Barbarian invasions and history repeating itself

[Imran Siddiqui]

On the contrary, the decline of the empire formed a very large part of the reason for Gothic invasions.

And of course the Italian peninsula would be ravaged if it was a constant battleground. Hard to blame the Goths for doing what the Romans would do to their battlegrounds. The problem was that the Goths ended up losing when the Pope called down the Lombards, so they couldn't exactly rebuild afterwards.

[Ned]

This whole debate seems similar to the transformation of the image of American Indians from warlike savages to peaceful and very civiliazed villagers who were decimated by aggressive and genocidal Europeans.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, in that you are seeing things that aren't there. Most researchers do NOT consider the AmerIndians to be either warlike savages or simply peaceful villagers.

Undoubtably there were warlike groups (not many at all were "savage") such as the Triple Alliance (Aztec) and undoubtably there were somewhat peaceful tribes. However, the "classic" idea that there were a bunch of hunter/gathers who didn't have cities or civilizations aside from MesoAmerica and the Inca are rightly being challenged as more and more evidence is showing up that there were large civilizations in other parts of the Americas as well (including a large civilization centering on where current day St. Louis is now).

Most researchers believe that the AmerIndians were decimated not by genocide, but by disease (though some groups were definitely aggressive and genocidal - the Spanish were extremely aggressive, for one).


And if you believe the discussions are linked, then I'd agree insofar as it is being shown how the "classical view" is incorrect and biased and a re-evaluation must be done.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Odin
Typical revisionist crap the book I mentioned tears to shreds.

Your argument amazes and astounds me

Now please go back to OT where baseless contrarianism is the norm.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
And I still use civilization in more literal sense, not as a euphemism for "good" or "moral" Civilization means a civus - cities, and the kinds of interactions that take place there, the unique economic and cultural complexity of cities, and the political structures that can be built on them. With all the wonderfulness thats possible in a rural life with no trade, no luxuries, no culture beyond folklife, its not what I mean (or what originally was meant0 by "civilization".

The problem is that this simply doesn't work. To illustrate why your definition doesn't work, consider the Persian Empire under the Achaemenids. Persia of the day never produced the city life Greece did; in fact, only one major city existed, Babylon (Ecbatana and Persepolis are believed to be more "royal residences," palace complexes and such, than actual places of urban life). The huge majority of Persian cultural and economic interactions took place outside Babylon, in the rest of Darius' enormous empire in which cities simply were not terribly important or common.

And yet, we regard them as civilized - in fact, the Greeks of Alexander's day regarded them as over-civilized, effeminate and too comfortable for their own good. Clearly the way in which we use "civilized" has gone beyond any strict deictionary definition involving urban life, because clearly we have assigned states as quite civilized without that corresponding urban character.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Ned
But the image that the barbarians largely came in peacefully and did no harm is hardly true at all. It is mostly true of the Franks who did, for a time, behave as good foederati in what we now know a Holland. But that changed under Clovis who rose up against the empire circa 500, just as the Goths, thought to be peacefully settled, had earlier risen up under Alaric circa 400. The foederati were peaceful only for a time and were largely not absorbed to become good Roman citizens. Even the Ostrogoths, thought to be good rulers in Italy, ended up destoying it during the time of Justinian.

The difficulty here is that it's difficult for us - and historians as well - to differentiate between "the Goths" as a warband under an aggressive leader and "the Goths" as a population movement, which was likely composed of many non-warrior peoples. Roman chroniclers are obviously much more concerned with the invasions, not the waves of settlement. The extent to which these waves of settlement occured is still debated, but it's clear that a great deal of people moved who were not warriors and merely sought land away from the predations of their neighbors further east (the Huns, for instance). Warriors do not sustain themselves, and violent invasion always came alongside nonviolent settlement. The Gothic revolt that led to the disaster at Adrianople was a result of the Goths being treated humiiatingly by their Roman masters, whose permission to cross the Danube and escape the Huns they had begged for earlier.

Nobody is arguing that no harm was done. That would be impossible. The "barbarian invasions," however, were more complex than an invasion-only theory gives them credit for. Many of the Franks, Goths, and so on were farmers, herders, and other settlers who were seeking a better (or at least safer) life, and we can't lump them all into the category of violent invaders.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Ned
According to Churchill, the last road built in Britain was build in 350. Not another road was build until around two hundred years ago.

Uh, no. Check out the road network surrounding the construction of Offa's ****, for starters.

[Kuciwalker]

[Cyclotron]

Censor strikes again!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Ned
BTW, I understand that Briton remained peaceful largely Roman for a very long time after the last legions were withdrawn. The real aggressive German invasions didn't begin until the 500's.

That's only true of Coel Hen's kingdom of the North. Southern England was pitched into a devastating civil war by around 430AD.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp



Uh, no. Check out the road network surrounding the construction of Offa's dyke, for starters.

Edit- retarded censor...

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp

quote:
Originally posted by Ned
According to Churchill, the last road built in Britain was build in 350. Not another road was build until around two hundred years ago.

Uh, no. Check out the road network surrounding the construction of Offa's ****, for starters.

That, and turnpike trusts were officially set up some 300 years ago.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


The problem is that this simply doesn't work. To illustrate why your definition doesn't work, consider the Persian Empire under the Achaemenids. Persia of the day never produced the city life Greece did; in fact, only one major city existed, Babylon (Ecbatana and Persepolis are believed to be more "royal residences," palace complexes and such, than actual places of urban life). The huge majority of Persian cultural and economic interactions took place outside Babylon, in the rest of Darius' enormous empire in which cities simply were not terribly important or common.

And yet, we regard them as civilized - in fact, the Greeks of Alexander's day regarded them as over-civilized, effeminate and too comfortable for their own good. Clearly the way in which we use "civilized" has gone beyond any strict deictionary definition involving urban life, because clearly we have assigned states as quite civilized without that corresponding urban character.

Large cities are not a prerequisite for "civilization." As long as you have long lasting agricultural settlements able to support specialists like priest and artisans you have "civilization." Besides, the Persians had a relatively well administered empire. They were not nomadic herders.

[Kuciwalker]

Large cities are not a prerequisite for "civilization." As long as you have long lasting agricultural settlements able to support specialists like priest and artisans you have "civilization."

By the time you've got artists you have the agriculture to support them anyway. And really, when do you want to make them?

Engineers Scientists

[Ned]

I wonder just how large a city you must have to discover the benefits of sewers, aqueducts, paved road, harbors, concrete buildings, central heating, plumbing and other do-dads that the Romans had long become used to and which vanished when the "noble" German arrived to take care of things.