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The Barbarians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Denis Sinor
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The aim of this paper is to try to define the concept of the Barbarian and, at the same time, to show some aspects of the role that peoples entering into this category played in the course of history. We shall use the term “barbarian” in a very loose sense and will forego altogether the study of the history of the word itself. We know that it denoted successively the non-Hellene, the non-Roman, the non-Byzantine, the non-Christian, and, finally, even the non-Italian. In spite of numerous secondary applications and even misapplications of the word, it is quite clear, and has been asserted more than once, that in its primary and principal meaning the term is the antonym of “civilized” and is, therefore, for all practical purposes synonymous with “uncivilized”; it has a distinctly pejorative flavor.

The fact that in its earliest, Greek, application “barbarian” simply meant “foreigner,” together with some other considerations, would suggest that this pejorative flavor is due to chauvinism: Country A tends to regard Country B as barbarous and vice versa. Superficial proofs could easily be found to warrant such a theory: the Romans were barbarians for the Greeks; China and Europe regarded each other as barbarians. However, to accept such proofs would lead us very much astray. A closer examination of, for example, Chinese-European relations would soon reveal if not a mutual esteem at least the recognition that each civilization is what the Germans call a “Hochkultur,” a word which, for want of a better expression, we could translate “major civilization.” For the Chinese, India was never a country of barbarians, nor was Persia, oddly enough, for the Romans or the Byzantines.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 5 , Issue 18 , June 1957 , pp. 47 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © 1957 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

Footnotes

1.

With insignificant alterations this paper is printed as it was read. As in most lectures, at some points considerations of entertainment have had to prevail over the exigencies of strict scholarship. A number of aspects—for example, the very important economic background of the Barbarian—could not even be mentioned, and the material adduced to sustain a given assertion is but a fraction of what is available. In spite of these, and possibly other, shortcomings, I feel that the following pages give a fairly accurate picture ofwhat I consider the problem of the Barbarian. I hope to examine it one day with full apparatus.

References

2. The history and the different applications of the word have been studied time and again. The following publications may be chosen from among the relevant literature: Julius Jüthner, Hellenen und Barbaren: Aus der Geschichte des Nationalbewusstseins ("Das Erbe der Alten," Vol. VIII [Leipzig, 1923]); Kilian Lechner, Hellenen und Barbaren im Weltbild der Byzantiner (Munich, 1954); Rodolfo De Mattei, "Sul concetto di barbaro e barbarie nel Medio Evo," Studi… in onore di Enrico Besta (Milan, 1939), IV, 481-501.

3. Cf. Wilhelm Ensslin, Zur Geschichtsschreibung und Weltanschauung des Ammianus Mar cellinus (Klio, Beiheft XVI [Leipzig: Dieterich, 1923]), p. 33.

4. A magistral picture of the relations between Chinese and Barbarians is given by Marcel Granet, La Civilisation chinoise (Paris: La Renaissance du Livre, 1929), pp. 86 ff.; English trans.: Chinese Civilization (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1951).

5. Édouard Chavannes, LesMémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, I-V (Paris, 1895-1905), III, 401.

6. Twelfth century; cf. Lechner, op. cit., p. 81.

7. Ibid., p. 87.

8. Li Chi, ed. Couvreur, I, 215.

9. Cf. Édouard Chavannes, Dix inscriptions chinoises de l'Asie centrale d'après les estampages de M. Ch.-E. Bonin (Paris: Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, I. sér., XI, II, 1902), pp. 193-295, 220.

10. De gubernatione Dei v. 8 (MGH. AA. I, p. 56).

11. Ethic. Lib. vii.

12. Inscription dated A.D. 640. Cf. Chavannes, Dix inscriptions …, p. 218.

13. On this expression see James Russell Hamilton, Les Ouighours à l'époque des Cinq dy nasties (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1955), p. 92.

14. In Rufinum II, ll. 78-85, ed. Platnauer ("Loeb Classical Library").

15. Cf. Ferdinand Lot, Les Invasions germaniques (Paris: Payot, 1945), p. 168.

16. Cf A magyar nemzet története, ed. Szilágyi, III (Budapest, 1896), 562.

17. Gy. Moravcsik (ed.) and R. J. H. Jenkins (trans.), De administrando imperio (Budapest, 1949), p. 67.

18. Cf. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 107.

19. De gubernatione Dei vi. 98-99 (MGH. AA. I, p. 83).

20. Ed Moravcsik-Jenkins, p. 71.

21. Eighth century A.D. My translation, which endeavors to follow the original as closely as possible but does not claim strict philological accuracy, is based essentially on the inscription of Kül-tegin, as edited by V. Thomsen, Inscriptions de l'Orkhon déchiffrées (Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne," Vol. V [Helsinki, 1896]), and by S. E. Malov, Pamjatniki drevne tjurksko pis'mennosti (Moscow-Leningrad, 1951), pp. 19-55.

22. Theophylactus Simocatta vii. 8, ed. de Boor, p. 257. A translation of the whole pas sage relative to the Türk can be found in Edouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiuc (Turcs) occidentaux (St. Petersburg, 1903), pp. 246-49.

23. Ernst Doblhofer, Byzantinische Diplomaten und östliche Barbaren ("Byzantinische Geschichtsschreiber," Vol. IV [Graz, 1955]), p. 51.

24. For the most recent study of this seal see Antoine Mostaert and Francis Woodman Cleaves, "Trois documents mongols des Archives Secrètes Vaticanes," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, XV (1952), 419-506, esp. pp. 485-95.

25. Quoted in the Cronica of Salimbene (MGH. SS. XXXII, p. 208).

26. Quoted by Amédée Thierry, Histoire d'Attila et de ses successeurs, I-II (Paris, 1856), I, 213.

27. Istoria Mongalorum iv. 4. I quote from the excellent translation made by "a Nun of Stanbrook Abbey," published in The Mongol Mission, ed. Christopher Dawson (London and New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955), p. 15.

28. Stanislas Julien, "Documents historiques sur les Tou-kioue (Turcs)," Journal asiatique, II (1864), 424. The fact that the quotation comes from a secondary source is, for our purpose, unimportant. I had no opportunity to check the translation against the original. In any case, similar statements abound in Chinese sources.

29. Text dated 1240, first edited by Erich Haenisch, Manghol un niuca tobca'an (Yüan-ch'ao pi-shi) (Leipzig, 1937).

30. Translated by John C. Rolfe for the "Loeb Classical Library" (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1935-39) xxxi. 2, 4-5.

31. Dawson (ed.), op. cit., pp. 15-17.

32. Doblhofer, op. cit., p. 53.

33. Ibid., p. 44.

34. Op. cit. v. 21 (MGH. AA. I, p. 108).

35. E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researchesfrom Eastern Asiatic Sources, I-II (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1910), I, 37. Cf. also Arthur Waley's remark in The Travels of an Alchemist: The Broadway Travellers (London: Routledge, 1931), p. 160.

36. The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Thomas Nugent (London: Bell, 1914), p. 280 (XVII, 5).

37. Chronica maiora, Additamenta, ed. Luard ("Rolls Series"), VI, 77. Trans.: Giles, III, 451.

38. Les Martyrs, VII (ed. Garnier Frères, p. 128).

39. Rev. 20:7-8.

40. Joel 2:19-20.