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 Romans vs Germans This is my five paragraph essay comparing the Romans and Germans. I have compared them in three ways. The three ways I described them as different are law, military, and everyday life. “I came, I saw, I conquered. Julius Caesar’s famous quote didn’t live for long. The Germans came around just in time for the collapse of Rome and they used that to their advantage. In about 550 A.D. the Germans replaced the Romans. The Romans had an empire though and the Germans had many kingdoms. However, we can still look back at both civilizations and compare them. Because there is so much historical information about the Germans and the Romans this essay clearly states that there were three major differences. The three differences were law, military, and culture or everyday life. The first difference of the Roman Empire and the Germans was law. The Romans wrote down all of their laws which was known as the Twelve Tablets while the Germans memorized their laws and passed them down from parent to child. Also, in the Roman Empire the law was made by the emperor compared to the Germans, who believed that the law came from the people and the ruler could not make a law without it being approved by the people. If a german was accused of a crime they could defend themselves by oath-taking. After that they were defended by oath-helpers. This means that the accused person would declare their innocence by taking an oath. The German punishments for committing a crime were being physically beaten or fined based on the serious of the crime. However, both the Romans and the Germans used a judge to decide if a person was innocent or guilty. Law is one of the major differences in the Romans and Germans. Another difference between the Romans and the Germans is the military. The Romans had a very organized military involving legions which had 5,000 soldiers called legionaries which included smaller groups of 60 to 120 legionaries. The Germans divided themselves up into clans. Clans were groups based on family ties. At the beginning the warriors were very loyal to their clan. However, as time went on their loyalty shifted over to the chieftain. Chieftains were military leaders that were successful warriors. Chieftains supplied their men with weapons and equipment. Another group of warriors the Germans had was a band. A band could be a temporary group of close friends, highly skilled warriors, or bunch of different guys raiding one or two places for their own wealth. The German military was not nearly as disciplined and as permanent as the Roman military. The Germans could always shift around the groups of military for money reasons, disputes, or friends wanting to fight together. However, one similarity is that both the Romans and the Germans were very warlike because their gods. Both had very violent gods such as the German god of war, Wodan and the Roman god of war, Mars. Other than this similarity the Romans and Germans had very different ideas of how their military should be structured. The final difference between the Romans and Germans was their culture. The Germans were an agricultural civilization and the Romans were an urban civilization. All of the German homes had farmland and pastures surrounding them with the owners of the home worked the farm. Most of the Roman homes were in the city and the people living in them had jobs in shops in the city. Also, the family lived in one half of the house and the family’s animals lived in the other half. This was because the animals gave off body heat which helped to heat the house. The Romans made their animals live outside because they felt like they were in a higher class than the animals. Another thing that that differed between the Romans and Germans in their culture was the dress. The German women wore simple skirts that were made of yarn or one piece “sack-like dresses”. The men wore trousers and a coat with a cloak fastened to their right shoulder. The Romans tried to dress as elegantly as possible with robes, fancy dresses, and jewelery. That is third major differences between the Romans and the Germans. These are the three major differences between the Germans and Romans. The categories of these differences are law, military, and culture or everyday life. In law, the Germans and Romans had different ways of dealing with criminals, how law was created, and how they declared their laws. The Romans had a much fairer way of punishing criminals, created law from the emperor instead of the people, and wrote down their laws on the Twelve tablets while the Germans passed them down verbally throughout the family. The militaries were different because the Romans had a very organized, strict, tightly run army while the Germans had many groups called clans which were created based on family. They also had bands which were just groups of friends or random people raiding and pillaging for their own wealth. The one thing that did link the two militaries together was that they both had war-like gods. The Romans had an urban society and the Germans had an agricultural society. The Germans had farmland surrounding all of the homes and kept the animals they owned in the house with them because the animal’s body heat helped warm the house. The Romans lived in the city and instead of farming and having a close relationship with their animals they had few animals because they usually worked in a shop all day. These three reasons support the idea that the Romans were completely different from the Germans in many ways. Article posted May 3, 2012 at 07:01 AM • comment • Reads 464 • Return to Blog List Add a CommentPosted Comments |
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