IGN preview - The Goths

[phred]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/653/653501p1.html

enjoy!

[The Stranger]

seriously...since when were the goths christian

[lars573]

They were Arian (I think that's the spelling) christians, a sect that the patriarchs decalred heterodox (IE hertical). And checking the unit descriptions it says as much in the blurb for the Goth priest unit. Way to read it thoroughly before condeming it.

[The Stranger]

ease up master...i wasnt condemming (sp?) i was wondering

[The Stranger]

btw i read it...and i was wondering if it was right...is it...never knew they were christian

[lars573]

Well when they talk about the barbarians being saved and converted half the time they mean converted to an orthodox christian sect from a heterodox one. This will help illustrate my point. It's 2 paragraphs from a longer essay, which you can view here.

The empire of 476 was therefore, except for philosophers and yokels (paganus, "pagan," means "rural"), in an official Christian hammerlock. Steady political and legal pressure would eventually eradicate the old religions and gods. The Roman army, which had previously been strongly Mithraic, showed its sympathies by electing the Christian Jovian on the death of the pagan Julian in 363, and then the Christian Valentinian I, who would remove the Altar of Victory from the Senate in Rome, in 364. Indeed, at the time, the accusation was that Christianity itself was the cause of the empire's problems. What did they expect when they scorned Victory herself? St. Augustine of Hippo answered this charge in the City of God by denying that it even mattered, even as the Vandals took Hippo in the year of his own death. The charge was later taken up by Edward Gibbon, who saw religious superstition as more enervating than the antics of any Caligula or Elagabalus. Such a charge was still being repeated by James G. Frazer in his classic The Golden Bough [1890, 1900, 1906-15, note]. The picture of ferocious pagan hordes overcoming, not intoxicated catamites, but ascetic and otherworldly Christians is a little different from the standard one, but perhaps it would do....if not for another little problem: The Goths, who defeated and killed the emperor Valens at Adrianople in 378, and who later established kingdoms in Spain (the Visigoths, 416-711) and Italy (the Ostrogoths, 493-553), were themselves literate Christians, converted by St. Wulfila (or Ulfilas, c.311-c.383), who also designed the alphabet to write Gothic (which thus became the first written Germanic language). The Visigoths entered the Empire by permission as refugees from the Huns and only went to war because of their mistreatment: They had been reduced by the Romans to selling themselves into slavery for the sake of meals of rat meat -- at a rate of one rat for one slave. This now makes one wonder whom to call the barbarians.

The Visigothic king Reccared in 589 was not converting from paganism to Christianity, but from the heterodox Arian form of Christianity, advocated by Wulfila himself, to orthodox Catholicism. That made the Pope very happy, but it did not exactly effect a sea change in Visigothic religious practice. Similarly, the other German tribes who did the most damage to the Empire, the Vandals and Lombards, had also been Christians for some time. The only major German tribe that wasn't Christian was the Franks, and they never even got near Rome, much less sacked it. The Franks mostly stepped in after Roman authority had already collapsed in Gaul; but the conversion of the Frankish king Clovis (481-511) to Catholicism does make it sound like German tribes catching up with civilization. Not quite. The Ostrogothic king Theodoric (493-526) oversaw as much civilization in Italy as it had had in a while: Theodoric's tomb at Ravenna later became the model for a chapel built by Charlemagne at Aachen.

[NodachiSam]

seriously...since when were the goths christian

Like others have said, they were Arian Christians. Arian Christianity was spread accross the Danube river to their tribes before it was stamped out in the Roman Empire.

[TB666]

Well I told myself that the Goths would be the first faction to play and this seems to show that it was the right choice.
Can't wait to burn Rome with my gothic warriors

[Steppe Merc]

Steppe Horde Chosen Warrior... What? Why?

Any infantry on the steppe was a poor archer. If someone was rich enough to have armor, they'd be on a horse.

[edyzmedieval]

I wonder where do they get their historical resources.

Steppe Horde Chosen Warrior. Strange name.
Now, Steppe Horde Horsemen. I really laughed at this one. Contradictory terms. A horde can only be comprised of horsemen.

[lars573]

You know those special horde unit that CA keeps talking about? Well any unit with the word horde in it's title is one of them.

[Kekvit Irae]

I cant wait to march on Rome with my black lipstick, Vampire books, and macabre poetry! Oh wait, wrong Goths.

The Visigoths are definately a favorite of mine, and I cant wait to play them in game

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

I will join you with my mighty back combed hair, pointy boots and clove cigarettes.

[Doug-Thompson]

The whole story of the Arian Goths is in Gibbon somewhere. As I recall, they took slaves back from their ravages in the empire. One of them was a particularly enthusiastic priest. It took years to convert the Goths, though, since they had a particularly hard time coming around to the belief that their pagan ancestors were burning in Hell.

So they finally come around to this idea, then get told by the priests in the orthodox church in the empire that the teachings they'd learned and finally accepted were heresy. They took the news rather badly.

[Brutus]

Like others have said, they were Arian Christians. Arian Christianity was spread accross the Danube river to their tribes before it was stamped out in the Roman Empire.

Well, both the Visigoths in Spain ad the Ostrogoths of Theoderic in Italy remained Arian well after the Western Empire was gone. (The Vandals and Burgundians, for example were Arians too). Theodoric and his Arian beliefs were cast out of Italy by the armies of Eastern emperor Justinian whilst the Visigoths remanied Arian well into the 6th century before finally converting to orthodox (or Catholic if you will) Christianity. I believe the Lombards who conquered Italy after the Byzantine reqonquest of the peninsula were Arians too.

[Casmin]

@kekvitirae & taffy

Lol I'll bring my Cure cd's

[Taffy_is_a_Taff]

good man.