What were the Goths like?
by Frank Schaefer

Jordanes in his account of the Gothic people describes them as smart people who were respected and even feared by their enemies.

Wherefore the Goths have ever been wiser than other barbarians and were nearly like the Greeks, as Dio relates, who wrote their history and annals with a Greek pen. (Jordanes)

This wisdom was certainly evident in their organized confederacy and it explains their battle successes and conquests.

Descriptions of the Gothic people’s physical appearance are rare. They are generally described as tall, robust, light skinned and fair-haired.

A quote from Procopius of Caesarea (the principal Roman historian of the 6th century) is one of few descriptions that were handed down to us in History of the Wars. Book III. II:

There were many Gothic nations in earlier times, just as also at the present, but the greatest and most important of all are the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepaedes. In ancient times, however, they were named Sauromatae and Melanchlaeni;[14] and there were some too who called these nations Getic. All these, while they are distinguished from one another by their names, as has been said, do not differ in anything else at all. For they all have white bodies and fair hair, and are tall and handsome to look upon, and they use the same laws and practice a common religion. For they are all of the Arian faith, and have one language called Gothic; and, as it seems to me, they all came originally from one tribe, and were distinguished later by the names of those who led each group.

The Court Church at Innsbruck, Austria displays a bronze statue of Visigoth king and Roman vassal Theodoric the Great who lived in the early 6th century C.E. and who briefly united all Gothic tribes (including their cousins, the Vandals) in the 520s. In this depiction, Theodoric is portrayed as a Germanic man with close set round eyes and a slim long nose, donning a battle armor. In another depiction of him on a coin, these attributes are confirmed.

However, if it is true that the Goths became a widely heterogeneous people (see Gothic Society and Beliefs), we can expect them to have blended with the original native Europeans as well as with other Germanic tribes. It is reasonable to assume that over time, as the Gothic people intermarried, they looked much more like the people of the areas they settled in, though light-colored skin, eyes and hair may still have been more frequent traits in Gothic tribes as compared to other tribes.


         
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