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the Vandals and the Sack of Rome in 455

Rumpelstil said:
when the Vandals looted Rome in 455, they spared the people and the buildings.

the Vikings were less considerate.
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The Vandals most definitely did destroy buildings and take slaves during the sack of Rome. It would be fair to say that the sack of Rome wasn't particularly brutal considering the standards of the time.
 
What the Vikings were primarily interested in was arable land - something which was/is in short supply in Scandinavia. So they settled and ultimately assimilated into the local culture. What the Vandals wanted was booty - literally and figuratively. So they plundered and raped and ran away with whatever they could carry.
 
Rumpelstil said:
the Vandals got a bad name for what they did.
the Vikings were a lot worse, but are glorified.
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It's also a matter of scale. The Vandals are accused (perhaps unfairly) of causing the collapse of the Roman Empire, which has an almost deified status in Western culture. Conversely, the Vikings were pagan raiders that did some raping a torched a few churches, but ultimately converted in the end.

In general, historical tragedies tend to be selectively exaggerated by primary sources, particularly when the primary sources belong to the ultimately victorious party.
 
Rumpelstil said:
when the Vandals looted Rome in 455, they spared the people and the buildings.

the Vikings were less considerate.
Click to expand...

Also less considerate were the landsknechts, German mercenaries, during the Sack of Rome in 1527.
 
Rumpelstil said:
when the Vandals looted Rome in 455, they spared the people and the buildings.
the Vikings were less considerate.
Click to expand...

Are you self-identifying with the Vandals now? Thats ironic.

The Vandals didnt sack Rome out of nowhere. It was politics, as anyone who cares to spend two minutes on Google would know.
The Roman emperor they had been allied with was murdered and his murderer took the throne. So the Vandals attacked and sacked Rome with what was a clear Casus Belli.
They made a deal with the pope to not massacre the inhabitants and burn the city down, which made them gentler than the Romans themselves usually were. So far so good.

Then came the French Revolution where the term "vandalism" was coined.
The French didnt much like Germans even back then, so associating the destruction of the revolution with Germans barbarity was an attempt to curb the excesses of the mob.
Thus establishing yet another narrative that naive individuals have sucked up without questioning ever since. That they just attacked out of nowhere one day because they liked raping and killing.
 
Rumpelstil said:
when the Vandals looted Rome in 455, they spared the people and the buildings.

the Vikings were less considerate.
Click to expand...

Needless to say, the Vikings were less considerate than a lot of people...

I do think the Huns get a bad rap, though... Attila was all set to sack Rome - nothing stood in his way - but then Pope Leo asked him not to... and so turned around, went back across the Danube and obligingly died. Now THAT's considerate.
 
Cordelier said:
Needless to say, the Vikings were less considerate than a lot of people...

I do think the Huns get a bad rap, though... Attila was all set to sack Rome - nothing stood in his way - but then Pope Leo asked him not to... and so turned around, went back across the Danube and obligingly died. Now THAT's considerate.
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some kind of miracle
 
Rumpelstil said:
some kind of miracle
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Maybe... or maybe Attila was just a misunderstood softie at heart? What if all those other cities he sacked had only been nice to him? Who knows how we'd remember Attila today?

Incidentally, when I was going to Catholic school back in the day, the librarian was a Basque nun who used to break into her native language when we kids made her angry. We used to call her Attila the Nun.
 
Cordelier said:
Maybe... or maybe Attila was just a misunderstood softie at heart? What if all those other cities he sacked had only been nice to him? Who knows how we'd remember Attila today?
Click to expand...

Noone knows what Leo said to Big A, but we do know that noone in the Hunnic empire paid taxes. Roman tribute took care of that, so all the subject peoples had to supply was troops.
Destroying Rome would have made for a nice one-time income, but also put an end to their financial strategy.

Somewhat more conjecturally; after the battle of the Catalaunian Fields, it was clear to everyone that the real power behind Attila and Rome were not their own armies, but those of their allies.
Taking Rome out of the picture would have put the Visigoths in the driver seat for the Western Empire. That would not have been good for the Huns, as not only did they have a serious grudge against the Huns, but it might also have given the Huns' Germanic allies ideas about who they wanted to be allied with. And as it turned out, that was pretty much what happened after Aetius and Attila died. One tribe after another dominating the former western empire, until eventually the Franks arrived and reshaped Europe into a semblance ofwhat we know today.
 
HK.227 said:
Are you self-identifying with the Vandals now? Thats ironic.

The Vandals didnt sack Rome out of nowhere. It was politics, as anyone who cares to spend two minutes on Google would know.
The Roman emperor they had been allied with was murdered and his murderer took the throne. So the Vandals attacked and sacked Rome with what was a clear Casus Belli.
They made a deal with the pope to not massacre the inhabitants and burn the city down, which made them gentler than the Romans themselves usually were. So far so good.

Then came the French Revolution where the term "vandalism" was coined.
The French didnt much like Germans even back then, so associating the destruction of the revolution with Germans barbarity was an attempt to curb the excesses of the mob.
Thus establishing yet another narrative that naive individuals have sucked up without questioning ever since. That they just attacked out of nowhere one day because they liked raping and killing.
Click to expand...

so the Vandals were even better than inthought
 
HK.227 said:
Noone knows what Leo said to Big A, but we do know that noone in the Hunnic empire paid taxes. Roman tribute took care of that, so all the subject peoples had to supply was troops.
Destroying Rome would have made for a nice one-time income, but also put an end to their financial strategy.

Somewhat more conjecturally; after the battle of the Catalaunian Fields, it was clear to everyone that the real power behind Attila and Rome were not their own armies, but those of their allies.
Taking Rome out of the picture would have put the Visigoths in the driver seat for the Western Empire. That would not have been good for the Huns, as not only did they have a serious grudge against the Huns, but it might also have given the Huns' Germanic allies ideas about who they wanted to be allied with. And as it turned out, that was pretty much what happened after Aetius and Attila died. One tribe after another dominating the former western empire, until eventually the Franks arrived and reshaped Europe into a semblance ofwhat we know today.
Click to expand...

Be that as it may, it still doesn't negate the fact that the Huns were more considerate than the Visigoths.
 
Cordelier said:
Be that as it may, it still doesn't negate the fact that the Huns were more considerate than the Visigoths.
Click to expand...

Tell the people of Aquileia about Hunnic consideration. If you can find them. :)
 
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