Maybe you do not appreciate the impact the Roman invasions had on the Germanic people. Also slavery is not some precise description of peoples situation or well being.
Who said slavery was a precise description of peoples situation? I said they were not only subsidence farmers (your generalisation) and that slavery was part of their economy.
I dont think you appreciate the impact various Germanic tribes and confederations of tribes had on Rome. Rome may have been the superpower of the day; aggressive and expansionist but Germanic tribes gave as good as they got. Rome was at war with various Germanic tribes from period 113 BC and 596 AD.
In 9 AD Armenius decimated two Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest, it was the greatest military defeat Rome had known and as a result the Rhine became the permanent eastern Border of the Roman territory. The Goths (east Germanic tribe) harried Rome from 238 AD and the Visigoths (east Germanic) sacked Rome in 410 AD causing the fall of Rome’s Western empire.The last emporer of the Rome's Western empirer was Odoacer of East Germanic descent. Many Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians) occupied the territories left by the Western Roman Empire when it collapsed.
The relationship the various Germanic tribes and confederations had with Rome was complex; they traded with the Roman empire, some tribes were allies, some provided foederati, some were at war with Rome, some were slaves of Rome and some were had great victories against Rome; don't simplify it.
It does not tell anything how people are treated. It can range from being treated as part of the family to worked to death or ritually sacrificed.
Both Romans and Germanic peoples practised slavery it was a normal part of life in these societies. It doesn't sit well with our modern ideology but is was what it is. No point denying it because it conflicts with your rosey view of pre Christian paganism. Sucked to be a slave whether you were a slave of the Romans or a slave of a particular Germanic tribesman/woman.
Rome itself was called the "devourer of people", a giant machine that consumed people at a high rate and continuously needed new workers, as they died off so quickly. No wonder such societies tell their slaves they are so much better off than the free people who are living in constant deprivation.
Agreed. But this has little to do with the Germanic peoples, the term vorax populorum related to all of Rome's ordinary citizens, Rome was a fetid amalgam of people and animals with high population density, poor sanitation and a high crime rate. The living conditions in Rome had an adverse impact on all occupants in the city,.
You seem to paint a very negative picture that concurs with Roman writers like Tacitus. Many of his negative claims are proven utter lies. For the Romans it was standard policy to paint all other peoples as utter barbarians (even the Greek were barbarians). And even when Tacitus gives praise to Germanic virtues it rather serves as a means to criticize the degeneration his own people. There never were objective accounts in ancient history it always served some purpose.
Tacitus????????
Life expectancy, living conditions and age at death are drawn from modern archeological and anthropological surveys of human remains and early settlements. Likewise, evidence of disease, poor nutrition and injuries sustained from back breaking physical labour and/or warfare is supported by osteological evidence. If you want to understand the lives of these people stop reading Tacitus and read something more up to date.
The land shortage was in Scandinavia where there is limited arable land. But the fact that these people created a population problem rather tells that were doing well until that point. In the forests they had a rapid rise in population. That is not what you get from dying from hunger, disease and deprivation. Those are some of the nonsense stories of Tacitus.
Life expectancies, disease and various depravations were little different from any other group and once again they are drawn from modern scholarship not Tacitus. Scandinavia is a modern day term, to what particular Germanic tribe or time period do you refer? It was not a rise in population that initially brought various Germanic tribes into contact with Romans but the loss of traditional migratory grazing land.
He claims that the Germanics revolted to the Roman empire out of pure desperation. But in fact it was from high confidence.
Tacitus again!! And your reference for this statement is???
And if Germanics were a head taller than well-fed Romans that does not imply ill-nourishment either. 19the century people on the British countryside were a full head shorter than their peers due to ill-nourishment..
The Germanics??? Do you mean the Germanic warriors were bigger than their Roman counterparts? Finally you have taken something from modern archarcheology not Tacitus......yay! Slavic, Celtic and Germanic tribesman averaged 5'6.3".and Romans at the height of the empire 5'5.6". Not quite a head taller.
And no. Loss in stature occurred across the board, in the 1700s,
Northern European men had lost an average of 2.5 inches of height compared to those of the early middle ages, a loss that was not recovered until the early 20th century. This conclusion was reached by Professor Richard Steckel after analyzing height data from skeletons excavated from burial sites in northern Europe dating from the ninth to the 19th centuries.
Tacitus also described how the Germanic tribes had those great festivities and lay drunk all over the place allowing the Roman army to kill all of them, man, woman and child. What the Romans brought was a well organized but very brutal slave system, that was later copied by the elite of their former victims who started colonizing all over the world. The British aristocracy copied it to perfection, and in the process of colonization ruthlessly killed some 50mln people. And American rulers spread the idea they bring the same benevolent rule policing the world, but also leave millions of victims behind..
Slavery, warfare, rape, pillage and murder were facts of life throughout the pagan world, long before Rome became a superpower. Slavery existed as early as recorded human history, it is attested in Sumerian cuniform (first written script). It was a part of the economies of the Sumerians, Hittites, Germanic peoples, Babylonians, Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese and Greeks etc, etc etc. The slave trade continued into and beyond Christianity, until it was outlawed, which happened at different times in different countries.
Christians are made to believe their faith brought peace and love into the world. Sure, but upholding moral commandments is not the same as upholding high values or more loving behavior, especially if you start to realize the odd way in which Christianity defines values like peace. love, justice, free choice, etc.
I have no clue who or what you are talking about or what point you are attempting to make. Are you saying Christianity is the definition of love, peace, justice and free choice?
Would that be the same Christianity that banned the worship of pagan gods, ridiculed and/or demonised pagan gods, legislated pagan religions out of existence, destroyed their sacred sites, prosecuted backsliders and practitioners of folk beliefs, slaughtered 'heretics' during the Crusades and Inquistion. Not to mention it's more recent crimes of collusion with Fascist regimes and pedophilia.
And no, I am not blind to the negative sides of things. But tradition is not about holding on to the negatives but the positives. Nor should we want to make people like the Vikings into our champions, basically they were thugs, best likened to the Hells Angels, Bandido's, "
the Pagans" and "
the Mongols" today. In Ancient times thugs were the first to expelled. The Greek even institutionalized that in ostracism, people would write the name of the greatest moron on a piece of pottery, and he winner would be expelled. That is rather common in ancient societies, they did not have have a great tolerance for people that misbehaved.
Define misbehavior; ‘thug’ and miscreant are socially constructed. What you and I consider thuggery or immoral behaviour, for example, exposing infants, sacrificing humans, pillage, slavery and concubinage would have been socially accepted across a wide rage of early societies. It is what it is, no good trying to rewrite history.
Once again the Viking were no better and no worse that any pre Christian or post Christian society of the time; they were traders, raiders, farmers, settlers and skilled seafarers.
Vikings made intercontinental voyages, they were skilled boat builders navigators, artisans and have passed down complicated myths. They settled Iceland, large areas of North East England, travelled as far as Greenland, Vinland, established trading centres at Kiev and Novgorod, they traded with the Turkic Khazars, Bulghars, Arabs, Persians and Greeks.
Likening them to modern day bikies is ignorant.
It's not about hanging on to the negatives; the positives and the negatives comprise the traditions and worldview of our ancestors. If you cherry pick and white wash history your practice will have nothing to do with our ancestors and more to do with you imposing your 21st century worldview on a pre Christian people.
Not having written morals does not mean being less strict on what is good behavior. On the contrary Mores are much more strict. What they did not care about is ideology. No one was forced to believe in any god(s) or after life etc. But insulting the Gods or ancestors was enough to get you ousted as this brought doom on the rest..
Writtan morals? Do you mean law codes? I actually can't think of one instance in the literature where someone was 'ousted' (do you mean ostracised or condemned to greater outlawry?) because they insulted the gods or ancestors. Enlighten me.
Have you read Norse mythology and the Icelandic Sagas? They are many instances where the Gods are insulted and ridiculed, are you getting confused with Christian orthodoxy.
