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

[The Brain]

I think that settles the discussion.

[DGuller]

History will judge which one of you is right.

[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.   

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.

Yeah, as I said, I think Minsky is correct about being doubtful about the numbers as well.   Which is why I don't think it is near 100,000 people and it makes it much more likely that the tribe was wiped out.

[jimmy olsen]

On the OP, that website looks pretty dubious as a serious source of accurate archaeological information.  The linked article reads as if translated from another  language.

The original was in Dutch wasn't it?

Guardian says the same
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/11/julius-caesar-battlefield-unearthed-southern-netherlands-dutch-archaeologists

[alfred russel]

On the OP, that website looks pretty dubious as a serious source of accurate archaeological information.  The linked article reads as if translated from another  language.

The original was in Dutch wasn't it?

Guardian says the same
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/11/julius-caesar-battlefield-unearthed-southern-netherlands-dutch-archaeologists

The section below doesn't give must confidence that the author had a clue regarding what he was reporting. Also, I'd be interested in where these 150-200k figures are coming from. It seems implausible to me, but the article seems to be attributing it to the university of amsterdam.

"This article was amended on 12 December 2015. It originally used a photo of a statue of Julius Caesar's great-nephew Julius Caesar Augustus. This has been corrected. It was further amended on 14 December 2015. It mistakenly described Caesar as an emperor and said the items dated back to the 1st century, when they dated back to the 1st century BC. These errors have been corrected."

[The Minsky Moment]

Looking at a few more stories on this, they repeat the account from DBG, but all that is said about the VU discovery is that the found a lot of material.  It would be very interesting if the VU team has confirmed number in the 150-200K range - it would alter assumptions about density and population levels and bolster confidence in the specific numbers in DBG - that is what drew my interest.  But its not clear in the news accounts that mention that numbers that the VU archaeologists have clear evidence of such exact counts or just that there are a lot and the journalists are just repeating the DBG numbers,

[Valmy]

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.   

I think the term creates a false impression and thus is bad history. Since we cannot dig up Julius Caesar and put him on trial I think the priority needs to be on giving people an understanding of the times. Not using charged modern terms and values to try to demonize past peoples. I just do not see how that contributes to anything.

[The Brain]

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.   

I think the term creates a false impression and thus is bad history. Since we cannot dig up Julius Caesar and put him on trial I think the priority needs to be on giving people an understanding of the times. Not using charged modern terms and values to try to demonize past peoples. I just do not see how that contributes to anything.

Or you could just leave your outrage hat at home when discussing ancient history and not worry about being PC with every term you use.

The Romans had slavery. It was legal and socially accepted. Slavery today is a very charged and negative term. Should we call Roman slavery something else because of this? That way lies silly.

[Eddie Teach]

The Romans knew what slavery was. Genocide was an alien concept.

[The Brain]

Genocide was a well established practice in the ancient world.

[Berkut]

I just genocided my breakfast sammy.

[alfred russel]

The Romans knew what slavery was. Genocide was an alien concept.

They didn't know the term genocide, but were familiar with the concept of deliberately killing large numbers of particular groups of people.

[Eddie Teach]

They didn't know the term genocide, but were familiar with the concept of deliberately killing large numbers of particular groups of people.

They didn't have the follow-through of modern nations.

[alfred russel]

They didn't know the term genocide, but were familiar with the concept of deliberately killing large numbers of particular groups of people.

They didn't have the follow-through of modern nations.

I think you are shifting your argument from that they were unfamiliar with the concept to that they did not implement it.

The article asserts a university claim that between 1/3 and 1/2 of two tribes were massacred by the Romans. There is discussion about whether the numbers are accurate, but if so, such a slaughter would be considered a genocide in the modern day, which would indicate they did indeed have the follow through of modern nations. Regardless, I think the example of Carthage would qualify as genocide under modern standards.

[Norgy]

Genocide was a well established practice in the ancient world.

Wasn't JHWE quite good at it too, according to the reports (surely made by liberal media, but still) from Sodom and Gomorrah?