Barbarians Were People Who Didn’t Speak Greek

Conny Waters - AncientPages.com - Who were the Barbarians? The term “Barbarians” is misused today. In modern times, we often say Barbarians are uncivilized people or evil people.

However, the true meaning of the word has been forgotten. The word originated in ancient Greece and initially referred to people who did not speak Greek.

A preconnesian marble depiction of a barbarian. Second century AD. Barbarian, so-called Dacian prisoner, Roman artwork. Image credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen - CC BY 2.5

Those of relatively advanced civilizations used the term to describe others considered less civilized. It referred to people from more primitive cultures who usually relied on physical strength more than intellect.

According to Strabo (64 BC - 21 CE), a Greek geographer and historian, people known as Carians, of all the “barbarians,” had a particular tendency to intermingle with the Greeks.

“This was particularly the case with the Carians, for, although the other peoples were not yet having very much intercourse with the Greeks nor even trying to live in Hellenic fashion or to learn our language ... yet the Carians roamed throughout the whole of Greece serving on expeditions for pay. ... and when they were driven thence [from the islands] into Asia, even here they were unable to live apart from the Greeks, I mean when the Ionians and Dorians later crossed over to Asia.” (Strabo 14.2.28)

Today, “barbarian” has another meaning and is used to describe someone using excessive violence without considering other options.

According to Konstantinos Vlassopoulos, a professor of Greek history at the University of Nottingham, the earliest attestation of the word barbarian in Greek literature is in Homer’s descriptions of the Carians as ‘barbarophonoi.’

Vlassopoulos notes that the ancient Greeks used this word in a confusing and contradictory fashion.

They had no agreement among the ancient Greeks regarding who spoke Greek and who didn’t, at least until Alexander the Great.

There “existed a variety of local and regional dialects, which were mutually comprehensible to a larger or smaller degree,” writes Vlassopoulos in his book “Greeks and the Barbarians.”

So, the original meaning of the word “barbarian” did not refer to acts of evil but to those who were not Greek or did not speak Greek. Also, who didn’t talk Greek was a matter of debate among the ancient Greeks.

Written by Conny Waters – AncientPages.com Staff Writer

Copyright © AncientPages.com All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or part without the express written permission of AncientPages.com

Updated on January 18, 2023

Expand for references