Note 2906 — BOOK IV. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED.

They are also called in history Gothi, Gothones, Gotones and Gutæ. According to Pytheas of Marseilles (as mentioned by Pliny, B. xxxvii. c. 2), they dwelt on the coasts of the Baltic, in the vicinity of what is now called the Fritsch-Haff. Tacitus also refers to the same district, though he does not speak of them as inhabiting the coast. Ptolemy again speaks of them as dwelling on the east of the Vistula, and to the south of the Venedi. The later form of their name, Gothi, does not occur till the time of Caracalla. Their native name was Gutthinda. They are first spoken of as a powerful nation at the beginning of the third century, when we find them mentioned as ‘Getæ,’ from the circumstance of their having occupied the countries formerly inhabited by the Sarmatian Getæ. The formidable attacks made by this people, divided into the nations of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, upon the Roman power during its decline, are too well known to every reader of Gibbon to require further notice.