The Barbarians by tuffy perkins

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Barbarians

 

The Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains

Barbarian, tartar and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage. In idiomatic or figurative usage, a "barbarian" may also be an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, insensitive person.^[1]

The term originates from the ancient Greek word βάρβαρος barbaros. Hence the Greek idiom "πας μη Ελλην βαρβαρος" which literally means "whoever is not Greek is a Barbarian". In ancient times, Greeks used it for the people of the Persian Empire; in the early modern period and sometimes later, they used it for the Turks, in a clearly pejorative way.^[2][3] Comparable notions are found in non-European civilizations. In the Roman empire, Romans used the word barbarian for the Germans, Celts, Iberians, Thracians, and Persians.

                                                                                                             The Huns 

Historically, the term barbarian has seen widespread use, in English. Many peoples have dismissed alien cultures and even rival civilizations, because they were unrecognizably strange. For instance, the nomadic steppe peoples north of the Black Sea, including the Pechenegs and the Kipchaks, were called barbarians by Byzantines.^[30]

The Dying Gaul, Capitoline Museums, Rome. Some insight about the Hellenistic perception of and attitude to "Barbarians" can be taken from the "Dying Gaul", a statue commissioned by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory over the Celtic Galatians in Anatolia (the bronze original is lost, but a Roman marblecopy was found in the 17th century).^[28] The statue depicts with remarkable realism a dying Gallic warrior with a typically Gallic hairstyle and moustache. He lies on his fallen shield while sword and other objects lie beside him. He appears to be fighting against death, refusing to accept his fate.