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It also reminds me of certain episodes of the The History of Rome and The History of Byzantium podcasts where they depict the collapse of complex systems when t
by q1w2 5y ago
It also reminds me of certain episodes of the The History of Rome and The History of Byzantium podcasts where they depict the collapse of complex systems when the breakdown of security occurred.
During times when Roman security was good - the economy could develop complex systems of trade, which developed coinage, mathematics, architecture, and all sorts of specialists and artisans.
When security was no longer reliable due to the influx of raiders, piracy, and hoards of barbarians, all of those complex activities ceased.
The most complex aspects of society are always the first to collapse when security disappears.
...and eventually a "fend for yourself" attitude permeates society - which becomes a feedback loop, and it's no longer the externalities that are destroying security - but internal actors.
We were lucky to have a safe and stable society for so long that we are shocked to see mass looting. Once it's gone though, it is takes generations to rebuild that.
- dredmorbius 5y agoPretty much that. For further parallels with Rome, I strongly advise Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome, which develops the idea that empires and diseases co-evolve with one another. Another lesson from history which seems increasingly significant now.
- hansel_der 5y ago> hoards of barbarians you mean the citizens of neighbouring states (mainly nowadays france and germany) that refused to be colonized/enslaved?
- kgwgk 5y agoExcept for the “citizens” and the “states” bits and quite often without the “neighbouring” or the “colonized/enslaves” aspects either.
- specialist 5y agoIIRC, the earliest Rus strong men were Vikings bought off by Byzantine emperors, changing them from raiders into gatekeepers.
- q1w2 5y agoYes, they were known as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard
- ciceryadam 5y agoCitizen in Roman times meant something else than today. Also barbarians (Visigoths) ransacked Rome in 410.
- dredmorbius 5y agoThroughout most of history, any given culture was prone to call any surrounding culture "barbarians", or equivalent terms. The meaning was more akin to "foreigner", though there were also often connotations of ethnic or nationalistic superiority. This was the case amongst the Romans, previously the Greeks, also Persians and other tribes and cultures of the Middle East / Western Asia. And similarly in China. Nationalistic identity and senses of superiorty may be wholly unjustified on factual basis, and I tend to think that they are unjustified myself. They're also highly prevalent across times and cultures until quite recent times.
- q1w2 5y agoThis is only partially accurate. The Romans and Persian, for example, did not consider the other, barbarians. Same between the Greeks/Egyptians/Carthaginians/Jews/etc... What defined a "barbarian" group was that they we undeveloped scattered tribes - without central political power. They usually lacked written codified laws, formal political assembly, ambassadors, etc... The Gauls, the Celts, the Germanic tribes, the Turkic tribes, etc... They all were considered "barbarians" because of their tribal community focused political structure. Few centralized buildings existed, lower literacy rates, etc... These differences were very apparent when a soldier would leave from Rome or Constantinople, and then find himself conquering a Gaulic settlement where the biggest buildings were still made of wood. Of course, as the centuries went on, these tribal communities became more and more centralize and organized until those differences disappeared.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- keiferski 5y agoThe Greeks used the term barbarian for all non-Greek-speaking peoples, including the Egyptians, Persians, Medes and Phoenicians, emphasizing their otherness. According to Greek writers, this was because the language they spoke sounded to Greeks like gibberish represented by the sounds "bar..bar..;" the alleged root of the word βάρβαρος, which is an echomimetic or onomatopoeic word. In various occasions, the term was also used by Greeks, especially the Athenians, to deride other Greek tribes and states (such as Epirotes, Eleans, Macedonians, Boeotians and Aeolic-speakers) and also fellow Athenians in a pejorative and politically motivated manner. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbarian
- q1w2 5y agoNo, I mean literally hoards of barbarians from as far away as East of the Ural mountains. The Huns, for example, were not neighboring peoples. They were hoards of horse archers that came from, literally, a thousand miles beyond the Roman border to pillage. Their destruction of the Roman borders is what drove other Germanic tribes to flee west, further destroying Roman stability.