About Hunter Wallace 12392 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

50 Comments

  1. Wayne,

    The Germans at the Teutoburg forest annihilated multiple legions in the first decade AD. this happens to have occurred in the area the Saxons orginated from, although the commander was a Cherusi. Augustus was politically and mentally broken by the defeat. This was at the zenith of Roman power.

  2. Negative, John. Carthage had conquered Spain before, and established colonies there, hence Hannibal’ s brother was handily in Spain with an army when he tried to come to Hannibals aide, but wad beaten.
    The Italians did not differ in complexion from the Romans because one of the problems for the Romans was after the granting of citizenship, they could not tell each other apart.
    The Middle East, likewise, is not it is today, and neither was Anatolia. They were all much whiter, darken by later invasions from Arab and Turkish tribes. The ancient Persians were pretty pale too.

  3. John: negative again. I used to think that too, and in fact, the Germans did win a great victory there. But it was a mistake in leadership in that a supposed ally led them into the forest and then turned on them. Moreover, that battle was on German turf. When the barbarians began to invade Roman territory, Rome was already weakened politically and militariy and economically. But don’ t take my word for it, read Edward Gibbons.

  4. There really is no reason to feud between Western nations. All of them have awesome legacies and story to tell: Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, Germans, Nords, Celts, Slavs, all fascinating.
    Lately I’ ve been looking into the Cossacks and Hussars, great cavalrymen from the central plains.

  5. The Romans retreat to the Rhine as a frontier after a punitive expedition to save face after 20,000 legionnaires were slaughtered. So indeed the Romans were bested in a pitched battle by German tribes. 3 Legions shouldn’t have been annihilated as formations if their organization was superior. 20,000 men don’t go down like a sack of shit if they are better than a tribal rabble. Perhaps a single legion might be be beaten, but not three. That was 10% of the entire Roman army exterminated in a day or two. Devastating.

  7. John: nowadays perhaps. This was millenia ago and it was different. As I said, even Greece was very much white then.
    The Romans lost lots of legions at various times and recovered nicely. Teutoberg Forest was an aberration, caused by one man’ s poor leadership and another’ s treachery. All is fair in love and war, I suppose, but had the Romans stayed in the fields, they would likely have won easily. Also, the Romans were loath to expend more treasure in such a paltry, barbarous outback. In those days, Egypt and the Levant were where the riches were, and were victories paid off in talents of gold.

  9. The Germanics had a superior social organization at the end of the day. Eventually their way of doing things lead to the successor states of France, England, Netherlands, Switzerland and the German kingdoms which dominated the globe.

    Ferdinand and Isabella’s Spanish empire was eventually Habsburg, A Germanic dynasty.

  11. I don’t think that Germany could have been considered a worthless territory. The “aberration” as you call it was a sound defeat that instantly removed 10% of their military strength. The Romans were clearly quite spooked by the Germans and retreated to the Rhine. War is war.

  12. At that time,John, Germany was indeed a backwater, same as the British Isles. The money, glory, and sophistication was in the east.
    You are right about Germanic tribes influence, but that was much later.
    The Roman civil structure was not rivaled again until the end of the Middle Ages. Romans had superb work ethic, law, military organization, cities and public works while the Germanic and Celtic tribes were living as the North American Indians were at the time of Colombus, except they used metal.
    And please don’ t come down too hard on the Romans for their conquests, remember what the Angles, Saxons and Jutes did to the Celtic inhabitants of Briton?

  14. The agermans were much more sophisticated than given credit for. Arminius, for example built a specific earthwork in which to bottleneck and destroy the Eoman Legions. Like a world war I entrenchment. The Romans were obviously out thought and outfought.

  15. The section under Charles II is even more interesting.

    But I digress.

    The Chinburgs were an odd bunch. it all ended with Franz Ferdinand.

  16. Wayne,

    Please expand on your claim that Christianity ruined Rome. Two things that were destroying Roman society were instant divorce and homosexuality. It was also ruled by divine emperors that is very un-western. Obama-worshippers would have fit in great in the Roman Empire, not so much anyone here at OD…

    Rome was becoming harmful its own people and others, it’s better as a church.
    Just like America is a disaster and should just be a corporation, which it kind of already is.

  17. Reading amateurs talk about military matters is a hoot. Rome lost battles and wars. Some of their wins damn near cost them everything. Impressive people, with an impressive record of all kinds of accomplishments but not invincible. And they have a shit record regarding govt that favors the right of free White men over the prerogatives of govt.

    Many European tribes checked Roman advances by doing what smaller powers always do to beat super powers; making victory a bad return on investment. Of course the super power always explains away the loss by insulting the smaller tribe in a variety of ways but that’s the way the war of the flea goes

    Rome was checked at the river Tweed by my father’s people because our people fought the dirty war. Small tribes the world over have done the same thing to all manners of super powers and “modern” armies. Roman included

    What most folks over look about Roman military success is the role it’s centralized, govt played. Way to complex a topic for the here and now but Romans were the lincoln’s/ yankees of their time. The desire for large, all controlling govt is at the root of the Italian DNA. Which is why so many of them here love the union. Compare their govt vs the small government of clans and kinship of the low land Scotts. You can see why one side favors small government and individual liberty and why the romans favor the mess we have now and ask for more government

  18. Absolutely true Stonelifter. The people who lived above Hadrian’s wall also seem to have spooked the Romans somehow.

  19. Wayne,

    One more point about the period between 410 and 590 in Britain/England.

    Plenty of evidence suggests that the late Romano British and Anglo Saxon settlements were continuous and there is no layer of burning you’d expect from an invasion or population replacement. I’m not a German just because I drive an Mercedes, or a Japanese if I own a Sony TV. There ‘s been lots of Archeological research that indicates
    The Anglo Saxon’s were present as auxiliaries and traders before Roman administrators scooted. The dental tests run on Anglo Saxon grave sites show very few foreign born males. Strangely enough most of the small number of foreign born are low status females. So theres a case to be made that the British were importing scandinavian au pairs and the Romans settled German auxiliaries as a reward– which explains the Linguistic evidence. There’s very little evidence of settlements burned down in sieges in this period, just continuous habitation. Most of the people who were born out of the area they were buried in tended to come from the west of the Isles instead of a cross the North Sea too. There are no military cemeteries from this period either. It’s kinda odd.

    My personal take is that the Island was heavily Germanic long before the Roman Empire bugged out. Then the most clannish group trained for war simple dominated the culture.

  20. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_of_the_Batavi

    The Batavians and their chums the Frisians provided a huge percentage of the Roman force that occupied Britain. These troops would have been present during the Boudicca Revolt and probably territory occupied by the now virtually exterminated Iceni. Their role in the Claudian invasion. Their folk memory of extirpation might even account for
    the legends about Saxons.

  24. Wayne says: “Real Rome was BEFORE Christianity. That was Rome in its highest form. Christianity ruined it.”

    SHUT UP STUPID RACIST ANTISEMITE. JESUS WILL FRY YOUR SOUL IN HELL BECAUSE HE HATES YOU.

  25. WE hE LIKES molesting fried babies too. most Holy C0ckasaurus Purple BArney Rex aFROjESUS to the rescue IS! You get to die soon smile

  26. No racists on our streets, shouldn’t you be at some kind of club with metal detectors in a shopping center on a Friday night where all the crime seems to be isolated to that one business with blacked out windows, the metal detector wands and off-duty police officers acting as security while the club serves “top shelf” watered down liquor?

  28. All the racists are probably hard at work making money to pay for the streets…that nignogs shuffle around on like zombies.

  29. What most folks over look about Roman military success is the role it’s centralized, govt played. Way to complex a topic for the here and now but Romans were the lincoln’s/ yankees of their time. The desire for large, all controlling govt is at the root of the Italian DNA. Which is why so many of them here love the union. Compare their govt vs the small government of clans and kinship of the low land Scotts. You can see why one side favors small government and individual liberty and why the romans favor the mess we have now and ask for more government

    Oh, I dunno. After Rome, it took Italy forever to get its shit together vis-a-vis nationalism (if one can say they ever did; definitely debatable). One thing to remember about Italy is it’s the world’s greatest piece of real estate. Med climate, sky-high coastline to inland ratio, located right in the middle of the Med sea. I defy anyone to find a better piece of real estate.

    Which is why, after Rome brought the entire penninsula to more or less economic parity, Italy fell apart into small kingdoms. City-states like Venice and Florence were as wealthy as entire countries elsewhere in Europe, due to their mercantile power. I think a lot of western civilization got its “preview” in Italy, especially in terms of how nations behave as they become wealthier (e.g., Condottieri began to do all the fighting because rich merchants would rather hire someone else to die).

    Like Germany, Italy took a lot longer to form as a nation than elsewhere in Europe. And unlike Germany (AFAIK), Italy is still visibly riven by regional factions.

    I’m just not seeing this Italian love of big central gov’t. Quite the opposite. Now, sure, like any recently-arrived minority, Italian-Americans tend to cleave to big American gov’t since that’s the side their bread’s buttered on, but that’s neither here nor there.

  30. Which is why, after Rome brought the entire peninsula to more or less economic parity

    And then fell, obviously. Wasn’t trying to say it was the economic parity on the peninsula that caused the collapse.

    But I think overall, parity is a widely-overlooked reason for the fall of the western empire (the eastern, Greek half of the empire lasted another thousand years). The people the Romans were whupping simply caught up. They advanced and caught up enough for the lot of them to bring the Romans down. The Romans built roads throughout their empire. The barbarians followed them to Rome and learned the Romans’ games. And bit by bit they became too much for the Romans to handle. And the Romans slowly declined as all peoples do when they achieve a certain level of wealth.

  33. Interesting point Svigor.

    The Romans didn’t exactly build all the roads. Most of them have proven to existed in some form back to the Bronze Age.

    Good points about the Germans learning the game too well for the Romans to cope. I also think the Germans were organized already and that they were quite capable of beating the Romans at first contact. Caesar himself relied on German cavarly in Gaul. He couldn’t have smashed up the Gauls otherwise.

    When you read about Roman battles, invariably from Roman authors
    You have to remember that they often discounted the auxilliary numbers. When a Roman talks about 10,000 Romans fighting 20,000 Barbarians the Romans often forget to mention the 10,000 barbarians who fought as auxilliaries in the same battles.

  34. “Rome was checked at the river Tweed by my father’s people because our people fought the dirty war.”

    Your father’s people didn’t even colonize Lowland Scotland until after the Roman Empire withered away in the mid-fifth century. The Scoti were Irish raiders before that and the peoples north of Hadrian’s wall were primarily Britons and Picts. The Lowland Scots/Reivers didn’t coalesce into any sort of indigenous culture until after a stiff infusion of Gaels (Scoti) and various Anglo Saxons on top of the indigenous Britons. It was a process that took about a thousand years.

  35. Rudel,

    You are talking about postage stamped sizes of territory. Have you ever heard of 7,000 year old Cheddar Gorge Man? He’s related to 10% in Britain and 10% Ireland almost equally between the two Islands. U5 MDNA.

    Also it appears that the Batavian Legions (modern Frisian/Dutch simply settled there.) after Honorius told them to fend for themselves. It’s quite possible the that these people
    Simply blended into the newly forming Anglo-Northhumbrian kingdom.

    And the Picts did indeed stop the Romans, much as the Germans did.

    There practically no way to tell Paddy and John Bull apart.

  36. “What most folks over look about Roman military success is the role it’s centralized, govt played. Way to complex a topic for the here and now but Romans were the lincoln’s/ yankees of their time. The desire for large, all controlling govt is at the root of the Italian DNA.”

    Balderdash. The 500 year success of the Roman Republic was based on the freeholding citizen farmer forming the backbone of the Legions. After the Empire was established and expanded in the First Century BC the key to the next 500 years of the success of the Empire was the use of adroit foreign policy, alliances, and use of barbarian forces matched by the unbelievably small and inexpensive civil service (much like the British Colonial Service) utilized by the Empire. Most surplus wealth was spent on infrastructure like viaducts, paved roads, and fortified towns that were a huge boon to efficient movement of goods and trade within the Empire and the key to its wealth.

    I don’t think there is much cultural or genetic connection between the Ancient Romans and modern Italians at all. Modern Italians are products of the Dark Ages.

  37. Another question to keep forefront in one’s mind when considering why the western empire fell is to consider why the eastern empire didn’t. E.g., Christianity’s out as single cause because it didn’t destroy the eastern empire. The only explanation I’ve read so far about why the Grecian half didn’t fall is that it was much wealthier and more developed and populated than the Italian half, from before the rise of Rome. Thus, it was better positioned to transition successfully to the post-Roman era. Dunno if it’s true or not, but there it is.

  39. Rudel,

    Your are a pretentious twit. Let’s have a quiz offline somehow. I’ll wipe the floor with your bog brush fro on history and geography.

  40. I disagree about the Romans being a different stock back then. The general population cannot have been replaced quite like that. The mDNA in the South fits the evidence of
    Greek colonization. The Northerner mDNA fits with Celt tribes. The Romans were literally spawned from that faultline of mDNA.

    http://hartleyfamily.org.uk/Haplogroups_NativeEuropeans.jpg

    which fits very closely to the idea that they emerged from the middle of Greek and Celt settlements.

  41. Those are Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups not mitochondrial DNA (let alone autosomal samples) and they are obsolete Y-chromosome groups to boot. You literally don’t know WTF you are talking about.

    Stick to you British Empire fantasies and leave history and genetics to people who have some inkling of the subjects. And please stop posting. Your comments are drivel.

  42. PS – if you want to talk about the genetic makeup of the early Romans at least include DNA analyses of some 2000 to 2500 year old specimens. Duh.

  43. Christianity replaced the manly warrior spirit that drove the Romans to excellence with barefoot friars, thousands of cowardly, lazy and worthless monks and celibate nuns. It likewise introduced a spirit of faction that drove the East and West apart. They hated each other so much that Constantinople preferred the “turban of the Turk to the mitre of the Pope”.
    Where was the writing of the ancient Germans and Celts? Where is there philosophy and grand architecture. You all sound like blacks trying to take credit for a clearly more advanced civilization. Look, I’m proudly of Celtic and Germanic descent, and will proudly say that they were pagan tribes that came nowhere near the refinement of Rome in her day. Gibbon had it right, but I don’t agree with him that the Eddas was trash literature.

  44. Stonifter: don’t confuse being turned back with overextending. Rome overextended in the British Isles. While there though they did I one hell of a job on Boudicca’s army.
    Rome Legions, in the prime of their days, could have easily held off any of the barbarian tribes. No problem.

  45. The Eddas are European heritage and exemplify the Northern spirit of the race. The ancient matter was reforged in the sagas of J.R.R. Tolkien.

    That said, the Christian Germanic peoples, the Franks, Goths, Visigoths of the Nuova Roma fought a two front war against the Saracen for over 700 years – and won. They declared victory for the Reconquista on two fronts – the Eastern European front and in Spain and Portugal having saved the Palatinate, France, Spain and Portugal.

  46. “Rome Legions, in the prime of their days, could have easily held off any of the barbarian tribes.”

    Of course the Roman legion was a superior fighting unit. The trick was to hold the borders of a vast empire with the minimum amount of money and men. For this the Romans employed statecraft as well as war. They attacked and broke up any larger force the Germans would unite under and play off the different tribes against one another often using them in their employ. We didn’t stabilize Iraq until we started playing ball with the different Sunni factions.

    This has always been SOP for any empire whether it be the Egyptians, the Babylonians, Greece, Philip and Alexander, the Spanish especially in Latin America, the British everywhere, the Chinese, the Ottoman Turks, the Shoguns of Japan, in fact any successful empire in history.

    I daresay the American Empire is going to have a considerably shorter run than most of its predecessors.

  47. Christianity replaced the manly warrior spirit that drove the Romans to excellence with barefoot friars, thousands of cowardly, lazy and worthless monks and celibate nuns.

    Pagan Rome had crossdressing eunuch priests in the state Cybele cult, later Attis as well. Not to mention the vestal virgins…

  48. Good point Tamer. Who was effete and who was manly by today’s standards?

    The main trouble with the Christians would be people who took it too seriously: by actually turning the other cheek.

    Feeding the 5,000 was a pretty good strategy though. The English word for Lord means Loafgiver. It’s a good way to build an army, filling the belly of the angry peasant.

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