04-19-2004, 05:08 AM
My field is history, and like all of you, as a Roman army and Roman civilization buff, my sympathies when I analyze historical events are often tempted to fall on the side of the subject of my study, namely Rome. Being of Italian descent only adds to this pressure. Still, we must be more responsible when we study the past, and as painful as it is for me to say this, we must be careful not to make value judgments about past civilizations. I hear much about the "tragedy" of Varus, and how Arminius was no hero, but a thug who happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right alliance...etc. To those that make these judgments I would urge caution. Whatever the merits of Roman civilization, we must understand that simply because we in the West draw much of our civilization from that of Rome and Greece, does not mean that other civilizations are somehow cosmically unworthy in comparison. The Germanic and Gallic tribes, the Parthian/Persian empire, the Greeks, Seleucid Syria and Asia Minor, the Ptolemaic Egypt, Arabia all of these people and hundreds more had civilizations which in there own way were important and "advanced". I do not aim to sell Rome short(otherwise I would not study it so) and say that their accomplishments were some how based on fortune, not do I wish to be a hypocrite and suggest that all of us should study other civilizations as we do Rome. I simply would state that these value judgments that aim to belittle civilizations that were not as pervasive as Rome's are unhelpful and unprofessional in the extreme. Yes Arminius was an opportunistic who, for political reasons, has been glorified for generations of modern Germans. Yet the existence of this website for one, is in itself a glorification of brutal, opportunistic men. Those men that rose to prominence in Roman history were cut from much of the same cloth as Arminius(geez folks compare the careers of Arminius and J Caesar, if you don't believe me), yet we in the west do not hesitate to heap praise and years of study upon them, while at the same time mocking modern Germans for coloring Arminius in a heroic light because he dared to have the gall to interrupt what some of people believe to be a "better" course of history.<br>
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The Romans were ever present in western culture my friends because, like Alexander in the east, they conquered such a large portion of it and ruled it for so many years..there was no cosmic superiority involved. Rome sought to Romanize others not for the good of the world but to make things easier for themselves. Much like the modern spread of democracy, Romans realized that by making others Roman in spirit, would make the world safer for themselves. No civilization or empire on earth is in the business of the betterment of mankind. When things are made better by empires, it is simply because we judge them to be so. Don't get my wrong, I'm not some extremist who justifies suicide bombers or advocates stopping modernization in the third world, but the judgments we must make in our world and in our lives today, must not color our analysis of ancient history. Most of the socio-political ideals and rights which we hold dear today were either rejected or simply never conceived of by the Romans and the rest of the then civilized world.And I doubt any of us today would relish living in either Varus or Arminius's worlds; nor, I suspect, would we find either of them particularly "advanced" or "civilized" when compared to our own.<br>
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The fact is that Varus and Arminius have both shaped our civilization, and to imply somehow that the world would have been better off if the Romans had conquered another "unworthy" people, is ridiculous in the extreme. The failures of Rome and its Empire did not divert mankind from some grand cosmic path leading to a more perfect world and throw us into the "dark" ages as many modern scholars suggest. No, the failure of Rome and the rise of a more "Germanic" inspired civilization in the west was simply just another building block in the bastion in which we sit on top of today. Let the Germans glorify a flawed human being who helped lead a force that stopped the most powerful Empire in the world in its tracks, just as we glorify the flawed human beings who populated the Roman Empire and its Army for centuries. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=rufuscaius>RufusCaius</A> at: 4/19/04 7:22 am<br></i>
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The Romans were ever present in western culture my friends because, like Alexander in the east, they conquered such a large portion of it and ruled it for so many years..there was no cosmic superiority involved. Rome sought to Romanize others not for the good of the world but to make things easier for themselves. Much like the modern spread of democracy, Romans realized that by making others Roman in spirit, would make the world safer for themselves. No civilization or empire on earth is in the business of the betterment of mankind. When things are made better by empires, it is simply because we judge them to be so. Don't get my wrong, I'm not some extremist who justifies suicide bombers or advocates stopping modernization in the third world, but the judgments we must make in our world and in our lives today, must not color our analysis of ancient history. Most of the socio-political ideals and rights which we hold dear today were either rejected or simply never conceived of by the Romans and the rest of the then civilized world.And I doubt any of us today would relish living in either Varus or Arminius's worlds; nor, I suspect, would we find either of them particularly "advanced" or "civilized" when compared to our own.<br>
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The fact is that Varus and Arminius have both shaped our civilization, and to imply somehow that the world would have been better off if the Romans had conquered another "unworthy" people, is ridiculous in the extreme. The failures of Rome and its Empire did not divert mankind from some grand cosmic path leading to a more perfect world and throw us into the "dark" ages as many modern scholars suggest. No, the failure of Rome and the rise of a more "Germanic" inspired civilization in the west was simply just another building block in the bastion in which we sit on top of today. Let the Germans glorify a flawed human being who helped lead a force that stopped the most powerful Empire in the world in its tracks, just as we glorify the flawed human beings who populated the Roman Empire and its Army for centuries. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub45.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=rufuscaius>RufusCaius</A> at: 4/19/04 7:22 am<br></i>
