"Barbarian No More": Historical Revision in Barbarian Europe

[Romano-Dacis]

There seems to be a growing phenomenon, ever since the mid-20th century, to create a more positive outlook towards the barbarian tribes of Europe. One good example of this is Terry Jones' Barbarians. Celtic revivalism is certainly gaining ground in Britain and in France, resulting in the reconstruction of some Celtic cities even, and highlighting the more egalitarian, "free" societies of the Celts. Many Slavic countries in Eastern Europe have a superficially similar though fundamentally different revival of "pagan" pasts, where Russians begin to highlight their Viking past more, and Slavs in general have a greater appreciation of Pagan Slavic gods like Perun.

To what extent are such movements good? Are were restoring the balance in history or are we going towards an extreme and distorting history to paint the natives in a better light? I am not even talking about "noble savage" concepts, but rather the belief that the Celts or the Thracians had produced admirable civilizations.

I think we need to consider several things before drawing a conclusion:
1) Our perception of ancient Europe is terribly biased by Greek and Roman authors. Terry Jones even went so far as to say that the only thing which made Celtic towns "hill-forts" was the fact that the Romans described them as such; surely we would say Roman cities were "hill-forts" (let's not forget Rome was founded on 7 hills) had the Celts won. Our impression of Celts and other barbarians as violent savages comes from Roman writers, commenting on societies that they neither understood, nor cared to understand since they considered Rome superior to all. In common perception this has even affected the "admitted civilizations" in the East. The Persians are ironically depicted as imperialist slave-drivers while the Hellenes become the defenders of the free world and democracy. The sacking of Athens is pretty well-known but Alexander the Great's exploits, no less violent, are depicted in a brighter light. For the Romans this is even more exaggerated, as I will show in what follows.

2) Roman presence in an area often diminished the standard of living and destroyed more cultural achievements than we can name. Celtic civlization was badly bludgeoned, while Dacian civilization was systematically and almost completely dismantled. The Romans destroyed many centers of innovation in the Hellenic world. Who knows how many inventors shared the fate of Archimedes, dying by the sword of legionnaires?

3) Our perception of barbarians as being materially poor and lacking culture comes from the fact that the Romans destroyed those civilizations. The archaeological findings so far from both the Celtic and Balkan world prove that "barbarians" were neither technologically inferior to Romans, nor did they lack the means of production that the Romans employed. In some areas the Romans were even surpassed by their enemies, and the Romans adopted even military innovations from the barbarian world (chainmail, the gladius, dracone standards, armored horses).

So what is your opinion on this trend? Is this trend a return to normality and to objective history, cleaning up historiographies that still bear the taint of Gibbon, or is it just nationalist revisionism with little basis in actual history?

[Machiavelli25]

The celts/barbarian peoples were inferior to the Romans in almost all areas. The evidence of which is the fact that they lost.

As far as culture, history and theology, I find the Roman/Greek side of things vastly more interesting, and put a revitalisation of interest in the barbarian peoples as modern romanticism. I don't care for it personally. You can have your 'noble savage' and leave me the machinations of the republic. Cheers.

[Odovacar]

Greco-roman culture is very important for civilization. Especially in Europe but it's humanity's common treasure.

But that does not mean barbarians were negligable. The celts, the germanics, etc. all contributed to our world. THey created the celtic mythology, the world of the Asgrad deities, some of the symbols, tales, music of our peoples. Plus these barbarians were our ancestors. We have their blood.

Eventually everyone descended from barbarians -as Thycudides wrote- even greeks-

[Pontifex Maximus]

A fore warning- if this becomes part of the nationalistic feud going on in the VV recently, it will be closed.

[bushbush]

well, winners write history. The Romans weren't exactly thinking about protecting future UN heritage sites when they conquered new land and people. On one hand we appreciate Rome's greatness, on the other hand we have to weep for the losses of many cultures.

[Machiavelli25]

well, winners write history. The Romans weren't exactly thinking about protecting future UN heritage sites when they conquered new land and people. On one hand we appreciate Rome's greatness, on the other hand we have to weep for the losses of many cultures.

There's nothing to weep for. Their cultures weren't anything special, and their peoples benefited far more longterm through the Romans. Culture isn't something which should remain static.

[bushbush]

There's nothing to weep for. Their cultures weren't anything special, and their peoples benefited far more longterm through the Romans. Culture isn't something which should remain static.

sure they dont have to stay static, but abrupt destruction is not exactly a pretty thing. And how did you know they weren't special? Each culture had its own unique traits.

Carthage ruins:

[hellheaven1987]

Personally it seems the whole concept of barbarian are divided into three big groups - West Europe, East Europe and Russia, each one has its own unique idea when treating this subject.

[Machiavelli25]

Sure BushBush, but at least in the case of the Romans, other cultures werent so much destroyed as they willingly followed the Roman way. And we aren't discussing Carthage, we're discussing the Celtic tribes and other european barbarians. Who had a rather uninteresting (though thoroughly romanticised) and brutal culture.

[Their Law]

Sure BushBush, but at least in the case of the Romans, other cultures werent so much destroyed as they willingly followed the Roman way. And we aren't discussing Carthage, we're discussing the Celtic tribes and other european barbarians. Who had a rather uninteresting (though thoroughly romanticised) and brutal culture.

That's a very naive way of viewing history. Carthage is relevant as they are often labelled barbaric within Romano sources. But the point it that the opinion that barbaric cultures were, well barbaric comes primarily from guess who? That's right the Romans, who had a vested interest in discrediting the cultures they had conquered. Military success does not equate to cultural superiority, nor does it mean you can dismiss the loosing side as inferior.

[Mangalore]

Sure BushBush, but at least in the case of the Romans, other cultures werent so much destroyed as they willingly followed the Roman way. ...

Yes, after large amounts of their population had been massacred, deported and enslaved the remaining ones were strangely only the guys who willingly followed the Roman way...

The only thing that can be said that the Romans hit their neighboring civilizations when they were in a social downturn (unrest, civil war, factional infighting) and thus were easily destroyed. This doesn't say much about the value of Roman culture vs the rest.

[Odovacar]

Who had a rather uninteresting (though thoroughly romanticised) and brutal culture.

Because roman culture was not brutal, huh?
Uninteresting maybe for you.

[Aru]

The celts/barbarian peoples were inferior to the Romans in almost all areas. The evidence of which is the fact that they lost.

Did they? I kind of remember Roman Empire falling to Barbarians, and being on a brink of destruction several times. I also remember that same Roman Empire adopting vast number of things from those same Barbarians. Similary, the high Roman culture was in fact Etruscan/Greek, both of which were defeated by Romans, and by your logic - inferior. Both of those inferior cultures (Etruscan and Greek) borrowed much from other even more inferior Barbarians. And if Germanic peoples are the top of the pyramid for defeating Romans, how come everywhere except in Germany and Scandinavia, where they came from, have they by arms or by culture, disappeared as Germanics and melted among the mix of Roman/Celtic/Iberic/Slavic cultures to create new original Barbarians who were then for the most part in next 1000 years been conquered and have conquered others.

That whole mess may lead people with brains to believe that there is no superior CULTURE. Some were superior technologically, until their technology spread further, some were superior militarily until they too were defeated. But no culture - a set of values and traditions, can be superior over other, only different.

[Lysimachos11]

There seems to be a growing phenomenon, ever since the mid-20th century, to create a more positive outlook towards the barbarian tribes of Europe.
[...]
cleaning up historiographies that still bear the taint of Gibbon, or is it just nationalist revisionism with little basis in actual history?

I think already in the 19th Century historians were trying to improve the outlook to their ancestors due to nationalist sentiment. Things like the Hermannsdenkmal in Germany show that barbarian Europe has already been seen in a very positive light before, though not always in a very scientific way.

The current movement has, I think, little to do with nationalist sentiment. Not only the barbarian peoples of the times of Roman expansion, but also the barbaric kingdoms that came after the Roman Empire are getting more positive attention. I think Gibbonian stereotypes are just being replaced with more considerate evaluations of barbarian cultures. For example in Greece in the 19th century, archeologists would (theoretically) destroy a beautiful Byzantine church of the 12th century if it was built on top of 3 surviving pillars of a 8th Century BC Greek temple. The Ancient Greeks were deemed interesting, while Medieval Greeks weren't so any Medieval Greek achievement was worth nothing per definition.


To raise another question now we're discussing supposedly inferior cultures: I'm always baffled by the fact some people like the kind of African art you can buy in Fair Trade shops or Worldshops. And not just like, they are often praising it as if it were some of the most beautiful pieces of art extant. They're usually simplitic things such as long wooden figures that in my eyes any 10 year old can produce. Am I the only one or does it seem kind of idiotic that some people like stone age African art, while the rest of the world was producing marble statues 2000 years ago?

[Count of Montesano]

Just curious Romano-Dacis, are you talking about the barbarians at the height of the Roman Empire, or the ones that destroyed it? Back when the BI expansion launched for Rome Total War, I did some background reading on the Goths. My understanding is the Goths were a rather advanced barbarian culture with a robust trading economy and military technology on par with the Romans. This is hardly surprising considering the barbarians often served as Roman mercenaries.

As far as how barbaric or not the Celts and Gauls were during the time of the Caesars, I think that they were certainly behind Rome in terms of art, engineering, science, and quality of life. That being said, from what I've read of ancient Celtic society there was far more equality, especially for women. I also think you have a good point about standards of living being different from Romans and conquered peoples. It's great that the Romans built roads and sophisticated towns, but most of the local populace would still be slaves, or at best second class citizens. Sort of the same argument about the Civil War south - a rather pleasant place to live if you were a rich white plantation owner.

[SigniferOne]

I am not even talking about "noble savage" concepts, but rather the belief that the Celts or the Thracians had produced admirable civilizations.

That's precisely what it is, the noble savage concept. The only thing such revisionism can rely on is the 'peaceful' 'harmonious' life of simple and noble people among the trees, because if we investigate hard facts of life at the Roman border and beyond it, the difference is incomparable.

Terry Jones even went so far as to say that the only thing which made Celtic towns "hill-forts" was the fact that the Romans described them as such; surely we would say Roman cities were "hill-forts" (let's not forget Rome was founded on 7 hills) had the Celts won.

You are playing the 'he said' 'she said' game, whereas if you look at the hard facts you will understand that Celtic 'urban centers' (if we can call them that) had a few thousand inhabitants, whereas Roman cities had hundreds of thousands of citizens as a matter of course. The largest Celtic 'town' in the history of Celtic civilization had something like 10,000 people, whereas even a piddly insignificant little township like Pompeii had 20,000.

So there is a lot of doubt as to whether Celtic settlements (of mainly village size) could qualify as towns or cities, whereas the Roman ones couldn't qualify as anything but that, and since it was they who gave us the world 'city'.

Our impression of Celts and other barbarians as violent savages comes from Roman writers, commenting on societies that they neither understood, nor cared to understand

That's only your impression, because you haven't looked into it more fully. In comparison with Romans they were a great deal taller and more bulky; their mode of battle was to scream and yell to intimidate the enemy, and then to run at the top of their lungs shouting loudly, or just as quickly run back if things didn't go so well. It is recorded that the Germans at the slightest insult would stab each other in the local tavern, and the party would then go on as normal. Thus they were violent.

Then their religious leaders (druids) sacrificed thousands of people yearly at the funeral pyre to get the malevolent Celtic gods shower mercy on them. Thus they were savage.

Roman presence in an area often diminished the standard of living and destroyed more cultural achievements than we can name. Celtic civlization was badly bludgeoned, while Dacian civilization was systematically and almost completely dismantled

This is so little anchored on fact that it's scarcely worthy of responding to. Just because the Celtic culture was badly bludgeoned, how does it follow that the standard of living fell? Celts of 100 BC lived in wooden huts, with little dress, with no architecture, no engineering, no sculpture or painting, no organized industry, no city-planning, no science, no medicine, no philosophy.

Celts of 100 AD lived in vast stone cities with forums, apartments, plumbing, rational city-organization, multi-story structures raised via cranes and engineering, with sculptors, painters, a nearly industrial level of production in highly advanced things like glass and concrete, with scientists, doctors, and philosophers. And no, druids did not qualify as 'philosophers'.

I should add that the druids forcefully kept everyone else in a state of servile illiteracy (retaining even the knowledge of letters, no matter how small, only to themselves).

The Romans destroyed many centers of innovation in the Hellenic world. Who knows how many inventors shared the fate of Archimedes, dying by the sword of legionnaires?

I see, so your argument is purely destructive and is aimed at at tearing down Romans? Look up Diophantus for the level of mathematics in the Roman Empire.

3) Our perception of barbarians as being materially poor and lacking culture comes from the fact that the Romans destroyed those civilizations. The archaeological findings so far from both the Celtic and Balkan world prove that "barbarians" were neither technologically inferior to Romans

Yeah, so the barbarians knew how to make glass, how to make concrete, how to raise cranes, how to construct things like the Pantheon? Face it: to them Rome was like a culture of science fiction, which is why they tore to break into it and share those living standards.

nor did they lack the means of production that the Romans employed.

That's funny, the Romans had nigh-industrial centers that were not surpassed until the Industrial Revolution, while the Celts had people sitting in a hut, weaving.

In some areas the Romans were even surpassed by their enemies

Name something the Celts surpassed them in at Alesia.

and the Romans adopted even military innovations from the barbarian world (chainmail, the gladius, dracone standards, armored horses).

Gladius of the Spaniards was not a military innovation because they never produced a legionary with it. Chainmail is very contentious as to its first origins; archeology overturns these things every few decades, and only at the moment is the earliest example from in Gaul. Like I said, the status of archeology flips on its head very regularly, so this is a very insubstantial ground for you to base your feet on. In either case there were tons of armor options in the ancient world: scale mail, muscled cuirass, linothorax, and Romans invented the most advanced one: lorica segmentata.

[dogukan]

The celts/barbarian peoples were inferior to the Romans in almost all areas. The evidence of which is the fact that they lost.

As far as culture, history and theology, I find the Roman/Greek side of things vastly more interesting, and put a revitalisation of interest in the barbarian peoples as modern romanticism. I don't care for it personally. You can have your 'noble savage' and leave me the machinations of the republic. Cheers.

what a shallow thing to say....so I guess Romans too were inferior when they "lost" to barbarians.

[6644kp]

Their just romanticizing barbarian peoples because all of the powerfull countries today, UK, France, Germany and Russia had barbarian culture in ancient times so they want to make their ancestors look a bit better. But its all BS cos we have Roman accounts of these people, they had no civilization and most of them were bordering on being plain savages.

[Seleucos of Olympia]

I don't believe all cultures are equal. I judge an innovative culture, one in which science, philosophy and the arts are constantly improved, to be by definition better than a traditional culture. The Romans started out as semi-barbarians themselves, with Etruscan influences but mostly war-minded. However, after coming into close contact with the Greeks, they began to adopt their civilization (albeit at a large initial cost to that civilization - see e.g. Archimedes). The Celts, by contrast, weren't even literate. It took many centuries, and the influence of the Christian faith (which, sadly, had the opposite effect on the more advanced Hellenistic part of the world) to instill a scientific spirit in those "barbarians", leading to Europe's ascendancy in the past millenium.

[Ludicus]

Lysimachos11

think already in the 19th Century historians were trying to improve the outlook to their ancestors due to nationalist sentiment

In our western tradition, traditional sources of standard is classical antiquity. The classical antiquity is the "parent" civilization of the modern "west". In Art, philosophy, literature,etc. In fact, it has gone on being projected across the world.

Having said that, it seems to me that the transmission of the legacy of Greece/Rome to new hands was a conscious obligation of the 19th century imperialism - an example, Macaulay in his famous memorandum in 1835: "What Greece and Latin were obligation to the contemporaries of of More and Ascham, our tongue is to the people of India". This from an author whose toughts "were often for weeks together more in Latium or Attica than Middlesex"

Lysimachos11

Am I the only one or does it seem kind of idiotic that some people like stone age African art, while the rest of the world was producing marble statues 2000 years ago?

And yet, pieces of African art (superb works of art,from an artistic as well technical point of view) were avidly collected in Renaissance Europe. Typical export objects, profane or religious, from Sierre Leone, Benin,etc.
There are good examples of the virtuosity of the Sapi (Sierre Leone) artists in the British Museum.

Aru

But no culture - a set of values and traditions, can be superior over other, only different

Indeed.