Victory or Genocide?

[Nathan Ross]

Rome was not a "nice" empire, as few empires have been in the past.

Here's a lengthy and quite interesting discussion about this from quite a while back:

Roman Atrocities

As you say, 'genocide' is quite a recent concept, dependent on modern ideas of race, the nation state, industrial ways of killing people (and, I suspect, the invention of barbed wire).

The article linked in the original post does seem a very slanted interpretation - putting 'victory' in scare-quotes like that, as if only nice people are allowed to win battles... Vulso's actions seem reminscent of later Roman activities in Caledonia in particular, where Severus apparently vowed to wipe out the inhabitants. The actual reporting of the conflict by Livy and Polybius does not seem to celebrate the slaughter though. On the contrary, both writers seem fascinated by the barbarians, rather than condescending or demeaning of them.

Interestingly, the article points out that the Roman commander was censured for his acts - as Caesar was too, after his massacre of the Germanic migrants during the Gallic wars. Whatever their views on the virtue of killing enemies, the Romans still believed there was a right and wrong way to go about these things. Besides, widespread slaughter was just a waste of natural resources. ;-)