Barbarians: The Ostrogoths Of Rome

The book Barbarians by Terry Jones was a nice change of scenery. It was not like reading your everyday textbook, but more an illustration of all people who were not Roman. Jones helped me understand simple things like the term “Barbarian.” He also helped uncover the mystery that I had not even realized existed about the Romans. I would have never even realized that Rome was not the greatest, without reading and understanding some of the key points discussed in the book. There were parts of the book that kind of drug on for me and reminded me of a history text book. But there were times I felt like I was actually a part of the Roman society, as well as others. This began to peak my interest to dive deeper into the history of these civilizations.

From the year 476AD, after the last Emperor Romulus Augustulus (as displayed in source 2) of the Western Roman Empire was overthrown by European barbarians, the Roman World was greatly affected, as it was now Medieval Rome. The reason of the collapse was due to civil wars breaking out among the greedy rich competing to become emperor. Many people were killed fighting against each other with various weapons, one of them being the bullets depicted in source 3. Eventually the population began to decline and the taxes increase. Various barbarian clans (as listed in source 4) were conquering many cities and the political, financial and social structure problems led to the complete collapse after a long complicated process as represented all together

The Mongols: How Barbaric were the “Barbarians”? During the thirteenth and fourteenth century the word “barbarian” meaning foreigner in Geek received a negative connotation of people that lived beyond the pale of civilization, people who were savages and evil. Knowing that Mongols were nomadic people, which were illiterate and did not have a written language definitely people would call them barbaric because they had a different way of life than those who lived in a civilization; who grew their food and were educated. Due to the fact that historians still cannot really decipher the Mongols language, much less they few written materials left behind no one is to know what they had in mind during the invasions throughout Asia, the Middle East and Eastern

Who were the “real” barbarians during the Crusades? The statement, “for the Europeans to call the Muslims barbaric is ironic, for it was the Europeans who were the true barbarians”, is valid. This is shown through how the Europeans were unjustified in inciting the First Crusade, how the Muslims were civilized, and how the Europeans were the true barbarians. Some people may believe that Pope Urban II was justified to persecute the Muslims, but upon further analysis this view is clearly misinformed. In fact it was the Europeans who were unjustified to incite the First Crusade against the Muslims, which led to much bloodshed.

By 1650, thirty years after the pilgrims arrived in America, they seemed to have no regard for the natives and thought they were unfriendly and in-fact lesser people than they themselves who were always looking to shoot arrows at the pilgrims.

The Mongols were nomadic peoples who conquered a great portion of the world since its first great leader Genghis Khan, with not only unbelievable violence and destruction, but also incredible intelligence and organization. Most civilizations that came into contact with the Mongols considered them to be “barbarians” because of their violently powerful society. The Mongol were not completely civilized as they were mostly illiterate and still had complete nomadic customs, and were very ruthless and violent peoples, thus making them “barbarians”.

The greek and roman civilizations were very influential to our modern day civilization, for example our government, sporting events, and medicine first became widely spread in their culture. In document 6, the text explains the branches of government during ancient rome. Their government had a significant influence in our government today. For example it split up the power between the branches and we use similar branches today such as the judicial branch. The Romans created a system of government which influenced many other cultures.

According to the Romans nomads were considered to be barbarians, however over time Romans began to develop nomadic customs which were no longer considered barbaric but civilized. To the Romans a ‘barbarian’ was anyone who was an outsider of their land, and in that case nomads were considered to be barbaric. Nomads are known as a small group of people that don’t have a permanent settlement, and travel and migrate from place to place. Nomadic people also had a different type of lifestyle from the Romans, for example the nomads hunted and gathered their food, and which was considered cave man like. Before the fall of Rome the Romans were considered to be civilized people with a respectable religion and

The Visigoths were a part of the german barbaric tribe the Goths. They were settled in the western part of Germany near the black sea, this was their original origin. Their enemy were The Huns, a barbaric group from modern day central Asia. This is important information because The Huns were the reason why the Visigoths went to Rome. The Huns had started to invade and The Visigoths asked roman emperor Valen for shelter.

Theodoric the Ostrogoth, Justinian I, and Clovis all considered themselves to be successors to the Roman Empire. To consider if these historical figures were in some way Roman or not Roman we have to see who they were truly were. In 375 one of the three so-called Germanic successor states the Ostrogoths, a branch of an older Gothic group called the Visigoths were shattered by the Huns. The Ostrogoths had united in the early fifth century and formed their position on the middle of the Danube River and began to force on the Eastern Empire. In 489 the king of the Ostrogoths, Theodoric, went to Constantinople to accept an invitation from the emperor to lead his people into Italy to overthrow Odoacer, a general from a long line of other generals

The Visigoths were reluctantly allowed to migrate to Rome to escape the Huns, but they were treated harshly. In brutalizing the Goths, the Romans made a dangerous adversary inside their own territory. The Goths eventually ascended in rebellion and slaughtered the Eastern Emperor Valens amid the Battle of Adrianople in A.D. 378. The stunned Romans arranged a shaky peace with the Visigoths; however the ceasefire ended in 410, when the Goth King Alaric moved west and sacked Rome. With the Western Empire debilitated, Germanic tribes like the Vandals and the Saxons could surge over its outskirts and possess Britain, Spain and North

After decades of confrontation between Romans and Germanic tribes, who were more commonly known as barbarians, alliances began to form between the two groups. When the barbarians allied themselves with the Roman Empire, they were not considered Roman colonies or citizens, but instead known as ‘foederati’. They received the benefit of the Roman Empire’s support, sometimes with land, food, or money, in exchange for the barbarian’s military service in the Roman armies. One of the most well-known barbarian foederati groups were the Goths, however, their position as allies of the Empire was never permanent, nor were the relations ever completely peaceful. Despite the usually temporary nature of these alliances, both the Goths and the Romans benefited for several reasons. When the Goths were part of the Foederati they stopped hostilities between themselves and the Empire, gained mutual security from the threat posed by Hunnic aggression, and their people benefited from the introduction of Romanic society.

The Ostrogoths took up farming and trading with the Romans and the Parthians, and lived around the Black Sea more or less peacefully for several hundred years. Ostrogothic soldiers often fought as mercenaries for the Roman army, and some Ostrogoths began to get Roman or Greek educations. In the early 300s AD, Roman missionaries converted most of the Ostrogoths to Arian Christianity. But in the late 300s AD the Ostrogoths began to be pushed southward and westward by, the Huns.

The barbarians, Vikings, and the Mongolians are portrayed throughout history as bloodthirsty savages that only care about killing people and pillaging villages and towns. The barbarians, Vikings, and the Mongols often don’t receive credit for the ways that they positively impacted ancient civilizations. Even though the barbarians, Vikings, and the Mongolians impacted ancient civilizations in positive ways they also did some things that impacted ancient civilizations in negative ways.

It is a common thing: an innocent, kind, humane person joins the military, goes to war, and comes back as a psychological disaster. They either become paranoid, depressed, anything to this nature. However, there are also individuals who go to war with prior psychological conditions. In J.M. Coetzee’s novel “Waiting for the Barbarians”, is reflective of these two situations. In the novel, war breaks out between an Empire and a group of nomads, the barbarians. In between all of this, is the protagonist, the magistrate, a man with a position of power in the military, who opposes the war. Much like actual war, there is an array of different psychological disorders portrayed through the characters, with some characters having disorders before