Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
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Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#2Is it ironic that the Romans were great wall builders too?
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#3Is it ironic that the Romans were great wall builders too?
Yup every great Empire has it's 'Terrorists'.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#4So, they weren't barbarians because some of them farmed? Seems to be a rather low bar.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#5Is it ironic that the Romans were great wall builders too?
About as ironic as the Romans taking Visigoth refugees kicked out of the Black Sea area by the Huns... and that the Visigoths ended up sacking Rome within a few generations.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#6Is it ironic that the Romans were great wall builders too?
Multiple walls in some cases - although around here it was to keep the people from the North out of the South - but I'm in the bit that was described as the "uttermost confines of the earth and of freedom"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calgacus
There is supposed to be the remains of one of Agricola's camps on the hill behind our house.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#7Is it ironic that the Romans were great wall builders too?
But their primary defense was offense. The Roman response to true enemy was always "kill them all, man woman and child". That's why they genocided Carthage, the Gauls, destroyed Israel, massacred rebelling slaves in Sicily and lined the roads from Campania to Rome with crucified rebels. To bring in a modern political analogy is stupid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appian_Way#The_crucifixion_of_...
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#8So, they weren't barbarians because some of them farmed? Seems to be a rather low bar.
Washington Post has become a rather low bar in general the last few years. I've stopped reading it all together and am disappointed to see the number of articles from it cropping up on HN lately.
Also (off topic) they have begin a policy of shadowbanning commenters in their comment sections who disagree with their "official" policy on things. It's really barely one step above Brietbart now days in my opinion.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#9Is it ironic that the Romans were great wall builders too?
But their primary defense was offense. The Roman response to true enemy was always "kill them all, man woman and child". That's why they genocided Carthage, the Gauls, destroyed Israel, massacred rebelling slaves in Sicily and lined the roads from Campania to Rome with crucified rebels. To bring in a modern political analogy is stupid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appian_Way#The_crucifixion_of_...
"To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace."
Probably invented by Tacitus.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#10Is it ironic that the Romans were great wall builders too?
About as ironic as the Romans taking Visigoth refugees kicked out of the Black Sea area by the Huns... and that the Visigoths ended up sacking Rome within a few generations. http://www.ancient.eu/visigoth/
If by "taking refugees" you mean "using as troops and mercenaries in their wars against other border groups" sure.
They played a chess game with the people around them, and the right to settle or not within their rather arbitrarily defined borders was part of the game. Remember that the borders that they gave rights to enter were borders they established through imperial conquest anyways...
The Franks and the Goths both Romanized and created successor states that mimiced the Romans. To many of the people who lived in these areas the transition from Rome to these new states was so gradual they never fully clued into it. The successor states of Francia, Visigothic Spain, Lombardic Italy, etc. all inherited most of the legal and cultural framework of Rome.
Additionally the Western part of the empire fell for reasons probably not much related to barbarian invaders but more to economic and political decline. Taxation models shifted, landholding models shifted, raising large successful armies became harder, and the empire became harder to defend.
And the eastern half of the Empire continued with significant vibrancy for quite some time.
I really like this book on this topic: "The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000" https://www.amazon.ca/Inheritance-Rome-Illuminating-Dark-400...