Name the barbarian tribes of confiscation, rape, and pillage that destroyed the ancient Romans?

Question

More than 10 different barbarian tribes got together to destroy the ancient Romans and infiltrate the Roman legions. There were those that confiscated goods, those that raped the women, and those that knocked down buildings and public centers. What were their names?

Answer 1

There was no 'confederation' of tribes that 'got together' to do the things you mention, nor did the 'infiltrate' the legions. In fact, the Romans actively encouraged peoples from the Empire to join those legions and separate units comprised of 'barbarians' were actually set up. Britannia was garrisoned, in part, by a unit of Bactrian cavalry. Alaric the Visigoth was the first to penetrate Rome but there is no suggestion that he raped or pillaged. He, in fact, wished Rome to remain. He was brought off by a large payment in gold (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaric_I for more details). Other tribes were the Huns and Vandals, Some didn't even enter Italy, but journeyed through Spain, crossing to North Africa were they settled in the Roman towns in that region.

Answer 2

Barbarian Rape

Answer 3

First, stay away from the wiki cut and pastes.
The primary outside influences were the Goths, the Vandals, the Visigoths and the Huns. The Gauls.
Also, don't forget that Rome had been feeding on internal corruption for centuries.

Answer 4

The main ones were Vandals and Visigoths. Hence we get the word Vandalism.

Answer 5

Vandals , Visigoths and Huns for a few.

Answer 6

As has been mentioned before, there was no real "vast barbarian consipiracy" to destroy the Romans, but it was a combination of several confederate tribes working together.

In the late Imperial era, Rome was in bad shape. Her central government had become a huge, crushing bureaucracy, whose byzantine laws and autocratic rule snuffed the life out of the once vibrant Roman economy. Without the economic support it once had, Rome could no longer support large, well trained and equipped armies.There are accounts of Roman soldiers going into battle with only their sword and shield, with only the front two ranks recieving the benefit of a chain mail coat. This was further exacerbated by the Roman's growing resentment of the army, which was no longer lionized by the population as it had been during Caesar's day. There are reports of men who would amputate their thumb to avoid conscription, and there is even a word for them in Latin (the Murci). Ill discipline, poor equipment, and demotivated conscript armies, lead to the distain of Roman soldiers by the Germans, who once feared the might of Rome's armies.

The Roman authority got around this problem in two ways:

1. superior diplomacy. Compared to the intrigues of the imperial court, the petty squabbles of German chieftans must have seemed like cake to the shrewd Roman diplomats, who were able to play egos off of each other, and prevent large confederations of tribes from forming.

2. The use of federated troops (the Foederati). As Rome grew increasingly desperate for manpower, she began granting tribes of Germans federated (but for all intents and purposes, Soverign) land inside the empire in return for troops for the army. By the 5th century, when Rome finally crumbled, There was probably not a single Italian in the entire army.

There were thousands of Germanic tribes that migrated into the carcass of the Roman empire, but they were all grouped into powerful confederations. The most significant confederations (in terms of leading to the decline and fall of the West) were:

- The Goths. Originally from modern southern Ukraine, these people were pushed into the empire by migrating steppes people. They initially crossed the Danube into the Roman Balkans, and the initial attempt to repel them was the disaster at the battle of Adrianople, in which the significant Roman army in the Balkans, and the Eastern Emperor, was lost. The new Emperor, Theodosius, sued for peace, granting them land along the Danube (which had been utterly abandoned by the Roman population due to years of barbarian raiding) in return for protecting the Danube from further invasion.

Around 410 A.D, the Roman Generalissimo was a German named Stilicho, who in trying to marry into the Imperial family, was murdered. This caused a large number of Roman soldiers to defect, many joining the Goths under the Warlord Alaric. in 410, he sacked Rome, but Alaric himself died shortly thereafter. From this point on, the Goths were split into two main confederations. The Visigoths (western Goths) Migrated further west, eventually settling in Modern Spain. The Ostrogoths (eastern Goths) stayed in the Balkans, until they migrated into Italy. It was the Ostrogothic king Odoacer who forced the western Emperor into retirement, and disbanded the Western Roman authority forever.

- The Franks. Though a thorn in Rome's side, they were never the absolute terrors that, say, the Goths or huns were. The Franks were famous for their throwing axes, which they named themselves after. As the Western Roman Authority collapsed, these people migrated into Gaul, and established the Frankish kingdom. What is interesting is that these people (probably due to their conversion to Catholicism) endured, and to this day, we get the modern word "France" from the Franks.

-The Alemanni. These people were an old enemy of Rome, but despite this fact, didn't migrate into the empire. These people stayed in Germania, and are the reason that in modern French and Spanish, Germany is "Alemania".

-The Vandals. A steppe people, these marauding barbarians were probably responsible for the most destruction in the Empire. They migrated down from the Ural mountains, through Europe, and into Spain, destroying everything in their path. From Spain, they sailed into Africa, and after fierce and bloody fighting, took Carthage, depriving the Western Empire of its richest and largest food producing province. From Africa, they sailed up to Italy, along the Italian coast, eventually sacking Rome in 455 A.D. The failure of the combined effort by the Western and Eastern empires to stop them at a pivotal naval battle was the death knell for the Western Empire. The Vandal sack of 455 was hideously gruesome, vastly more so than the Gothic sack of 410, enough so that the word "Vandal" became permanently etched in our language as someone who destroys property.

The Huns. It was the Hunnic movements that caused the Germanic migrations in the first place, so the process of the dismantling of the Roman Empire was probably set in motion by these guys. The Huns were a nightmare people; destructive, unmerciful, and cruel beyond the capacity of rational thought. Their lightning warfare was so effective that the Christians of the day thought they were the army of the devil. After a death march through Eastern Europe the Huns invaded Gaul, stopped only by a military alliance of the Romans, Franks, and Visigoths. It was at the pivotal battle of Chalons in 451 where the Roman general Flavius Aetius (who is often called "the Last Roman") finally defeated The Hunnic king Attila.

While on the topic of Flavius Aetius, it is also worth mentioning that he was the only general in the west who commanded the respect of the Roman federated tribes. When the Western Roman Emperor assassinated him due to jealousy, he also lost the command and respect of the federated tribes, effectively depriving the Western Empire of an army. It was only 25 years after Aetius's death that the Empire had formally dissolved, as no powerful Roman leader was left to keep the federated tribes in check.

Smaller tribes that only played an indirect role in Rome's defeat include the Burgundians, Lombards, Avars, Alans, and Saxons.

EDIT - @ Sprout's Mom - This post was written completely by myself, as this is a period of history that is of great interest to me. I only cited Wiki as a secondary source. Feel free to check my source if you don't believe me, or look at my answers history to find posts that I have made regarding Roman history.

Answer 7

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