It's Gepid Time!

I am very excited to report that I will be getting my very first Germanic silver! I have it reserved at the moment but I found I just couldn't keep this cool new acquisition to myself until it ships :D It is not the prettiest coin ever but it just reeks of cool history, so I hope you all enjoy the coin and post.


In the names of Anastasius and Theodoric, Gepid Kingdom
AR Quarter-Siliqua
Obv: DN ANASTASIVS P AV (several letters retrograde), pearl-diademed, draped bust right
Rev: INVICTA-AROMANA (blundered), monogram of Theodoric surrounded by legend, legend separated by cross above, star below
Mint: Sirmium (struck 491-518 AD)
Ref: Demo, 70-78
Size: 14 mm wide

This uber-rare quarter-siliqua comes to us not from the major barbarian players of Western Europe such as the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, or Franks, but the smaller Gepid tribe, or the Gepidae in Latin. The mint city for this type is Sirmium, the well-known (to us ancients collectors) Roman mint city. By the early 6th century AD, Sirmium had been under control of various barbarian tribes for several decades; the Gepids themselves having moved into the city and made it their capital after the Ostrogoths migrated out of the region.

On the obverse has Byzantine emperor Anastasius's crudely engraved name and effigy, and on the reverse is Ostrogothic king Theodoric's monogram on the reverse. If I had to guess, owing to the Gepid Kingdom's placement between the Ostrogothic Kingdom and the Byzantine Empire, the Gepids thought it appropriate to pay homege to both of their powerful neighbors' rulers.

Here is a map of the region around Sirmium at this time (I only wish it showed more of the Ostrogothic Kingdom):



History of the Gepids:

The Gepids' earliest known place of origin have them being at the mouth of Vistula River (in modern Poland) in the 2nd to 3rd century AD. The Gothic historian Jordanes, writing in the 6th century, recorded their homeland as Scandinavia, and classified them as being a sub-tribe of the Goths. According to him, the Gepids got their name when the Goths crossed over in three ships from Scandinavia to the mouth of the Vistula. One of the ships had been the slowest in the crossing, and so later the Goths referred to the descendents of those on that last ship as gepanta, which meant "slow" or "sluggish" in their language. This most likely contributed to the Goths' viewing as the Gepids as lazy.

Along with their cousins the Goths, the Gepids gradually made their way down south, towards Dacia and the Roman Empire. And like the Goths they would sometimes conduct raids into Roman territory, and fight the other tribes in the area, nearly wiping out the Burgundians in the 4th century. The Gepids however, like many other barbarian tribes, could not escape domination by the Huns, who conquered them in the 370s AD. The Gepids now had to contribute to the Hunnic war machine, which ravaged both the Roman and Germanic lands.

It was a man named Ardaric that ruled over the Gepids during Attila's reign, and would later be considered the Gepids' greatest king. Ardaric had been a loyal commander for Attila, fighting at his side with his Gepid soldiers at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in Gaul in 451 AD, against the Romans and their barbarian allies. After Attila's death, Ardaric and the Gepids rebelled against their Hunnic masters, and leading a coalition of other subjugated tribes defeated the Huns at the Battle of Nedao three years later, thus permanently putting an end to the Huns' domination and terror and achieving their freedom.

This victory also served to legitimize the Gepids in the eyes of the Eastern Romans (Byzantines), and treaties were signed between them. Despite the failure of a joint effort with the Romans and other tribes to weaken the Ostrogoths, the Gepids managed to move deeper into Pannonia, making Sirmium their capital in the early 470s. They again came into conflict twice with the Ostrogoths and were defeated by them on both occasions, but no permanent territorial changes were made, and Sirmium was taken back by the Gepids in both instances.

Even with the Ostrogoths' downfall at the hands of the Byzantines, the Gepids would continue to be faced with other foes. The Lombards, with the support of the Byzantines, launched an invasion of Gepid territory, and handed the Gepids a terrible defeat that saw Gepid king Cunimund's death (with his skull made into a drinking cup for the Lombard king). The Gepid Kingdom was soon wiped out by a joint Lombard-Avar effort. The Gepid people, however, remained, with some joining the Lombards in their invasion of Byzantine Italy in 568, and most becoming subjects of the Avars.

Sources: http://www.ancientworlds.net/aw/Fam...Family/47641
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gepids

When I receive this coin in hand I'm going to...