Anybody feel like defending the honor? :)

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

I know Pindar's oppinions well. He posted some things, long ago, at the first EB thread in the Colosseum. I'm sorry to say that he is just an ignorant. Not worth my bother. But maybe you could whip some sense and culture in to that limited mind.

[DemonArchangel]

Pindar=Brilliant in the tavern. (Except he's a damn dirty conservative)
and of course
he's a MORMON.
What do you expect?

[Ranika]

Hey, I'm a conservative, mostly economically and geopolitically, though, you'd find a lot of professional historians and antiquarians are. And he just seems like too much of a bother to argue with. If one is bent on a preconception of history and would refuse to listen to reason, no amount of proof can be offered to put to rest that manner of thought. You could explain all day that barbarians like Gaul didn't control single 'provinces', but rather large kingdoms, or that the Ptolemies built quality road networks, that the Celts had well maintained fleets (consider the Vascones immigrating to Hibernia in a large enough manner to construct a large city there, using what we believe to be the southern tallships in Ireland, was considering them as one of the fleet types for barbarians? I'll mention it in the proper thread sooner or later), that non-Romans had elaborate coinage, metalwork, clothing, etc. He won't care. If one has steeled themselves to accept a view of the ancient world, regardless of mountains of evidence, and flat out proofs, to the contrary, they aren't going to budge. It's just a way to start arguments, and heaven forbid we should seek them out. We'll have plenty of arguments about history on this project, but at least we have people who can be worked with. If you need a fix for arguing, argue here.

[Stefan the Berserker]

he's a MORMON

However, in my understanding of the word "barbarians" the Mormons are barbarians.

[The samnite]

What exactly is your definition of barbarian then? Any religious person?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

That's Pindar. Great debator, from what I've seen in the Backroom. And a great conservative ally. I think you just need to show him some good sources of information about "barbarians" to sway him.

[Stefan the Berserker]

What exactly is your definition of barbarian then? Any religious person?

I use the modern word "barbarian" for a couple of negative attributes on people, which behave against my viewpoint of Morale and modern Culture.

September 11 2001 was Barbarian.
Persecution of Homosexuals is Barbarian.
Death Penalty is Barbarian.
Destruction of Nature is Barbarian.

The Mormons are a fundamentalist christian sect which interprets Jesus Message in an very arch-conservative way which is mostly based on lies.

Of Course, now you may call me intolerant but Mormons are a variant of Christianity, my own religion. So I can't accept their radical viewpoints because then I would rely my own ones.

Because their arch-conservative viewpoints are so radical and unacceptable they are barbarian to my view.

In other words, "Barbarian" is equal in meaning with "Stupid Butthole", "People from Yesterday" or "Junkie".

[therecanbeonlywar!]

If one is bent on a preconception of history and would refuse to listen to reason, no amount of proof can be offered to put to rest that manner of thought. You could explain all day that barbarians like Gaul didn't control single 'provinces', but rather large kingdoms, or that the Ptolemies built quality road networks, that the Celts had well maintained fleets (consider the Vascones immigrating to Hibernia in a large enough manner to construct a large city there, using what we believe to be the southern tallships in Ireland, was considering them as one of the fleet types for barbarians? I'll mention it in the proper thread sooner or later), that non-Romans had elaborate coinage, metalwork, clothing, etc. He won't care. If one has steeled themselves to accept a view of the ancient world, regardless of mountains of evidence, and flat out proofs, to the contrary, they aren't going to budge. It's just a way to start arguments, and heaven forbid we should seek them out. We'll have plenty of arguments about history on this project, but at least we have people who can be worked with. If you need a fix for arguing, argue here.

The funny thing being that if I had proposed that the Eastern Han army was qualitatively better, especially regarding military technology, than the Imperial Roman army, no doubt that all of you would take the stance that Pindar took, despite the fact that I would offer mountain loads upon loads of flat-out evidence. I'm going off topic a bit, but it was just my observations and something very common I noticed happening.

[khelvan]

Obviously you haven't tried to make the argument to this group, if you think that you would get that sort of reaction. This group being the EB members. We have a few that would give you a knee-jerk reaction, but most would be open to scholarly debate.

[conon394]

therecanbeonlywar!

I imagine you might feel I’m in the knee jerk crowd.
But overall the historical record is so thin there is room to make and take a lot of diametrically opposed arguments and views with respect to Roman, or Han Chinese or Greeks or Celts of 2000 years ago. Honestly I think you can in all like hood marshal the proverbial mountain of evidence both for Rome or China as militarily superior. In disclosure I'll admit I think Rebublican Rome would defeat Han china (not so sure about the Empire)...

[The_Emperor]

The old sterotypes of "Barbarians" are hard to shake off...

The problem is with Roman Written records being taken as gospel for so long, especially as the documents themselves were not written as an attempt to record history accurately but rather to give personal prestige and political influence to the authors.

History is written by the victors.

And in today's terms it would be like having the Nazis win WW2 and future generations being forced to rely on Goebel's records as the only surviving sources...

In comparison with Written history, Archeology on the other hand has come up with some very surprising artifacts and finds that demonstrate that the Celts were skilled craftsmen and metalworkers, and archeology (much like forensics) builds up a picture of how all sorts of people lived in general.

History is written by the victors and the Romans knew that well. You only need look at what they did to Carthage to understand that.

[therecanbeonlywar!]

Obviously you haven't tried to make the argument to this group, if you think that you would get that sort of reaction. This group being the EB members. We have a few that would give you a knee-jerk reaction, but most would be open to scholarly debate.

therecanbeonlywar!

I imagine you might feel I’m in the knee jerk crowd.
But overall the historical record is so thin there is room to make and take a lot of diametrically opposed arguments and views with respect to Roman, or Han Chinese or Greeks or Celts of 2000 years ago. Honestly I think you can in all like hood marshal the proverbial mountain of evidence both for Rome or China as militarily superior. In disclosure I'll admit I think Rebublican Rome would defeat Han china (not so sure about the Empire)...

http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/fo...showtopic=5422

http://www.stratcommandcenter.com/fo...pic=5015&st=40

Though I might, at some point, post in those threads when I have the time to, I simply won't now because I am too exhausted and lack enough time to give complete replies to the various ignorant statements made. I laughed when I came upon these threads since the Roman/European supporters showed absolutely no knowledge whatsoever on the historical militaries of the empires of China and their comparisons were based on inaccurate and baseless assumptions of the supposed "lack of physical strength of 'Asians'" and that all "Asian" militaries were either Japanese (16th century Sengoku Jidai era ashigaru troops) or Persian (they assumed the Chinese armies were not much different from the Persians that were defeated by the Spartans at Thermopylae and thought that would happen to the troops of the Han Dynasty as well; Persians are Indo-Iranians, and therefore, Indo-Europeans, and the Persians are much more connected to the western world in terms of culture, linguistics, ethnicity, history, and military than the peoples of East Asia, obviously).

Referring to the first thread, not even mentioning that when one would take an objective stance and view the primary and reliable secondary sources at hand that the Western Jin (I have to admit that it was in a state of civil war and political instability, though again I was comparing the efficiency and effectiveness of the troops and not necessarily the political state of the two empires) troops were qualitatively and quantitatively (there is obviously no contention to this since the Eurocentric Roman supporters would usually try to enforce an inaccurate "huge waves upon waves of weak, little Chinese peasants wielding pitchforks and other farm equipment" type of stereotype on the Chinese armies) better than the contemporary Imperial Roman troops of circa 300 AD, there is almost no possible way 4th century Roman troops would take on and win against a 13th century "Chinese" (again, I doubt the Roman supporters know anything about Chinese history since they make no mention of what empire they were specifically referring to, it could either be the Jin, Xi-Xia, or Southern Song) army that was literally light years ahead of the 4th century Imperial Roman army. Even the much less militant troops of the southern Song woud still be able to take on and defeat the 4th century imperial Romans due to sheer technological superiority (yes, in this case, the technology of the southern Song, especially regarding their crossbowmen would've played a decisive factor in a given battle), much less the militant Jurchen ruling and military elite of the Jin and their superb cataphracts (I know 4th century Imperial Romans had clibanarii, but the Jurchens, being a semi-nomadic people from Manchuria would've been much more skilled cavalrymen than the Romans and most other cavalrymen of sedentary peoples for that matter; furthermore, when they captured northern China and had in their possession the blast furnaces and fineries, they had much more high-quality weaponry than the 4th century Imperial Romans) or the troops of the Xi-Xia Tanguts.

Again, I would be more than glad to offer my sources if any of you want them and this is rather a short reply. If I had the sufficient time right now, I would post a complete reply but I don't, so I'll post more later. And if it seems like I'm trying to hijack this forum or something with this stuff, then any of the EB people here (whose objective to make a mod that's based on historical accuracy as the top priority, which I do admire) could debate it with me in the Monastery (I don't know if there is already a Rome vs. China thread already but I usually don't check anywhere else except the modding forums).