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Jones, Terry and Ereira, Alan “Terry Jones' Barbarians”. BBC Books, London, 2006. Hbk. 288pp, illus, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-563-49318-6 £18.99

Having tackled the Crusades and everyday medieval life, Terry Jones has now turned his attention to the 700 or so years of the Roman era, and in particular to the “others”, those whose way of life marked them out as “uncivilised”, according to the Romans.

The book is divided into four sections covering: the “Celts”; the Germanic peoples, including the Dacians and Goths; Greek and middle eastern civilisations and finally those from further east, the Vandals and Huns. Each section gives a chronological history of the relationships between these peoples and Rome. Inevitably, given the scope of the undertaking and the range of peoples covered the resultant histories are sketchy and whole peoples are simply ignored. (One would have liked to read more about the Sarmatians, the Lombards, the Roxolani, the Illyrians, and the Thracians to name but a few.)

However, what we do get is a series of mini-histories that emphasise that being “civilised” had different meanings to different people and that the Romans were far from having a monopoly on orderliness, education, morality, and other virtues one associates with the term. If anything the Roman sense of being “civilised” contains many virtues such as the worthiness of watching the organised slaughter of people and animals for public entertainment, would be contrary to most other people's definition. The author also makes clear that the Roman's sexist attitude regarding women, was not as widely associated with other cultures. And as for education, the author makes a case for the Romans, especially in their late, Christian incarnation, being actively involved in the neglect and even suppression of learning.

The book is written with Terry Jones well-known barbed wit and occasional contemporary political asides. Although the book has no pretentions of being an academic text, (it is written to accompany a TV series), it is well supplied with notes and a bibliography which will give anyone interested the opportunity to follow up many of the stories in book. The authors also make it clear when they are using guestimates and when there is a lack of definite information – such as the fact we have no idea what language the Huns spoke or even from whence they originated.

The book is well-produced, with the exception of the maps on the end-papers which look half-finished, with stray letters, odd islands (NW Spain) and unfinished highlighting of the coasts. However, the colour plates are well-chosen and well reproduced and bode well for the TV programs and the text cleanly and clearly printed.

It makes a useful corrective to popularly held misconceptions relating to many maligned peoples and their cultures, if nothing else it should go some way to repairing the reputation of the Vandals, who seem to have anything but the sort of people you might expect, although I suspect many professional historians will complain that much of this is “old news”.

Overall a witty look at peoples often overlooked or maligned by ancient (and modern) historians.

Recommended

8/10

Richard Alexander