3 replies to this topic

[Dreganor]

Now, I do understand that the Roman Empire was divided into two parts (east and west) and eventually the western empire was divided up by invading "barbarian" tribes...

what I don't get is, what is the truth about how many tribes there were?

To the best of my knowledge/research, there were 5 (or 6):

Ostrogoths
Visigoths
Vandals
Huns
(and in Britain) Angles and Saxons

But other resources say there were 7 (or 8)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Invasions_of_the_Roman_Empire_1.png

Yet others say it was ten:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period

Are the differences here due to the time periods included in their answers? What is the real answer, then?

Thank you for any help.

[Mr. D. Bryant]

Sorry for not having responded before. I must say that this is a bit outside our normal area, but we will see what we can do.

I suspect that you are thinking on the right lines when you mention different time periods. Furthermore, identification of different 'tribes' could be very subjective as they usually had non-written cultures and their classification was made by the Romans, who weren't infallible.

[MrJohnDClare]

There is no set number f tribes whoattacked the Roman Empire.
The were hundreds, because the ones in the main textbooks are just the main ones.
Outside the Empire there were literally thousands of tribes who began to attack the Empire when they thought they could get away with it.

Also, a lot of what we know about these tribes comes from Roman writers, who may or may not have known what they taking about.

So Mr Bryant is right. Fir get about trying to come up with a 'right' number, and concentrate instead on who was attacking where, when.

[JordanAllan]

Hey, there were a lot of Barbaric tribes involved in the defeat of the Western Empire, the ones you mentioned were involved but there were many smaller tribes involved, this site will help you with learning more about the Romans:Romans