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Both us and the ancients agree that murder, rape and slavery are bad when it happens to them. The Germans from then and us today would agree that destroying th

Both us and the ancients agree that murder, rape and slavery are bad when it happens to them. The Germans from then and us today would agree that destroying that Roman army was _a good thing_ because it stopped a lot of murder, rape and slavery from happening. I'm not sure what you're arguing against.

hef19898 3y ago
Basically all your points? Because the "Germans" didn't exist at the time. It was a mix of various tribes, some loosly allied with Rome. Heck, the German leader even was a former Roman officer. So it was much less about "Freedom" as it was about indovidual tribal leaders power. Painting the Romans of the time the way you do, is pretty much en vogue today, where people view everything from the perspective we have today on colonialism (especially the latter day variant of colonialism).
- watwut 3y ago
  Basically, Romans intentions are pure and valid even if they are acting from pure self interest, even if they manage to kill and rape a whole lot of people. But, their victims are not pure enough nor entitled to have opinion about being killed or raped, because they are not as pure in motivation. See, they need to organize themselves into larger nation without anyone having any self interest in the process. Very obviously, Roman politics was self interest based - both on the individual scale and societal one. What you ask for is not objective history, you ask for historians to take a side and ignore all but one viewpoint.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Where exactly did I say Roman interests were pure and valid? They were interests, empire building and such. Not sure if rape was a stated goal... Never heard that.
    - watwut 3y ago
      They attacked pretty often happened because someone wanted an office or become more powerful locally. Nothing to do with any larger goals. "Empire building" however itself amounts to "stealing from others".

hef19898 3y ago

Basically all your points? Because the "Germans" didn't exist at the time. It was a mix of various tribes, some loosly allied with Rome. Heck, the German leader even was a former Roman officer. So it was much less about "Freedom" as it was about indovidual tribal leaders power. Painting the Romans of the time the way you do, is pretty much en vogue today, where people view everything from the perspective we have today on colonialism (especially the latter day variant of colonialism).

watwut 3y ago
Basically, Romans intentions are pure and valid even if they are acting from pure self interest, even if they manage to kill and rape a whole lot of people. But, their victims are not pure enough nor entitled to have opinion about being killed or raped, because they are not as pure in motivation. See, they need to organize themselves into larger nation without anyone having any self interest in the process. Very obviously, Roman politics was self interest based - both on the individual scale and societal one. What you ask for is not objective history, you ask for historians to take a side and ignore all but one viewpoint.
- hef19898 3y ago
  Where exactly did I say Roman interests were pure and valid? They were interests, empire building and such. Not sure if rape was a stated goal... Never heard that.
  - watwut 3y ago
    They attacked pretty often happened because someone wanted an office or become more powerful locally. Nothing to do with any larger goals. "Empire building" however itself amounts to "stealing from others".