Barbarian

The term Barbarian does not derive from the name of any tribe or cultural group. It was originally used by the Greeks to denote any foreigner of a different culture and language background. While it did not originally have a pejorative connotation, it was used by those of relatively advanced civilizations to describe others, who were generally less civilized. Thus, the term came to refer to people from more primitive cultures, whose people usually relied on physical strength more than intellect. Today, "barbarian" is used to describe someone using excessive violence without considering other options. Although barbarian cultures are generally considered to work against the advancement of civilization, there are historical examples in which barbarian cultures and actions contributed to societal progress.

Origin of the term

The term "barbarian" is not derived from the name of any tribe or cultural group; there is no country called "barbar."The word "barbarian" comes from the Greek language, and was used to connote any foreigner not sharing a recognized culture or language with the speaker or writer employing the term. The word was probably formed by imitation of the incomprehensible sounds of a foreign language (“bar-bar”). Originally, it was not a derogatory term; it simply meant anything that was not Greek, including language, people or customs. Later, as the Greeks encountered more foreigners, some of whom learned Greek but spoke with a strange accent, the term took on the connotation of primitive and uncivilized. When the Greek civilization and culture was threatened by others (e.g. Persian or Gothic tribes) the meaning of violent was added. The Romans inherited this view from the Greeks, and in their encounters with different tribes across Europe usually called those tribes “barbarian.” However, being war- and conquest-oriented, the Romans admired barbarians as fearless and brave warriors.

Historical perspective

As the Roman Empire spread throughout Europe and Northern Africa they encountered various tribes and peoples. Some fought violently against the invading Roman armies, and continued raiding and looting after Roman conquest of their homelands. The Romans, with their well-organized military, regarded these violent and uncouth enemy tribes as barbarians. Attila the Hun is among the best known leader of such barbarians.

Although critical of their primitive culture, the Romans respected the bravery and fighting ability of barbarians. In the latter stages of the Roman Empire, around the 4th and 5th centuries CE, the Romans even started to recruit young barbarian males to serve in the Roman army, a practice known as the barbarization of the Roman Empire. Gothic and Vandal soldiers were employed to protect the empire's outer borders. However, this encouraged barbarians to attack the Romans more, due to the perceived weakness that barbarization produced, and, in the long run, aided in the final breakdown of the empire.

The following are examples of some of the tribes referred to as barbarian.

Berbers

The term "barbarian" does not come from the name of these people. Instead, the Berbers, a group of whom were originally known as Numidians, received the name "Berber" from the Roman term barbara or barbarian when they first encountered Romans.

The Berbers have lived in North Africa for as far back as records of the area go. References to them occur frequently in ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sources. The Byzantine chroniclers often complain of the Mazikes (Amazigh) raiding outlying monasteries.

Goths

File:800px-Illus0381.jpg

Invasion of the Goths: a late 19th century painting by O. Fritsche portrays the Goths as cavalrymen.

The Goths were an East Germanic tribe which according to their own traditions originated in Scandinavia (specifically Gotland and Götaland). They migrated southwards and conquered parts of the Roman empire.

Though many of the fighting nomads who followed them were to prove more bloody, the Goths were feared because the captives they took in battle were sacrificed to their god of war, Tyz [1](the one-Handed Tyr), and the captured arms hung in trees as a token-offering.

A force of Goths launched one of the first major "barbarian" invasions of the Roman Empire in 267 (Hermannus Contractus, quoting Eusebius, has "263: Macedonia, Graecia, Pontus, Asia et aliae provinciae depopulantur per Gothos"). A year later, they suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Naissus and were driven back across the Danube River by 271. This group then settled on the other side of the Danube from Roman territory and established an independent kingdom centered on the abandoned Roman province of Dacia, as the Visigoths. In the meantime, the Goths still in Ukraine established a vast and powerful kingdom along the Black Sea. This group became known as the Ostrogoths.

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Huns

The Huns, led by Attila (right, foreground), ride into Italy.

Attila the Hun ca. 406–453) was the last and most powerful king of the Huns. He reigned over what was then Europe's largest empire, from 434 until his death. His empire stretched from Central Europe to the Black Sea and from the Danube River to the Baltic. During his rule he was among the direst enemies of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires: he invaded the Balkans twice and encircled Constantinople in the second invasion. He marched through France as far as Orleans before being turned back at Chalons; and he drove the western emperor Valentinian III from his capital at Ravenna in 452.

Though his empire died with him, and he left no remarkable legacy, he has become a legendary figure in the history of Europe. In much of Western Europe, he is remembered as the epitome of cruelty and rapacity. In contrast, some histories lionize him as a great and noble king, and he plays major roles in three Norse sagas.

The European Huns seem to have been a western extension of the Xiongnu (Xiōngnú), (匈奴) n., a group of proto-Mongolian nomad tribes from north-eastern China and Central Asia. These people achieved military superiority over their rivals (most of them highly cultured and civilized) by their splendid state of readiness for combat, amazing mobility, and weapons like the Hun bow.

By 432, the Huns were united under Ruga. In 434 Ruga died, leaving his nephews Attila and Bleda, the sons of his brother Mundjuk, in control over all the united Hun tribes. At the time of their accession, the Huns were bargaining with Theodosius II's envoys over the return of several renegade tribes who had taken refuge within the Byzantine Empire. The following year, Attila and Bleda met with the imperial legation at Margus (present-day Požarevac) and, all seated on horseback in the Hunnic manner, negotiated a successful treaty: the Romans agreed not only to return the fugitive tribes (who had been a welcome aid against the Vandals), but also to double their previous tribute of 350 Roman pounds (ca. 114.5 kg) of gold, open their markets to Hunnish traders, and pay a ransom of eight solidi for each Roman taken prisoner by the Huns. The Huns, satisfied with the treaty, decamped from the empire and departed into the interior of the continent, perhaps to consolidate and strengthen their empire. Theodosius used this opportunity to strengthen the walls of Constantinople, building the city's first sea wall, and to build up his border defenses along the Danube.

The Huns remained out of Roman sight for the next five years. During this time, they were conducting an invasion of the Persian Empire. However, in Armenia, a Persian counterattack resulted in a defeat for Attila and Bleda, and they ceased their efforts to conquer Persia. In 440, they reappeared on the borders of the empire, attacking the merchants at the market on the north bank of the Danube that had been arranged for by the treaty. Attila and Bleda threatened further war, claiming that the Romans had failed to fulfil their treaty obligations and that the bishop of Margus (not far from modern Belgrade) had crossed the Danube to ransack and desecrate the royal Hun graves on the Danube's north bank. They crossed the Danube and laid waste to Illyrian cities and forts on the river, among them, according to Priscus, Viminacium, which was a city of the Moesians in Illyria. Their advance began at Margus, for when the Romans discussed handing over the offending bishop, he slipped away secretly to the barbarians and betrayed the city to them.

Theodosius had stripped the river's defenses in response to the Vandal Geiseric's capture of Carthage in 440 and the Sassanid Yazdegerd II's invasion of Armenia in 441. This left Attila and Bleda a clear path through Illyria into the Balkans, which they invaded in 441. The Hunnish army, having sacked Margus and Viminacium, took Sigindunum (modern Belgrade) and Sirmium before halting its operations. A lull followed during 442, when Theodosius recalled his troops from North Africa and ordered a large new issue of coins to finance operations against the Huns. Having made these preparations, he thought it safe to refuse the Hunnish kings' demands.

Attila and Bleda responded by renewing their campaign in 443. Striking along the Danube, they overran the military centers of Ratiara and successfully besieged Naissus (modern Niš) with battering rams and rolling towers—military sophistication that was new in the Hun repertory—then pushing along the Nisava they took Serdica (Sofia), Philippopolis (Plovdiv), and Arcadiopolis. They encountered and destroyed the Roman force outside Constantinople and were only halted by their lack of siege equipment capable of breaching the city's massive walls. Theodosius admitted defeat and sent the court official Anatolius to negotiate peace terms, which were harsher than the previous treaty: the Emperor agreed to hand over 6,000 Roman pounds (ca. 1,963 kg) of gold as punishment for having disobeyed the terms of the treaty during the invasion; the yearly tribute was tripled, rising to 2,100 Roman pounds (ca. 687 kg) in gold; and the ransom for each Roman prisoner rose to 12 solidi.

Their desires contented for a time, the Hun kings withdrew into the interior of their empire. According to Jordanes (following Priscus), sometime during the peace following the Huns' withdrawal from Byzantium (probably around 445), Bleda died (killed by his brother, according to the classical sources), and Attila took the throne for himself. Now undisputed lord of the Huns, he again turned towards the eastern Empire.

Constantinople suffered major natural (and man-made) disasters in the years following the Huns' departure: bloody riots between the racing factions of the Hippodrome; plagues in 445 and 446, the second following a famine; and a four-month series of earthquakes which levelled much of the city wall and killed thousands, causing another epidemic. This last struck in 447, just as Attila, having consolidated his power, again rode south into the empire through Moesia. The Roman army, under the Gothic magister militum Arnegisclus, met him on the river Vid and was defeated—though not without inflicting heavy losses. The Huns were left unopposed and rampaged through the Balkans as far as Thermopylae; Constantinople itself was saved by the intervention of the prefect Flavius Constantinus, who organized the citizenry to reconstruct the earthquake-damaged walls, and in some places to construct a new line of fortification in front of the old. An account of this invasion survives:

The barbarian nation of the Huns, which was in Thrace, became so great that more than a hundred cities were captured and Constantinople almost came into danger and most men fled from it. … And there were so many murders and blood-lettings that the dead could not be numbered. Ay, for they took captive the churches and monasteries and slew the monks and maidens in great numbers.

— Callinicus, in his Life of Saint Hypatius

Attila demanded, as a condition of peace, that the Romans should continue paying tribute in gold—and evacuate a strip of land stretching three hundred miles east from Sigindunum (Belgrade) and up to a hundred miles south of the Danube. Negotiations continued between Roman and Hun for approximately three years.

As late as 450, Attila had proclaimed his intent to attack the powerful Visigoth kingdom of Toulouse in alliance with Emperor Valentinian III. He had previously been on good terms with the western Empire and its de facto ruler Flavius Aetius—Aetius had spent a brief exile among the Huns in 433, and the troops Attila provided against the Goths and Bagaudae had helped earn him the largely honorary title of magister militum in the west. The gifts and diplomatic efforts of Geiseric, who opposed and feared the Visigoths, may also have influenced Attila's plans.

However Valentinian's sister Honoria, in order to escape her forced betrothal to a senator, had sent the Hunnish king a plea for help—and her ring—in the spring of 450. Though Honoria may not have intended a proposal of marriage, Attila chose to interpret her message as such; he accepted, asking for half of the western Empire as dowry. When Valentinian discovered the plan, only the influence of his mother Galla Placidia convinced him to exile, rather than kill, Honoria; he also wrote to Attila strenuously denying the legitimacy of the supposed marriage proposal. Attila, not convinced, sent an embassy to Ravenna to proclaim that Honoria was innocent, that the proposal had been legitimate, and that he would come to claim what was rightfully his.

Meanwhile, Theodosius having died in a riding accident, his successor Marcian cut off the Huns' tribute in late 450; and multiple invasions, by the Huns and by others, had left the Balkans with little to plunder. The king of the Salian Franks had died, and the succession struggle between his two sons drove a rift between Attila and Aetius: Attila supported the elder son, while Aetius supported the younger^[2]. J.B. Bury believes that Attila's intent, by the time he marched west, was to extend his kingdom—already the strongest on the continent—across Gaul to the Atlantic shore^[3]. By the time Attila had gathered his vassals—Gepids, Ostrogoths, Rugians, Scirians, Heruls, Thuringians, Alans, Burgundians, et al.—and begun his march west, he had declared intent of alliance both with the Visigoths and with the Romans.

In 451, his arrival in Belgica with an army said by Jordanes to be half a million strong soon made his intent clear. On April 7 he captured Metz, and Aetius moved to oppose him, gathering troops from among the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Celts. A mission by Avitus, and Attila's continued westward advance, convinced the Visigoth king Theodoric I (Theodorid) to ally with the Romans. The combined armies reached Orleans ahead of Attila^[4], thus checking and turning back the Hunnish advance. Aetius gave chase and caught the Huns at a place usually assumed to be near Châlons-en-Champagne. The two armies clashed in the Battle of Chalons, whose outcome commonly, though erroneously, is attributed to be a victory for the Gothic-Roman alliance. Theodoric was killed in the fighting. Aetius failed to press his advantage, and the alliance quickly disbanded. Attila withdrew to continue his campaign against Italy.

Attila returned in 452 to claim his marriage to Honoria anew, invading and ravaging Italy along the way; his army sacked numerous cities and razed Aquileia completely, leaving no trace of it behind. Valentinian fled from Ravenna to Rome; Aetius remained in the field but lacked the strength to offer battle. Attila finally halted at the Po, where he met an embassy including the prefect Trigetius, the consul Aviennus, and Pope Leo I. After the meeting he turned his army back, having claimed neither Honoria's hand nor the territories he desired.

Whatever his reasons, Attila left Italy and returned to his palace across the Danube. From there he planned to strike at Constantinople again and reclaim the tribute which Marcian had cut off. However, he died in the early months of 453; the conventional account, from Priscus, says that on the night after a feast celebrating his latest marriage (to a beautiful Goth named Ildico), he suffered a severe nosebleed and choked to death in a stupor. His warriors, upon discovering his death, mourned him by cutting off their hair and gashing themselves with their swords so that, says Jordanes, "the greatest of all warriors should be mourned with no feminine lamentations and with no tears, but with the blood of men." After his death, he lived on as a legendary figure: the characters of Etzel in the Nibelungenlied and Atli in both the Volsunga saga and the Poetic Edda were both loosely based on his life.

Atli.
From an illustration to the Poetic Edda.

Attila is known in Western history and tradition as the grim "Scourge of God", and his name has become a byword for cruelty and barbarism. Some of this may arise from a conflation of his traits, in the popular imagination, with those perceived in later steppe warlords such as the Mongol Great Khan Genghis Khan and Tamerlane: all run together as cruel, clever, and sanguinary lovers of battle and pillage. The reality of his character may be more complex. The Huns of Attila's era had been mingling with Roman civilization for some time, largely through the Germanic foederati of the border—so that by the time of Theodosius's embassy in 448, Priscus could identify Hunnic, Gothic, and Latin as the three common languages of the horde. Priscus also recounts his meeting with an eastern Roman captive who had so fully assimilated into the Huns' way of life that he had no desire to return to his former country, and the Byzantine historian's description of Attila's humility and simplicity is unambiguous in its admiration.

The historical context of Attila's life played a large part in determining his later public image: in the waning years of the western Empire, his conflicts with Aetius (often called the "last of the Romans") and the strangeness of his culture both helped dress him in the mask of the ferocious barbarian and enemy of civilization, as he has been portrayed in any number of films and other works of art. The Germanic epics in which he appears offer more nuanced depictions: he is both a noble and generous ally, as Etzel in the Nibelungenlied, and a cruel miser, as Atli in the Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda. Some national histories, though, always portray him favorably; in Hungary and Turkey the names of Attila (sometimes as Atilla in Turkish) and his last wife Ildikó remain popular to this day. In a similar vein, the Hungarian author Géza Gárdonyi's novel A láthatatlan ember (published in English as Slave of the Huns, and largely based on Priscus) offered a sympathetic portrait of Attila as a wise and beloved leader.

Magyars

Magyars are an ethnic group continuing to live primarily in Hungary and neighboring areas, and speaking a language of the Finno-Ugric family.

Prince Árpád is crossing the Carpathians. A detail of Árpád Feszty and assistants' vast (over 8000 m²) canvas, painted to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the Magyar conquest of Hungary, now displayed at Ópusztaszer National Memorial Site in Hungary

Originally the Magyars were situated to the east of the Ural Mountains in Siberia, where they hunted and fished and developed horse breeding and riding. They migrated southward and westward, and in 896, under the leadership of Árpád the Magyars crossed the Carpathians to enter the Carpathian Basin.

The century between the Magyars' arrival from the eastern European plains and the consolidation of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1001 was dominated by pillaging campaigns across Europe, from (Denmark) to the Iberian peninsula. Their merciless looting caused them to be known as the "scourge of Europe."

Picts

The Picts were a group of pre-Celtic tribes that lived in Caledonia, which is now the part of Scotland north of the River Forth. During the Roman occupation of Britain, the Picts continually attacked Hadrian's Wall.

Picti is usually taken to mean painted or tattooed in Latin. Julius Caesar mentions the British Celtic custom of body painting in Book V of his Gallic Wars, stating Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod caeruleum efficit colorem, atque hoc horridiores sunt in pugna aspectu; which means: "In fact all Britanni stain themselves with vitrum, which produces a dark blue color, and by this means they are more terrifying to face in battle;" Alternatively, the name Pict may be of Celtic origin. Legends about the Picts also include mention of possible Scythian origins — linking them with another remote pre-literate people. It should also be noted that Roman and Medieval scholars tended to ascribe a Scythian origin to any barbarian people (including the Scots and Goths) in order to emphasise their barbarity and 'otherness'.

Vandals

The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe that entered the late Roman Empire during the 5th century. They travelled through Europe until they met resistance from the Franks, who populated and controlled the Roman possessions in northern Gaul. Although they were victorious, 20,000 Vandals died in the resulting battle. They then crossed the Rhine, invading Gaul. The Vandals plundered their way westward and southward through Aquitaine, finally crossing the Pyrenees mountain range into the Iberian peninsula. The Vandals may have given their name to the province of Andalusia (originally, Vandalusia, then Al-Andalus), in modern Spain, where they temporarily settled before pushing on to Africa, where they created a state, centered on the city of Carthage.

In 455, the Vandals attacked and took Rome. They plundered the city for two weeks, departing with countless valuables. The term "vandalism" survives as a legacy of this barbaric plunder and senseless destruction.

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Positive contributions by barbarians

It should be noted, though, that many scholars believe that it was not barbarians or their culture (or lack of culture) that destroyed the Roman Empire. Rather, Roman culture was already in decline. Immorality, social indulgency, and greed destroyed the empire. Barbarians simply hastened the collapse. (For further reading see Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.) Also, the sacking of Rome by barbarians in 410 C.E. stimulated Augustine to write the City of God. In this work he established God's heavenly city as the true and permanent home to be sought by Christians, compared to the "City of Man," such as Rome, which was clearly vulnerable to attack and without a secure future.

Moreover, there are several aspects of barbarian culture that have contributed to modern culture and civilization. Many modern holidays are based on barbarian traditions and pagan rituals. Santa Claus and the Christmas tree, the Easter bunny and Easter eggs all have their roots in different barbarian festivals. Teutonic, Celtic, and other tribes introduced goldworking techniques, making beautiful jewelry and other ornamentations in styles very different from the classic tradition. Teutonic tribes brought strong iron plows that succeeding in farming the forested lowlands of northern and western Europe. There is also a claim that Celtic and Teutonic tribes developed a 12-based mathematical system (as opposed to the 10-based decimal system), which continues to be the basis of certain units of measurement in the United States to this day (see Francis Owen, The Germanic people: Their origin, expansion, and culture, New York: Bookman Associates, 1960). Barbarian stories such as Beowulf, Kalevala, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the tales of King Arthur provided great contributions to classic literature. Many famous fairy tales (e.g. tales of the Brothers Grimm) are also based on barbarian legends and myths.

Biblical perspective

In the New Testament the term "barbarian" is used in its Hellenic sense–to describe non-Greeks or those who merely speak a different language. For example, in Acts 28:2 and Acts 28:4 the author, probably from the Greek-Roman standpoint, refers to the inhabitants of Malta (formerly a Carthaginian colony) as “barbarians.” Similarly, in Colossians 3:11 the word is used for those nations of the Roman Empire that did not speak Greek. The writer of Romans 1:14 suggests that Greeks together with non-Greeks (i.e. “barbarians”) compose the whole human race. The term here, therefore, merely indicates a separation of Greek-speaking cultures from the non-Greek-speaking ones, the term itself not bearing any deprecatory value. However, elsewhere in the Bible this is not the case. In 1 Corinthians 14:11 Paul uses the term in its derogatory sense–to describe someone who speaks an unintelligible language. "If then I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that spoke a barbarian, and he that spoke will be a barbarian unto me." Paul here denounces the speaking in tongues, comparing it with the barbarian (i.e. foreign) language, which is useless if it cannot be understood, therefore not being able to convey the message from God. Philo and Josephus, together other Roman writers, used this term to separate Greco-Roman culture from other cultures, implying the supremacy of the former.

Cross-cultural perspective

From the cross-cultural perspective, the term “barbarian” is used in the context of the encounter of two different cultures. Many peoples have regarded alien or rival cultures as "barbarian," because they were unrecognizably strange. Thus, from this perspective the term has a rather pejorative meaning. For example, the Greeks admired Scythian and Eastern Gauls as heroic individuals, but considered their culture to be barbaric. Similarly, Romans saw various Germanic, Gaul, and Hun tribes as essentially barbaric. The Chinese (Han Chinese) regarded the Xiongnu, Tatars, Turks, Mongols, Jurchen, Manchu, and even Europeans as barbaric. The Chinese used different terms for barbarians from different directions of the compass. Those in the east were called Dongyi (东夷), those in the west were called Xirong (西戎), those in the south were called Nanman (南蛮), and those in the north were called Beidi (北狄).

This way of describing foreigners was adopted by the Japanese when Europeans first came to Japan. They were called nanbanjin (南蛮人), literally "Barbarians from the South," because the Portuguese ships appeared to sail from the South. Today, Japanese use gaikokujin (外国人 literally translated as "outside country person") to refer politely to foreigners. The term gaijin (外人 literally translated as "outside person") is also used today to refer to foreigners, with somewhat mixed connotations since this term was originally used to refer to someone as an "outsider" or "enemy." However, the term gaijin does not include any reference to whether the person is a "barbarian," in the sense of being uncivlized or violent.

Sociological perspective

From the sociological viewpoint, the concept of “barbarian” is connected with, and depends upon, a carefully defined use of the term civilization. Civilization denotes a settled (city/urban) way of life that is organized on principles broader than the extended family or tribe. Surpluses of necessities can be stored and redistributed and division of labor produces some luxury goods (even if only for the elite, priesthood, or kings). The barbarian is not an integrated part of the civilization, but depends on settlements as a source of slaves, surpluses and portable luxuries: booty, loot and plunder.

A distinction, however, needs to be made between the concepts of “culture” and “civilization.” Rich, deep, authentic human culture exists even without civilization, as the German writers of the early Romantic generation first defined the opposing terms, though they used them as polarities in a way that a modern writer might not. "Culture" should not simply connote "civilization". In this sense, barbarians are those of a different culture, who depend on the civilization dominant in the geographical area where they live.

Barbarian culture should not be confused with that of the nomad. Nomadic societies subsist on what they can hunt and gather, or on the products of their livestock. They follow food supplies for themselves and/or their animals. The nomad may barter for necessities, like metalwork, but does not depend on civilization for plunder, as the barbarian does.

Psychological perspective

From the psychological perspective, the term “barbarian” can be associated with a stereotypical image of someone who is not a member of one's own group. As Bouris, Turner, and Gagnon (1997) put it, “Stereotypes function to represent inter-group realities–creating images of the out-group (and the in-group) that explain, rationalize, and justify the inter-group relationship” (p. 273). Accordingly, group-thinking creates a specific context for inter- and intra-group relationships, which use stereotypes as a means of group interaction. For social psychologists, inter-group relationships (cooperation-competition, in-group status) are closely associated with intra-group relationships. Sentiments and behavior of the in-group members, usually seen in a positive and morally correct light, are created in opposition to members of other groups. Positive and moral self-image is attributed to all members of the in-group, while on the other hand, out-group membership is regarded as less valued. Stereotypes and negative images of the out-group are thus constructed to serve the function of degrading the out-group and keeping the balance between in- and out-group membership.

The barbarian image serves to demean the members of the other group, creating a morally justified reason for separation from that group. Out-group barbarians are usually depicted as extremely strong but irrational, evil without moral judgment, destructive and violent, whose leaders rely more on emotion than intelligence. This is contrasted with in-group members, who are gentle, moral, and of superior intelligence. Thus, in- and out-group members cannot/should not be mixed together. In this way the intra-group balance is established. (For further reading see Cottam (1986) and Herrmann (1985)).

Current use

In modern times, fantasy novels and role-playing video games often feature barbarians (such as Conan the Barbarian and Asterix), who are depicted as brave uncivilized warriors, often able to attack with a crazed fury.

See also

• Michael Wall's 1989 play Amongst Barbarians
• Wikipedia:List of words meaning outsider, foreigner or "not one of us"

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bouris, R. Y., Turner, J. C. & Gagnon, A. (1997). Interdependence, Social Identity, and Discrimination. In R. Spears, P. Oakes, N. Ellemers, & S. A. Haslam (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Stereotyping and Group Life (pp. 273–295). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

• Boulding, K. (1959). National Images and International Systems. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 3, 120-131.

• Cottam, M. (1986). Foreign Policy Decision Making: The Influence of Cognition. Boulder : Westview Press

• Gibbon, E. (1983). Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (R.E. Williams, Ed.). Smithmark Publishers; Abrdg&Illu edition

• Hall, E. (1989). Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy. Oxford/New york

• Heider, F. (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York: Wiley.

• Herrmann, R. K. (1985). Perceptions and Behavior in Soviet Foreign Policy. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

• Owen, Francis, (1960). The Germanic people: Their Origin, Expansion, and Culture, New York: Bookman Associates.

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New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

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