Essay Romans and Barbarians Dbq

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.

The seemingly unstoppable Roman empire was certain to fall in a matter of time. Even though Rome was majorly affected by external attacks, I feel like the fall was because of the internal decline. The economy and social issues were the key factors that led to the descent of the large empire. A vast amount of their problems came from within the city. Every decision that Rome made had an extensive effect on the city itself and the rest of the world. Many foolish decisions made by terrible emperors weakened the city and eventually cause the many aspects of Roman life to crumble.

Throughout the 13th century world, the Mongols constantly showed displays of continuous violence, drinking, brutality and unfair treatment. They were considered to be savages, and people who lived far beyond what we would know as a “civilized world.” They single handedly became one of, if not the most powerful empires to have existed, building their empire through violent and barbaric manors. The Mongols were very barbaric people, for they portrayed many inhumane and mannerless actions while their empire lasted, causing death destruction and the downfall of all of the land they took over.

The Roman empire suffered many problems throughout its rise and several centuries of subsequent power. To begin with, they dealt with many outside invasions, including the Burgundians, Franks, Alemanni, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Anglo-Saxon peoples. The invaders considered most barbaric were the Huns, which the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus describes as people who “surpass all other barbarians in the wilderness of life.” He further describes “they are so little advanced

The Romans also had a fair share of corrupt wackos in their place. Though Rome seemed to be prosperous to visitors, only the people

Sure, they may be those things, but they are so much more than that. If we look beneath the surface we will see that they don’t fall under one adjective. These Nomads have contradicting laws they created, the contributions to the world around them, and the controversial debate over whether they are civilized, (insert definition of civilized), or barbaric, (insert definition of barbaric). You may think that the Mongol society has to be one thing or the other, but that's not the case. The Mongols are a complex society not fitting a certain adjective; they are in a gray area.

Professor Roy Mathews and Dewitt Platt centralized their arguments around political humanities of the western world, and around the period for the Hellenistic civilization. This is when the institutions and culture of other nations interacted with the Greek’s in order to create a multicultural and varied civilization. From their definition, this would seem to suggest that Rome should not be counted as Hellenistic civilization because of the controversial time lines. Nonetheless, Rome was situated in the ideal geographical location, which naturally created a varied and multicultural civilization due to its expansion and methods of conquering people. This explanation indicates that Rome was an heir to Hellenistic civilization even though it does not fit according to the definition given by Professor Mathews and Platt. Professor Noble, on the other hand, explains how the fall of the Roman Empire led to the rising of three great civilizations of, the Byzantine Empire, medieval Europe, and the Islamic caliphate.8 Professor Noble

There are many ancient sources stating that the Huns themselves were barbaric nomads. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman writer states in the History of Rome, that “The nation of the Huns surpasses all other barbarians in wildness of life… They fight in no regular order of battle… It must be owned that they are the most terrible of warriors because they fight at a distance with missile weapons having sharpened bones admirably fastened to the shaft. When in close combat with swords, they fight without regard to their own safety” . Marcellinus sees how the Huns fighting style is completely different to that of the Romans and therefore finds it to be extremely terrible. The exaggerated language and bias of this piece is clear and as a Roman writer,

The Romans were also known to be a dominant and warlike group and this dominance which was key in the construction of this vast empire (Backman, Cultures of the West, p.172). One way Romans were able to grow so large was by successfully integrating the conquered people into society. (Jones, Rome, Podcast 1). Even with the changes to come over the course of the next century a lot of Romans were actually opposed to change (Jones, Rome, Podcast 1). Romans were a traditional society

What defines “civilized” and “barbarian”? The Roman and Chinese empires both had similar views on what these two words meant. We can see this through the writings of Tacitus, a Roman historian, and Sima Qian, a Chinese historian. There were many minority groups of barbarians but each empire had one major group that was the source of most of their troubles on the border. The Romans had the Germans and the Chinese had the Xiongnu.

According to Schaeffer, F., Rome did not fall because of barbarians, but they felled because they had no sufficient base and gradually became disintegrated (1976). I agree with Schaeffer, one reason being the Romans believed in man-made gods. Their gods were identical to themselves, they depended on the same society that the Romans depended on. “Actually, the gods in Greek and Roman thinking were like men and women larger than life, but not basically different from human men and women” (Schaeffer, 1976, pg. 21). Not only did Rome worship false gods, but they were unstable and selfish. They constantly change to adhere to the new norm; their thinking was not their own thinking. However, I do believe that the Romans got an idea and were creative

The Book of Romans Romans is a very important addition to the Bible. This is written by Paul to the Roman church. Much of Romans is showing the righteousness of God in different ways. “Romans road” passages are a great description of how to lead someone to christ (His saving righteousness).

Sales taxes has now reached an incredible rate of 37%, riots are now breaking out in the suburban parts of Rome. Peasants are now refusing to work and the we are having less and less grain everyday. Farmers are abandoning farms to collect public entitlements. Many slaves and peasants are willing to fight among with the invading barbarians. Our young and inexperienced emperor Marius has declared war on Roma, most of our tax dollars are going towards the army and public

These men were great warriors, I believed they must have been called barbarians because they’d sacrifice even family for what they think benefits the empire. Just like Attila the Hun supposedly got rid of his brother. Their diplomatic style suggests them to be smart and not just cut throats. I believe Attila the Hun and Genghiz Khan where the most strategic, their empire last longer than Tamerlane, who was obviously cruel and very well deserve to be called a barbarian.

The noble savage in antiquity is often characterised by the traits of the golden races accounted for by Hesiod in Works and Days and Ovid in the Metamorphoses which traces the decline in human moral behaviour from the ideal Golden Age to the civilised but violent Iron Age world. Accordingly, the noble savage is always discussed from an ethnocentric world-view wherein the spaces most familiar to the authors are deemed the most civilised while the places further from them become increasingly primitive. In this way a reading of the noble savage is a negative description of both the technologically inept people in question, and the morally bankrupt civilised peoples corrupted by the conflict and greed their society engenders. Characteristics of the golden race peoples usually applied to noble savages are: lack of agriculture, property, hard labour; no demarcation of territory, greed, warfare, written laws, seafaring, and metallurgy. The difficulty with noble savage descriptions in antiquity is that they are not all analogous and some are significantly unlike the Golden Age races. Moreover, their depictions are due to the ‘writer’s preconceptions of the moral value of prehistoric peoples and their lifestyles will colour their valuation of noble savage’ ; therefore, it is the ancient author who chooses how the noble savage is presented.