Before revision: Scythia Prior to their entanglements with Rome, Jordanes (V 38) describes the Goths as having moved around between different parts of Scythia, all north of the Danube and Black Sea:The first, Oium, was a fertile area of Scythia where the Goths fought and defeated the previous inhabitants of that area, the Spali (a people apparently mentioned by Pliny the Elder as living on or near the Don river).Pliny, Natural History, 6.7.Second, they hastened to an area near the Sea of Azov ( " Lake Maeotis").Third, they lived in Moesia, Thrace and Dacia, areas found near the Lower Danube and Balkans, and bordering the Graeco-Roman world.In this period, Jordanesequates the Goths with historical Dacians and Getae, long before the time of Jordanes.Finally, back east to the region north of the Black Sea ( " Pontus by Jordanes, by which he is understood by modern scholars to have intended the peninsula of Scandinavia.
After revision: Scandza The opening sections of the Getica form a large digression about the large northern island in the Baltic sea known as " Scandza " by Jordanes, by which he is understood by modern scholars to have intended the peninsula of Scandinavia.