Mass grave of Caesar's victims found, remains of 150-200,000 Germans

[The Brain]

But there are also plenty of Jews still around.

Not in Germany or Poland.

[Eddie Teach]

Ok, there's more than enough for The Brain, but not nearly enough for CDM.

[grumbler]

Well, those tribes are extinct, and the Celtic speakers now extinct from that region of Europe.

I think the question is to whether a "kill everyone" command when attacking a tribe qualifies as a genocide when resulting in the death of between 150,000 and 200,000 people, including women and children out of a population of maybe two or three that (I would tend to doubt the numbers). Can a single incident be considerable enough to qualify as a genocide even if not extended for a long period?

Well, all the tribes of that period are extinct, as are the Romans.  I guess they all have been genocided.  Genocide is the historical norm.

[The Minsky Moment]

No language spoken at that time is still spoken today.

Basque.

It's probably changed a lot since then but point taken.

[The Minsky Moment]

The eradication of a lot of the gaulish and iberian languages had to do with Rome, and someone (I wouldn't) could conceivably argue that their policies were genocidal even if they didn't try to physically exterminate the members of the group.

People could argue lots of things, but that isn't a good argument. 
The point is that you can't prove a historical genocide by evidence of linguistic change. 

BTW I don't necessarily disagree with your "side" here, just questioning the proof.

[Razgovory]

No language spoken at that time is still spoken today.

Basque.

I got a better one.  Hebrew.

[alfred russel]

People could argue lots of things, but that isn't a good argument. 
The point is that you can't prove a historical genocide by evidence of linguistic change. 

BTW I don't necessarily disagree with your "side" here, just questioning the proof.

I think good proof would be if the tribes in question ceased to be mentioned after the event.

They were still mentioned, but some time down the road, and did not feature prominently. That could mean they still existed but were significantly reduced in scope, they were never very prominent to begin with the and numbers mentioned by Caesar were exaggerated, or even that the tribes ceased to exist and the names were just reused by the romans later on (as the romans were inclined to do).

For better or worse, we are left to rely on historic sources, which are likely biased and containing inaccuracies. If the story is that two tribes of ~430k pissed off the romans, and the romans launched an attach with a "kill them all" order of the day, and 150-200k were killed, I think that meets the dictionary definition of genocide. Is that what really happened? Modern evidence of women and children being killed as mentioned in the article can sort of help, but at the least the numbers are likely higher than reality.

[grumbler]

I think the answer is likely yes.  The intent was to kill off the entire tribe - 100% of that population.  No need to extend it beyond killing 100% of the group.  I think where you go wrong is assuming other tribes were part of this group.

Struck by a divine revelation, eh?  It amazes me how willing you are to leap to delusions.  Caesar's stated intent was to pacify his Gallic allies by forcing these tribes to retreat back to Germany.  His actions are consistent with that intent.  He succeeded in his intentions, with relatively light losses (he says none, but that's not very credible).  One of the reasons he suffered so little was that he forced the German warriors to try to defend their military camp and their dependents.  That resulted in a panic and the deaths of most of the dependents and probably nearly all of the warriors. 

The delusion that Caesar just decided out of the blue to start genociding tribes isn't even credible; one of his main sources of wealth in these wars was the sale of slaves, and German slaves were particularly prized for hard labor.  His mentor, Gaius Marius, wiped out the Cimbri, Teutones, and Ammbrones tribes (probably totaling over 500,000 people) when they invaded Italy in 102 and 101 BCE, taking probably 300,000+ captives as slaves.  I'm sure Tim's fevered web page would call that a genocide as well.

[The Minsky Moment]

For better or worse, we are left to rely on historic sources, which are likely biased and containing inaccuracies. If the story is that two tribes of ~430k pissed off the romans, and the romans launched an attach with a "kill them all" order of the day, and 150-200k were killed, I think that meets the dictionary definition of genocide. Is that what really happened?

According to Angus Maddison's estimates, the entire population of the area corresponding to the modern-day Netherlands during the period was 200,000.  Assuming that entire population didn't happen to be on the exact battlefield on that day, I think it is safe to assume that Caesar's account is at best a significant exaggeration.

This came up before here when someone (I think Martim Silva?) referenced the migration of the Helvetti, also narrated by Caesar.  There was a precise count of over 360,000, which again exceeds the likely population of all of Switzerland at that period.  It was also very difficult to conceive of a group that size traversing the terrain on the long migration route they were alleged to have followed.

Bottom line is that I am very suspicious when numbers get thrown about in these kinds of ancient accounts.

[Razgovory]

Only one person here was there, and he won't incriminate himself.

[alfred russel]

According to Angus Maddison's estimates, the entire population of the area corresponding to the modern-day Netherlands during the period was 200,000.  Assuming that entire population didn't happen to be on the exact battlefield on that day, I think it is safe to assume that Caesar's account is at best a significant exaggeration.

This came up before here when someone (I think Martim Silva?) referenced the migration of the Helvetti, also narrated by Caesar.  There was a precise count of over 360,000, which again exceeds the likely population of all of Switzerland at that period.  It was also very difficult to conceive of a group that size traversing the terrain on the long migration route they were alleged to have followed.

Bottom line is that I am very suspicious when numbers get thrown about in these kinds of ancient accounts.

Not to mention that the article mentions 150-200k killed, while Caesar claims that not a single Roman was lost. It seems incredible that so many could be killed by hand without any losses. Or that so many could even be killed so quickly.

[crazy canuck]

I still not quite ready to accept the numbers solely on the word of whoever wrote this little web article.

Neither am I, but based on Caesar's own account he did a pretty good job eliminating that particular tribe so that they would not again be a threat.  If we are not going to call it a genocide then some other word meaning wiping out a whole tribe in the ancient world needs to be coined.   

[crazy canuck]

The delusion that Caesar just decided out of the blue to start genociding tribes isn't even credible.

You are correct.  Good thing nobody here is making that claim.

[Berkut]

I still not quite ready to accept the numbers solely on the word of whoever wrote this little web article.

Neither am I, but based on Caesar's own account he did a pretty good job eliminating that particular tribe so that they would not again be a threat.  If we are not going to call it a genocide then some other word meaning wiping out a whole tribe in the ancient world needs to be coined.   

Eliminating them as a threat does not imply eliminating them though.

I am with Minsky - I think nearly all ancient world estimates for army sizes, battle sizes, etc., etc., are gross exaggerations.

I imagine how long it would take to kill 100,000 people by hand - just the simple logistics of it when you start actually thinking about how to go about doing that.

I suspect what actually happened is that a bunch of warriors started slaughtering people, and everyone scattered, and they reported that they killed them all.

[grumbler]

Eliminating them as a threat does not imply eliminating them though.

I am with Minsky - I think nearly all ancient world estimates for army sizes, battle sizes, etc., etc., are gross exaggerations.

I imagine how long it would take to kill 100,000 people by hand - just the simple logistics of it when you start actually thinking about how to go about doing that.

I suspect what actually happened is that a bunch of warriors started slaughtering people, and everyone scattered, and they reported that they killed them all.

Caesar wanted them to cross back over the Rhine, according to his account.  CC claims to know better than Caesar what Caesar intended, but I think logic and knowledge of Caesar's previous actions indicate that CC is, again, full of shit.

I suspect that what actually happened was that a bunch of warriors started killing people, and the people panicked, and some of them drowned, some of them  got crushed, some got stabbed, and some escaped.  Caesar throws out some amazing numbers (430,000) because that makes him sound better.  He doesn't say that he killed them all (and, indeed, it is clear that he didn't, as the tribes are still around two hundred years later), but he describes his victory as complete and that he suffered no losses (again, not at all likely).

If this was a genocide, then the Soviets genocided the Sixth Army at Stalingrad and the Germans genocided Varus's legions at the Teutoburger Wald.