In which department were the 'Barbarians' undeveloped compared to the civilised?

One thing that also is quite interesting to consider is that most of these rome-o-philes actually downplay their roman empire by trying to push the myth that the celts basically were caked in mud and armed with stones.

this mentality isnt in any way roman, the romans were very well aware of their ability.

the fact that the romans managed to conquer so many of them is actually a testiment to the ability of the romans, the celtic tribes were no push overs, , heck the gauls under brennus managed to capture just about the entire city of rome, and didnt leave until they had been payed handsomely in ransom.

These guys were tough and dangerous, and were worthy opponents.

Not to mention pushing halfway into Greece before getting turned back through raw attrition

EB has taught me so damn much... there's no way I can ever repay all of you for the knowledge I have gained from this place. It's like taking a high-level college course, only without all the papers and crap.

EB, I salute you. :bow:

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Originally Posted by Zorba

EB has taught me so damn much... there's no way I can ever repay all of you for the knowledge I have gained from this place. It's like taking a high-level college course, only without all the papers and crap.

EB, I salute you. :bow:

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I couldn't agree more with the above statement, if only all historical games had this much work put into them, video gaming would become part of school
curriculum, just imagine a teacher asking a student about their home work saying " ok have you conquered the gauls yet?" the kid going " no not yet im having trouble capturing all their their settlements" and the teacher going "WHAT? GET TO THE BACK OF THE CLASS NOOB"

but seriously folks, I see a very bright future for video gaming, the military already uses video gaming for training purposes, I don't see why history couldnt come to life with a series of very complex video games to help students of all ages learn about history.

virtual reality training could be used for all levels of the work force too, but thats another story all together.

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Originally Posted by the_handsome_viking

Imagine a teacher asking a student about their home work saying " ok have you conquered the gauls yet?" the kid going " no not yet im having trouble capturing all their their settlements" and the teacher going "WHAT? GET TO THE BACK OF THE CLASS NOOB"

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I would pay MONEY to see that~:joker:

One example of what "barbarians" have contributed to modern society is a good portion of the laws of England, and by extension, the United States. This system of law is based on both the Roman Republic's Twelve Tables (c. mid 5th century BC) and Germanic law. (And revisionist historians might try to place the source of this system of law as tracing to the root of a particular modern religions', but, not to mention the Germanic law, the Roman Twelve Tables' origins can be traced, in good part, to the Code of Hammurabi, c. 2500 BC)

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Originally Posted by Ranika

Hardly savage, Celts were often even described as oppulent, for their abundance of precious metals and linen and textiles, to such an extent that many owned fancy jewelry or clothing, and there existed what today would be seen as a large middle-class composed of soldiers and craftsmen.

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Didn't you and Matt determine that the Celts imported linothorax from Carthage? Why would they do this, if they had an abundance of linen? No expertise to craft the armor?

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Originally Posted by Zorba

EB has taught me so damn much... there's no way I can ever repay all of you for the knowledge I have gained from this place. It's like taking a high-level college course, only without all the papers and crap.

EB, I salute you. :bow:

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You ain't seen nothin yet.

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

We should have some sort of standard warning splash-screen here to make clear that some statements voiced here are made by individual members and are not necessarily the views of E.B. ~D

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Man, what did I say this time? I tried to be um, sane, but I have difficulties, I know. ~;)

I think Ranika has pretty much covered it, good job.

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

We should have some sort of standard warning splash-screen here to make clear that some statements voiced here are made by individual members and are not necessarily the views of E.B. ~D

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Ah yes.. one man's trash is another's treasure. We are an eclectic lot... just adds to EB's flavour imho ~:) ... as long as we finish the mod before killing each other ~;)

Well unfortunately nobody answered my question...~:rolleyes: ~:rolleyes: ~:rolleyes:
I didnt ask in which department they were advanced but in which they were LEFT BEHIND...
What made the Hellenes and the Hellenised barbarians called romans to develop phonetical writing and escape from the tribal nature?
What are the departments in which the Hellenic world was more advanced than the Celtic?

Hellenes

I think location is one thing that partially answers your question H. The sea trade with Euboia and the Greek Isles brought many advances from the Near East before it could get further into the continent. Peoples willing to trade in those parts of Greece got access to an alphabet and then brought in things like their myths and many architectural and eventually scultpural developments. Then when things like coinage pops up in non-greek places nearby they quickly adopt it as well. Greeks and Romans (though sometimes both don't like to brag about it and were a bit revisionist in their histories at times about it too) were particularly open to a lot of new ideas that spread from the Near East, and then spread those ideas even further with all their expansion with colonies a century or two later.

Surely the 'barbarians' whoever that describes were underdeveloped in the construction department? Roman and Greek and (Parthian? Carthaginian? ...) buildings have stood the test of time (except the ones destroyed by the 'barbarians'). I dont know im not aware of many constructions of native germans lasting to present day...

Depends. Do you consider Vikings native Germans?

I'd say that the Graeco-Roman navies were more developed than other peoples', but that's not to say theirs was the best. Even though people are quick to point out that sea travel wasn't a strange and foreign idea to the Bearded Men, and it wasn't, but I'm reasonaby sure that the Graeco-Roman ships and naval exploits were greater than the Celts' or Germans'.

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Originally Posted by khelvan

Didn't you and Matt determine that the Celts imported linothorax from Carthage? Why would they do this, if they had an abundance of linen? No expertise to craft the armor?

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Not Celts all over, but the Goidils/Gaels specifically. They didn't have as much in production of linens and textiles. It seems to be a basis for later Gaelic padded coats that most soldiers wore in the dark ages.

Gauls and such didn't use linothorax; the inhabitants of Noricum did, but they made their own (copied from Etruscans).

And structurally, it depends on who and where. Technically, it was a bunch of barbarians (far more tribal barbarians than Celts or Germans even) that put together stonehenge, with less developed tools, and put up the Callanish stones, and Carnac, and all the other monoliths. Those are not small feats, and considering what they had to work with, it's a sign of clear understanding of architecture (and these people weren't as advanced as Celts or Germans or barbarians we're depicting). Also, depends on the particular construction. Technically, a Celtic oppida wall is more resistant to damage than old Roman stone walls; they would be packed with dirt and wood rods to absorb impacts. It's the same way people built forts after the advent of cannons, because it can cause a cannonball to bounce off, deflect, or do minimal damage. This is because Celts had a focus on defense, and also had to use what was immediately available (larger stone buildings remain in portions of Celtic regions where there was a lot of stone).

However, also, most of Celtic and Germanic Europe relied on wood structures, since it was what was available. Roman towns in Britain leave little more than Celtic towns in Britain do behind, because so much was made of wood, and decayed, though Romans often brought in stone for the bases of their houses, and used all stone construction in hillier regions where they could operate quarries, or in bigger towns or cities, where they would send stone to (but Celts did that too; Bibracte, for example, left plenty of stonework behind, foundations and the like). The Romans, however, focused on large works, made use of arches, etc. They were more developed in architecture, but it doesn't mean barbarians were running around in mudhuts, nor does it mean they couldn't develop large or complex edifices (like Eahmain Macha; it's not huge, but it's extremely impressive, a large round stone, dirt, and wood fort, that could take quite a blow from artillery, even by today's standards). Also, they were excellent with earthwork; Celts built their cities and towns on hills. And if there wasn't a hill around, they'd make one. Plenty of hillforts still exist, and those are generally on manmade hills. They also dug out rivers, or filled them in in some cases (based on sediment evidence, and would match with dark age Gaels and Picts tendency to dig or fill in creeks while on campaign, usually against one another).

Also, of tribal nature, that's poor wording. Celts were no more tribal than a collection of Greek city-states, and sometimes less so. Certainly they had tribes, but tribes were little more than a collection of families who believed they had a common ancestor. Having a 'tribal' society is not a sign of undevelopment, and is poorly stated I think. This isn't an attack on you or what not, I'm just saying, it's a misunderstanding of what a 'tribal' society necessarily is.

And I think Teleklos elaborated best for you; coinage and the like, and architecture is approached. However, a lot of that, by the point of 272, is fairly moot, at least in places like Dacia (which has many old buildings still intact) and Gaul, which had advanced coinage methods and such, absorbed from trading with Greeks and such. There are ultimately numerous things, but in the end, none of it is some trump card that makes the barbarian people appear truly ignorant of civilization, if you take into account what they did know, which many times includes things that the civilized world didn't.

And of naval travel, usually, but the exception is the Celtic Veneti. They used vastly superior ships to almost anyone in the ancient world probably short of Carthage (definitely not as wide spread use as Carthage I'd think), or the largest or longest distance of Greco-Roman ships. The pontone is a huge, galleon-like affair, extremely long distance, and caused Caesar substantial headaches, even with the Veneti weakened. This ship was clearly not of a type developed in the mediterranean, or a copy of one, and similar ships used by Celts and Germans formed the basis of later European ships in the northern seas. They're not at all poor quality, but the Veneti were also almost purely reliant on sea trade and travel (and piracy from that), so they had the impetus to make big ships.

Civil Engineering. Romans new about combined stresses and stress distrubutions of structures under loads.

This is why there buildings are around today. The Egyptian pyramid is not as a big a feat as the arch, sewer, or aqueducts the Romans build. I'm not sure if the barbaians really built any structures of importance. Maybe a few monuments, but nothing that could support the public.

The barbarians lacked civil engineers, so naturally they couldn't be 'civil'ized.

:)

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Originally Posted by hellenes

Well unfortunately nobody answered my question...~:rolleyes: ~:rolleyes: ~:rolleyes:
I didnt ask in which department they were advanced but in which they were LEFT BEHIND...
What made the Hellenes and the Hellenised barbarians called romans to develop phonetical writing and escape from the tribal nature?
What are the departments in which the Hellenic world was more advanced than the Celtic?

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Well, the most important is writing. Of course, many barbarians wrote a fair amount, but generally not great works or literature or philosophy or science or history. Which isn't to say they didn't know just as many stories or as much philosophy or science or history, only that they didn't write it down as often.

So why does that make the Greeks and Romans more civilized? Because the greatest Greek and Roman works were copied over a lot and translated, even after few knew Greek and Latin, just for their literary value.

And this, in turn, meant that succeeding generations, even unto the present day, read the Greek and Roman works, but not the Celtic or Germanic or steppe works.

And that meant that we all got the Greeks' and Romans' side of all the stories.

And that meant that the average person's account of the classical period was almost entirely derived from the Greek and Roman accounts. And you can guess the rest.

So basically, the idea of barbarism is in substantial part entirely based on our perspective, which was based on the Greco-Roman one. Anyone can read any of dozens of Greek and Roman authors, but not many have easy access to archeological findings. The Romans had a fair bit of respect for the Greeks, but not a lot for the Celts or Germans, and so there we have it.

However, it remains true that there are still some degrees of "civilization" that have some real meaning (not that barbaric cultures are any "worse" inherently than civilized ones, just less advanced in certain respects), and it's hard to argue that the Greeks and Romans don't end up basically on the top of the pile there. Let's use the AHD definition of civilization: "An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions."

1) Progress in the arts and sciences. Arts I don't know about, since I don't really think you can "progress" in art. But compare various civilizations' capabilities in the following fields, for instance: agriculture, architecture, biology, pure mathematics, and mechanical engineering.

1a) Agriculture: Practiced to some degree by all societies, except those we would consider the very most barbaric (hunter-gatherers, and nomads in general). The most civilized societies, on the other hand―which might include most of our area in our period, I don't actually know―relied exclusively on agriculture (including domestication of animals) to provide their staple foods, only hunting for sport or delicacy.

1b) Architecture: I'm pretty sure this is dominated by the Greeks and Romans (in our place and period, and this notice gets omitted from now on), maybe also the Carthaginians and some others to an extent. Who else used the arch or the dome? More significantly, who else went as near to pushing the limits of their materials' strength? Anyone can overbuild, but it takes science to build big stuff without using much more than you have to. This culminates in today's computer models, which we can use to evaluate exactly how much structural load we need to be able to handle.

1c) Biology: From amongst the Greeks and Romans, we have many people interested in analyzing nature, from Aristotle to Galen. They systematically noted down properties of the life around them. Did the "barbarians" do this too, on the same scale? Unfortunately, I doubt we know. If any did, I suspect their records are lost to time, so it's pretty difficult to prove either way. As noted, the Greeks' and Romans' works got copied over a lot more than others'.

1d) Pure mathematics: Again, it's possible that some unknown German independently discovered the area of a circle, the Pythagorean Theorem, and all that stuff, and nobody saw enough merit in it to copy it over. But in general, I think it's likely fair to say that the extent of math knowledge in Greece and Rome was probably a good deal greater than that in most of the other cultures we deal with. Euclid is still quite literally taught in college math courses.

1e) Mechanical engineering: The Greeks and Romans were able to build enormous mobile structures such as rams and helepolises. They were skilled with gears, even constructing differential gears (the knowledge of which was subsequently lost and only rediscovered in the 1820s). Heron of Alexandria even created a steam engine of sorts. There were many others as well, such as the Archimedean screw, valves, vending machines, a huge number of machines of all sorts. Here, at least, I think I can safely say that the skill of the Greeks and Romans was unparalleled in our time and place.

2) Extensive use of record-keeping. From what I understand, the Celts kept records about as much as the Greeks and Romans did, and so did other cultures such as the Persians. I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure record-keeping was pretty limited among the Germans and Sarmatians at least.

3) Complex political and social institutions. Well, I'm mostly in the dark here, knowing pretty much nothing about any political institutions but the Roman, about which I know a modest amount. The Romans, at least, had a hideous web of powers and responsibilities, about which very long books could be (and have been) written. You had a few different Assemblies, each appointing different magistrates and having different powers; then the Senate, which had an entirely different set of powers; the dozens of different kinds of magistrates, who all had different levels of power and authority in different matters.

On the other hand, the typical medieval feudal structure went something like: king > people owing fealty directly to king > people owing fealty directly to people owing fealty directly to king > . . . > local lords > commoners/serfs/peasants. All authority rested in the king, delegated to his subordinates, delegated again and again until you reached people with no authority. Have a problem? Go to the local lord when he's holding audience. Have a problem with what he says? Go to his superior lord (although obviously you'd have to be somebody significant to have any chance of getting anything changed by going to him). And, in theory, so on and so forth, until you get to the king, whose decisions are final. In practice it would obviously be a lot more complicated, but the legal power structure was clear and simple.

I'd be interested to hear what more knowledgeable people have to say about various cultures' performances in this areas. I suspect that if we hash things out by this definition, we'll have something roughly like Greeks, Romans > Celts, Carthaginians, Persians, Thracians > Germans > Scythians, or thereabouts.

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Originally Posted by Ranika

And structurally, it depends on who and where. Technically, it was a bunch of barbarians (far more tribal barbarians than Celts or Germans even) that put together stonehenge, with less developed tools, and put up the Callanish stones, and Carnac, and all the other monoliths. Those are not small feats, and considering what they had to work with, it's a sign of clear understanding of architecture . . .

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Not at all. There are logistical difficulties in moving around such big stones, but in terms of architecture, you just need to choose properly-shaped ones and carefully stack them on top of each other. The reason Stonehenge still exists is, simply, overconstruction: the mere size of the rocks used means that it's extremely difficult to make them budge. The same principle applies, for instance, to most Egyptian monuments.

The essence of genuine architectural knowledge is the ability to construct usable structures with as little material as possible. Exactly how much stone do you need to make a bridge that would support an elephant? Well, the Celt would say (and correct me if I'm wrong here), let's just make the bridge four feet thick, that'll probably hold. And hold it will. But the Romans would call in their professional engineers, who would calculate it out and then build an arched bridge only one foot thick that could nevertheless support an elephant.

Now, which bridge will last longer? Probably the Celtic one, in the long run. But the Roman one will be much faster and cheaper to build, and it will serve the intended purpose perfectly well nevertheless. If it collapses five hundred years later, honestly, who cares? But if it was viewed as necessary for the particular project, the Greeks and Romans could build things that would stand the test of time; their advantage here was flexibility. Also, tall and narrow structures can't be overbuilt too much, because the weight of the added material will be too much for the lower parts of the structure to bear―without expert architectural knowledge, you can't build anything big and solid that's much less sloped than the Pyramids.

Really, architectural engineering has always been about pushing the limits. The Greeks and Romans (and probably Chinese and Indians as well, if not others, but I'm keeping this focused on classical Europe here) calculated approximate material strengths and devised clever weight-distribution techniques such as the arch, but they still had to overdesign quite a lot for complicated structures. Much more recently, the development of integral calculus allowed much more precise construction―the Eiffel Tower, for instance, would have been impossible for the Romans or Greeks to build (although to be fair, the blast furnace helped a lot there too). Finally, most recently of all, we have computers to crunch the numbers, allowing extremely precise calculation of the amounts of material needed for virtually anything. This is why architectural engineering is at its pinnacle: because our knowledge grants us flexibility.

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Originally Posted by Chester

Civil Engineering. Romans new about combined stresses and stress distrubutions of structures under loads.

This is why there buildings are around today. The Egyptian pyramid is not as a big a feat as the arch, sewer, or aqueducts the Romans build. I'm not sure if the barbaians really built any structures of importance. Maybe a few monuments, but nothing that could support the public.

The barbarians lacked civil engineers, so naturally they couldn't be 'civil'ized.

:)

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Nothing that could support the public? Celts had, as stated, water-transfer systems that were used to move water quickly between houses (as well as flush 'cess' out; all drains generally went into the main 'cess duct', though this wasn't really that advanced, more of a flume which waste of all manner travelled, out to a deep pit or a dug out cesslake; similar, but actually cleaner compared to medieval cess works; waste water would flow into the flume from a bath or other construct, and held flush cess along the flume). Soaparies were a stable part of even smaller Celtic settlements (the presence of chunks of lye, for making soap, is present in almost any set of remains of a Celtic settlement). Farms technically supported the public, and Celtic farming was quite widespread and extremely capable (and they were fairly skilled with breeding new types of pack animals, such as mules, and developed a strain of wheat superior to anything we've managed to recreate today). Celts, Dacians, and Germans all had civil courts, though that's a political thing, rather than a structure (though is a 'civil work' of sorts). Of any argument one can use, a lack of public works is easily the most inaccurate or baseless. The most basic civil works exist in even the most simple societies out of necessity to support the population. Something doesn't need be a massive construct to support a whole population, though some things were (the flow-system of Bibracte and the lengthy water systems that served the city, not to mention the series of reservoirs and heated cisterns that fed into it).

I am really impressed with some of the knowledge displayed on the forum. To be honest being pro-greaco-roman I always had a underlying hatred of the 'barbarian' cultures that eventually overran the empire. Having said that I never realised how advanced these 'barbarians' were and confined myself to the hollywood view of raggy clothed brutes. That is totally blown away by the findings of the 'aqueducts'/water systems employed by the Gauls(or whatever the correct name is). However, I do believe that the argument has gone too far the other way and that 'barbarians' were somehow an innocent people crushed by the tyranical might of Rome.

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The barbarians were defeated. Rome conquered Gaul, destroyed Carthago and subdued the Hellenistic world. Being defeated does not necessiate being inferior. As you note, the flow turned backwards; Germans overran Rome, half of the empire became Hellenistic again and if you will, the remote cousins of Carthago, Arabs, founded one of the greatest civilizations ever.

Innocence and guilt have no place in political struggle. Power tolerates no vaccum. If one fails, another will replace it.
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Originally Posted by Praefectus Praetoria

However, I do believe that the argument has gone too far the other way and that 'barbarians' were somehow an innocent people crushed by the tyranical might of Rome.

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Who the hell said that? This is one of the statements I loathe because it does barbarians ill credit. I do think the Roman Empire (not the republic) was tyrannical, but it was run by a tyrannical government model. However, I don't see what that has to do with wars with barbarians; the republic went to war with barbarians plenty as well, and they were actual wars. Even with Gaul fractured to pieces, it took 10 years to completely subdue, the Dacians were a severe pain in the side of the Romans for quite a while, the Britons were irritatingly prone to rebellion and 'buying' invasions and raids by Caledonians (and then Picts) and Gaels, and later Saxons (to defend them from the Picts and Gaels...and then the same thing happened with Saxons; poor Brits had bad luck with mercenaries).

Some people I think were more 'innocent' than others, such as in Britain, but it was still a group of deposed British nobles who got the Romans to invade the island; it wasn't some wild excursion on part of the emperor (though he did agree to do it in part just to make himself look good, because he was seen as weak). I don't know where you're getting this vibe from.

Also, aqueducts is a strong statement; they weren't a huge system of moving water over a wide distance. It was a network of flowing water in stone edifices that served in larger Gallic cities (and some in more Gallic parts of Britain, such as in what would become Bath, when Romans converted the local system to the pipe-based system the Romans used to work the big spas; in both cases it was meant to feed into their baths and presumably other needs; Celts were very cleanly people who hated dirt and grime, and so bathed daily, removed their body hair {it could hold dirt to the skin} and generally avoided lots of facial hair {usually little more than a mustache, though it'd be a bit thick probably}).

Weren't there stories about Brennus wishing to leave Rome because of the horrendous smell? Celtic people were certainly very particular about personal hygiene.

Yes, Romans weren't exactly the clenliest people in the world and the Gauls were VERY into their personal hygene. Brennus and his army couldnt leave Rome quick enough due to the smell of the city, which they found horrendous...and of course the piles of dead didnt help much with the smell either.

It's not that I doubt the idea that the gauls had water systems and aqueducts, I dont see why that wouldnt have been the case but, does anyone have any pictures or websites on this subject that I could look at?

I believe some online ethusiasts' sites have pictures of the archaeological site, with photos of the flumes and such. Those that the Romans didn't replace anyway; the Romans sent engineers to build houses and such for the local aristocracy, since it was ruled by the Aedui, who weren't just slight allies with the Romans; these were very close people and many influential Romans had close personal friends from the Aedui, or their associated fellows, and the Romans gave them a gift of several large villas in Bibracte. In the process though, they tore out a number of flumes and replaced them with pipes, though the market and temple part of the town I believe maintained the flumes as late as the 1500s (as it had been in regular use as a temple, then a Christian oratory, and even now a Franciscan monastary, so they kept a lot of the facilities intact for a while, though some parts of the town, including the flumes, were lost much earlier, and only uncovered in the 1900s).

will gaul settlements in the mod feature these flumes? and if so is there any chance of seeing a picture of one of these settlements?

A lot of the discussion seems to equate a certain knowledge with civilization and I sometimes wonder is this a fair criteria to use, as I said earlier some of the rules of the game that we use to define what is civilized have been past on to us from the victors (cultural) the fact that the colosseum still stands and is undoubtedly an impressive building, should this be considered a sign that this society was civilized? For us today the killing of thousands of people for entertainment does not seem so wonderful, in fact we would consider it barbaric. I appreciate that most Romans would have found nothing wrong with this but they and the Greeks applied their own standards for civilized and uncivilized some of those prejudices we have kept ourselves and more we have rightly changed.

Perhaps it would be better to say that all men are civilized and avoid comparisons because in the context of the history of the whole world we might as well say that those who invented hairspray have the only right to the title.

I feel in many ways the guy was getting more at technological sophistication, civilization in manyways is just a byterm for this, so i suppose his questions have been answered in the posts above and before this page of this thread.

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Originally Posted by the_handsome_viking

will gaul settlements in the mod feature these flumes? and if so is there any chance of seeing a picture of one of these settlements?

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Celts will have baths, but I doubt they'll have these as a specific development for their towns; they're not as large or effective as aqueducts, and were more of a product of the desire for private bathing, so are really covered by the presence of baths.

will the celts be able to build walls now? made of stone that is

We're working on appropriate walls for Iberians and Celts (we don't want to give them regular stone walls; they don't look right). The first public build may lack such walls, but we will get some good walls in for them eventually (if it takes too long, may give them regular stone walls as a placeholder, but I'd hope we can avoid that).