Technically Goths in the Crimea were just as much immigrants as the Ostro and Visigoths rather than their originators.

Ah, I didn't realise they hadn't extended that far easy before the conquest of Dacia. My mistake. Then again, Theodoric the Great tried to rouse Crimean Goths - even if the term was potentially basically just "Germanics"
 
See, this seems a vastly more plausible approach than most, as the Goths were literally the other side of the world from Egypt.



1) The Crimean Goths aren't Goths? I'm sure they'd have been surprised since they were the ones who stayed put when the Visigoths and Ostrogoths went west.

2) That assumes we have the Arabs - or even some of the issues in the West. There are huge butterflies - from a possibility of not needing Justinians Restoration.

But assuming they do come to dominate the province (I find that unlikely, it seems more likely they'd be one of a few significant demographic groups in Egypt - Goths, Greeks, Egyptians, Arabs, Berbers?) but assuming they are the major group that supply manpower. If they dominate the trade routes (I would expect that more of the Greeks and Arabs, rather than Goths), I could see them setting themselves up in negotiated fortified trade posts - in fact, that sort of self-imposed isolation/seperation would likely characterise them.

What IS interesting however, is that if they maintain their Arian Faith (unlikely, but a cool option), is that the Arians control Alexandria!
If large numbers of egyptians are arian christians it is more likely to see assimilation between the corelgionist egyptians and goths.
 
Well, admittedly, I know very little of Crimean Goths. What I meant - about which I might be wrong - is that while Crimean Goths were indeed Gothic in language and name, their culture was more Byzantine Greek than anything else.
No one seem to know alot about the crimean goths. There are very few sources.
 
Alaric gets his navy in 410, takes Africa like he wanted.
Then attacks east via Cyrenaica to Egypt.

Taking what Geiseric did in the OTL was possible, but I don't think Alaric could've taken Egypt, at least not in 410--440. The eastern Empire wasn't as defenseless as the Western one. As I suggested above, it might've been possible when the ERE was tied down fighting the Huns.
 
The Goths would
How does one define a Goth and how does one define continuity of Goth-ness?

Is being Gothic a result ethnic, tribal, biological, culturall, Ideological, religous, experience or is it a mixture of many different factors?

If the Goths somehow get poltical leadership over Egypt and they later assimilate into the indiginous Egyptian population, as in Iberia, are they still Goths of sorts? What if Goths get a position in Egypt similar to Turks in Anatolia, in which the majority takes on the language of the elite minority, are they still real Goths?

It depends. Being a Goth originally meant belonging to the ethnicity or being under the tribe. But as the Goths in OTL migrated into Roman territory and slowly culturally Romanized (and added non-Gothic ethnic elements into their population), the definition certainly changed. In the Gothic kingdoms, anyone who was a subject of the Gothic king would technically be identified as a Goth.

There's also the factor that the Hellenized Greco-Egyptian political and cultural elite would still be around and if anything, the Goths would assimilate into that population as opposed to the Copts.
 
Top