It is uncertain but possible that this Rodulf is the same king of that name who is described in the
Getica of
Jordanes, as a king on the "island" of
Scandza (what Jordanes called Scandinavia), who left his kingdom voluntarily, and came to Italy, where he succeeded in gaining the "embrace" (
gremium) of the
Ostrogothic King of Italy,
Theodoric the Great. In the
Getica, it is said that Rodulf spurned and left his own kingdom, in times which were still recent for Jordanes. Jordanes describes him as achieving what he desired from Theoderic. The passage, as translated by Christensen, is as follows: Because Jordanes mentioned that Rodulf had a connection to Theoderic, and the Heruli also had a king named Rodulf and at least one unnamed king who was an ally of Theoderic (as indicated by the correspondence), scholars have also speculated that this Rodulf from Scandinavia became the king of the Danubian Heruli, and also that he is the un-named Heruli king who is mentioned in the surviving state papers of Theoderic. Other scholars believe this proposal to equate the Scandinavian and Herulian Rodulfs is unjustified. Taken literally, the passage makes no connection between this Ruduulf and the Heruli at all, although it clearly mentions both the Heruli and king Roduulf as having both lived in Scandinavia, and left it. The Heruli were forced out by the Danes, while Roduulf left voluntarily, and there is no indication that these events happened at a similar time. The text as it has survived either means that Roduulf was king of the Rani, or else of the whole group including the Grannii, Augandzi, Eunixi, Taetel, Rugi, Arochi, and Ranii. The fact that Jordanes specifies that Roduulf came to Theoderic "not many years ago" has been seen as an indication that this part of the text comes from Cassiodorus, who Jordanes named as a source, and it has also been seen as evidence that this occurred after the Herule-Lombard war. Proponents of equating the two Rodulfs have proposed that there are errors in the text, but there is no consensus about what Jordanes intended. In the 19th century
Monumenta Germaniae Historica edition of Jordanes by the German
classicist Theodor Mommsen, the extended index entry for "Roduulf" by
Karl Müllenhoff argued that the Roduulf in Scandinavia and the Rodulf of the Heruli tribe were the same person, and Jordanes had intended to say that the Scandinavian was king of the Heruli. On the other hand, the un-named king of the Heruli whom Theoderic adopted by arms must have been someone different. He proposed that Rodulf could have arrived to Theodoric in 489, when he was in
Moesia, and not yet king of Italy. Other scholars who equated the Scandinavian Rodulf with the Heruli king including
Josef Svennung and
Elias Wessén. The equation was also accepted by
Martindale in the
Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE).
Ludwig Schmidt, in contrast, disagreed that this Scandinavian Rudolf was the Heruli king, and didn't see the list of peoples given by Jordanes as reliable. He described this King Roduulf as a
Gaut.
Herwig Wolfram accepted the conclusions of Schmidt and called the equation of Roduulf with the Heruli king, as found in PLRE, outdated. The name of the
Rugii, on the other hand, matches another Middle Danubian people, who were neighbours of the Heruli, and they are thought to have migrated from the Baltic Sea. Historian Axel Kristinsson has speculated that it could have been natural for Rodulf to seek out some of his kinsmen, namely the Danubian Rugians who had joined the Ostrogoths after their kingdom was destroyed in 487. Andrew Merrills accepts that Rodulf the Heruli king may have earlier joined Theoderic as an exile in Moesia, before Theoderic became king of Italy. He argues that this passage in Jordanes was probably based on information from Cassiodorus, who had lived in the court of Theoderic. However, he also proposed that Rodulf’s "somewhat ambiguous origins" might have been "accentuated retrospectively" by Cassiodorus, and the connection to the Scandinavian tribes could have been politically motivated: "The
Getica may, of course, be correct in its association of Roduulf with the far north, but the possibility that it merely reflects an ideological distortion should not be overlooked." The scientist-explorer
Fridtjof Nansen proposed that "Heruli" at first perhaps was a common name for bands of northern warriors, who to a certain degree consisted of Norwegians. In his book
In northern mists, Nansen suggested that Rodulf of the Ranii tribe could have migrated south with a band of warriors, and that on arriving at the
Danube, pressed by other warlike tribes in the vicinity, he sought alliance with Theodoric. Nansen believed this could have happened before Theodoric's invasion of
Italy in 489, at the same time that the Heruli were just north of the Danube, and were the nearest neighbours of the Goths. In short, although many scholars have identified the unnamed Heruli king and the Rodulfs as the same person, including the
Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde in an entry by Norwegian historian
Claus Krag, others such as historian
Walter Goffart and archaeologist Dagfinn Skre have questioned this identification. ==Scandinavian history==