minor ones, an extremely numerous people, with their pontifex ispeque primas Vulfila who is said to have taught them the letters. They were settled in Roman Moesia around Nicopolis/Stari Nikub between the right bank of the Lower Danube and the Balkan mountain range. They also consisted of Gothic groups who had been already admitted to the Roman Empire before 376 when the great invasions started that affected the Balkan Peninsula and also the whole Roman world. Vulfila and his helpers did translate the Bible into Gothic, which reflected a barbarian segmentary society and necessarily provided a rich political terminology, too. Vulfila's episcopacy and biography are intrinsically interwoven with each other. As a young man he made his first trip to Constantinople between 332 and 337.
