11–20 of 149 posts
Is 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/
So, they weren't barbarians because some of them farmed? Seems to be a rather low bar.
So, they weren't barbarians because some of them farmed? Seems to be a rather low bar.
Not sure what history Susanne Hakenbeck studies, but asiatic hersdmen populations in Eastern Europe have a long documented history of looting for slaves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean%E2%80%93Nogai_raids_in...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 b…
He was informed that the North was agitated by a furious tempest; that the irruption of the Huns, an unknown and monstrous race of savages, had subverted the power of the Goths; and that the suppliant multitudes of that warlike nation, whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a space many miles along the banks of the river. With outstretched arms and pathetic lamentations they loudly deplored their past misfortunes and their present danger; acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency of the Roman government; and most solemnly protested that, if the gracious liberality of the emperor would permit them to cultivate the waste lands of Thrace, they should ever hold themselves bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and gratitude, to obey the laws and to guard the limits of the republic.
I think it is more than fair to describe this as "taking refugees", though the Romans didn't really have the option of saying "no", because the consequence would have been more immediately ruinous.
It was thought expedient that an accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable task;(67) and the principal historian of the age most seriously affirms that the prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which had so long been considered as the fables of vain and credulous antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has fixed the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men; and if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of children, and of slaves, the whole mass of people which composed this formidable emigration must have amounted to near a million of persons, of both sexes and of all ages.
http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap26.htm
Yes, the Romans did use Goths in their military, but this particular situation was quite a bit different.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
On the same day London is attacked, Turkey says that Europe 'will not walk safely on the streets': http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-erdoga...
Erdogan is working hard to undo approximately 80 years of Turkish progress. He may succeed in Turkey, but I highly doubt he will succeed to destabilize the rest of Europe or to make good on his threats of using Turkish citizens that have moved abroad as some kind of fifth column. He's mostly playing to a local audience with statements like that and likes to depict himself as the strong man in a struggle that is mostly initiated by Erdogan himself.
I feel pretty safe on the streets here. Much safer than I would feel in Ankara or Istanbul, and much safer than plenty of Turks feel in their own country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
On the same day London is attacked, Turkey says that Europe 'will not walk safely on the streets': http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-erdoga...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Is 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/
> Mistreatment by provincial Roman governors soon led to widespread discontent among the Visigoths and, by 376 CE, open rebellion had broken out.
In other words: treat your refugees as if they're people.