We had many discussions about what the Moors might have looked like. This chapter discusses how in Late Antiquity different Peoples would gather around a leader, a king and his genealogy, traditions and history would be projected unto them. So peoples with different phenotypes might belong to one nation but we cannot equate a nation with a certain look, a race. They were also like federations with people keeping their own traditions as well. To keep the nation together there was a need for constant war, to keep unity and for the clan leaders to share in the spoils.
G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar, Late Antiquity. A Guide to the Postclassical World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii + 780, 2 maps, 30 ill..
quote: The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine 15 Constantine and the Northern Barbarians Michael Kulikowski
Rome's northern frontiers, running the length of the Rhine and Danube rivers from the North Sea to the Black Sea, faced outwards towards a world filled with peoples not subject to Roman government. In the century that separated the reign of Gallienus from the reign of Julian, we hear of more than a dozen barbarian groups along the Rhine-Danube line: Iuthungi, Franci, Alamanni, Iazyges, Vandali, Carpi, Sarmatians, Goths, Tervingi, Taifali, and so on. Collectively we may refer to them as “barbarians,” a term of art that, despite its pejorative connotation in Greek, Latin, and English, has the signal advantage of making no assumptions about ethnicity. This is important, because the nature of barbarian ethnicity is nowadays a matter of considerable controversy, and the relationship of different barbarian groups to one another is often unclear. The one thing that unites third- and fourth-century barbarians, both as an object of study and as a historical phenomenon, is their collective designation in the sources by the Graeco-Roman idea of the barbarian - the uncivilized “other” outside the borders of the civil world of the empire, the externae gentes (external peoples), who were to be subdued and turned from savagery to gentleness, or harried from imperial territory like wild beasts.
Reviewed by Ralph Mathisen, University of South Carolina.
quote: The three following articles have more of a secular focus. In "Barbarians and Ethnicity" (pp.107-129), Patrick Geary discusses the process of "ethnogenesis," by which a sense of identity was created among barbarians. He begins with the assumption that the Romans did not see barbarian peoples as distinct entities: "These peoples, like other natural phenomena, had no real history... Thus the concept of ethnogenesis was alien to the Roman understanding of their neighbors" (p.107). He suggests, "Peoplehood is the end of a political process through which individuals with diverse backgrounds are united by law" (p.108).
quote: Edward Gibbon's stirring Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire painted an unforgettable portrait of the Roman Empire in a long, debilitating slide to oblivion, culminating in an agonizing death at the hands of barbarian savages. But two centuries after Gibbon, historians have re-evaluated this picture to create a radically different understanding of the period, which they now call "late antiquity."
This new view posits several fundamental changes:
"Barbarians" were not all one people; they weren't particularly barbaric; and they entered the empire mostly by invitation or migration—not by invasion. The sack of Rome by Visigoths in 410 was effectively a looting spree. Churches were spared and there was no slaughter of the population. The "fall" of the western Roman Empire in 476 was hardly noticed by people at the time. It was only long after the fact that it was seen as a cataclysmic event. Contrary to Gibbon's view of Christianity as a cause of Rome's decline, much of the empire's legacy lived on through the institutions of the church.
quote: Ethnic and Cultural Identity I. Who Were the "Celts" ? The Questions. This section addresses a range of questions surrounding the basic issue of the identity of people who created "Celtic" art. It is noteworthy that it is standard practice in writing about the "Celts" to begin with this problem. A quick survey of classical art histories reveals a situation quite different among histories of the Greeks and Romans, for example. It is a rare work indeed that even mentions that they were Indo-Europeans; art-historical studies may differentiate between Ionian, Doric and Attic styles without questioning their Greekness or indeed addressing any ethnic dimension. Modern nationalist movements have rekindled interest in lines of descent from the ancient inhabitants of the same areas in Greece, Macedonia, and elsewhere in Europe. It is rather the ancient "Celts," however, who have been selected to embody the ancestors of the European Community, and not the ancient Greeks. This phenomenon is expressed clearly, for example, in the title of the 1991 Venice exhibit: The Celts, the Origins of Europe (Moscati et al. 1991); several recent studies have revealed both the attractions and the disadvantages of this construct (Dietler 1994, 595 ff.; Graves-Brown et al. 1996).
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As we can see from the dictionary definition, the meaning of barbarian is totally subjective.
BARBARIAN 1. A member of a people considered by those of another nation or group to have a primitive civilization. 2. A fierce, brutal, or cruel person. 3. An insensitive, uncultured person; a boor.
And it follows the natural proclivity of a budding society, to create a past; one filled with people of virtue and doers of heroic deeds. Also; the natural proclivity of said society to differentiate itself from all others, except for those whose influence it cannot at the time deny. And finally; over time, the natural proclivity of said society, to attribute ALL manner of virtue, to itself exclusively (think U.S.).
This is beautifully illustrated in the progression of Greek writing. In the beginning, all Greek Myth included an Egyptian character, who was the giver to the virtuous and striving Greeks; (from artifacts, we know that in the beginning, the preeminent Greek Hero’s like Heracles, were Black characters).
With the fall of the preeminent Black civilizations (Persia and Egypt), we see in Greek and Roman myth, the absence of this all powerful Black character. He has been replaced by an all-powerful White character, which now has all the attributes of the formerly Black character, but now with a White appearance. But even more interestingly; because the attributes of power and knowledge, were once the domain of the Black character, and they cannot suddenly be stripped away with credibility. The Black character, must also become White (find formally Black, Goddesses and Heroes, as well as Persian Kings, now depicted as White).
In the final stage, the alien founder and giver characters are done away with entirely. Having now been replaced by the White characters that it is now alleged, were there from the very beginning.
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These barbarians have a grim look, untidy hair, and an unpleasant smell. They have no rituals worthy of the name. They are liars and arrogant. They conquer countries by fraud and force, ingratiating themselves before they oppress the natives. At the heart of their conduct, is violence.
Chinese description of Europeans
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Mike It comes from the State Of Maryland, ITV Legacy Series; The Origins of Civilization; China, The Mandate of Heaven documentary, Part 3 Of 6. Chinese leaders made the description just prior to Europeans Jews flooding China with Opium and starting the Chinese Opium Wars.
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^^^I thought that (the flooding of Opium) was done by the British gov. in order to alleviate their burdensome balance of trade with China. (the British people were buying plenty of Chinese goods, but the Chinese people didn't like British goods). The result was a staggering imbalance of trade.
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quote: With the fall of the preeminent Black civilizations (Persia and Egypt), we see in Greek and Roman myth, the absence of this all powerful Black character. He has been replaced by an all-powerful White character, which now has all the attributes of the formerly Black character, but now with a White appearance. But even more interestingly; because the attributes of power and knowledge, were once the domain of the Black character, and they cannot suddenly be stripped away with credibility. The Black character, must also become White (find formally Black, Goddesses and Heroes, as well as Persian Kings, now depicted as White).
Charlotte Sophie of Mecklenburg (half-whitened)
Isabelle de Charriere
The Wargod Mars. By Jan Lievens. First Chamber of the Dutch Parlement.
This is for me the crux of the matter. We had better identify which nations were lead by a black or African identified elite. Interesting when a poet says that Charlotte Sophie of Mecklenburg Strelitz showed her Wendel blood in her face. She looked classical African with brown complexion as well. In the 18th century the war god Mars was depicted as black as he came from Africa. The Greek ideal demanded that the gods were depicted with a facial index of zero degrees, there forehead and chin making one strait line. This is rarely seen with real people. Baroness Isabelle de Charrière (1740-1805), who has a black grandmother and informs us she herself does not have the white hands: wrote a poem and said that Cythera, Aphrodite preferred the sunburned and swarthy Mars over her husband Vulcan and her other lover, the blond Apollo.
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quote:Originally posted by Mike111: ^^^I thought that (the flooding of Opium) was done by the British gov. in order to alleviate their burdensome balance of trade with China. (the British people were buying plenty of Chinese goods, but the Chinese people didn't like British goods). The result was a staggering imbalance of trade.
They usual party of financial brokers financed and ran the operation.
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