“A clumsy man [who] could hardly keep his Latin together.”  Thus A. Momigliano characterized Jordanes, and this unflattering judgment, professed by a famous scholar, has long weighed on the reputation of the historiographer.  Yet the judgment actually seems to find some comfort in the description, that Jordanes left to posterity himself in a famous passage of the Getica (266): ego item quamvis agramatus Iordannis ante conversionem meam notarius fui.  Even so, recent years have seen this crucial autobiographical reference become the subject of careful reexamination, and it has provided cues for reevaluating both the person and the works of the historian (e.g. Goffart, Croke, Heather, Zecchini).

   As one can see from the reference quoted above, Jordanes long served as notarius in the service of the magister militum (perhaps per Thraciam) Gunthigis, who was the son of Candac’s sister and who had distinguished himself by occupying Moesia Inferior and Scythia.  Jordanes’ grandfather Paria had, in his own time, served as Candac’s notarius.  As for Candac’s sister, she was married to a certain Andag, who was perhaps related to the clan of Theodoric and a descendent of the line of the Amals.  In his capacity as Gunthigis’ notarius during the first decades of the 6th c., the historiographer - who was probably a native of Scythia or Moesia, and is variously described as being of Gothic or Alan descent (see Girotti) - may well have had the opportunity to come into contact with many notices and documents related to the family of Theodoric and to have used them in his Getica.  Jordanes probably moved to Constantinople when Gunthigis left his post as magister militum; there he undertook research for his two works, the Romana and the Getica, which he completed at a decidedly mature age, around AD 551.

   From this picture it is clear that Jordanes was anything but illiterate: a notarius had to know Latin in order to communicate within the military, Greek in order to communicate within the administration, and Gothic in order to communicate with the local populace (Croke).  Consequently, his description of himself as agramatus might be intended only to signify that he had not received a complete or formal education (Croke), or else might be due to a playful stance of false modesty (Giunta-Grillone).

   As for his conversio, it is much debated whether this was a turn from Arianism to Catholicism, or rather a transition to religious life in the role of monk or - as Mommsen already proposed - of episcopus, perhaps of Ravenna or Croton (Luiselli, Callu, with different points of view).

    It was probably at Constantinople, around 551, that Jordanes composed two works, one dedicated to the history of the Goths, entitled De origine actibusque Getarum and known as the Getica, the other dedicated to chronography and Roman history, entitled De summa temporum vel origine actibusque gentis Romanorum and known as the Romana.  In the past (beginning with Mommsen through to Momigliano and Enßlin), both histories were considered highly derivative, the first of Cassiodorus’ Gothic History, the second of Symmachus’ Roman History.  Only in recent years has the author been credited with a certain originality and independence of judgment in his account of events and reconstruction of the historical context (e.g. Goffart, Croke, Zecchini), even accepting that the works of Cassiodorus and Symmachus have not survived and that it is therefore extremely difficult to offer an evaluation of them that is not circumstantial.  As Jordanes himself records in the preface to the Getica, he was engaged in writing the Romana when his friend Castalius asked him to write a Getica on the model of Cassiodorus’ twelve volumes of Gothic History.  It was only when he had brought this latter work to its conclusion that he returned to the task of writing the Romana - dedicated to his amicus fidelissimus Vigilius - and finally completed them.  There is much debate concerning the identities of the two figures just named, Castalius and Vigilius: they are sometimes considered historical entities connected to the ecclesiastical world (perhaps popes), and at others fictional addressees who were devised in order to conceal famous political figures, perhaps even Justinian himself (Goffart).  [G. Vanotti; tr. C. L. Caterine].