I'm not a genuine historian, FP, but while most of what you've pointed out about the constructed history of the Goths is essentially correct, the Romans did identify some of the groups that invaded the Balkan provinces of the Empire in the third century as "Goths".
There are some problems with precisely how closely some of these groups are associated with "Goths", it's true. Unfortunately, I don't know this period very well, so it's hard for me to give specifics. But many of the groups subsequently referred to as "Goths" in the third century were originally referred to by other names and only acquired the "Goth" sobriquet later. Greek writers almost always called the third-century invaders "Skythoi", with smatterings of other names like "Boranoi" and "Boradoi" by late historians. And with Roman ethnography the shambles it was, it's certainly not unreasonable to take the position that most if not all of the identifications that Roman historians made were worthless even when they
did assign a nonstandard name to a given group.
A fair number of these ostensibly "Gothic" groups probably owe that name more to nineteenth-century nationalists than anything else. Some historians, like Heather, have acknowledged this but have taken half-measures, claiming that the Gothic name must've stuck somehow so there may have been Goths
among these groups instead. I'm in favor of acknowledging when the factual basis for a claim is too sketchy to support it and admitting what we don't actually know. But I'm not a classicist, and I'm not even close, and if I ever come in contact with an argument for Goths that I can see the merits of then I'd be more than happy to change my mind.
Ha. That sounds rather testy. The last thing I remember from 6 years ago was someone throwing a tantrum when I maintained there was enough circumstantial and documented evidence for the time, to support a continuity or connection between Gothic invaders on the Danube pre-300 AD and Alaric's Visigoths 150 years later. (Here we go again!)
Anyway - I made the simple statement that Rome's tactical system "shouldn't be dismissed" on the road to empire - a catch all for the formations, weaponry, training - any technological or organizational edge the army enjoyed. That shouldn't be too controversial given the proof of performance and evolution over centuries - including the many matchups against various alignments of Etruscans, Umbrians, Gauls and Samnites - when Rome did not always have vast reserves of manpower to swamp its enemies.
I pointed out as many differences as similarities, which is why Sparte did not succeed as Rome did. The basis of this thread includes a comparison of the rise of disparate empires and near empires. Similarities are bound to be superficial, but Sparta comes close to the early Republic in being the recognized land power in Greece - even briefly naval dominance, achieving a measure of hegemony over power blocks of similar potential, but unable to maintain it. Sparta, like Rome, was able to enforce its will on occasion strictly on the basis of reputation of the land army. Before the Samnite Wars were complete Rome had become recognized, even in Greece, as the land power to beat in Italy. Naval power was secondary in Italy. Rome unlike Sparta did not feel compelled to respect any balance of power in their arena of interest.
The statement I made was to refute the notion that rivers did not serve as effective
boundaries. The fact that imperial boundaries on the Rhine and Danube were different and more fortified than the Republic's Po, does not digress from the point that the Po served as an effective river boundary to the Republic for some time did it not? Although they held hegemony beyond it, it marked the limit of Roman administration south of it and was the line Gallic invaders crossed at their peril.
Subtle.
What I remember from most of those exchanges is me bringing up the work of historians who have published more recently than several decades ago, with logical understandings of things like "identity" and whatnot, and you obstinately hewing to the same line regardless of any evidence presented against your case. For instance: I would introduce an objection to your (or somebody else's) explanation of something; you would respond to a misreading of what I actually said while restating your position with no new information (and/or some misinformation); I would point this out; rinse and repeat.
This is easily demonstrated with your final paragraph in the quoted post. The original discussion about rivers and political geography was that individuals in this thread claimed that rivers are
necessarily the "natural" frontiers on which political borders come to rest, and, by implication, it is possible to predict political history based on using rivers as boundary lines. I pointed out that rivers are not
necessarily borders, and have formed the core of political territories just as often as the periphery, that there are no such things as "natural" frontiers, and that prescriptivism of this sort is silly. Your comment was that rivers are still good borders because the Rhine and Danube were borders for Rome for a long time.
Nobody disputed that the Rhine and Danube were borders for Rome for a long time. The closest anybody came to that was when Flying Pig pointed out that rivers don't serve as a particularly good place on which to locate a static defensive line, which is a purely military argument and has nothing to do with political borders. Your argument against "the notion that rivers did not serve as effective boundaries" is getting straw all over the place.
As for your belief that the Po was a border for the Republic: it wasn't, and any beliefs you have to that effect probably come from the fact that historical atlas-makers find it convenient to end the "Rome" color at the Po for a few centuries, not from any situation on the ground. In reality, Roman-allied territory and Roman colonies did not come close to the Po until very late in the third century BC, after the crisis with the Boii and Insubres that led to the Battles of Faesulae and Telamon. During that crisis, the Romans allied with the Veneti (north of the Po) and captured the Insubrian city that eventually became Mediolanum (also north of the Po). The Po formed the core of the region
Gallia Cisalpina and by the middle of the second century BC the river was not even
close to a Roman frontier. If the Po was ever a frontier for the Republic, it was between 216 BC and 202 BC, when some Roman historians claim that the "transpadane" parts of
Gallia Cisalpina were abandoned because they could not be protected due to the military emergency in Italy. If 14 years is your definition of "some time" in this context, then it is a poor definition. Your comment about it being a "line Gallic invaders crossed at their peril" is a neat bit of histrionics but it is not actually true: the "Gallic invaders" lived both north and south of the Po.
It looks like the sum total of your beliefs about the comparability of Rome and Sparte is that they both had strong armies and derived some form of political influence from those strong armies. That isn't a comparison in any useful way - although I guess you agree with me on that, since you say that the only reason you're comparing them that way is because the thread's OP was so vague about what constituted a topic of discussion that it's basically open season on bad comparisons.
Later on she wed Kassandros, one of the diadochoi of Alexander, and he named this city with her name.
