In about a page, please react to the documentary we watched in class tonight, History of the Middle Ages. What did you learn? Anything new or interesting about this time period in world history?
Romans adapted to Barbarian technology. They used the Barbarian techniques especially in bows and arrows. They went to war with bows and arrows.
They were buried with their horses, they had deep relationships with their horses. The horses provided much transportation and horseback archers were not uncommon.
They deformed the skulls deliberately, because they tried to be like the hungs. The hungs were more powerful so they tried to imitate them.
The hungs left behind little evidence that they existed, like they were practically invisible. They didn’t leave much artifacts behind.
The romans removed barbarian evidence in the temple of light.
The Barbarians were a mysterious race because finding any history on them was hard. They have found many things that link to their race, but nothing that tells where they came from. Their weapons were advanced much more than other civilized cultures. How they managed to create these without having an established home is remarkable. The guy in the story set out to devote his life to finding out where the Barbarians came from and to try to understand their way of life. Some artifacts they found were all linked to be around many cities they have traveled. The Barbarians were a different form of race. Their skulls were deformed to a different shape than other humans had. It kinda makes me think that somehow that had to do with their knowledge of many things. They could go out to Roman cities and defeat them, when their teachings aren’t anywhere on record. How they can be skilled enough to defeat armies that were brought up to fight still amazes me. They managed to pass into Rome easily by walking across the river when it was frozen.
Huns, Vandals and Goths…destroyed Rome, but the question was: Were they really the barbarians that Romans made them out to be? That was the question that was posed, and I think the answer is a resounding no. Different values do not make a different society bad or wrong. The head banding, while different in Europe can be compared to that of Native Americans, as a sign of beauty is interesting in itself.
Covering up Theoderic’s murals in the cathedral is another thing that made me think about the amount of work that it would take to maintain the original art while still censoring it is staggering. Why would someone go to such great lengths to do something like that?
The difficulty in researching this material is that history is written by the victors, and while they were overcome by the Barbarians, the Roman version of events is the only one to survive. The narrator understood this and undertook a very long journey covering many miles to uncover any evidence to get the real story, or as best he could.
Before watching this documentary I never really gave much thought to the possibility of our view of the Barbarians being slanted by the feelings of the Romans. Even today we view different cultures through lenses of prejudice for one reason or another, and it is really a disservice to humankind to write history while looking through those lenses. I find it extremely fascinating when someone tries to break through those perceptions like the anthropologist in the film. I enjoy reading and learning about history, but I enjoy it even more when someone goes against the grain and tries to dig even deeper for the real truth of a historical period, it makes the whole thing seem less perfect, less glossy, and makes it more accessible to the everyday person because it shows reality.
Getting back on topic, I think it’s interesting that the Barbarians may have contributed art and culture to the world but it was modified and covered up and passed off as someone else’s. The portion about the Palace of Theodric was really fascinating. It’s a very obvious example of a cover-up with the mosaics. I think the Romans didn’t want people to know that the Barbarians were capable of creating art of that magnitude, they wanted to portray the Barbarians in as negative a light as they could. It doesn’t surprise me at all that this happened, cultures all across the world have covered up and altered and destroyed art from rival cultures all throughout history.
I knew before watching this about the Rhine freezing over and giving the Goths and Vandals a bridge to cross over into Roman territory, but I didn’t know that Rome had an inland naval force to try and combat this crossing. I would imagine that Rome wasn’t expecting a river of that size to ever freeze over rendering their boats useless though. It makes me wonder if the Barbarian tribes had ever launched any boats against the Roman defenses along the Rhine. It doesn’t seem like Rome would expend the resources to construct a navy for that area if there wasn’t a threat on the water, any threat of crossing could be met on land by normal troops.
Hadrian’s Wall has always intrigued me, its purpose and actual execution will probably never be known for sure. Whenever we see a wall we automatically think about something being built to keep someone or something on one side with you on the other for safety reasons, but I think it’s pretty obvious that the Romans built it just as much to show off. They were trying to flex their muscles and impress the population in that area. At the time, Britain was the far northern reach of the Roman Empire, most Roman citizens that lived in the area and fought and died for the Empire never got anywhere near Rome but had a great amount of loyalty to the ideals. I think that Hadrian’s Wall invited the Barbarians as much as repelled them, maybe the people that lived on the wall established some sort of relationship with the people on the other side and were amicable with them as long as they didn’t attack.
The author/host makes a number of points about the influence of eurasian tribesman on European culture. He does show a few tantalizing archeological finds which seem to support his opinions, but these alone do not provide enough evidence. Really, this is a tough argument when you consider the fact that all of the peoples he talks about were nomadic. These types of cultures rarely leave artifacts of any size or substance other than burial sites, one of which he does give a glimpse of. My problem with his argument is that he lists the Huns, Vandals and the Goths and only at the end and then only with Theodoric the Ostrogoth king. I suppose his argument would be more effective if he could have had a few more examples of Theodoric’s kind of benign leadership, unfortunately history doesn’t provide that, and I guess we are lucky that any evidence of Theodoric or his reign is extant.
This documentary opened my eyes to a different view on Barbarians. All through my life I have been exposed to material showing Barbarians as Barbaric, they would move in and conquer for the fun of it, be ruthless and merciless toward whomever they encountered. This author/speaker provided an alternate view, describing the Barbarian cultures as their own unique civilization that had the same aspirations as the Romans did. The three major Barbarian cultures spoke about in the film were the Goths, Huns, and Vandals. Each of these three civilizations had unique traditions and cultures that they brought with them as they moved from the far East to the West. The Vandals were described as a large community of nomadic people that valued gold and artifacts over land and power. They were some of the first to destroy Roman cities and take what they wanted then move on. The Huns had the same desires the Romans originally held, to conquer and control as much as possible. However, some cultures saw the Huns as role models, desiring to be just like the Huns by even manipulating there own physical structures. The Goths were even more like the Romans in relation to their development of architecture and in some ways religious traditions. However, the Goths were a lot more tolerant of different religions, even to the point of holding services right next to each other in order to hear what each other was talking about. The Goths were in ways more advanced and “mature” than Roman societies, which may have been the reason they were almost erased from history. All three of these cultures are hard to trace today because of several reasons; the Vandals and Huns took everything with them, leaving no trace of who they were, the Goths were almost erased from history because some other major cultures felt threatened by them.
Almost everyone is taught that the Romans considered Barbarians as evil but looking at the larger picture Romans were Barbarians in their own way
This documentary starts out by saying Barbarians being like hells angels was propaganda in history. There history was written in the dark ages on stone carvings. These carvings mainly on tomb stones, they also found that a lot of Romans where born barbarians. The barbarians where very skilled with bows, and perfected them immensely. They used bone to strengthen their bows so they would not break as easily. Romans were known for the map making, while barbarians couldn’t be traced to any maps. They also found skulls that were misshapen due to wrapping at birth. This was to mimic the style of the stronger. The history is skew since only the leaders seem to have the ability to have the stories written down.
The documentary gave me a new view on Barbarians. I was use to how Barbarians were portrayed in movies. They had animalistic like behavior and was very savage in nature. They would kill and wipe out other groups of people who got in the way of the things they wanted. They had brute strength and displayed little logic. The documentary showed me that they were like any other group of people. They just value things differently than other cultures. (The Romans) Yes, they seemed barbaric when they were in war but the guy in the documentary showed that they displayed a cultured and more civilized nature too. They had one group of barbarians that were called the Huns. Huns reminded me the most of the movies that portrayed barbarians because of their power but the documentary showed that they seemed to have pride, intellect, and were imitated by other groups. They created weapons that were very accurate even when riding on horses. The technology was so impressive that the Romans used the Barbarian technology. They showed pride and compassion for the lost of comrades and great leaders by burying them with their horse and a specially made bow that wasn’t even made for fighting. They also showed that they can strategize and wait for the best opportunity to do things. This was displayed when the barbarians beat the Romans. If they were so barbaric why didn’t just rush in against such a fine and powerful army/navy. They waited to wait to the river to freeze over which immobilized the Roman fleet and enable them to walk across the ice to take over Rome. Lucky for Rome they didn’t stay there forever because the barbarians burned and tore down Rome and left when resources were gone. When Romans returned they erase whatever they could from history about the barbarians. They left some things like temples and things of artistic nature and just erase what they could about the barbarians. The reason we don’t know that much about barbarians is because most of the stuff written about them is from a group that they beat in war. Barbarians did not document their daily lives like other civilization. There is still a lot to be learned about the mystery of the barbarians.
It interests me to see how “rare” it was to find a sword in the fields due to how close the Romans looked after their weapons. They did find bow and arrows, it was cool to see the ability to shoot your bow from a moving horse and hit a target, which I do every day. Their horses were just as much a part of them as a leg or an arm. I enjoyed the peace where they found ship parts in 1980 while excavating for a bridge, the ships once guarded the premises twice a day. The best part and the last part I saw before leaving class was the Dark Age’s grave yard and how they found 166 skeletons, some with miss shaped heads. The skulls were misshaped at childhood, deliberately! They would tie the skull up, and depending on how tight the knot was resulted in how miss shaped the skull turned out. They did this to make their children look like Huns. The Huns dropped or left gold covered horses in the direction of travel, just happens to be a curve That’s all I saw, different insight on The Dark Age’s Albert Hofmann out…
This movies discuss how the barbarians conquer Roman City which was known as the start of the Dark Ages. When I think about the Dark Ages, I think this time as a very ignorance time for man kind because it was the rebirth of paganism and irrational thinking. After viewing this movie it seen as the Roman were tried to cover their embarrassment of being defeated by people they considered below their intelligent. At that time being a Roman citizen gave a person great prestige. Many people from foreign land join the Roman Army to become Roman citizen, even people that were considered barbarians. Most of the history record from this time period was written by Romans and their allies, so this history reflect the conquering groups such as Goths, Huns, and Vandals as ignorance and savage barbarians. These group help developed modern Europe by provide culture and technology. A large number of Vandals cross the river Rhine, one cold and frozen night in December AD 406. They surprised the Romans and breached the Frontier at Mainz. The Roman defenses would not stop them pouring into Gaul for months. The border had been weakened as a year previous the Roman General Flavius Stilicho (his background was a Vandal) had been forced to collect some Roman soldiers posted along the Rhine, in order to defend Rome from the Goth King Alaric and his army. With the Roman frontier breached, many hundreds of thousands of barbarians settled in Gaul, various barbarian bands roamed unchecked across large parts of Gaul for two and half years. It was the worst ravaging of Gaul than ever before. Finally the two branches of the Vandals (Siling and Asding), as well as the Suebi and Alans, crossed the Pyrenees into Spain after being defeated by the Franks in battle and being harassed by the Goths (Visigoths). Within two years of being in Spain, the various conquering tribes dividing up their spoils, apparently by lot, the Siling Vandals and Alans taking the richest area, Baetica in the south, while the Asdings and Suebi took the north – Galicia. The Goths challenge Roman and one of their great leaders, (King Flavius Theodoricus), took over a Roman city in Northern Italy called Ravenna. King Theodoricus ruled over Ravenna for 33 years and provide great culture from architect to arts. King Theodorics had an Arian-Catholic Church built called San Apollinare Nuovo, it was beautiful design building. When you walk inside the church it glitter like gold from the mosaic art that was display in the building. The Goths were expert using glass and stone to make mosaic arts. After the Romans retook the city, they tried to hide the fact the city was ruled by a Goths king. The Romans cover all images of King Theodorics and his staff, until only thing that was left was one coin with King Theodorics image and Mausoleum of Theodoric. The Huns were an early confederation of Central Asian equestrian nomads or semi-nomads. The Huns great leader was Attila the Hun, and from his home based in Hungry, Attila the Hun attack Roman cities. Since the Huns were great equestrian they could cover 1500 miles in a week plunder many Roman cities. The made small golden statue of horse and these horse have been found from Hungry to east Siberia, which large amount of territory the Huns covered. The Huns were great warriors they developed bow and arrows that could be acutely, easily, and quickly shot while riding a horse. The Romans adopted the Huns’ bow and arrows into the Roman Army arsenal. The Huns presented or buried great leader with golden bow, as symbol of honor because the bow could not be use as a weapon in a battle. Learning to fight while riding horse gave the Huns a great advantage over their enemies and made the Huns look very furious. Out of great respect for the Huns some European parents tried to make their children look like the Huns, by tighten bandages made of leather around the child’s head, which reshape the skull. Evidence of the deform skulls were found in an Austrian ancient bury site. I thought the barbarians only destroy the people and culture of the ancient cities at that time, but they provide some great culture exchanges. The barbarians’ culture helped developed Europe from ancient time to present.
Posted by Robert at 2:34 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, September 11, 2007 Day 2 Blog Entry
My Bullet Statement is “The Greek intellectual triumph in the arts, philosophy, and science and its effects.”
In the last half of the fifth century B.C.E. Pericles turned Athens into the showplace of Greece by turning the Acroplis into a monument of all time. The temple was built to commemorate the victory over the Persians, and the Ionic frieze above it Doric columns depicted the struggle between the Greeks and Persians. In many ways the Athenian Acropolis is the epitome of Greek art and it spirit. Although the buildings were dedicated to the gods and most of the sculptures portrayed gods, these works nonetheless express the Greek fascination with human and the rational. Greek deities were anthropomorphic, and Greek artist portrayed them as human beings. While honoring the gods, Greek artist were thus celebrating human beings. They captured the noblest aspects of human beings: their reason, dignity, and promise. The development of drama was tied to the religious festivals of the city. The Athenian dramatists were the first artist in Western society to examine such basic questions as the rights of the individual, the demands of society on the individual, and the nature of good and evil. Conflict is a constant element in Athenian drama. The dramatists used their art to portray, understand, and resolve life’s basic conflicts. There were three great Athenian Dramatists. Aeschylus was the first great dramatist, who first expresses the agony of the individual caught in a conflict. In his trilogy of plays, The Oresteia, Aeschylus deals with the themes of betrayal, murder, and reconciliation, urging that reason and justice be applied to reconcile fundamental conflicts. Sophocles the second great dramatist, also dealt with matters personal and political. In Antigone he expresses the precedence of divine law over human defects and touches on the need for recognition of the adherence to it’s as a prerequisite for a tranquil state. Euripides the third great dramatist also explored the theme of personal conflict within the polis and sounded the depths of the individual. With Euripides drama entered a new, and in many ways more personal, phase entered. To him the gods were far less important than human beings. The essence of Euripides’ tragedy is flawed character-men and women who bring disaster on themselves and their loved ones because their passions overwhelm reason. The signal achievement of the Greeks was the willingness of some to treat questions about the origin of the universe and of humankind in rational rather than mythological terms. Although Greek philosophy did not fully flower until the classical period, Ionian thinkers had already begun to ask what the universe was made of. These men are called the Pre-Socratics for their work preceded the philosophical revolution begun by the Athenian Socrates. Taking individual facts, they concluded, the universe was actually simple and subject to natural laws. Drawing on their observations, they speculated about the basic building blocks of the universe. The first of these Pre-Socratic thinkers, Thales, he believes that natural phenomena could be explained in natural terms. He sought a basic element of the universe from which all else sprang. He surmised that it was water. Although he was wrong, the way in which he asked the question was momentous it was the beginning of the scientific method. Anaximander was the first to use general concepts, which are essential to abstract thought. He concluded that the basic element of the universe was the “boundless”- something infinite and indestructible. Heraclitus declared the primal element to be fire, which is ever changing and eternal. Democritus created the atomic theory that the universe is made up of invisible, indestructible particles. The culmination of the PRE-Socratic thought was the theory that four simple substances make up the universe: fire, air, earth and water. The philosophers of the classical period ventured into new areas of speculation. This was partly due to the work of Hippocrates, the father of medicine. Hippocrates sought natural explanations for natural phenomena. Basing his opinion on empirical knowledge, he taught that natural means could be employed to fight disease. The Sophists all agreed that human beings were the subject of the study of philosophy. They laid great emphasis on logic and the meaning of words. In essence, they argued that nothing is absolute, that everything is relative. Socrates spent his life in investigation and definition. Socrates shared the Sophists’ belief that human beings and their environment are the essential subjects of philosophical inquiry. His approach when posing ethical question and defining concepts was to start with a general topic or problem and to narrow the matter to its essentials. Most people rightly believe think of Plato as a philosopher. Yet his writings were also literary essays of great charm. Plato tried to show that a life of ignorance was wretched. From education, he believed, came the possibility of determining an all-comprising unity of virtues that would lead to an intelligent, moral and ethical life. Plato developed the theory that all visible, tangible things are unreal and temporary, copies of “forms” or “ideas” that are constant and indestructible. Only the mind, not the senses can perceive eternal forms. Plato’s view the highest form is the idea of good. Aristotle’s thought is staggering. Everything in human experience was fit subject for his inquiry. In Politics and else, Aristotle stressed moderation, concluding that the balance of the ideal state depend on people of talent and education who could avoid extremes. Aristotle was both a philosopher and a scientist. He became increasingly interested in the observation and explanation of natural phenomena. He used logic as his method of scientific discussion, and he attempted to bridge the gap that Plato had created between abstract truth and concrete perception. Aristotle’s god was without purpose. Yet for him scientific endeavor, the highest attainable form of living, reached the divine.
I learn what I always thought to be true. The pen is mightier than the sword. The people of the middle ages who documented the events wrote it put there society in the light so to speak. I suspect that the so call barbarians were just as cultured and refine. I see it as is happens today we judge people by our standards. I ask the question that is more sophisticated those who have nice things or those who can survive in any situation. I found the so called barbarians to be fascinating. The Roman Empire was blind to the ways. They had the commodities and wealth and culture but bite off more than they could chew. Their vast lands made them a victim of their own design. They died by the sword, the same way they engulfed the people of the surrounding lands. Whereas, in stark contrast, the barbarians kept no land of their own. This means they had no land any enemy could concur. To me Hahn’s and Mongolians had very organized culture.
The movie was actually kind of interesting. Barbarians were said to have destroyed Rome,when all actuality most of the Roman soldiers were Barbarians. Latin was the center of the Roman education. The romans adopted to Barbarian technology, one thing they adopted was the barbarian use of bow and arrows for war. Archery came to Rome from the East. Today we know more about the Romans than we do about the Barbarians because the Barbarians didn't leave anything behind. It was like they were invisible. Skeletons have been found, and from the remains it showed that they were buried with their horses. The barbarian Dark ages began in 406. The movies also talked about the hunds. The came from the west. The Huns were believed to be so rich and everyone wanted to be like them. The Romans Deliberately tied the heads of their babies to deform their skulls so they could be like the huns. The Huns carried and buried their culture with them thats why we don't really know much about them or their culture. The romans were so threatened by Barbarian culture that they removed it from the Temple of lights.
12 comments:
Romans adapted to Barbarian technology. They used the Barbarian techniques especially in bows and arrows. They went to war with bows and arrows.
They were buried with their horses, they had deep relationships with their horses. The horses provided much transportation and horseback archers were not uncommon.
They deformed the skulls deliberately, because they tried to be like the hungs. The hungs were more powerful so they tried to imitate them.
The hungs left behind little evidence that they existed, like they were practically invisible. They didn’t leave much artifacts behind.
The romans removed barbarian evidence in the temple of light.
The Barbarians were a mysterious race because finding any history on them was hard. They have found many things that link to their race, but nothing that tells where they came from. Their weapons were advanced much more than other civilized cultures. How they managed to create these without having an established home is remarkable.
The guy in the story set out to devote his life to finding out where the Barbarians came from and to try to understand their way of life. Some artifacts they found were all linked to be around many cities they have traveled.
The Barbarians were a different form of race. Their skulls were deformed to a different shape than other humans had. It kinda makes me think that somehow that had to do with their knowledge of many things. They could go out to Roman cities and defeat them, when their teachings aren’t anywhere on record. How they can be skilled enough to defeat armies that were brought up to fight still amazes me. They managed to pass into Rome easily by walking across the river when it was frozen.
Huns, Vandals and Goths…destroyed Rome, but the question was: Were they really the barbarians that Romans made them out to be? That was the question that was posed, and I think the answer is a resounding no. Different values do not make a different society bad or wrong. The head banding, while different in Europe can be compared to that of Native Americans, as a sign of beauty is interesting in itself.
Covering up Theoderic’s murals in the cathedral is another thing that made me think about the amount of work that it would take to maintain the original art while still censoring it is staggering. Why would someone go to such great lengths to do something like that?
The difficulty in researching this material is that history is written by the victors, and while they were overcome by the Barbarians, the Roman version of events is the only one to survive. The narrator understood this and undertook a very long journey covering many miles to uncover any evidence to get the real story, or as best he could.
Before watching this documentary I never really gave much thought to the possibility of our view of the Barbarians being slanted by the feelings of the Romans. Even today we view different cultures through lenses of prejudice for one reason or another, and it is really a disservice to humankind to write history while looking through those lenses. I find it extremely fascinating when someone tries to break through those perceptions like the anthropologist in the film. I enjoy reading and learning about history, but I enjoy it even more when someone goes against the grain and tries to dig even deeper for the real truth of a historical period, it makes the whole thing seem less perfect, less glossy, and makes it more accessible to the everyday person because it shows reality.
Getting back on topic, I think it’s interesting that the Barbarians may have contributed art and culture to the world but it was modified and covered up and passed off as someone else’s. The portion about the Palace of Theodric was really fascinating. It’s a very obvious example of a cover-up with the mosaics. I think the Romans didn’t want people to know that the Barbarians were capable of creating art of that magnitude, they wanted to portray the Barbarians in as negative a light as they could. It doesn’t surprise me at all that this happened, cultures all across the world have covered up and altered and destroyed art from rival cultures all throughout history.
I knew before watching this about the Rhine freezing over and giving the Goths and Vandals a bridge to cross over into Roman territory, but I didn’t know that Rome had an inland naval force to try and combat this crossing. I would imagine that Rome wasn’t expecting a river of that size to ever freeze over rendering their boats useless though. It makes me wonder if the Barbarian tribes had ever launched any boats against the Roman defenses along the Rhine. It doesn’t seem like Rome would expend the resources to construct a navy for that area if there wasn’t a threat on the water, any threat of crossing could be met on land by normal troops.
Hadrian’s Wall has always intrigued me, its purpose and actual execution will probably never be known for sure. Whenever we see a wall we automatically think about something being built to keep someone or something on one side with you on the other for safety reasons, but I think it’s pretty obvious that the Romans built it just as much to show off. They were trying to flex their muscles and impress the population in that area. At the time, Britain was the far northern reach of the Roman Empire, most Roman citizens that lived in the area and fought and died for the Empire never got anywhere near Rome but had a great amount of loyalty to the ideals. I think that Hadrian’s Wall invited the Barbarians as much as repelled them, maybe the people that lived on the wall established some sort of relationship with the people on the other side and were amicable with them as long as they didn’t attack.
The author/host makes a number of points about the influence of eurasian tribesman on European culture. He does show a few tantalizing archeological finds which seem to support his opinions, but these alone do not provide enough evidence. Really, this is a tough argument when you consider the fact that all of the peoples he talks about were nomadic. These types of cultures rarely leave artifacts of any size or substance other than burial sites, one of which he does give a glimpse of. My problem with his argument is that he lists the Huns, Vandals and the Goths and only at the end and then only with Theodoric the Ostrogoth king. I suppose his argument would be more effective if he could have had a few more examples of Theodoric’s kind of benign leadership, unfortunately history doesn’t provide that, and I guess we are lucky that any evidence of Theodoric or his reign is extant.
This documentary opened my eyes to a different view on Barbarians. All through my life I have been exposed to material showing Barbarians as Barbaric, they would move in and conquer for the fun of it, be ruthless and merciless toward whomever they encountered. This author/speaker provided an alternate view, describing the Barbarian cultures as their own unique civilization that had the same aspirations as the Romans did. The three major Barbarian cultures spoke about in the film were the Goths, Huns, and Vandals. Each of these three civilizations had unique traditions and cultures that they brought with them as they moved from the far East to the West. The Vandals were described as a large community of nomadic people that valued gold and artifacts over land and power. They were some of the first to destroy Roman cities and take what they wanted then move on. The Huns had the same desires the Romans originally held, to conquer and control as much as possible. However, some cultures saw the Huns as role models, desiring to be just like the Huns by even manipulating there own physical structures. The Goths were even more like the Romans in relation to their development of architecture and in some ways religious traditions. However, the Goths were a lot more tolerant of different religions, even to the point of holding services right next to each other in order to hear what each other was talking about. The Goths were in ways more advanced and “mature” than Roman societies, which may have been the reason they were almost erased from history. All three of these cultures are hard to trace today because of several reasons; the Vandals and Huns took everything with them, leaving no trace of who they were, the Goths were almost erased from history because some other major cultures felt threatened by them.
Almost everyone is taught that the Romans considered Barbarians as evil but looking at the larger picture Romans were Barbarians in their own way
This documentary starts out by saying Barbarians being like hells angels was propaganda in history. There history was written in the dark ages on stone carvings. These carvings mainly on tomb stones, they also found that a lot of Romans where born barbarians. The barbarians where very skilled with bows, and perfected them immensely. They used bone to strengthen their bows so they would not break as easily. Romans were known for the map making, while barbarians couldn’t be traced to any maps. They also found skulls that were misshapen due to wrapping at birth. This was to mimic the style of the stronger. The history is skew since only the leaders seem to have the ability to have the stories written down.
The documentary gave me a new view on Barbarians. I was use to how Barbarians were portrayed in movies. They had animalistic like behavior and was very savage in nature. They would kill and wipe out other groups of people who got in the way of the things they wanted. They had brute strength and displayed little logic. The documentary showed me that they were like any other group of people. They just value things differently than other cultures. (The Romans) Yes, they seemed barbaric when they were in war but the guy in the documentary showed that they displayed a cultured and more civilized nature too. They had one group of barbarians that were called the Huns. Huns reminded me the most of the movies that portrayed barbarians because of their power but the documentary showed that they seemed to have pride, intellect, and were imitated by other groups. They created weapons that were very accurate even when riding on horses. The technology was so impressive that the Romans used the Barbarian technology. They showed pride and compassion for the lost of comrades and great leaders by burying them with their horse and a specially made bow that wasn’t even made for fighting. They also showed that they can strategize and wait for the best opportunity to do things. This was displayed when the barbarians beat the Romans. If they were so barbaric why didn’t just rush in against such a fine and powerful army/navy. They waited to wait to the river to freeze over which immobilized the Roman fleet and enable them to walk across the ice to take over Rome. Lucky for Rome they didn’t stay there forever because the barbarians burned and tore down Rome and left when resources were gone. When Romans returned they erase whatever they could from history about the barbarians. They left some things like temples and things of artistic nature and just erase what they could about the barbarians.
The reason we don’t know that much about barbarians is because most of the stuff written about them is from a group that they beat in war. Barbarians did not document their daily lives like other civilization. There is still a lot to be learned about the mystery of the barbarians.
It interests me to see how “rare” it was to find a sword in the fields due to how close the Romans looked after their weapons. They did find bow and arrows, it was cool to see the ability to shoot your bow from a moving horse and hit a target, which I do every day. Their horses were just as much a part of them as a leg or an arm. I enjoyed the peace where they found ship parts in 1980 while excavating for a bridge, the ships once guarded the premises twice a day.
The best part and the last part I saw before leaving class was the Dark Age’s grave yard and how they found 166 skeletons, some with miss shaped heads. The skulls were misshaped at childhood, deliberately! They would tie the skull up, and depending on how tight the knot was resulted in how miss shaped the skull turned out. They did this to make their children look like Huns.
The Huns dropped or left gold covered horses in the direction of travel, just happens to be a curve
That’s all I saw, different insight on The Dark Age’s
Albert Hofmann out…
Secrets of the Dark Ages
This movies discuss how the barbarians conquer Roman City which was known as the start of the Dark Ages. When I think about the Dark Ages, I think this time as a very ignorance time for man kind because it was the rebirth of paganism and irrational thinking. After viewing this movie it seen as the Roman were tried to cover their embarrassment of being defeated by people they considered below their intelligent.
At that time being a Roman citizen gave a person great prestige. Many people from foreign land join the Roman Army to become Roman citizen, even people that were considered barbarians.
Most of the history record from this time period was written by Romans and their allies, so this history reflect the conquering groups such as Goths, Huns, and Vandals as ignorance and savage barbarians. These group help developed modern Europe by provide culture and technology.
A large number of Vandals cross the river Rhine, one cold and frozen night in December AD 406. They surprised the Romans and breached the Frontier at Mainz. The Roman defenses would not stop them pouring into Gaul for months. The border had been weakened as a year previous the Roman General Flavius Stilicho (his background was a Vandal) had been forced to collect some Roman soldiers posted along the Rhine, in order to defend Rome from the Goth King Alaric and his army. With the Roman frontier breached, many hundreds of thousands of barbarians settled in Gaul, various barbarian bands roamed unchecked across large parts of Gaul for two and half years. It was the worst ravaging of Gaul than ever before. Finally the two branches of the Vandals (Siling and Asding), as well as the Suebi and Alans, crossed the Pyrenees into Spain after being defeated by the Franks in battle and being harassed by the Goths (Visigoths). Within two years of being in Spain, the various conquering tribes dividing up their spoils, apparently by lot, the Siling Vandals and Alans taking the richest area, Baetica in the south, while the Asdings and Suebi took the north – Galicia.
The Goths challenge Roman and one of their great leaders, (King Flavius Theodoricus), took over a Roman city in Northern Italy called Ravenna. King Theodoricus ruled over Ravenna for 33 years and provide great culture from architect to arts. King Theodorics had an Arian-Catholic Church built called San Apollinare Nuovo, it was beautiful design building. When you walk inside the church it glitter like gold from the mosaic art that was display in the building. The Goths were expert using glass and stone to make mosaic arts. After the Romans retook the city, they tried to hide the fact the city was ruled by a Goths king. The Romans cover all images of King Theodorics and his staff, until only thing that was left was one coin with King Theodorics image and Mausoleum of Theodoric.
The Huns were an early confederation of Central Asian equestrian nomads or semi-nomads. The Huns great leader was Attila the Hun, and from his home based in Hungry, Attila the Hun attack Roman cities. Since the Huns were great equestrian they could cover 1500 miles in a week plunder many Roman cities. The made small golden statue of horse and these horse have been found from Hungry to east Siberia, which large amount of territory the Huns covered. The Huns were great warriors they developed bow and arrows that could be acutely, easily, and quickly shot while riding a horse. The Romans adopted the Huns’ bow and arrows into the Roman Army arsenal. The Huns presented or buried great leader with golden bow, as symbol of honor because the bow could not be use as a weapon in a battle. Learning to fight while riding horse gave the Huns a great advantage over their enemies and made the Huns look very furious. Out of great respect for the Huns some European parents tried to make their children look like the Huns, by tighten bandages made of leather around the child’s head, which reshape the skull. Evidence of the deform skulls were found in an Austrian ancient bury site.
I thought the barbarians only destroy the people and culture of the ancient cities at that time, but they provide some great culture exchanges. The barbarians’ culture helped developed Europe from ancient time to present.
Posted by Robert at 2:34 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Day 2 Blog Entry
My Bullet Statement is “The Greek intellectual triumph in the arts, philosophy, and science and its effects.”
In the last half of the fifth century B.C.E. Pericles turned Athens into the showplace of Greece by turning the Acroplis into a monument of all time. The temple was built to commemorate the victory over the Persians, and the Ionic frieze above it Doric columns depicted the struggle between the Greeks and Persians.
In many ways the Athenian Acropolis is the epitome of Greek art and it spirit. Although the buildings were dedicated to the gods and most of the sculptures portrayed gods, these works nonetheless express the Greek fascination with human and the rational. Greek deities were anthropomorphic, and Greek artist portrayed them as human beings. While honoring the gods, Greek artist were thus celebrating human beings. They captured the noblest aspects of human beings: their reason, dignity, and promise.
The development of drama was tied to the religious festivals of the city. The Athenian dramatists were the first artist in Western society to examine such basic questions as the rights of the individual, the demands of society on the individual, and the nature of good and evil. Conflict is a constant element in Athenian drama. The dramatists used their art to portray, understand, and resolve life’s basic conflicts. There were three great Athenian Dramatists.
Aeschylus was the first great dramatist, who first expresses the agony of the individual caught in a conflict. In his trilogy of plays, The Oresteia, Aeschylus deals with the themes of betrayal, murder, and reconciliation, urging that reason and justice be applied to reconcile fundamental conflicts.
Sophocles the second great dramatist, also dealt with matters personal and political. In Antigone he expresses the precedence of divine law over human defects and touches on the need for recognition of the adherence to it’s as a prerequisite for a tranquil state.
Euripides the third great dramatist also explored the theme of personal conflict within the polis and sounded the depths of the individual. With Euripides drama entered a new, and in many ways more personal, phase entered. To him the gods were far less important than human beings. The essence of Euripides’ tragedy is flawed character-men and women who bring disaster on themselves and their loved ones because their passions overwhelm reason.
The signal achievement of the Greeks was the willingness of some to treat questions about the origin of the universe and of humankind in rational rather than mythological terms. Although Greek philosophy did not fully flower until the classical period, Ionian thinkers had already begun to ask what the universe was made of. These men are called the Pre-Socratics for their work preceded the philosophical revolution begun by the Athenian Socrates. Taking individual facts, they concluded, the universe was actually simple and subject to natural laws. Drawing on their observations, they speculated about the basic building blocks of the universe. The first of these Pre-Socratic thinkers, Thales, he believes that natural phenomena could be explained in natural terms. He sought a basic element of the universe from which all else sprang. He surmised that it was water. Although he was wrong, the way in which he asked the question was momentous it was the beginning of the scientific method. Anaximander was the first to use general concepts, which are essential to abstract thought. He concluded that the basic element of the universe was the “boundless”- something infinite and indestructible. Heraclitus declared the primal element to be fire, which is ever changing and eternal. Democritus created the atomic theory that the universe is made up of invisible, indestructible particles. The culmination of the PRE-Socratic thought was the theory that four simple substances make up the universe: fire, air, earth and water.
The philosophers of the classical period ventured into new areas of speculation. This was partly due to the work of Hippocrates, the father of medicine. Hippocrates sought natural explanations for natural phenomena. Basing his opinion on empirical knowledge, he taught that natural means could be employed to fight disease. The Sophists all agreed that human beings were the subject of the study of philosophy. They laid great emphasis on logic and the meaning of words. In essence, they argued that nothing is absolute, that everything is relative. Socrates spent his life in investigation and definition. Socrates shared the Sophists’ belief that human beings and their environment are the essential subjects of philosophical inquiry. His approach when posing ethical question and defining concepts was to start with a general topic or problem and to narrow the matter to its essentials. Most people rightly believe think of Plato as a philosopher. Yet his writings were also literary essays of great charm. Plato tried to show that a life of ignorance was wretched. From education, he believed, came the possibility of determining an all-comprising unity of virtues that would lead to an intelligent, moral and ethical life. Plato developed the theory that all visible, tangible things are unreal and temporary, copies of “forms” or “ideas” that are constant and indestructible. Only the mind, not the senses can perceive eternal forms. Plato’s view the highest form is the idea of good. Aristotle’s thought is staggering. Everything in human experience was fit subject for his inquiry. In Politics and else, Aristotle stressed moderation, concluding that the balance of the ideal state depend on people of talent and education who could avoid extremes. Aristotle was both a philosopher and a scientist. He became increasingly interested in the observation and explanation of natural phenomena. He used logic as his method of scientific discussion, and he attempted to bridge the gap that Plato had created between abstract truth and concrete perception. Aristotle’s god was without purpose. Yet for him scientific endeavor, the highest attainable form of living, reached the divine.
I learn what I always thought to be true. The pen is mightier than the sword. The people of the middle ages who documented the events wrote it put there society in the light so to speak. I suspect that the so call barbarians were just as cultured and refine. I see it as is happens today we judge people by our standards. I ask the question that is more sophisticated those who have nice things or those who can survive in any situation. I found the so called barbarians to be fascinating. The Roman Empire was blind to the ways. They had the commodities and wealth and culture but bite off more than they could chew. Their vast lands made them a victim of their own design. They died by the sword, the same way they engulfed the people of the surrounding lands. Whereas, in stark contrast, the barbarians kept no land of their own. This means they had no land any enemy could concur. To me Hahn’s and Mongolians had very organized culture.
The movie was actually kind of interesting. Barbarians were said to have destroyed Rome,when all actuality most of the Roman soldiers were Barbarians. Latin was the center of the Roman education. The romans adopted to Barbarian technology, one thing they adopted was the barbarian use of bow and arrows for war. Archery came to Rome from the East. Today we know more about the Romans than we do about the Barbarians because the Barbarians didn't leave anything behind. It was like they were invisible. Skeletons have been found, and from the remains it showed that they were buried with their horses. The barbarian Dark ages began in 406. The movies also talked about the hunds. The came from the west. The Huns were believed to be so rich and everyone wanted to be like them. The Romans Deliberately tied the heads of their babies to deform their skulls so they could be like the huns. The Huns carried and buried their culture with them thats why we don't really know much about them or their culture. The romans were so threatened by Barbarian culture that they removed it from the Temple of lights.
Post a Comment