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Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
21–30 of 149 posts
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#22History is written by the... victors. It's not surprising to get a single-sided story when the other side didn't care much about leaving written detailed records.
The Huns were victors though, so the age old adage may need some updating
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#23History is written by the... victors. It's not surprising to get a single-sided story when the other side didn't care much about leaving written detailed records.
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Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#24History is written by the... victors. It's not surprising to get a single-sided story when the other side didn't care much about leaving written detailed records.
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Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#25The Fall of Rome podcast had a really interesting episode on The Huns:
https://m.soundcloud.com/fallofromepodcast/fall-of-rome-epis...
He makes the argument that in the later Roman Empire, the Huns treated the Roman Empire as either a vassal or a buffer state to their own empire. They demanded tribute from them and even forced the romans to chase down and return refugees. It's really interesting to look at the Roman Empire from a hun-centered point of view-- just one more border state along a small section of a vast empire.
They seem to have been one of a long series of steppe empires with the same basic organization-- from the Scythians to the Mongols.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> If by "taking refugees" you mean "using as troops and mercenaries in their wars against other border groups" sure. 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…
It's an apples and oranges discussion.
The ancient empires weren't modern nation states. People, particularly the Roman designated barbarians were more mobile. The Romans used these peoples as buffer states to keep other tribes migrating from the East away from their borders.
Even the "Roman" lands weren't necessarily Roman. There were petty kingdoms and tribes in there too, with scattered Roman settlements. As the empire declined economically, they started depending more and more on the non-Roman kingdoms to fight as mercenaries, etc.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#27.
What would you consider 'respect your culture'?
I've lived in Canada, I did not notice any culture that I should respect other than to learn the language and obey the laws. In other countries that I've lived in (Poland, Romania) it was much the same. And that's being an atheist in countries that were fairly religious.
Do you want refugees to start acting like the locals in every respect? Do you want them to start wearing local traditional dress and pretend that they're part of something they do not feel in their hearts? Do you feel threatened by people that you can't easily communicate with, that have different customs than you do and that pray to different gods? Should they convert to some local religion?
> In other words: don't let them in.
Why?
Refugees are the people that will help your descendants a few generations down the line when the tides have turned. Likely they or their children will be the ones to wipe your ass when you're old and gray and unable to do so yourself.
All this fearmongering and irrational angst of other cultures isn't doing any good whatsoever.
In the same spirit:
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#28Is 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_...
That's the human condition. If you think that we're any better, you're wrong.
If any nation today had the ability to slaughter their enemies, they would. When the United States had that ability in the 1940s, we planned on doing so and reengineered the entire military complex to do so. When the Germans had the ability to do so in Angola in the early 1900s, they did.
Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#29.
What would you consider 'respect your culture'? I've lived in Canada, I did not notice any culture that I should respect other than to learn the language and obey the laws. In other countries that I've lived in (Poland, Romania) it was much the same. And that's being an atheist in countries that were fairly religious. Do you want refugees to start acting like the locals in every respect? Do you want them to start wea…
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Re: Ancient Romans depicted Huns as barbarians – their bones tell a different story
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Thank our spineless European leaders. I can't believe we are letting Muslim nations pull the strings here--how did we let this happen? It was usually the opposite.
Thank our spineless Western leaders for committing war crimes in Yemen... From american white phosphorus weapons [0] to british cluster bombs [1].
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/09/19...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/19/saudis-dropped...