Rome and the Barbarian Tribes
New governments in Europe.—Earliest times.—How civilization
began.—The rise of Rome.—Roman civilization.—Roman cruelty.—The
German tribes.—The Slavic tribes.—The Celtic tribes.—The Huns and
Moors.—The great Germanic invasions of the Roman world.
To search for the causes of the great war which began in Europe
in 1914, we must go far back into history. It should be
remembered that many of the governments of today have not lived
as long as that of our own country. This is, perhaps, a new
thought to some of us, who rather think that, as America is a new
country, it is the baby among the great nations. But, one hundred
and thirty years ago, when the United States was being formed,
there was no nation called Italy; the peninsula which we now know
by that name was cut up among nine or ten little governments.
There was no nation known as Germany; the land which is in the
present German empire was then divided among some thirty or
thirty-five different rulers. There was no Republic of France;
instead, France had a king whose will was law, and the French
people were cruelly oppressed. There was no kingdom of Belgium,
no kingdom of Serbia, of Bulgaria, of Roumania. The kingdom of
Norway was part of Denmark. The Republic of France, as we now
know it, dates back only to 1871; the Empire of Germany and the
United Kingdom of Italy to about the same time. The kingdoms of
Roumania, Serbia, and Bulgaria have been independent of Turkey
only since 1878. The kingdom of Albania did not exist before
1913. Most of the present nations of modern Europe, then, are
very new. The troubles which led to the great war, however,
originated in the dim twilight of history.
In the earliest days, there were no separate countries or
kingdoms. Men gathered together in little bands, each of which
had its leader. This leader was generally chosen because of his
bodily strength and courage. He was the best fighter of the
tribe. The people did not have any lasting homes. They moved
around from place to place, wherever they could find the best
hunting and fishing. When two tribes wanted the same hunting
grounds, they fought, and the weaker party had to give way.
Selfishness was supreme. If a man wanted anything which belonged
to his weaker neighbor, he simply beat this neighbor over the
head with his club, and took it. The stronger tribe attacked the
weaker, without any thought of whether or not its quarrel was
just.
Gradually, in the southern and warmer parts of Europe, the tribes
began to be more civilized. Towns sprang up. Ships were built.
Trade came to be one of the occupations. The fighting men needed
weapons and armor; so there grew up artisans who were skilled in
working metals. In Egypt and Syria there were people who had
reached quite a high degree of civilization, and gradually the
Europeans learned from them better ways of living. First the
Greeks, then the Etruscans (Ē-trŭs′cans), a people who lived in
Italy just north of where Rome now is, and finally the southern
Italians learned that it was possible to live in cities, without
hunting and plundering. Grazing (the tending of flocks of
animals) came to be the occupation of many. The owners of sheep
or cattle drove their flocks from place to place, as grass and
water failed them where they were. There was no separate
ownership of land.
At last came the rise of the city of Rome, which, starting out as
the stronghold of a little gang of robbers, spread its rule
gradually over all the surrounding country. By this time, the
barbarians of northern Europe had gotten past the use of clubs as
weapons. They, too, had learned to make tools and arms of bronze,
and those living near civilized countries had obtained swords of
iron. The club, however, still remained as the sign of authority.
The large bludgeon of the chief was carried before the tribe as a
sign of his power over them. You have all seen pictures of a king
sitting on his throne and holding a wand or stick in his right
hand. It is interesting to think that this scepter, which the
present king of England carries on state occasions to remind his
people of his power, is a relic of the old, old days when his
grandfather, many times removed, broke the head of his rival for
leadership in the tribe and set up his mighty club for his
awestruck people to worship.
The city of Rome (at first a republic, afterwards an empire)
spread its rule over all of Italy, over all the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea, and finally over all the countries of Europe
south and west of the rivers Danube and Rhine. One of the
emperors planted a colony north of the Danube near its mouth, and
the descendants of these colonists are living in that same
country today. They have not forgotten their origin, for they
still call themselves Romans (Roumani [Ro͞o-mä′ni]), and talk a
language greatly resembling the Latin, which was the tongue
spoken by the Romans of old. With the exception of this country,
which is now Roumania, the part of Europe north and east of the
Danube and Rhine was practically free from the Romans. In this
territory, roving bands wandered around, driving their cattle
with them and clearing the woods of game.
[Illustration: The Forum (public square) of Rome as it was 1600 years
ago.]
In some ways, the Romans were a highly civilized people. They had
schools where their children were taught to read and write, to
speak Greek, and to work problems in geometry. They had
magnificent public buildings, fine temples and palaces. They
built excellent paved roads all over the southern part of Europe,
and had wonderful systems of aqueducts which supplied their
cities with pure water from springs and lakes miles away. Their
dress was made of fine cloth. They knew how to make paper, glass,
and steel.
On the other hand, they were a cruel and bloodthirsty people.
Their favorite amusement was to go to shows where gladiators
fought, either with each other or with wild beasts. These
gladiators were generally men from tribes which had fought
against Rome. They had been captured and brought to that city,
where they were trained to use certain weapons. Then on holidays,
with all the people of Rome packed into big amphitheaters, these
unfortunate captives were forced to fight with each other until
one man of each pair was killed. It occasionally happened that
one gladiator might be wounded, and lie helpless on the sand, The
spectators would then shout to the victorious fighter to take his
knife and finish what he had begun. In this way what would seem
to us like cold-blooded murder was committed hundreds of times
each year, while the fairest ladies and young girls of Rome sat
and watched with eager interest. Thus, although the Romans had
all the outward appearance of being civilized, they were savages
at heart, and had no sympathy for any people who were not of
their own race.
[Illustration: The Last Combat of the Gladiators]
In the early days, the Romans prided themselves on their honor.
They scorned a lie and looked down on anyone who would cheat or
deceive. They lived hardy lives and would not allow themselves
luxuries. They rather despised the Greeks, because the latter
surrounded themselves with comforts in life. The early Romans
were fighters by nature. They had a certain god named Janus (our
month January is named after him) and his temple was open only
when they were engaged in war. It is a matter of history that
during the twelve hundred years from the first building of Rome
to the end of the Roman Empire, the temple of Janus was closed on
but three occasions and then only for a short time.
About five or six hundred years after the founding of Rome came
several disastrous wars which killed off a great majority of her
sturdy fighters. Rome was the victor in all of these wars, but
she won them at tremendous cost to herself. With the killing off
of her best and bravest men, a great deal of the old time honesty
was lost. Very soon, we begin to hear of Roman governors who,
when put in charge of conquered states, used their offices only
to plunder the helpless inhabitants and to return to Rome after
their terms were finished, laden with ill-gotten gains. Roman
morals, which formerly were very strict, began to grow more lax,
and in general the Roman civilization showed signs of decay.
To the north and east of the Roman Empire dwelt a people who were
to become the leaders of the new nations of Europe. These were
the free German tribes, which occupied the part of Europe
bounded, roughly, by the rivers Danube and Rhine, the Baltic Sea,
and the Carpathian Mountains. In many ways they were much less
civilized than the Romans. They were clad in skins and furs
instead of cloth. They lived in rough huts and tents or in caves
dug in the sides of a hill. They, too, like the Romans, held
human life cheap, and bloodshed and murder were common among
them. As a rule, the men scorned to work, leaving whatever labor
there was, largely to the women, while they busied themselves in
fighting and hunting, or, during their idle times, in gambling.
Nevertheless, these people, about the time that the Roman honesty
began to disappear, had virtues more like those of the early
Romans. They were frank and honorable. The men were faithful
husbands and kind fathers, and their family life was very happy.
They were barbarous and rough, but those of them who were taken
to Rome and learned the Roman civilization made finer, nobler men
than Rome was producing about the time of which we speak.
[Illustration: Germans Going Into Battle]
To the east of these German tribes were the Slavs, a people no
better civilized, but not so warlike in their nature. As the
Germans, in later years, moved on to the west, the Slavs, in
turn, moved westward and occupied much of the land which had been
left vacant by the Germans.
[Illustration: A Hun Warrior]
The inhabitants of western Europe, that is, France, Spain, and
the British Isles, were largely Celts. In fact, all Europe could
be said to be divided up among four great peoples: There were the
Latins in Italy, the Celts in western Europe, the Germans in
central Europe, and the Slavs to the east. All of these four
families were distantly related, as can be proved by the
languages which they spoke. The Greeks, while not belonging to
any one of the four, were also distant cousins of both Germans
and Latins. Probably all five peoples are descended from one big
family of tribes.
In addition to these, there were, from time to time invasions of
Europe by other nations which did not have any connection by
blood with Celts, Latins, Greeks, Germans, or Slavs. For
instance, the ferocious Huns, a people of the yellow race, rushed
into Europe about 400 A.D., but were beaten in a big battle by
the Romans and Germans and finally went back to Asia. Three
hundred years later, a great horde of Moors and Arabs from Africa
crossed over into Europe by way of the Straits of Gibraltar, and
at one time threatened to sweep before them all the Christian
nations. For several hundred years after this, they held the
southern part of Spain, but were finally driven out.
Let us now come back to the story of what happened in Europe
after the Romans had conquered all the country south and west of
the Danube and Rhine. The wild tribes of the Germans were
restlessly roaming through the central part of Europe. They were
not at peace with each other. In fact, constant war was going on.
Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, who conquered what is now
France and added it to the Roman world, tells us that one great
tribe of Germans, the Suevi (Swē′vī), made it their boast that
they would let no other tribe live anywhere near them. About a
hundred years B.C., two great German tribes. the Cimbri and the
Teutones, broke across the Rhine and poured into the Roman lands
in countless numbers. For seven years they roamed about until at
last they were conquered in two bloody battles by a Roman
general, who was Caesar’s uncle by marriage. After this time, the
Romans tried to conquer the country of the Germans and they might
have been successful but for a young German chief named Arminius.
He had lived in Rome as a young man and had learned the Romans’
method of war; so when an army came against his tribe, he taught
the Germans how to defend themselves. As a result, the Roman army
was trapped in a big forest and slaughtered, almost to a man.
[Illustration: Gaius Julius Caesar. From a bust in the British Museum]
This defeat ended any thought that the Romans may have had of
conquering all Germany. For the next one hundred and fifty years,
Germans and Romans lived apart, each afraid of the other. Then
came a time when the Germans again became the attacking party.
Other fiercer and wilder peoples, like the Huns, were assailing
them in the east and pushing them forward. They finally broke
over the Rhine-Danube boundary and poured across the Roman Empire
in wave after wave. Some of these tribes were the Vandals,
Burgundians, Goths, Franks, and Lombards. The Roman Empire went
to pieces under their savage attacks.
Questions for Review
Why is it that after nations become civilized, people need
less land to live on?
Are barbarous tribes more likely to engage in war than
civilized peoples?
Explain why clubs were the earliest weapons and why the more
civilized tribes were better armed than the barbarians.
Can a people be said to be civilized when they enjoy
bloodshed and are not moved by the sufferings of others?
What was it that lowered the morals of the Roman republic?
In what way were the Germans better men than the later
Romans?
What was the religion of the Moors and the Arabs?
Why did the German tribes invade the Roman empire?