ABSTRACT
First, the obligatory note on terminology. The choice of descriptive names for the peoples beyond the frontiers is subject to all kinds of debates under several headings. Some scholars prefer the Latin gens to identify a specic people, usually with the cautionary footnote about the problems of trying to impose a close denition on an entity so diverse as to defy such a process. In this work, the similarly imprecise words ‘tribe’, ‘tribesmen’ and ‘peoples’ are used where others would employ gens. On a more emotive issue, the use of the term ‘barbarians’ has to be explained. It has acquired an unsavoury aspect nowadays. Its derogatory tone implies inferiority, or at least an inherent value judgement condoning inequality, separating acceptable groups of people (us) from unacceptable groups (them). Throughout history, such ideology has usually meant that the latter groups (them) have no share in the same rights and benets as the former (us), which in turn implies that the unacceptable groups can be exploited or disposed of in any manner currently fashionable among the acceptable ones.1
