The germanic princess Thusnelda rallies the male warriors to fight Rome who were starting to “wuss out” after a huge German tribe went home. “Arminius has risked his life to lure three Roman legions into this forest for you to ambush. And now you want to quit?”
Who can resist a beautiful and courageous white woman exhorting the men to not become cowards, but to find their inner hero?
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…..”Barbarians”: egoic Ancient Romans versus egoic Ancient Germans
This was a big-budget 2020-21 Netflix series from Germany (and not too politically correct, actually), a semi-fictional drama, about the actual historical events 2,000 years ago when many of the German tribes finally united under a young German leader (Hermann/Arminius, who had actually been raised in Rome himself and was a high officer in the legions) and rose up successfully against savage, arrogant and brutal Roman rule.
In a perfect, gigantic ambush, the Germans annihilated three legions and 20,000 trained, battle-experienced Roman soldiers.
An awesome sight for friend and foe, three Roman legions on the march, the result of 700 years of Roman valor and military science.
A Germanic warrior reported to Thusnelda, a real person and the heroic princess who married Arminius: “There are Romans as far as the eye can see. It is a river of steel.”
But they WERE defeated, annihilated, in fact, and this changed all of history, because Rome never absorbed the Germans (or the Slavs to their east) and after 500 years of insane white-vs-white strife, the Germans (who were smart and learned Roman military science) destroyed the Western Roman Empire — and the Dark Ages began.
The fall of Rome set the white race back a thousand years.
There is great heroism and also appalling egoic behavior on both sides….. white people on this planet being such a “mixed bag,” then as well as now.
The Ancient Germans in the show speak in modern German with excellent subtitles in all major languages. The Romans are played by Italian actors and speak in correct Ancient Latin, with subtitles in every language also.
Hermann/Arminius must choose between betraying and breaking the heart of his own adoptive Roman father — who in this series is depicted as being the main Roman general, Varus, himself — versus betraying his own nation, Germany, by helping his adoptive fatherland, Rome, terrorize and enslave his native kinsmen.
The Germanic boy Hermann, now Arminius, growing up in Rome, discovers a gift — a magnificent Roman short sword — from the Emperor Augustus for his adoptive father, Varus
His adoptive father, Varus, explains it to him
Arminius is proud of his new father and hopes some day to receive his own sword from the emperor
Varus (l.), the Roman general crushing Germany and insanely showing extreme contempt for every German he meets, including even village and tribal leaders, is (in this series) the adoptive father of Arminius (r.) The two men will ultimately meet again as mortal enemies. It all really happened.
As I discussed in a blog the other day,
…the Romans were exceptionally brutal, raping, torturing, stealing, and crucifying, and all about the “glory” of violent conquest, the lucrative pillaging of homes and farms, and the taking away of innocent men and women (who had never attacked Rome) as their wretched slaves in the mines, galleys, fields — and brothels…….
So while the neighboring peoples did see the amazing progress of Greco-Roman life — great cities, gorgeous temples, fine art, delicious wines, efficient sewage systems, roads, schools, aqueducts, courts, law-and-order, and with the high seas free, thanks to Rome, of murderous pirates and the woodland roads cleared of cut-throat highwaymen — they also saw horribly high taxes and sickeningly brutal punishments.
Look, by contrast, with the old America before the jews ruined it. Millions of Europeans gladly crossed 4,000 miles of dangerous ocean to voluntarily become Americans, learn a new language and different customs, and build a new life based on beautiful things: justice, hard work, free public education, the rule of law, family, free speech, and both religions and freedom of religion.
Rome, truly glorious in many ways, could have taken that uplifting, un-egoic path, too.
Instead, it was this:
The Roman soldiers came regularly for “tribute” (a kind of tax, a levy) from each German village: ‘Give us, barbarians, hundreds of pounds of grain, or cattle or sheep, or furs or leather.’
If the village Reiks protested that the village was poor and even near starvation, the Roman officer replied:
“Barbarian, in your village I also see plenty of children. So, fine, then we will take your children as our slaves.”
And for a merely symbolic act of defiance, civilian German men, women and children are crucified in the village as “rebels” ….Germans, living on their own ancestral land, being called “rebels,” and treated back then just like the jews treat the Gaza Palestinians right now.
They are nailed alive to crosses to slowly die in agony.
And the Roman order, given to the village “reiks” (chief), is that their bodies are to hang there in the village until they rot and the birds eat away their rotting corpses, right down to the skeletons, a daily, enduring horror show:
Beholding all this obscene cruelty is the beautiful Thusnelda, daughter of a reiks, and thus a kind of princess, who swears to avenge these villagers. All this is accurate history.
She even marries Hermann/Arminius, who is not the man she really loves (that is the handsome and brave Folkwin Wolfspear), out of sheer admiration for him, and her realization that this Romanized German is exactly the right man — with all his noble blood, courage, sincerity, and Roman military background — to lead the Germans (amateur warriors) to victory over the far more sophisticated, professional Roman legions.
And all this is true. The Romans wrote plenty about Varus, Arminius, his wife Thusnelda, and the mega-catastrophe in the Teutoburg Forest.
Between Arminius’ tactics (borrowed from the Romans themselves) and the famous furor teutonicus, the enraged Germans slaughter the surprised legions in one-on-one combat.
Many Germans fought bare-chested, both because they could not afford armor, and, in hand-to-hand combat, to release the huge, intense body heat which their cold climate normally would spare them. Thirst can become a critical problem in extended combat.
Halfway through the victorious battle at Teutoburg, Thusnelda runs into Arminius, now Hermann, and they embrace. It reminds me of me and Margaret, committed to our cause and ready to die for it, or to kill those attacking us. Thusnelda, a princess who could have had an easy life, faces death by crucifixion as a rebel against Rome, and Hermann faces even worse — a Roman officer who betrayed his sacred oath to Rome. They made the awful choice to fight for liberty in an overwhelmingly cowardly, miserly and selfish world, and both great souls are still famous today.
A beautiful moment in this film before the final part of the battle:
We fight for honor, for freedom, for our children — from the love for our people!
Painful for both men: as his soldiers are annihilated, Varus sees his adoptive son Arminius fighting in Roman armor for the German enemy, for his own people.
Varus has his interpreter remove his chest armor so he can end his life honorably with his sword and not be captured
Arminius said to him as he died:
“Father, you have never been able to think, feel, and live another way…… [than in the cruelty of the conqueror]”
Trailer to Season 1 of 2:
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(Netflix costs $6.99 a month. I got it only last night, and just to watch this series.)
Season One, thankfully, and surprisingly for a neo-German production, had almost no “woke” elements…. though the spectacle of the beautiful Thusnelda slaying heavily armored, highly professional Roman soldiers, armed only with a lance, well…. it IS possible, but not too likely she would have survived more than five minutes in the massive and climactic battle in the Teutoburg Forest that comes at the end of Season One.
The actress Jeanne Goursaud, who is excellent as Thusnelda, a strong yet feminine woman of the high leadership class, in real life has a French father and a German mother. Maybe she actually descends from Thusnelda.
But many viewers were rightly disgusted and said so in the comments when Season Two brings in a German warleader who is (wait for it) a black female. 😉 LOL!
But overall the series was excellent….. And it showed the disgraceful jealousy, the envy, greed, disunity and treachery among the Germans which made the task of liberating Germany which Hermann/Arminius had embraced infinitely more difficult…. And, in an act of loathsome ingratitude and envy, other German chieftains actually assassinated Arminius, the very man who had liberated their nation, the Ancient German version of George Washington! 🙁
And are white people any better today, 80 generations later?
Consider this: Most of my readers had one or several incarnations living under Rome.
Are you donating now in my extreme financial crisis, or lying to yourself?
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https://johndenugent.com/8543-plus-seven-excellent-books-and-two-great-pistol-holsters-since-december-first/
German engineering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTBA5tQsDbE&ab_channel=Rheinmetall%E2%80%93DerintegrierteTechnologiekonzern