Chapter XXXV

. the Swedes and the Geats are said to have fought 'over wide water'; but, as Arnold points out, these phrases can be interpreted in such a way as not to be incompatible with the theory that they dwelt on the same side of the Cattegat, i.e. on the northern side, and in the extreme south of Sweden.

The question as to whether they are identical with the Goths of Roman history is still an open one. Arnold says, 'There is a great weight of evidence tending to identify the Geats with the Goths,' and he quotes evidence from Gibbon ( chapter X .). Pytheas of Marseilles, in the fourth century, says that, passing through the Baltic Sea, he met with tribes of Goths, Teutons, and Ests.

Tacitus, in