Epigraphic Stratigraphy: is There Any Trace of the Ostrogoths in Early Medieval “Layers” (6th-9th Century)?

From Firenze University Press Book: Between Ostrogothic and Carolingian Italy

Flavia Frauzel, CAMNES, Center for Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies

Let me start off by asking a deliberately provocative question: has there ever been a real epigraphy of the Ostrogoths? Probably not. It’s a well-known fact that in Italy, the few Ostrogoths who wanted and could afford to commemorate themselves on a tombstone or in some other durable material expressed themselves in Latin, respecting all the stylistic conventions of the contemporary epigraphic habitus, and that the only way to recognize them is by their peculiar names. How can we therefore investigate the traces left by this people after their formal expulsion from the peninsula following the Gothic War? One way to track the faint traces of the Ostrogoths in the postwar period would be once again to resort to onomastics, detectable in documents, such as the Ravenna Papyri, and in some inscriptions dating from after the sixth century. In 2019, at the conference The Legacy of Justinian. The Last War of Roman Italy, I spoke extensively about Theodenanda, a presumed niece of Theoderic, mentioned on a tombstone preserved in the church of S. Nicola in Genazzano, but which almost certainly came from Rome, specifically from the Vatican Basilica. However, two other women named Theodenanda are also referred to in two epigraphs. One, very fragmentary, is preserved in Pavia, the other, complete, was found at the church of S. Pietro a Corte (Salerno), and can be dated to the year 566. This latter location — which is known to be linked to the Lombards — and this very early internal dating for a Lombard tombstone, provides the opportunity to tackle a question often debated by scholars, which can be summed up as follows: is this epigraph with a Germanic name attributable to the Ostrogothic years, the Lombard period, or yet another age? The purpose of this article is, therefore, to select an array of artefacts dating from the end of the sixth-seventh century, variously attributed to one or another “ethnic” horizon, and then to discuss, in much broader terms, the graphic and epigraphic transformations that took place between the eighth and ninth centuries in the Italian peninsula (and elsewhere).

2. Post-war and doubtful Ostrogothic/Lombard inscriptions

The first examples with which I would like to deal come from Croatia, specifically from the cathedral of Parenzo (the Euphrasian Basilica, from the mid-sixth century), and are obituary graffiti dating from the end of the sixth-seventh centuries, of a man with a clear Gothic anthroponym, Amara, and of two women, Burga and Richelda, about whom however there are several doubts; all these graffiti were made on the opus sectile decoration of the apse. There is also a marble tombstone, unfortunately damaged, that seems to mention a woman, perhaps named Gunna. The Ostrogoths are known to have exercised control, not only over the Italian peninsula, but also over some areas of present-day Croatia, so it is no surprise to find such evidence in this place. While we are dealing with the subject of graffiti, at least passing mention should also be made of some names recognized among the countless extemporaneous inscriptions found in the sanctuary of S. Michele Arcangelo on Mount Gargano, including the undeniably Ostrogothic anthroponym Aligernus. A second graffiti from the same context, albeit incomplete, may have recorded a second Aligernus. The compound name consists of *alia- «other», and *gerna-z «eager». During the sixth century, the name Aligernus occurs on two other occasions: one, the younger brother of King Theia, who surrendered to Narses in 554; the other, documented in the epistolary collection of Pope Gregory I the Great in 598, was an Ostrogoth who lived in Campania and was the father of a man with a Latin name, Sabinus. It should also be noted that an Aligerna honesta femina appears in an epitaph from Suno (Province of Novara), in the parish church of S. Genesio, which can be framed in an earlier chronology (sixth century). The name, of East Germanic origin, was fairly widespread even in the Lombard period, as shown by this example, datable on the basis of archaeological data to the seventh century, and, even later, by the Aligernus abbot of Montecassino, who died in 986.

DOI: 10.36253/978–88–5518–664–3.11

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