Thursday, August 24, 2023

The Barbarians- But Which Group When The World Was Overrun By Barbarians?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              


The first Barbarians recorded for their barbarity were probably the Germanic Tribes so well done by Netfix.  The Romans considered them the least civilized people they had run across.   The Romans fought them and then tamed them enough to have them fight for them as they had great skills for fighting.  Their story takes place in the 9th century CE. Three people's fates are interwoven in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D., during which Germanic warriors  (the Barbarians) halt the spread of the Roman Empire.The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, described as the Varian Disaster (LatinClades Variana) by Roman historians, took place at modern Kalkriese from September 8–11, 9 AD, when an alliance of Germanic peoples ambushed Roman legions and their auxiliaries, led by Publius Quinctilius Varus. By the way, (CE [Common Era]  is the same as AD {Anno Domini-Latin for "year of our Lord"}.  

      Constantine; 1st Christian emperor of Rome ruling from 312-337 establishing the supremacy of Christianity in his Edict of Toleration from Milan, Italy,  then establishing anti-Semitism.  

Jews had entered and lived in the Rhineland by 321 CE that Emperor Constantine had heard about so sent regulations to the city of Cologne concerning them.  The Germans were still living as tribes then and the Carolingian royal house had adopted a pro-Jewish policy and had encouraged the settlement of Jews in its dominions with the object of developing trade.  Of course, this was left out of the film about Barbarians.  

The Carolingian Royal house was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne , grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century CE.  

     Emperor Charlemagne (reigned as Frankish king in 768; Roman Emperor from 800 to 814) of 9th century -Middle Ages

The Kingdom of France in the Middle Ages (roughly, from the 10th century to the middle of the 15th century) was marked by the fragmentation of the Carolingian Empire and West Francia (843–987);  Germany's development was definitely behind that of France.  Charlemagne patronized the Jews and encouraged their immigration, granting them security of life and property, freedom of religion, and exemption from excise taxes.  He is known to have employed Jews in  his court and on missions, and various legends were preserved in Jewish lore of favors bestowed by him.  

        King Saul with David playing his harp...

Jews in Canaan had their 1st king, Saul, by 1020 BCE or 11th cent. BCE with David following in 1010 BCE, but only because they wanted to be like others in neighboring lands.  Before kings they had Judges who made decisions.  While their children were reading in school, the Romans were fighting off wolves at their door.  

Greeks were civilized before the Romans. The art of Archaic and Classical Greece illustrates many mythological episodes, including an established iconography of attributes that identify each god. There were 12 principal deities in the Greek pantheon. Athenian democracy developed around the 6th century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica.  It was a city state situation.  In the summer of 332 B.C.E or the 4th century BC., Palestine was conquered by Alexander the Great of Macedonia (today divided between Bulgaria, Greece , and Yugoslavia). The land and people of Israel were now part of the Hellenistic world of the Greeks .

Persians were civilized in 550 BC. from Egypt to Turkey, Cyrus being King who died in 529 BC or 6th Cent BC. In 538 he had given permission to Jews to return to Jerusalem after 70 years of exile.        

Romans would have been barbarians to anyone in Mesopotamia who developed so much earlier. Mesopotamia had writing and a civilization with refinement of thought, manners or taste;  with a situation of urban comfort.   Rome was started by a wolf mother who found Romulus and Remus, twins, who founded Rome, as they tell the story.  Rome's history spans 28 centuries. How Many Roman Gods are there? There are many gods that were worshiped in ancient Rome, about 67 in all. That doesn't even account for all the demigods! Thankfully, there were only 12 main Roman gods, much like the 12 Olympians of the Greek pantheon.  While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC or 8th century BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it a major human settlement for almost three millennia and one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Europe. The city's early population originated from a mix of LatinsEtruscans, and Sabines.  The most accepted date for the foundation of Rome is 753 BC. The first form of government in Rome was monarchical according to the archaeological findings and the legends.  They were occupying Jerusalem in about 100 BCE. 

Russia:  whose Communism meant to improve life has become the most barbaric...mankind does not benefit at all

Spain was mentioned in the Bible as Sepharad, a land they were familiar with. Jews lived there since the fall of the 1st Temple by the Assyrians in 721 BCE, so it's an ancient culture.  In the years following 410 Spain was taken over by the Visigoths who had been converted to Arian Christianity around 419. The Visigothic Kingdom established their capital in Toledo, their kingdom reaching its high point during the reign of Leovigild.

Ferdinand II   10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516) was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband of Queen Isabella I of Castile, he was also King of Castile from 1475 to 1504 (as Ferdinand V). He reigned jointly with Isabella over a dynastically unified Spain; together they are known as the Catholic Monarchs. Then they became most savage against the Jews in their Spanish Inquisition of 1492, actually starting earlier.  They were responsible for the tools made for torture, used on Jews meant to cause them to convert to Catholicism.  It was barbaric!  

                       Almost 1,000 Years Later 

England To the Romans, Britannia was a mysterious island lying beyond Oceanus, the great river described by Homer as encircling the entire inhabited world. Britain was therefore seen as a land beyond the limits of civilization.

Britain  was conquered in the Norman Conquest of 1066 and William the Conqueror who was followed by a few Jews who would settle there. Edward the Elder (c. 874 – 17 July 924) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death in 924.9th-10th century.   He was the elder son of Alfred the Great and his wife Ealhswith. It was Edward's son, Æthelstan, who first controlled the whole area that would form the kingdom of England. Æthelstan's sister had married Sihtric, the Viking ruler of the Northumbrians. When Sihtric died in 927, Æthelstan succeeded to that kingdom.  Which group were the Barbarians here?  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that a ‘great heathen army’ arrived in 865 and conquered East Anglia (in 869–70), Mercia (in 873–74) and Northumbria (in 874–75). The Vikings then started to settle Northumbria (876), part of Mercia (877) and East Anglia (879–80). They also raided deep into Wessex, but in May 878 Viking forces were defeated by King Alfred the Great (reigned 871–899) 9th century  at the Battle of Edington in Wiltshire. The defeated army eventually settled in East Anglia. The Vikings had imbedded themselves into England's population.                                    

Why did the western Empire collapse in the 5th century? The most common answer is ‘barbarians’. Think ‘Gladiator’: the scene near the beginning of the film where a huge seething mass of hairy warriors attempt to break through the largely clean-shaven, and totally regular ranks of the Roman legions.  ‘Hold the line’ roars Russell Crowe, and the soldiers do as they are told, even though it looks as though they are about to be overrun. Then Crowe gives the order to attack—at which point the barbarian horde is promptly slaughtered. Seems as it the Romans created their own barbarians in their treatment of their gladiators.  In 180 AD, Hispano-Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius intends to return home after he leads the Roman army to victory against the Germanic tribes near Vindobona on the Limes Germanicus. Emperor Marcus Aurelius tells Maximus that his own son, Commodus, is unfit to rule and that he wishes Maximus to succeed him, as regent, to save Rome from corruption and restore the republic. In response, Commodus privately murders his father.                                 

The face of England of today is the picture of culture and refinement, manners with tea-time.  Yesterday is was the example of barbarism, offending standards  of correctness or purity set by others.  They displayed barbaric acts, attitudes and ideas. Acts I find barbaric were belief that Jews performed a ritual murder and drained people of their blood - a belief based on bias in religion, trusting in gossip and not facts as in the case of Hugh of Lincoln in 1255 with attacks on Jews in 1263.  They borrowed money provided by Jews then turned on them and drove them out for 365 years from 1290 to 1655.  Barbaric and nonsensical.  Jews had lived in England for 224 years and that was no guarantee of security, while  here  in the USA we have Nikki Haley 51 and  Vivek Ramaswamy 38 running for president with parents born in India, first generation candidates, very secure as citizens.   

    Stone Age herione, Ayla-made into movie:  Based on the first of Jean M. Auel’s six-book series, the TV project takes place more than 25,000 years ago, when Neanderthals shared the Earth with the first early modern humans and a band of cave dwellers adopt blond and blue-eyed Ayla (played by Mr. Selfridge’s Millie Brady), a child of the “Others” (played by Daryl Hannah on the big screen). As Ayla matures into a young woman of spirit and courage, she must fight for survival against the jealous bigotry of Broud (Love/Hate‘s Johnny Ward), who will one day be Clan leader.
   Many Europeans carry about 2% of their genes from Neanderthals-inheriting genes of protection in many cases

The first Barbarians in the world were probably Neanderthals of the Stone Age of Europe as described to us in the series of novels by Jean M. Auel and her first called "The Clan of the Cave Bear."  She did such an excellent job describing the thinking and life of the natives of Europe who takes us to the dawn of mankind.  She started her research in 1977 and spent most of her time in the libraries reading about the Ice Age, even joining a survival class to learn how to make an ice cave and to live in one.  She learned how to make arrowheads in La Grande, Oregon, and worked for her MBA.  She even traveled to the cities in Europe to gain further facts first-hand.  The problem with this one is that 25,000 years ago, the whole world was full of barbarians.  I doubt very much if there was a civilization to compare it to.  This is the way we all started; quite barbaric.  To be a barbarian, there must be a higher level to compare it to that hasn't been achieved as yet. 

The 2nd Barbarians would have been the "Others" such as the Horites- ancient people from south of the Caucasian mountains who invaded Syria and Israel in the 17th cent. BCE; They lived near Mt. Seir in Abraham's time,  mentioned in the Bible when Esau was attracted to their women and left his clan to marry into them who were not of the family of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  (When Esau migrated to Seir (verse 8), he essentially went to live with his Horite wife's family, aristocrats of the area (verses 29-30). Many of the 400 men then, were probably Horites, relatives of Esau's wife.) The Edomites destroyed the Horites and settled in their land.

 Also, when Moses took all the slaves held by Egypt on the Exodus no matter who they were, referred to as "the others."    They were intermingled with the family clan and all learned together over the 40 years of a life they were to live that differed greatly from their past 400 years of living most of that as slaves for Egypt.   They were uneducated, had not developed any written skills.  Webster's Dictionary defines barbarian as: as lacking refinement, believed to be inferior to one's own culture;  lacking artistic or literary culture ;  uncivilized man.  Lacking learning, Savage.  

Which brings us to the fact that some people, like in  Mesopotamia, were civilized, but believed inhuman sacrifice.  So it matters as to their peer group and the era,who was barbaric and who wasn't.

Western civilization arose in Europe, and then spread across the world. As it grew geographically scope, it became an increasingly dominant strand in world history – to the extent that the histories of every civilization and region of the world was impacted by it in a profound way.

Its roots lay in the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome (which themselves built on foundations laid in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia).  It took shape in medieval Europe, with its Christian religion, feudal society, dispersed power-structures and growing economic dynamism. 

It was in the modern era that Western civilization took flight, however. It spread from Europe to the North and South AmericaAustralasia and much of the rest of the world; it achieved a level of economic power which far surpassed that of any other civilization; it developed the habit of systematic scientific and technological advance; and it evolved a unique set of personal freedoms which gave its culture an utterly different flavor to anything that had come before.  


So, to be really civilized and not like barbarians, 

"We gotta love like we've never been hurtWe gotta rise like we've never been burnedAnd after all of the lessons we've learnedWe're gonna make this a beautiful world."

in the words of Michael Bolton...


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