Morality of Modern Empires Compared to Rome

[Augur]

Damn its frustrating of hear these repeated arguments that Rome is somehow "the same as" or "worse than" the Nazis, ethnic cleansers and blood-lust driven devils. There are many reasons why people admire and study Rome, but if their reason is because they get a kick out of genocide and man's inhumanity to man they need to understand two things: First, they are at the wrong website. Second, despite how much they may know about Rome, they are absolute idiots when it comes to understanding other societies and other periods of human history. For those looking for serious bloodlust and human viciousness, look elsewhere. Rome was not perfect. What attracts Rome

[Marcus_Aurelius]

There were quite few world powers which practiced ethnic cleansing Most of them like the British and Roman Empire subdued other peoples through the grand force of their culture.(e.g English and celtic peoples in the British Isles,Romans and the Italian tribes).Ethnic cleansing was the idea of some nazi madmen impressed by their own nordic race.

[DanM]

I agree that its frustrating to hear the comparisons of the Nazis to the Romans.

 

Don't forget that the first concentration camps were set up by the British at the turn of the century during the Boer wars. The Boers were fighting a very effective guerilla war and the only way the British could compell the Boer soldiers to surrender was to imprison their wives and children in camps and place them on a dangerously low calorie diet that would not go up unless the husbands turned themselves in.

 

Does that mean the British Empire was as bad as the Nazis.

 

The Greeks who sacked Troy burned the city to the ground and killed its people. Are they as bad as the Nazis?

 

One of the crusader armies killed every arab and jew in the city of Jerusalem. So I suppose they are lumped in with the Nazi crowd too.

 

What about the Spanish conquistadors who killed millions of native americans. What about all of the native americans either killed or enslaved by Christopher Columbus while he was a govenor in the new world? They must be as bad as the Nazis too. Right?

 

What about the Teutonic knights who killed and enslaved Baltic and Slavic tribes in Europe almost a thousand years ago. Let me guess......Nazis.

 

The simple truth is that humanity has an incredible capacity for both good and bad and both have been expressed fully throughout history. If you try to see the world through some prism of moral absolutes that are accepted today, then you are going to spend a lot of time judging and disapproving of most of the people you read about in any history book.

 

I am not defending everything the Romans did. They did a lot of things that would make me uncomfortable. Still, they are not the same as Nazis if for no other reason than their motives. Their motives were simple exploitation and greed. The Nazis believed that you could deserve death based upon your ancestry, politics or sexual preference. For them, being a Jew, Gypsy, homosexual, communist, mentally ill or someone with a birth defect was a reason to be killed. The Romans didn't look at the world that way.

 

At worst, the Romans were thugs who could organize their crimes on massive scales. Still, a man could be Roman citizen no matter the color of his skin. A man could be a Roman no matter who he wanted to have sex with. A man could be a Roman and even an Emperor if he were mentally unstable. Do you see some of the contrasts?

[Tobias]

It does not make the British Empire as bad as the Nazis. Most expansionistic powers know the advantage of a subdued nation that is mentally subdued as well as physically subdued.

[Tobias]

One view i would suggest is that that has already basically been said: The Romans killed many tribespeople to instil fear and to subdue them. The Nazis were merely killing Jews because they considered them inferior, not worthy to stand next to the "super race". There's an obvious difference here. As for the British in South Africa, i couldn't agree more that the tactics they used were scarcely different from any other nation trying to instil fear and obedience; but that didn't make them a race intent on genocide or ethnic cleansing, they merely wanted obedience from the boers.

[DanM]

Exactly! The Brithish Empire was a commercial Empire first and last. For example, they didn't have all that much of a problem with the Boer Republics until gold was discovered on their lands.

 

Heck the Rhodesian colonies were outright commercial ventures in the most vulgar sense of the word.

 

I like to think of much of the early Roman conquest in a similar way. I know its dangerous to generalize an ancient people based upon relatively modern examples, but it just seems to fit in this case.

 

If Ceasar could not have enriched himself in Gaul, I hardly think he would have spent 8 years there.

[barca]

PP

 

 

If an entire tribe is wiped out by an aggressor, for whatever reason it can still be deemed a form of ethnic cleansing, because in effect you are eradicating the race, culture and religion!

I have not misinterprated any action by Caeser, I know why he did it, as you say because they would not comply to Roman rules but the fact remains he tried to remove all traces of their existence, which can only be construde as a form of ethnic cleansing !

I admire Caesar for his achievements but what he did was not right, no justification

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Would you justify the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as a means of decreasing american casualties to end WW II?

[Germanicus]

scarcely different from any other nation trying to instil fear and obedience; but that didn't make them a race intent on genocide or ethnic cleansing,

 

There is no debate, absolutely no doubt that the British Empire practiced a form of ethnic cleansing and was every bit as despotic and cruel as Nazi Germany. Most colonial powers did. The British forbade Aboriginal people in Australia from speaking their own language or performing their own cultural practices. They systematicly wiped out all native australians from Tasmania, which well qualifys as genocide, and almost wiped them out on the mainland. When they couldn't do it directly, they took black children from their parents and placed them with white, christian families, often telling them their parents were dead. Newly arrived squatters and land owners were encouraged to shoot aboriginal people, and there are many instances where they lured whole tribes with promises of food, only to lace the food with poison to kill them off, kind of reminds me of the old Nazi line - "come into this room, we're going to let you shower"......

 

The Roman empire on the other hand, using Caesars conquest of Gaul as an example, while brutal, was not aimed at wiping the gauls as a race from the face of the earth. It was aimed at securing a massive client base and financial wealth for Caesar and Rome. There are similarities certainly, but it was not based on race.

[DanM]

Agreed. Most expansionist governments showed a remarkable lack of care for human life until the 20th century, but I think they all differ in motives for their behavior an that is why the Nazis and the colonial empires such as the British are not comparable. The colonial powers were willing to be disrespectful of human life if it helped them make a a little money, but they weren't trying to exterminate anyone.

 

Ditto for the Romans. Like the colonial powers of more recent times, it was a comercially motivated venture instead of some sort of racially motivated one.

 

If any modern power could be called racists, then my country, the USA, has to be put high on the list. Our enslavement and later descrimination against people of African descent is impossible to defend as anything more than the exploitation of human life for profit. Also our treatment of the native population was closer to an act of genocide than anything the colonial powers did (except maybe for the Spanish). Don't get me wrong. I love my country. I just won't let that love blind me to our past misdeeds.

 

And for my money, the Beligians, Spanish, Japanese and Turks were more brutal colonialists than the Brits.

 

.........those darn Belgians!!!

[Germanicus]

Well put DanM. I must agree, in that the British Empires disdain for native populations did always began with the desire for material gain, and their racism simply allowed them to do away with those they deemed sub-human and therefor obtain that wealth and property. So yes, the racism was not a prime motivator as in the case of Nazi Germany.

 

So where were we ? Oh yes, the Romans.....not at all like the Nazis, and may well have taken what they wanted without mass murder if possible.....although those strong gallic slaves do fetch a pretty penny...

Don't get me wrong. I love my country. I just won't let that love blind me to our past misdeeds.

 

Know how you feel there, I'm an Australian.

[longbow]

When they couldn't do it directly, they took black children from their parents and placed them with white, christian families, often telling them their parents were dead. Newly arrived squatters and land owners were encouraged to shoot aboriginal people, and there are many instances where they lured whole tribes with promises of food, only to lace the food with poison to kill them off, kind of reminds me of the old Nazi line - "come into this room, we're going to let you shower"......

 

I thought it was the Australian Government who took the children from there families?it must of been if it was still happening in the 60's.

[Favonius Cornelius]

And for my money, the Beligians, Spanish, Japanese and Turks were more brutal colonialists than the Brits.

 

.........those darn Belgians!!! 

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Lol, I am curious, what did the Belgians do?

[DanM]

 

And for my money, the Beligians, Spanish, Japanese and Turks were more brutal colonialists than the Brits.

 

.........those darn Belgians!!!

[longbow]

The Belgian's in the colonial Congo were really brutal to the local populace,even using people for target practice but it was when Rubber became popular that the Atrocities really started.

One junior white officer described a raid to punish a village that had protested. The white officer in command: "ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades, also their sexual members, and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross." After seeing a native killed for the first time, a Danish missionary wrote: "The soldier said 'Don't take this to heart so much. They kill us if we don't bring the rubber. The Commissioner has promised us if we have plenty of hands he will shorten our service'." In the words of author Peter Forbath's: "The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected."

 

Congo free state Genocide

[DanM]

I agree, but its hard to have a conversation with someone who is so indoctrinated into the cultural norms of today that they think these things are some sort of absolutes which must govern all societies.

 

If the United States or any other nation assumed a foreign policy along the lines of the Romans, we would be viewed as the worst, most evil country to ever exist. People just can't seem to get it into their heads that most powerful nations were brutal until the 20th century and I think that misconception leads to a lot of misunderstandings about historical events and historical figures.