Who Do You Root For: Barbarians or Romans?

[The Minsky Moment]

Aetius, Stichico, Aegidius and Majorian rock.

Aeitus was raised by Huns.  Stilicho's father was a Vandal.  Aegidius led predominantly Frankish armies.  Majorian's forces were a veritable rainbow coalition of the barbarian world.

So I guess you are voting Barbarian?

[Ed Anger]

Aetius, Stichico, Aegidius and Majorian rock.

Aeitus was raised by Huns.  Stilicho's father was a Vandal.  Aegidius led predominantly Frankish armies.  Majorian's forces were a veritable rainbow coalition of the barbarian world.

So I guess you are voting Barbarian?

I didn't vote. You do get a Ed Anger hug for knowing that stuff though.

I haven't taken my shower today though.

[Admiral Yi]

Aeitus was raised by Huns.  Stilicho's father was a Vandal.  Aegidius led predominantly Frankish armies.  Majorian's forces were a veritable rainbow coalition of the barbarian world.

So I guess you are voting Barbarian?

I call foul.  The Roman Empire from the very beginning was assimilationist.  Romanness was a function of shared cultural values, not of belonging to the proper gene pool.

[Ed Anger]

Aeitus was raised by Huns.  Stilicho's father was a Vandal.  Aegidius led predominantly Frankish armies.  Majorian's forces were a veritable rainbow coalition of the barbarian world.

So I guess you are voting Barbarian?

I call foul.  The Roman Empire from the very beginning was assimilationist.  Romanness was a function of shared cultural values, not of belonging to the proper gene pool.

And Stilicho lost his life during the Empire's anti German purge in 408(I THINK. going on memory). Which weakened the army enough to allow Alaric to break into Italy and sack Rome. Honorius sure wasn't going to do jack shit about Alaric. He was too busy playing with his chicken behind the walls of Ravenna.

[Syt]

Recommended reading on topic:

Fall of the West by Adrian Goldsworthy.

[The Minsky Moment]

Aeitus was raised by Huns.  Stilicho's father was a Vandal.  Aegidius led predominantly Frankish armies.  Majorian's forces were a veritable rainbow coalition of the barbarian world.

So I guess you are voting Barbarian?

I call foul.  The Roman Empire from the very beginning was assimilationist.  Romanness was a function of shared cultural values, not of belonging to the proper gene pool.

I agree but you are calling foul on the entire premise of your poll that there is a clear dialectical opposition between "Roman" and "Barbarian".  The Franks of the Late Empire for example were pretty reliable imperial allies for much of the period and wanted to carve a place for themselves within the imperial structure.   Theodoric was a Roman in any cultural sense that matters and his kingdom was just as Roman (if not more so) than the regimes of the later emperors - even down to the legal fiction of accepting appointment as the Eastern Emperor's magister militum and election to the consulate.

[The Brain]

The important part of Roman history is the Early Republic.

[garbon]

Recommended reading on topic:

Fall of the West by Adrian Goldsworthy.

I have that book though apparently title was changed for US.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Rome-Fell-Death-Superpower/dp/0300164262

[Syt]

The Inheritance of Rome (Europe 600-1000) makes for good follow up reading, though.

[garbon]

The Inheritance of Rome (Europe 600-1000) makes for good follow up reading, though.

Peter Heather's two books are nice adjuncts as well:

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe

[Maladict]

The Inheritance of Rome (Europe 600-1000) makes for good follow up reading, though.

Peter Heather's two books are nice adjuncts as well:

The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe

I'd say those three are better than Goldsworthy's.

[Admiral Yi]

I agree but you are calling foul on the entire premise of your poll that there is a clear dialectical opposition between "Roman" and "Barbarian".  The Franks of the Late Empire for example were pretty reliable imperial allies for much of the period and wanted to carve a place for themselves within the imperial structure.   Theodoric was a Roman in any cultural sense that matters and his kingdom was just as Roman (if not more so) than the regimes of the later emperors - even down to the legal fiction of accepting appointment as the Eastern Emperor's magister militum and election to the consulate.

The examples you are citing are from the time when the Western Empire had been reduced to a rump state.  Up until that time it was clear who was who.  When the Visigoths attacked the Vandals and Alans that didn't make them Roman, that made them temporary allies of Rome.

On the Heather note, this poll was prompted by my purchase and reading of the 2nd book mentioned.  I think the book fails.  Incredibly repetitious.  Could have been compressed to 150 pages.

[Queequeg]

Just curious-does anyone else kind of associate themselves with the side they "look like"?  My father is medium height, big nose, broad-shouldered, (had) curly dark-brown hair, fairly thick beard with a lot of body hair.  I'm very tall, blonde, medium-width, massively long limbs, shit beard.  I feel like a Saxon, even though I'm pretty sure my dad (at least as far as phenotype is concerned) is about as purely pre-Germanic as you would get.

[katmai]

Woah déjà vu.

[The Brain]

Just curious-does anyone else kind of associate themselves with the side they "look like"?  My father is medium height, big nose, broad-shouldered, (had) curly dark-brown hair, fairly thick beard with a lot of body hair.  I'm very tall, blonde, medium-width, massively long limbs, shit beard.  I feel like a Saxon, even though I'm pretty sure my dad (at least as far as phenotype is concerned) is about as purely pre-Germanic as you would get.

Do you ever think about anything that isn't race?