12-04-2007, 08:30 PM
Heres not a bad source
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/thralls.shtml
Its later day information, but Germanic social stratification was not very different in the early days and it would be weird to think having slaves later and pretty much all cultures having slaves at that time that their treatment was too much different. You need a certain amount of slaves just to be functional unless one was to say that they were more reliant on slaves later on, but considering a lot of Celtic groups had that level of slave involvement around the same time period we are talking about I would be surprised if that was true. A lot of differences with Celtic groups, but a lot of social similarities. They would have to be somewhat up to stock on slaves and it is reasonable to believe that if they captured a huge number of slaves most would be sold so they could go to where people needed them i.e. business 101 you have to put the stock where the market is. It is inefficient to have excess slaves where they are not needed and at that time there was hardly a prison like system in place. If they truly were in several places where you could recover most of them, that would tell me that most likely there were not many captives. Then again, knowing the value of slaves I find this unlikely and figure it is one of the many cases of Roman bending of the truth in storytelling. Not really unusual especially considering that stain on Roman pride and it probably helped the Roman ego a lot hearing a harrowing tale of veterans avenging the tragedy and recovering those who were thought fallen. Its an almost epic tale though if it happened I would make an unfounded guess (most common sense :oops: :wink: ) and say it was most likely a small raid that recovered a few captured slaves in the process. If true that doesn't make it any less of a great story, maybe even more so.
I know its probably not the best source by itself, but it would take me a little while longer to cite other historical sources. I'm not on your level yet Vortigern in that I'm good at learning and remembering, but I'm not so good at bookmarking with great accuracy my sources. Same thing with me and the bible, I remember the general idea and most specifics of most everything, but am not so good with which verse. Its something I need to work on. Probably comes from my upbringing where I was mostly a loner so I tend to think of information for my own use and not really considering having to repeat it to others.
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/thralls.shtml
Its later day information, but Germanic social stratification was not very different in the early days and it would be weird to think having slaves later and pretty much all cultures having slaves at that time that their treatment was too much different. You need a certain amount of slaves just to be functional unless one was to say that they were more reliant on slaves later on, but considering a lot of Celtic groups had that level of slave involvement around the same time period we are talking about I would be surprised if that was true. A lot of differences with Celtic groups, but a lot of social similarities. They would have to be somewhat up to stock on slaves and it is reasonable to believe that if they captured a huge number of slaves most would be sold so they could go to where people needed them i.e. business 101 you have to put the stock where the market is. It is inefficient to have excess slaves where they are not needed and at that time there was hardly a prison like system in place. If they truly were in several places where you could recover most of them, that would tell me that most likely there were not many captives. Then again, knowing the value of slaves I find this unlikely and figure it is one of the many cases of Roman bending of the truth in storytelling. Not really unusual especially considering that stain on Roman pride and it probably helped the Roman ego a lot hearing a harrowing tale of veterans avenging the tragedy and recovering those who were thought fallen. Its an almost epic tale though if it happened I would make an unfounded guess (most common sense :oops: :wink: ) and say it was most likely a small raid that recovered a few captured slaves in the process. If true that doesn't make it any less of a great story, maybe even more so.
I know its probably not the best source by itself, but it would take me a little while longer to cite other historical sources. I'm not on your level yet Vortigern in that I'm good at learning and remembering, but I'm not so good at bookmarking with great accuracy my sources. Same thing with me and the bible, I remember the general idea and most specifics of most everything, but am not so good with which verse. Its something I need to work on. Probably comes from my upbringing where I was mostly a loner so I tend to think of information for my own use and not really considering having to repeat it to others.
Derek D. Estabrook
