Which enemies of Rome are seen as barbarians?

[Darth_Roach]

...and which ones aren't? I am pretty sure the Greeks were seen as a superior culture, but what about the others?

[M. Caecilius]

By us or by the Romans?

In the latter case, I believe virtually everyone non-Roman was considered a barbarian (except, as you say, the Greeks who actually came up with the word, and would have considered the Romans barbarians. I have not hard the term applied to neighbouring people (Samnites, Oscans, Etruscans, Marsians etc), but the Romans did tend to regard them as weird (especially the Marsians and Etruscans) or inferior (they had been defeated, after all, what more prove does Rome need of her superiority?).

As for people further away: The tribes and emerging states of northern Europe were certainly considered barbarians. The area of the Black Sea... well, ask Ovid what he thinks of the people around Tomis, even though he actually wrote a poem in Scythian. The Egyptians: Aeneid VIII 685 describes Antony's allies at Actium as barbarian. The Parthians don't fare better. With some time, it'd probably be possible to chase up references where the other peoples of Northern Africa, such as the Carthaginians, Numidians, Mauretanians, and Berbers, were considered barbarians.

Which leaves the Jews, and the smaller states around the eastern border (Palmyra, Nabataea, etc). I'd check the history of the wars and politics here, especially where Pompey or Scaurus are involved (against Nabatea), what the opinions on Zenobia of Palmyra are, and how the Romans describe the various Judean revolts. You'd also need to check, for instance in Pliny the Elder, what people thought about the Seres (Chinese?) and Indians, but so far as I remember, Rome still considered herself superior.

Note that, at least in the earlier Greek use, barbaroi does not necessarily mean uncultured. Herodotus accepts that the Persians and Egyptians are advanced cultures... but they are non-Greeks.

[Darth_Roach]

I mean by both them and us.

You covered the Roman part pretty good, thanks.

[M. Caecilius]

I mean by both them and us.

As far as the modern opinion is concerned, I'd say that it is a rather delicate subject.

Modern thought does not like to put derogatory labels like "barbarian" on people, nor, as you would have found a hundred years ago, the designation "primitives".

Rather, even the quintessential "barbarians", as the word is used in common parlance, the hordes of woad-painted, spiky-haired, naked-fighting peoples of northern Europe have largely been shown to have been rather rarely painted and very seldom fought naked, their cultures and societies were far more advanced and complicated than earlier scholars - and naturally the Romans and Greeks - gave them credit for. The same goes for the later invaders, like Huns and Vandals.

I've encountered the term several times in recent scholarship with reference to the idea the Romans had of these peoples rather than to the peoples themselves.

[Ghostmojo]

The Greeks considered everybody other than themselves (Romans included) to be barbarians. This was based upon the non-Greek speech patter which they considered to be babbling. It was of course part of their own rather superior view of themselves. Barbaroi was the opposite to what they themselves were i.e. city-dwelling-citizens. But as others have noted it did not necessarily mean 'uncultured', neither did it always have the more modern pejorative flavour either (although sometimes it did).

However, there are clear contradictions to all of this. Firstly, the Romans were also city-dwelling-citizens and not all Greeks necessarily were (Makedon/Epeiros/Akarnania/Aitolia/Thessaly etc.). Therefore, it was more of an Athenocentric notion, shared by other cosmopolitan Hellenic centres.

Initially it was clearly aimed at the Persian Empire and the hordes that made up that vast heterogeneous mass. I'm not sure how vehemently the Greeks applied it to peoples of the western Mediterranean, such as Carthage (although they too were included to some extent), but I'm sure it applied to the Kelts and other northern Europeans they came into contact with. They certainly meant Persians; Medes; Non-Greek Italians and Sicilians; Etruscans; Illyrians; Thrakians; Phoenicians; Iberians; Skythians; Egyptians; etc. But of course many of them admired Egyptian culture.

Did the Romans adopt the same world-view? I'm not entirely sure that they did...

[Darth_Roach]

Initially it was clearly aimed at the Persian Empire and the hordes that made up that vast heterogeneous mass.

Is that a serious opinion?

Anyway, I was just asking which cultures were considered barbarian by Rome, and which of Rome's contemporaries are considered barbarians today. Questions which were both answered.

[Ghostmojo]

Initially it was clearly aimed at the Persian Empire and the hordes that made up that vast heterogeneous mass.

Is that a serious opinion?

Yes - and a reasonable one ... your point being?

[M. Caecilius]

Is that a serious opinion?

I'm not sure whether it was designed specifically at the Persians originally. But the Persians were the second nearest major group of non-Greeks to what is now modern Greece (after Illyrians, Thracians, and possibly Macedonians if you really want to stir up a storm in the modern political climate!), and to the Greeks of Asia Minor, the Persians and their vassals/conquered people were the closest group of non-Greeks. Considering it's people like Herodotus of Halicarnassos (in Asia Minor) who begin writing History, I'd say answer the above question with a clear "yes".

By the way, does anyone know where the explanation that "barbaroi" means "non-Greek-speakers whose language sounds like "bar-bar-bar" mumblings" comes from?

[Darth_Roach]

Initially it was clearly aimed at the Persian Empire and the hordes that made up that vast heterogeneous mass.

Is that a serious opinion?

Yes - and a reasonable one ... your point being?

I was askin' 'bout the horde/mass thing. Hordes? The Achaemenid army was a horde, in your opinion?

[Ghostmojo]

Initially it was clearly aimed at the Persian Empire and the hordes that made up that vast heterogeneous mass.

Is that a serious opinion?

Yes - and a reasonable one ... your point being?

I was askin' 'bout the horde/mass thing. Hordes? The Achaemenid army was a horde, in your opinion?

I was refering to the large amount of races and peoples who occupied the Persian (formerly Mede) Empire - slang term for lots of folks = 'hordes'. I wasn't specifically refering to their army/ies as such. Although the term βάρβαροΦώνος was used by the Greeks before the beginning of their long period of tussling with the Persians - in reference to anyone spouting incomprehensible speech (to them) - it was really the head-on collision with the Achaemenid imperial aspirations that led the Greeks to tend to mean Persians as the foremost of barbarians.

[Darth_Roach]

The Achaemenid empire was not merely a continuation of the Mede empire - it greatly expanded the latter's territory in all directions, as well as mended the loose tribal confederacy into a centralized state.

I am sure you call them such because the Greeks did - but that is due to two reasons:
1. Ingorance - to the Greeks it may have appeared it was the same state that used to lie beyong the Halys;
2. The promenance of Medes, who were much more numerous than Persians, yet enjoyed the same status together with Bactrians.

[Lyceum]

Is that a serious opinion?

I'm not sure whether it was designed specifically at the Persians originally. But the Persians were the second nearest major group of non-Greeks to what is now modern Greece (after Illyrians, Thracians, and possibly Macedonians if you really want to stir up a storm in the modern political climate!), and to the Greeks of Asia Minor, the Persians and their vassals/conquered people were the closest group of non-Greeks. Considering it's people like Herodotus of Halicarnassos (in Asia Minor) who begin writing History, I'd say answer the above question with a clear "yes".

By the way, does anyone know where the explanation that "barbaroi" means "non-Greek-speakers whose language sounds like "bar-bar-bar" mumblings" comes from?

This is the only thing I'm going to really comment on here. Basically its onomatopoeic, like quite a few words in quite a few languages. You can find a few parallels in Greek for such words such as the use of Klange by Homer during Iliad 1 somewhere describing the sound of the arrows, or some such.

If you want an Indo-European parallel the word has a startlingly similar pairing in Sanskrit "barbaras" which just means a non (north) Indic speaker.

EDIT: Also, barbophones appears in the Iliad, I believe to describe either the Lycians or the Carians.

[Darth_Roach]

The Carians, although in that case they were called that because they spoke broken Greek, not no Greek at all.

However, Carians were not Greeks.

[Paul Elliott]

As far as the modern opinion is concerned, I'd say that it is a rather delicate subject.

Some academics use the term, and I agree that 'barbarian' has its uses. I'm thinking at the moment of a great author, Hugh Elton, who wrote 'Warfare in Roman Europe AD350-425'. He clearly splits his book between barbarian and Roman practices and organization.

[Ghostmojo]

The Achaemenid empire was not merely a continuation of the Mede empire - it greatly expanded the latter's territory in all directions, as well as mended the loose tribal confederacy into a centralized state.

I am sure you call them such because the Greeks did - but that is due to two reasons:
1. Ingorance - to the Greeks it may have appeared it was the same state that used to lie beyong the Halys;
2. The promenance of Medes, who were much more numerous than Persians, yet enjoyed the same status together with Bactrians.

I'm well aware of all of that - I merely point out that to the Greeks, the terms Mede and Persian were pretty much interchangeable (even though they were incorrect - they didn't really care much about the distinction).

I'm not defending the Greek view of Persians or other non-Greeks for that matter - merely reiterating their world view at the time.

I don't think the Romans were quite so scathing or generalising in their own lofty superior admonishment of others - but then I'm no expert on the Roman view and am waiting for somebody to explain that aspect of things better.