to Gothograecia and the later (province) of Optimaton. This is unlikely, however, since it requires soldiers recruited in the west to have settled far to the east, and there is a gap in the records of the Gothic Optimates of well over a hundred years.

The Byzantinist John Haldon argues that, while the original Maurician Optimates were predominantly recruited mainly from among the Goths and to a lesser extent Lombards in