King Arthur nearly sacked Rome!

Arthur, only fifteen years old, became king of Britain after the death of his father Uther Pendragon. Upon learning that the Saxons in Germany under the command of Colgin had invaded Britain and were determined to exterminate all Britons from the land, he valliantly gathered an army and met Colgin and a massive army of Saxons, Picts and Scots at York and had a small success but was advised to return to London when news of a fleet of 600 Saxon long ships under the command of Chedric were on their way.

Arthur was forced to turn for assistance to his kinsmen in Armorica (Bretagne) where his nephew Hoel -- the son of Arthur's sister by Dubricius -- was king.

Hoel arrived at Hamo's Port (Southampton) with 15,000 men, and together with Arthur routed the Saxons who, under seige and starving, promised to return to Germany if their lives were spared. Arthur agreed, but the Saxons reneged and landed at Totnes in Devon, marched to Bath, putting all to the sword they met, and Arthur was so incensed with their treachery that in the resulting battle he is reputed to have killed 470 Saxons with his sword.

The two Saxon brothers, Colgin and Baddulph, were killed but Chedric escaped to the Isle of Thanet where he was killed by Cador, Duke of Cornwell.

Arthur moved up to Scotland to deal with Picts and Scots who had been joined by an army from Ireland led by Guillamurius. He laid waste to them all without mercy, determined to exterminate them all. He was stopped in this endeavour by a delegation of impoverished monks who successfully entreated him to spare the people of Scotland. He did.

Returning to York, Arthur held a feast at which those who had been dispossessed of land by the Saxons were returned to it, and various noble appointments were made. The brothers Augusel was given sovereignty over the Scots and Urian sovereignty over the Murief. Lot, who had first married his sister, Anne, and with whom he had two sons, Walgan and Modred, was returned the consulship of Londonesia.

Arthur first married Guanhumarra, a lady descended from Roman noblility, and went on to add to his sovereign lands the territories of Ireland, Iceland, the Orkneys and Gothland, as well as subduing Norway, Dacia, Aquitane and Gaul.

At the height of his power, Arthur received a ridiculous delegation from Rome, demanding that Britain resume paying its ancient tribute -- when Rome had left Britain defenceless in 409 and had since become a papal rather than a military force. Upon receipt of this demand, Arthur declared war on Rome, killed Lucius Tiberius, and defeated the mighty Roman army made up of legions from Greece, Africa, Spain, Parthia, Medes, Libya, Phrygia, Iturea, Egypt, Babylon, Bithynia, Syria, Boeticia and Crete.

Were it not for news of betrayal back home by his estranged wife Guanhumarra and his nephew Modred who, in his absence, had assumed kingship and invited the Saxons back to Britain to carve it up between them, Arthur may have continued on to take Rome itself and depose its Emperor Leo in Constantinople.

How different history might have turned out!

Instead, he returned to Britain. Guanhumarra took refuge in a nunnery and Arthur did battle with Modred and killed him, but was mortally wounded and took refuge at Avalon where he gave the crown to Constantine, the son of Cador, Duke of Cornwell in 547.

This story first appaered as King Arthur

Vortigern and the Saxons

After King Alaric of the Goths captured Rome in 409, proclaiming the prefect of the city, Attalus, as emperor and himself the prefect -- in retaliation for the refusal by the deposed emperor, Honorius, to honor the gold, land and Imperial office due to him and his people for services rendered -- a Roman general stationed in Britain - Constantine - having been declared Emperor by his men - amassed a huge army, crossed the channel, gained the support of the fractured Roman troops he found there, took over Spain and negotiated with Honororius to become co-emperor, marrying Honorius's half sister, Galla Pladida, having a daughter and a son, Valentinian (who later became emperor), and died in 421.

In rushing to defend Rome, General Constantine had left Britain defenceless and when Britain turned to Rome for help against the Picts in the north with a petition entitled 'the groans of the Britons' the once-mighty empire was unable to help them.

The Britons then appealed to their countrymen in the kingdom of Armorica (Bretagne) who were ruled by Aldroen (the fourth king from Conan, to whom Maximian had given that kingdom and in doing so had drained Britain of a huge population to colonize it).

Aldroen was sympathetic, but did not want to rule Britain himself. Instead, he offered his brother Constantine of Armorica and two thousand men who arrived at Totnes in Devon, marshaled the young men they found there into a bigger army and defeated the invaders. Constantine of Armorica was then crowned king of Britain, and his three sons -- Constans, Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon -- were to play an amazing role in the history of Britain and of western civilization, too.

Unfortunately, Constantine was killed by a treacherous Pict in his service, and on the advice of Vortigern, the ambitious consul of the Gewisseans (a province near Wales), the easily manipulated Constans was chosen as successor and soon after Vortigern contrived his assassination by the Picts and became king himself on the basis of his marriage to Severa, the daughter of King Constantine's predecessor and national hero, Magnus Maximus. The two other sons of Constantine of Armorica, Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon, fled to Amorica, planning to return and regain their kingdom. The Picts, learning that Vortigern had tricked his Pict retainers into killing Constans and then had them killed to protect himself, resumed war on Britain

Faced with continuing Pict wars and the fear of Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon returning with an army to depose him, Vortigern made use of the peaceful arrival in Kent of three Saxon long galleys commanded by the brothers Hengist and Horsca. It was the custom in German Saxony in times of overpopulation to cast lots requiring superfluous men to leave and find a new home for themselves.

Vortigern allowed them to stay and granted them land in return for helping him defeat the Picts. This they did, and then Hengist took advantage of Vortigern's continuing threat from Aurelius Ambrosius and Uther Pendragon to gain permission to invite more Saxons into Britain. With eighteen long galleys full of Saxon soldiers came Hengist's daughter, Rowen, whom Vortigern married to the disgust of his three sons by a former wife (Vortimer, Catigern and Pascentius).

As his new father-in-law, Hengist was able to manipulate Vortigern into bringing over his two sons Octa and Ebissa and giving them territories in Britain. With them came 300 long galleys full of Saxon soldiers, and without Vortigern's permission Hengist continued to bring over more Saxons who married the local girls and incurred the wrath of local men -- also the Christian clergy who despised the Pagan Saxons.

Vortigern loved the Saxons, so his son Vortimer took advantage of this unrest to get himself made king and that done he then expelled the Saxons, forcing them to leave their wives and children in Britain. Furious, his step-mother Rowen contrived to have Vortimer poisoned, and when Vortigern and Rowen regained their kingdom they invited Hengist and the Saxons to return. Hengist had other plans. He came with 300,000 men and when Vortigern expressed horror at this invasion he was reassured by Hengist that the Saxons did not know that Vortimer was dead, but upon hearing that news he was willing to send back to Germany all the men that Vortigern wanted him to.

At a peaceful meeting to discuss the matter, Hengist ordered his men to conceal daggers under their cloaks and at an appointed moment they massacred 460 unarmed British dignitaries who had met with them. Vortigern was captured and in return for his life ceded to the Saxons his kingdom. He then took refuge in Cambria as the Saxons laid waste to London, York, Lincoln and Winchester slaughtering everyone in their sight.

At this point in time, Aurelius Amrosius and Uther Pendragon arrived in Britain with 10, 000 men and what remained of the Britons gathered together to greet him and anoint Aurelius as their rightful king. They implored him to get rid of the Saxons, but he was intent on gaining revenge on Vortigern for the murder of his brother. He burned down the Cambrian tower with Vortigern hiding in it, and upon hearing this news Hengist fled with the Saxons to Scotland where he mustered strength to meet the new king. The Saxons were defeated, Hengist was beheaded and his son, Octa, besieged at York, surrenders and is granted clemency as well as a peace treaty with a grant of land bordering Scotland.

Meanwhile, Vortigern's youngest son Pascentius had fled to Germany where he amassed a vast army of willing recruits with promises of land and wealth and, after an unsuccessful incursion in the north gained the support of the Irish king, Gillomanius, and landed in Cambria where they were met by Uther Pendragon who, upon hearing that his brother Aurelius Ambrosius had been poisoned by a Saxon disguised as a priest, took to battle with ferocity as the new king and killed both Pascentius and Gillomanius.

The rule of Vortigern's family thus came to an end, but the Saxons he loved so much continued to plague the country.

This article first appeared as Vortigern, King of Britain

the germanic deal with rome

Italy's nearest land neighbors - the Germanic tribes - had always been troublesome, but once the seat of the empire's power moved to Constantinople the Persian Empire became a bigger threat and the Empire came to rely more and more on Germanic soldiers to fight its wars until the Germans, inevitably, had so much military power that they usurped the emperorship in the west for themselves and with successive migrations of Germanic tribes into Italy - and elsewhere in Europe - the ethnic mix of Rome changed to reflect the new Germanic arrivals.

By 390, Emperor Theodosius -- a Visigoth (Germanic) Spaniard who had converted to Christianity and was heavily influenced by the Bishop of Rome, Ambrose -- attempted a new policy of SOCIAL UNIFORMITY by imposing upon everyone the observance of Christian traditions that led to the persecution of the traditional Pagans (as well as other religions).

By 410, Rome itself was "sacked" (according to the Christians) or "delivered" (according to the Pagans) by King Alaric of the Germanic Goths. The Germanic tribes - the Angles and Saxons - had by then also taken over Roman Britain, almost obliterating the native Britons in the same way that the Greeks and Phoenicians (Syrians) had obliterated the native Latini in Italy.

By 491, with the death of the Roman Emperor Zeno in the East, there was no longer an Roman emperor in the west and the Pagan Germanic tribes had total control of western Europe.

The Germanic tribes were not Christians and their own religion -- although Pagan -- differed from that of the Romans. They did not worship Roman gods. What set them aside from the Romans was their ethnicity. The Germanic tribes were predominantly white skinned, blond-haired and blue-eyed like the Vikings -- from which they probably descended -- and the Romans were predominantly olive skinned, black-haired and brown-eyed like the Syrians and Greeks, from which they definitely descended.

At this point in time, western Europe might also have unshackled itself from other foreign eastern influences such as the Abrahamic religions of Judaism and Christianity, but the complete economic and social breakdown of the old western Roman Empire caused more and more Romans -- most of whom were by now Christian converts, and of Greek and Syrian ethnicity -- to turn to religion for salvation and successive bishops of Rome harnessed these fears so successfully that the Germanic conquerors were forced into making a deal.

In return for agreeing to the conversion of all Pagan lands in the west to Christianity, the Bishops of Rome would pacify the natives and give temporal control of them to the Germanic conquerors. The deal also included mutually beneficial ways in which the spiritual and temporal rulers would enrich each other.

There is no concrete evidence of this deal, but the rise of fabulously wealthy Germanic kingdoms ruled by divine right and Papal blessing -- and the emergence of the Holy Roman Empire -- shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west attests to the fact that something very fishy happened in Rome.

How else could the proudly Pagan Germanic tribal leaders have agreed to the mass conversion of their people -- first by mild means such as incorporating Pagan traditions into Christian practices, but later by brutal means -- if there was not incredible wealth to be made from it? And how else could the Greek-Syrian Church of Rome -- sacked, impoverished and left in ruins -- have agreed to barbarian kings ruling the land if there was not incredible wealth to be made from it, too?

The more people tithing to the Church, the richer the Pope became. And, the more people scared out of their wits by the fear of Abraham's God, the easier they were to control and tax and the richer the Germanic kings became.

It was a clever deal, mutually beneficial to both the Pope in Rome and the Germanic leaders, and it persisted until recent times.

how did judaism affect early western civilization?

The converts from Judaism and Paganism to the new religion of Christianity found a new and mostly tolerant home in the big city of Rome where they flocked in their thousands looking for work and a better life.. Most of them were impoverished Greeks and their leaders tended to be relatively wealthy Jews from Judea, one of whom was Peter, a disciple of Jesus, who became the first Bishop of Rome

There is little doubt that the Christians were trouble-makers who were offended by what they saw as the barbaric practices of the Pagans, and when they were all blamed, rightly or wrongly, for the Great Fire of Rome in 64 -- during which Nero allegedly played his fiddle, totally oblivious of the chaos around him -- many innocent Christians lost their lives in the retribution that followed.

In fact, Peter himself, was blamed, and his request to be crucified upside down was granted.

But was the Great Fire of Rome lit by Christians angry at the Pagans, or by Jews angry at the Romans?

Two years later, in 66, the inflamed Jews of Judea revolted against aggressive Roman intrusion into their affairs, causing many to flee from the area -- so the Jews were causing as much trouble for the Romans as the Christians were.

Although we draw distinctions between Jews and Christians today, way back then they were essentially seen by the Romans as the same people with the same religion and the same leaders.

Sixty-five years later, in 131, another Jewish revolt against Roman rule took place in Jerusalem, led by Simon Bar Kokhba. Its brutality resulted in the great Jewish Diaspora of 132 -- moving west to North Africa, east to Syria, north to Greece or south to Arabia -- and most of the displaced Jews would have outwardly converted to the religion of their hosts.

From 193-235 the Roman Empire fell under the rule of fabulously wealthy African and Syrian emperors who brought their extended families, administrative staff and slaves with them. Consequently Rome's ethnic mix changed to reflect these new arrivals (some of whom were undoubtedly the descendants of the Jewish Diaspora, and practising their faith in secret).

By 293 the Empire was so big and so diverse that the Emperor Diocletian divided its rule between an eastern and western emperor and attempted a policy of SOCIAL UNIFORMITY by imposing upon everyone the observance of Roman traditions. 

This policy led to the persecution of the Christians (as well as other religions).

In 330 the Emperor Constantine confounded the native Romans not only by converting to the new religion of Christianity -- which was known as the new Judaism -- but also by establishing Constantinople in the east as the new seat of the empire's power. In doing so, Constantine gave the Bishop of Rome more power in relation to the traditional Pagan Priests and precipitated the decline of Rome's prestige which made it more vulnerable to Germanic invasion.

If you look upon early Christianity as the new Judaism -- with only the hardline Jews refusing to accept Jesus as their Messiah -- then early western civilization was not only founded upon Greek and Syrian ethnicity but also upon the ancient religion of Abraham from Ur in Iraq.

How on earth, then, did western civilization come to represent white Anglo-Saxons of Puritan persuasions?

how did Islam affect early western civilization?

Right from the start of the birth of the new religion of Islam in 622, the Arabs that espoused it were perceived as being bent upon destroying Christianity and thus Western civilization most definitely took shape as a reaction against Islam.

By 638 the Arabs had invaded and conquered Jerusalem - creating much angst for the Christians as well as the Jews - and when the Arabs headed for Europe via Spain, there was real concern that the whole of Europe would fall under Arab rule and Christianity would die out in Europe.

The Pope in Rome was in peril. Not even the island nation of England was seen as being a safe haven for the Christian church - and Roman power - and that is why Rome chose far-away Ireland to be the last bastion of Christianity.

Actually, the Arab conquerors - unlike their Christian counterparts - were far more interested in acquiring wealth and power than converts. Wherever they conquered, Jews and Christians were heavily taxed and treated like second class citizens - like all subject peoples are, whoever the conquerors - but the Arabs did not force subject peoples to convert to Islam. Until Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Arabs at the end of the 15th century, the Arab kingdom of Cordova in Spain lasted for almost eight centuries and was highly civilized.

It was therefore not so much Christianity that was in peril by the advancing Moslem Arabs but Roman power and wealth.