Barbarians

[greekguy]

i just had a thought and wondered what you guys thought about this. ok, i was thinking what people in history have been the most barbaric or warlike. there have been loads of tribes and cultures devoted to crazed, pillaging, warfare, but which do you think tops them all? IMO, the Vikings. simply because they went into battle like crazed animals and conquered so much land and terrorized some many Europeans.

poll up shortly....i'll put as many choices as i can think of.

 

[Kafka2]

And yet they were on many levels a very civilised people, the Vikings. In terms of barbarism by Western standards, the Mongols take some beating.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

On your list, the Huns IMO are the most barbaric. The others only have a really bad reputation (which they didn't really earn).

The odd one out on your list is the Goths. They were pretty much the most "civilised" of all the barbarian tribes of the fourth - sixth centuries AD, and pretty much continued most Roman traditions in the lands they ruled.

 

[Dreadnought]

Where are the Scots from the Fall of Rome? They were really savages!

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Barbarism is only in the eye of the beholder.

E.g. for the Chinese, all non-Chinese are barbarians.

 

[Plotinus]

The Vikings don't get many points in this contest because although they were pretty violent to start with, they seem to have been extremely amenable to settling down, converting to Christianity and generally getting enlightened. Witness northern England and Ireland after the initial conquests, the Normans in France, etc. Call themselves barbarians? It's enough to give Atilla the Hun a nosebleed in disgust.

Much the same is true of the Goths and, to varying degrees, most of the other peoples mentioned. For sheer *sustained* barbarity, surely it's hard to beat the Huns and the Mongols.

 

[Lord_all_Mighty]

Was it the Mongols or the Huns who would offer no harm to a city if it surrendered peacefully? The one who didn't was the one I meant to vote for.

 

[sydhe]

I vote "others". I choose the Magyars. The Mongols are a good choice, too.

 

[Stefan Haertel]

The Germans. Bach, Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven- and then suddenly Auschwitz. How can there be any colder and more barbaric break?

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Was it the Mongols or the Huns who would offer no harm to a city if it surrendered peacefully? The one who didn't was the one I meant to vote for.

The Mongols. So long as you submitted to the Khan and provided troops and money for the Mongol war machine, your city will be left alone.

 

[Rambuchan]

"Barbarian" is of course a highly subjective term. I don't know whose point-of-view to take for the poll so I won't vote. But I'll throw in something counter to the old Mongols as barbarians story. Just from Wiki, which is quite right on this:

Persian Gardens refers to a tradition and style of garden design which originated in Persia (more commonly known today as Iran). Traditionally, such gardens would have been enclosed.

It is of note that the Persian word for "enclosed space" was pardeiza, which was inherited in Christian mythology as Paradise on earth, the garden of Eden. (see: Persians: Masters of Empire, p62, ISBN 0-8094-9104-4)

Its role was, and is, that of relaxation in a variety of manners: spiritual, and leisurely (such as meetings with friends), essentially a paradise on earth. The manner in which the garden is constructed maybe formal (with emphasis on structure) or casual (with emphasis on plant), and complies to various simple rules governing the design - this is said to allow a maximisation, in terms of function and emotion, of what may be done in the garden.

>>

The invasion of Persia by the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century saw an emphasis on highly ornate structure within the Garden, examples of which include peonies and chrysanthemums. The Mongol empire then carried on a Persian Garden tradition in other parts of their empire (notably India). The Safavid Dynasty (seventeenth to eighteenth century) build and developed highly grandeur and epic layouts - which went beyond being a simple extension to a palace, and became an integral aesthetic and functional part of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_gardens

Kublai Khan & Music, Literature and administration in Yuan China.

As in other periods of alien dynastic rule of China, a rich cultural diversity developed during the Yuan dynasty. The major cultural achievements were the development of drama and the novel and the increased use of the written vernacular. The Mongols' extensive West Asian and European contacts produced a fair amount of cultural exchange. Western musical instruments were introduced to enrich the Chinese performing arts.

The most famous traveler of the period was the Venetian Marco Polo, whose account of his trip to "Cambaluc," the Great Khan's capital (now Beijing), and of life there astounded the people of Europe. The Mongols undertook extensive public works. Road and water communications were reorganized and improved. To provide against possible famines, granaries were ordered built throughout the empire. The city of Beijing was rebuilt with new palace grounds that included artificial lakes, hills and mountains, and parks.

http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/imperial3.html

No doubt they were bloodthirsty warmongers when that was what they were about. But it's not like they hung aroud in packs waiting for the next victim to scalp when they were not.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

That was in China, and under the relatively capable Khubilai. He had many able Chinese advisors, who told him pointblank that he wanted China to fund his campaigns, he needed to rule it the Chinese way. I.e. public irrigation works; lots of it.

Check out the Mongol conquest of Central Asia. Even today, the whole region still hadn't fully recovered fr the initial Mongol onslaught (the Soviet years didn't help either).

 

[Rambuchan]

Yeah yeah, I am not denying that they ransacked much of central Asia and Eastern Europe. That's for sure. But they did bequeth a great deal of cultural traditions, or at least they enhanced and developed existing ones, in Persia and India. That wasn't just Kublai Khan at work.

 

[Verbose]

Well, we're all barbarians in the traditional Greek definition, i.e. we aren't Hellenes.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Many if not most of the stories we all know about the famous "barbarians" of history were heavily tainted by propaganda. IIRC the English word Viking is itself propaganda, as it's just an insulting word for pirate. Barbarian is of course about as specific a word as terrorist is at the moment, though barbaric is easier to pin down. I think it's hard not to award the Mongols the title, purely due to the epic global scale of their atrocities.

 

[Willowmound]

Many if not most of the stories we all know about the famous "barbarians" of history were heavily tainted by propaganda. IIRC the English word Viking is itself propaganda, as it's just an insulting word for pirate. Barbarian is of course about as specific a word as terrorist is at the moment, though barbaric is easier to pin down. I think it's hard not to award the Mongols the title, purely due to the epic global scale of their atrocities.

I completely agree with your main point. However, what you say about the word Viking is not entirely correct. Historians don't all agree on where the name comes from, only on what it means. "Vik" is a Scandinavian word meaning bay, and so Viking means "one from the bay". This word is found again in all those place names in England and Scotland ending in -wick. All originally settled by Vikings. The Vikings themselves probably didn't use the word, and indeed outside the British isles other names were applied to them, usually Nordmanni or Dani.

In the Middle Ages, when most of the Viking sagas were put to paper, the word Viking was indeed used to mean pirate. By then, however, its pagan connotations had made it "dirty", Scandinavians by then of course having been Christian for several generations.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

I completely agree with your main point. However, what you say about the word Viking is not entirely correct. Historians don't all agree on where the name comes from, only on what it means. "Vik" is a Scandinavian word meaning bay, and so Viking means "one from the bay". This word is found again in all those place names in England and Scotland ending in -wick. All originally settled by Vikings. The Vikings themselves probably didn't use the word, and indeed outside the British isles other names were applied to them, usually Nordmanni or Dani.

In the Middle Ages, when most of the Viking sagas were put to paper, the word Viking was indeed used to mean pirate. By then, however, its pagan connotations had made it "dirty", Scandinavians by then of course having been Christian for several generations.

I'm aware of the issues that you've presented so accurately, but I still think that it's a credible assertion to suggest that the reason we refer in English today to the Vikings instead of to the Norse has something to do with anti-Norse/anti-Pagan propaganda somewhere down the line.

 

[Kafka2]

I vote "others". I choose the Magyars.

Good choice. They were a fascinating people- totally at odds with the rest of Europe.

 

[DAv2003]

Weren't the Magyars part rulers of the Austro - Hungary Empire?

 

[sydhe]

Yes. They settled down after Lechfeld and became Hungary.