Thread 17984399

Edward Gibbon was a self-hating anglo.
He just portrayed his hate for Early Medieval Britannia to the entire Mediterranean area.

>>17984399 (OP)
Pretty much, white people love to self flagellate and will do everything to destroy their own people

>>17984399 (OP)
>Foederati were Romans
Yes but only in the caracalla edict sense of romanity.

>>17984399 (OP)
Germans can never be Roman. Romans = Romans, Etruscans, Italics, Hellenics, Illyrians, Thracians, Dacians, Iberians and Celts. Egyptians, Punics, and Anatolians are more Roman and trustworthy than germanics. Germanics, Slavics, Scythians, Persians and Jews were NEVER Roman.

>>17985106
>Germanics, Slavics, Scythians, Persians and Jews were NEVER Roman

>Germanics
Served in the legions, were heavily Romanized, the history of Late Roman Germanic history is basically the history of two types of Germanic groups: those which want to advance the Imperium(Franks) and those which want to be part of Roman civ like the Burgundians.
>Slavics
Byzantine history is very closely interlinked with those of the Slavs the point where you end up having Bulgarians rule as in the manner of a basileus and Russians claiming Byzantine legacy through the Orthodox church
>Scythians
The Huns served as mercenaries, very few became Roman citizens, though the Alans did Romanize in Gaul.
>Persians
Sure, they were indeed not Roman, but they had their own impressive civilisation

>>17985106
>1500 years later and Greekoids are still mad Theodric Face Fucked the Eastern Empire and died the last Emperor of Western Rome
Dilate harder

>>17985058
Foederati weren’t citizens
>>17985421
The majority of Germanic peoples in the 5th century didn’t serve in the Roman army and only acted tangentially to it with no actual involvement in its structure. They existed completely independently of the Roman army and its institutions.

>>17985488
These are some broad statements.
>only acted tangentially to it with no actual involvement in its structure.
What? They settled themselves and were settled by the Romans widely within the Empire, and even those outside very heavily influenced, you really think Rome's influence stopped at its border? Figures such as Theoderic the great (who was a Roman senator btw) or Theodahad (trained in Platonic thought), Stilcho as Western magister militum or Flavius Arnegisclus who led Eastern Roman armies against Huns, even Childeric I. of the Franks served under Flavius Aetius in Gaul.

Pic is Gundobad as Patrician of the Roman Empire ca. 472

>>17985511
Stilicho was not a foederati nor would have his group that his father belonged to would have been one. They would have been settled as Laeti. Foederati are explicitly not part of the Roman army and they acted as hard as they could to avoid being part of it by resisting the breakup of their groups as was normal Roman procedure. I am not saying they are not influenced by the Romans, I am saying that they are not part of the Roman state which are two very different things. If you start comparing completely different groups of people like the second generation officers with no ties to any group that isn’t Roman to peoples like the Franks who have no actual relation to the workings of the Roman state as an insider and have completely different base of power and ideas then it’s going to be meaningless. Aspar and Stilicho don’t have anything in common with men like Alaric or Gaiseric. You mentioning the Ostrogoths doesn’t help your case because Theodoric explicitly acted his entire time in power to avoid being part of the Roman state in anything other than lip service. He admired and made use of Roman structures that remained in Italy without divorcing himself from his own people and without being part of the Roman state.

>>17985552
I'm not OP, so the point I'm trying to make is not that all foederati were Romans but some were, some were technically Roman subjects, yet their military service was still organized on a foederati basis. Quit some of them could be, or those descended from them from Romanized Germanics settled in whatever fashion, that's how you get someone like Stilicho.

>Theodoric explicitly acted his entire time in power to avoid being part of the Roman state in anything other than lip service. He admired and made use of Roman structures that remained in Italy without divorcing himself from his own people and without being part of the Roman state.
How can you rule the Roman state (which Theoderic did, (according to Italo-Roman sources in terms of a quasi-republican revival of a "princeps" and to the Eastern Romans as magister militum) without being part of it?

Both Alaric and Gaiseric were working in the framework of the Late Roman military. In the case of Alaric, his whole deal after unifying the Empire under Theodosius I was trying to gain further recognition and promotion as a Roman general.

>>17985578
You’re calling Stilicho a foederati, which he was not. The normal settling of foreigners into Roman land was done by breaking up foreign groups that wished to enter and then they entered the Roman system as normal. The foederati did not do this, they gained their positions through extortion from outside force. The only reason that the Visigoths became foederati and not integrated normally was because they defeated Roman armies and managed to resist Theodosius for long enough that he capitulated and allowed them to take over Roman territory, and that was the greatest humiliation of his reign because he conceded Roman land to foreigners and allowed them to live completely seperately to them. None of these foederati became part of the Roman system, even the Burgundians despite how close they were to the state in the final decades were still almost completely independent and did as they wished.

Theodoric was entirely independent from the east. His position was completely based on lip service as being part of the empire. He was not actually beholden to anybody other than himself. You are taking the fiction of titles to mean a reality.
>Both Gaiseric and Alaric were working under the framework of the later Roman army
Demonstrably false. Their armies were completely independent from the Roman one and they were often hostile towards them. Alaric wanted titles, land and wealth. He gained his position as magister militum through extortion by using his independent army to attack Greece, when he got the title the only thing he was entitled to was the salary. He never commanded Roman soldiers. His negotiations with Honorius asked for Raetia and Noricum as independent lands for himself and his people, which he attempted to get through extortion. He was not acting at all like any Roman army would or even in the same organisation. Gaiseric never even bothered with that, he just went to war with the Romans his entire life and never even seeked accommodation.

>>17985586
>You’re calling Stilicho a foederati, which he was not
No, I called him a descended of a Romanized Germanic, though he was part Italic too.

Becoming a foederati is by definition a part of the Roman system which integrated external peoples into the empire’s military and political framework, and being part of the military system and having to provide troops is not independent.

>Their armies were completely independent from the Roman one.
They were a Roman army, and his intention was to be settled in Raetia as federates to serve Rome.

>>17985616
>Not independent
They had no Roman leadership, often didn’t even pretend to be allies. They were foreign invaders who forced their way into positions and when the Romans failed to defeat them had to acknowledge them to save face. If they weren’t independent they wouldn’t have the ability to muster forces from outside of the Roman system and attack them with it.
>They were a Roman army
They weren’t commanded by Romans, filled by Romans, came from outside of the empire and were actively hostile to the Roman state. By that definition Shapur lead a Roman army to attack the Romans with because he took parts of Roman Syria. There is no reason to believe he wanted to ‘serve’ Rome either. Almost all of his actions throughout his time in leadership were hostile to the Romans and attempts to extort them.

>>17985705
>There is no reason to believe he wanted to serve Rome either
Why not? That's what his descendants did when Wallia was established as an ally in Roman military service, that's what many of partially or even fully Romanised Germanic groups did like the Pannonian Goths. For many groups that was the entire goal, and when Rome failed to make these people serve one way, they still often won (though not always) diplomatically, and made them serve.

>>17985766
The Visigothic settlement in Aquitaine has the same exact issues as that of the one before in Moesia. Constantius was unable to deliver a decisive defeat onto the Goths while they were ravaging Italy and only managed to get a compromise out of them, namely leaving Italy for Aquitaine. The Visigoths were still completely self serving even in Aquitaine. They pushed the limits of what they could do and still terrorised Roman territory when not contained by a general like Aetius. When Honorius died they started to attack the Romans and only got reigned in by the new reign of Valentinian and still the only reason they didn’t act out was because Aetius was around to limit them. When they were commanded to attack the Vandals in Iberia they did so, then occupied the region themselves instead. When Aetius died and there was nobody stopping them effectively anymore they didn’t even bother. Being a Roman ‘ally’ was self serving, and when it didn’t benefit them or they were no longer forced to they broke away.

>>17985812
>When they were commanded to attack the Vandals in Iberia they did so, then occupied the region themselves instead.
Yes, to protect it, they fought for Rome's wars, holding the frontier because Imperial authority was was reclining to Italy, southern Gaul etc

>>17985859
>Yes, to protect it
From the Romans? They occupied the land against the will of the Romans and were hardly protecting it. Taking the land was actively detrimental to the Romans as it denied them revenue and manpower. The only people that benefited from it were the Visigoths.
>holding the frontier
Iberia was not the frontier. It was deep in the Roman interior, and with the Vandals and Alans beaten there wasn't much of any threat left there for the Romans other than the Visigoths. Taking the land was self serving, the Romans didn't want them to take it and it wasn't some altruistic goal of theirs.

>>17985106
Aetius wasn't Roman? Thomas the Slav wasn't Roman? The Isaurian dynasty wasn't Roman?

>>17986151
>Aetius wasn't Roman?
Aetius belonged to a family from the Roman Empire for what we can assume to be centuries so it's probably about as Roman as you can get for the period. He comes from a Balkan military family.

>>17985552
Foederati were Romans but they could keep their tribal identity, even during the Republic and High Empire you can read about foederati that were Roman CITIZENS, educated in Roman culture and values, but also keeped their tribal identity INSIDE the Imperial structure.
That's the whole point of the 'foedus'.

>>17986244
>His father, Gaudentius, was a Roman general and described as a native of the province of Scythia.[8]
So Scythians count as Roman if they are born in the Balkans? Bit sketchy innit.

Gernan nationalists never seem to understand how profoundly Romanization changed the tribes of Germany. Just because it was physically outside the borders of the empire doesnt mean Rome's influence wasn't there. 5th century Germany was virtually unrecognizable compared to 1st century Germany. So ya the Goth's were "Romanized" in a sense but they always maintained a strong political indepence and used this Romanization against the empire.

>>17987515
>used this Romanization against the empire
I would have too after what those Roman niggas did to Aetius and countless others. Bunch of jerks if you ask me.

>>17987384
Gaudentius is not an iranic or Germanic name. Aetius was not a Scythian but called one since he was Hunnaboo and literally let the Huns cross into Pannonia from the Roman held balkans.

>>17987628
And here’s another person named Gaudentius that is the oldest recorded.
>Gaudentius was a Greek music theorist in Classical Antiquity. Nothing is known of his life or background, or when he lived, except what can be inferred from his sole surviving work, Εἰσαγωγὴ ἁρμονική (English: Harmonic Introduction), a treatise.[1][2][3][4]

>>17987632
>Gaudentius (died before AD 425) was the father of the Roman magister militum Flavius Aetius and married to an Italian noblewoman.[1] He is described as a native of the Roman province Scythia[1] (although some misread this to portray him as an ethnic Scythian).[2][3]
He was Thracian.

>>17984399 (OP)
Whats the name of this format? Love the little expressions these !basedjaks make

>>17984399 (OP)
IN THIS HOUSE EDWARD GIBBON IS A HERO
THE FOEDERATI WERE STINKIN’ GERMS
FRIENDS OF ARMINIUS CAN’T TRUST A ONE

>>17987317
The Roman’s at every point tried to disintegrate and destroy tribal affiliations, it was the main way the integrated these people. The foederati of the 4-5th centuries weren’t Romans or even citizens and nobody thought of them as such. Neither did the Romans want these groups on their land with tribal affiliations. The entire point was that they forced their way into the empire and acted in opposition to it the entire time. They weren’t some friendly people who accepted Roman rule, they were actively hostile to it and the status of foederati was almost always an ad hoc designation to save face from a group with had taken Roman land through violent force. For most of Rome’s history the foederati were an outside group who did not live in the empire at all, only by attacking the Romans and taking their land did they become so.

I really don’t get this strange whitewashing of foederati as somehow friendly peoples to the Roman Empire that just wanted to be a part of it while the only reason they were even in the empire was that they violently invaded it and dismembered the empire to take lands for themselves. The justification is always something like ‘Roman culture’, which they didn’t have or ‘titles’ which are nothing more than lip service and don’t actually indicate any real authority or fact of being Roman and were only for a salary and prestige.

>>17987942
They were literally co opted by the Romans to defend the Empire, you're talking about foederati being white washed but take away all Roman agency in actively cultivating these circumstances with various Germanic and other groups. The Romans conquered "Barbarians" culturally, spiritually and politically, once the western court was gone by 600 you have Latin-Germaic kingdoms continuing diminished and increasingly Christian forms of Roman civilisation. Merovingian France was the spring bed of Western civilisation, Visigothic Spain less so but it could not have happened without Ibero-Roman and Gallo-Roman corporation with the Franks and Visigoths.

>>17988040
These groups WERE the threat to the empire. They were the ones destroying the state, going to war with it and taking its lands. Just because they had a deep Roman legacy doesn’t somehow mean they never invaded the place. They, through force, destroyed Roman control over much of the empire. The main threat to the West was these groups, the Visigoths were the largest threat for decades, the Vandals were a threat. These groups were hardly co-opted to defend anything, they attempted to contain them and they failed.

>>17988069
And to add, the Romans weren’t ’cultivating’ these groups. They didn’t invite them in, they didn’t want them, and they tried to get rid of them at every opportunity because they invaded the empire. Their relations were of the extorted and the extorter. The Visigoths forced their way into their position through military force. The Romans never wanted the Vandals in Africa, they took the region through force and defeating the Roman forces in the region. But because a century after they waged war on the Roman Empire to dismember it for their own sakes they somehow always wanted to be part of it

>>17987932
>check "barbarian" kings
>borned INSIDE the Empire
>raised by Roman tutors to be Romans
>became part of the Imperial structure as comes, dux, magister militum, even senators or emperors (Maximinus Thrax, gothic father, alanic mother)

>check Roman Senate
>based in 'Gens'
>'Gens' = TRIBE in latin

Anon, learn History. ACTUAL History, not XIX century fanfics.

>>17988557
>borned INSIDE the Empire
Ok and? Being born somewhere doesn't make you part of it. Especially the foederati who didn't actually live under Roman rule. They lived under their own laws, with their own leaders, completely apart from Roman society.
>raised by Roman tutors to be Romans
And they never became Romans. From what we do know of education, having a 'Roman' education was unpopular and resisted even in Ostrogothic Italy where they were the most favourable to the local population. Having a Roman education does not make somebody a Roman, or make them think they are Roman. None of these groups ever thought of themselves as such.
>became part of the Imperial structure as comes, dux, magister militum
Titles do not make somebody part of the empire. You can look at the granting of the title magister militum to Alaric or Attila. It granted them no actual power over Roman organisation, no responsibilities and no way to interact with the state as an actual holder of the title would. They were purely honourary and existed to bribe them.
>even senators or emperors (Maximinus Thrax, gothic father, alanic mother)
None of these were foederati or had anything to do with them.
>check Roman Senate
>based in 'Gens'
>'Gens' = TRIBE in latin
This has literally been defunct nearly 500 years before the period we are talking about. Even in the Middle Republic the tribe merely referred to a voting block and not actually a tribe of people in an independent political organisation like the foederati. They have absolutely nothing in common.

>>17988575
>t. le contrarian

>>17987515
Rome was influenced by Germanic culture as well, by the late empire the legions began wearing Germanic pants instead of tunics and carrying broadswords instead of the gladius.

>>17984399 (OP)
You made this thread the other day.
I have 0 clue what your angle is? Its obviously rooted in something other than the historicity of Rome.
What is it? What drives you to conclude Gibbons is self hating? Or these particular points you put in thread. Just curious. Im impartial.

>>17989191
>Germanic pants instead of tunics
Climate became colder by those times.

>>17989214
The view a lot of modern and quite a few old historians have and had of what is called the transformation of Rome, which makes more sense that framing it akin to say, the Bronze Age collapse.

Why can't this schizo accept the fact that foederati were in it only for the money and if they truly have Romanized they wouldn't form political entities based on nothing but their inner tribal ties?
Look up Salic laws, they literally specify a different price for killing a Roman and different for a Germanic freeman (fine for killing a Roman was 1/3 of the fine freeborn Germanic's death btw).

>>17989266
The writings we have from Romans that actually live under barbarian rule and formerly lived under Roman rule are literally all just complaining about how shit they are compared to the Romans.

>>17985616
>a foederati
singular ≠ plural

>>17985578
>the last thing a virgin peasant girl sees

>>17990213
That seems doubtful to me for Romans in modern day Italy, Spain, and France, where there was a "silent fall" of the WRE, that was only recognized a century or so later. Very different from the situation in Britain for instance where there was a traumatic discontinuity with the Empire. What are your sources on this claim?

>>17990594
Paulinus of Pella. His thanksgiving is a sort of autobiography and its quite short. He does not have any fond opinions of the Goths as they arbitrarily ruled and unless you were a friend of one your estate was up for grabs and the practices of the Visigoths destituted him and was only bailed out of poverty by a friend. Sidonius has far more political content as he was actually involved in the highest levels of politics. He actively resisted Visigothic control and had a very patriotic view, he did not want Roman power to recede. He too complains about the poor leadership of the Goths both in secular and religious practice and only allies with them at the final moments as Roman authority leaves Gaul once and for all and he has no choice. For the Vandals our main author is Victor Vitensis who calls them persecutors of Romans and how they were cruel to the local Roman population, Augustine also didn't have high opinions of them, largely because his final years were caught up during their invasion of North Africa and he was directly involved in a siege of his home city. These people were involved with the transition from Roman to Germanic rule and they were not happy with it.

The most positive opinions come from Italy, largely because our authors didn't really suffer all that much. Theodoric was happy to continue the civil service as it was which is where the majority of Senators had their careers. So really little changed for most of them unlike in the rest of the West. Although feelings soured considerably in Theodoric's final years.

>>17990604
Jordanes (even if he makes up a lot of stuff) is one the most positive up there with Ennodius and Cassidorus.

>>17990142
>X gens (tribe) has Y law
>therefore the rest of gentes were like X gens
Anon...

Also, that was temporary, franks and gallo-romans became the same people, so later that specific part of the Salic laws was forgotten.
You literally have Charlemagne, French Crusaders, etc. as example of franks no longer considering themselves not as 'germani' (men of the forests) but as true Romans.
>Henry of Flanders, 'Emperor and Autocrat of the Romans' called the "Frankokratia" as 'Imperium Romanum' (lit. Roman Empire)
>challenging both the Pope / the Holy Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire as the one True ROMAN Empire

>>17990757
wtf is this cope
>Also, that was temporary, franks and gallo-romans became the same people
Yeah, they did. After 2 fuckin centuries. Temporary my ass.

>>17990762
>Yeah, they did. After 2 fuckin centuries.
Franks and Romans were inter-mixing since the first moment a Frank set foot in Gaul.

>different price for killing a Roman and different for a Germanic freeman (fine for killing a Roman was 1/3 of the fine freeborn Germanic's death btw).
Yeah like
>Killing a free Frank could cost 8,000 denars, while killing a Roman who ate in the king's palace was 12,000 denars.
Both, Franks and Gallo-Romans, had a class-system, like any other human group, that doesn't mean Franks were not Romans (but instead of a celtic background like the Gallo-Romans, they had a germanic one).
It's the same stupid thing like saying negros in 60s USA were not american citizens, they were citizens, but second-class citizens.
One thing does not invalidate the other.

>>17990757
>You literally have Charlemagne, French Crusaders, etc. as example of franks no longer considering themselves not as 'germani' (men of the forests) but as true Romans.
Charlemagne released a slightly less harsh version of earlier ethnic Merovingian law. They still maintained a difference between Franks and Romans in law. He was very much still a Frank and defined himself as opposed to them.
>>17990766
>It's the same stupid thing like saying negros in 60s USA were not american citizens, they were citizens, but second-class citizens.
What a nonsensical comparison. Africans still identified by being American and White Americans still defined them as being Americans as well. The Franks did not define themselves as Romans.

>>17990766
>were inter-mixing since the first moment a Frank set foot in Gaul
said 'intermixing' was Franks raping Roman women and/or taking them as concubines which btw didn't stop them from enforcing apartheid-esque laws which literally rated a Roman's life as three times less valuable than a Frank's
If you are looking for examples of more peaceful cohabitation between the Germanic elites and Romans then there was the short-lived Eastern Gothic kingdom, but their example is an exception, not a rule. Vandals, Western Goths, Saxons, Alemannis all tended to rather bully their Latin speaking subjects and only started integrating with them after many generations.