Why/how were so many early civilized states conquered by uncivilized neighbors?

Factual Questions
1

Why/how were so many early civilized states conquered by uncivilized neighbors?

Reading through Barnes & Noble Books “Atlas of World History”, Barry Cunliffe, ed. which is an intersting, if necessarily slight, overview or world history via maps.

I am struck by the repeated history of early civilized states in the Fertile Cresent being overthrown/dominated by “uncivilized” neighbors (though not exclusively) for a few thousand years before the pattern changes to civilized states being conquered only by other civilized states for the most part until Rome (arguably).

Given the advantages that these states had over their neighbors (social classes-including warrior & bureaucrat classes; centralized government; organized trade; etc) why did they keep toppling, or become dominated by smaller, less civilized groups? What were the advantages that pastoral nomads had? And, why did they surrender these to settle in the cities of the conquered people, only to eventually be conquered themselves?

Examples include:

Early Sumerian dynasties conquered and then controled before being conquered in turn by Elamites, then Amorites, then Gutians, and Kassites.

The Phrygians over-running the Hittites.

The “Sea People” becomming dominant in Egypt.

The Babylonians losing their empire to the Medes, who in turn lost it to the Persians.

The fall of the Mycenaeans to the Dorians.

There are more examples (and plenty of examples of state-to state warfare) but I always assumed it was agriculture and urban settlement that led to large scale warfare, while early history seems to show the barbarians to be at least the equal of their civilized neighbors.

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Pastoral peoples can generally mobilize a much higher percentage of their population warriors as. Granted they generally had smaller populations than settled folks, but it did allow them to even the odds a bit. Also due to the general rigors of that lifestyle, they’re often a little tougher and hardier on average than their settled counterparts.

Pastoral peoples also are invariably much more mobile in both tactical ( no need for lengthy logistics trains and the steppe peoples at least were mounted societies ) and strategic terms ( even the less horse-tied pastoralists can much more easily shift their populations to avoid counterattack ). Not only can this occasionally be an advantage on the battlefield, but it most frequently forces the settled society, tied to specific discrete geographic cites ( i.e. towns, cities, and fields ) onto the defensive.

As settled societies depend on a relatively higher amount of functioning burecratic structure to survive, so in general in the ancient world it was much easier to damage the infrastructure and disrupt the settled societies.

As for why settle and surrender these “advantages”, it’s because the allure of settled life is pretty strong. Pastoral life is hard and such societies genrally don’t generate much in the way of surplus. A bad year can send an entire group over the ragged edge into starvation. Many groups of course have tried to have their cake and eat it too, conquering a settled society and trying to exist as a seperate parasitic class, maintaining pastoral traditions, while living the good life off the sweat of the settled underclass. The Mongol empire was probably the ultimate example of this, but hardly the only one. However such artificial stratification has never fared well in the long run - either they end up getting culturally absorbed anyway, as with the Manchus, or the whole edifice collapses.

  • Tamerlane
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“…warriors as.” ? Flip that :D.

  • Tamerlane
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The problems generally repeat themselves–[ul]
[li]Internal political divisions[/li][li]Rebellous provinces all too willing to ally with the invaders.[/li][li]An overextended military.[/li][li]Economic crisies are common.[/li][li]Weak or talentless leaders.[/li][/ul]

5

It’s sort of like the old question, “Why do you rob banks?”

“It’s where the money is…”

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Also keep in mind who’s writing the history and deciding who is “uncivilized.” Usually the conquerors get to decide what version of history gets handed down, and will describe the people they conquered as barbarians. Occasionally the losers end up writing the history, and the conquerors are described as barbarians. So the answer to your question might be that the more advanced society did win.

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Thanks everybody.

I guess the decentralized nature of pastoral societies making it difficult to hurt them, while the obvious infastructural achievments of the civilized states made for easy targets makes the most sense.

I’m not sure I really buy the evened numbers or the hardier lifestyle. I’m not sayign I disagree, just not sure. I think I recall from Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, & Steel” thatagriculture led to exponential population growths, and as you mentioned the surpluses that pastoral societies lack, which in turn creates the ability for a dedicated warrior class.

I think I also recall from David Landes “Wealth and Poverty of Nations” (which while I disagree with his ‘cultural traits theory’ certainly contains fine history) an anecdote about the reletive size of the better fed Australian soldiers to their British comrades at Gallipoli. I would think that the increased caloric intake of the city-dwellers would ahve led them to being bigger and stronger than their neighbors.

I’m not really sure if I’m disagreeing so much as looking for more elaboration if anyone’s interested. Or if not, perhaps some reading suggestions.

Thanks again.

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1000monkeys --got a cite?
Because the way I figure it, the herdsmen had more protein in their diet, & that is what builds muscle.

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Another thing to consider is that your examples may suffer from selection bias. How often did an agricultural society successfully defend itself against pastoralists? Are those encounters equally reported in the history books?

Every country has good years and bad years. For example, how long did the Sumerians last before finally being overrun? They were probably successfully defending themselves for many generations. Then a string of bad luck, and the whole thing collapsed.

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Bosda- in reference to a cite, not specifically, but I imagine from “Guns, Germs, and Steal” or something else I’ve read not online.

Agricultural societies still contained herdsmen, and at least a portion of their farm output went to feed herds, which grew fatter, which yielded more protien than nomadic herds eating wild grasses did.

Seems elementarily logical to me. Though of course I could be wrong, I know that cattle for example, are grass-eaters, and humans have turned them into grain-eaters, though I dont know exactly when this occured.

Regardless, in a nomadic lifestyle there is no opportunity for storage so, no surplus, thus the eating patterns of the city-dwellers would be more regualar if nothign else.

All this would lead me to believe that agricultural societies produced more and bigger men who were superior in battle (certainly battle reliant on physical size & strength), I think the eventual dominance of agricultural states over their pastoral neighbors lends evidence to this. THough of course the “progress” wasn’t direct and uninterrupted, which of is what led me to posing the question in the first place.

To everyone - good points, I am certainly makeing new conclsions thanks to all of your input

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Sorry, 1000Monkeys, but Jared Diamond himself contradicts you:

“One straight forward example of what paleopathologists have learned from skeletons concerns historical changes in height. Skeletons from Greece and Turkey show that the average height of hunger-gatherers toward the end of the ice ages was a generous 5’ 9” for men, 5’ 5" for women. With the adoption of agriculture, height crashed, and by 3000 B. C. had reached a low of only 5’ 3" for men, 5’ for women."

From this article here:

http://www.agron.iastate.edu/courses/agron342/diamondmistake.html

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There’s a big fallacy that advanced civilizations automatically have better militaries. It’s simply not the case. In head-to-head fights, “primitive” societies generally do as well if not better than their “civilized” neighbors–often, even if technological disparities (i.e., rifles vs. spears) are present.

The main thing that keeps primitive societies from ultimately succeeding is usually logistics: They can’t keep their armies fed for long enough. Civilized groups usually have better long-term food storage, have food stores devoted just to the army, have people raising food on farms (higher yield per person than hunting-gathering), etc.

In the cases you’re talking about, though, the differences are probably quite slight. Presumably, their technology levels are similar (both are living in the same area, and trading with each other/the same thrid parties before the dust-up). Likewise their food production (although perhaps the primitives are more prone to herding than farming). So the fight isn’t as unmatched as you’d think, and the civilized society’s advantages are probably very slight.

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It seems to me that the OP is fairly clear on this point. Civilized = settled agricultural societies; barbarian = nomadic herders. This is a fairly conventional definition and it need not be derogatory. That’s not to say that there aren’t other definitions, but I don’t think this is a factor in answering the OP.

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I also think there is a measure of selection bias. If an agriculturalist army beats a pastoralist army, the pastoralists vanish into the countryside and regroup for a generation. The agriculturalists can destroy the army, but there isn’t much pastoralist infrastructure to destroy. And what there is is usually mobile…the losing pastoralists fold their tents and take the herds somewhere else.

But if the pastoralists beat the agriculturalists then the agriculturalists are in terrible shape. A farm cannot be moved. The pastoralists can plunder and destroy improvements that took generations to construct. And agricultural society is more stratified and thus vulnerable to decapitation. The pastoralists can exterminate the agriculturalist ruling class and assume their place. The farmers can’t just move away like herders can, without their farms they will starve. The farmers are tied to their particular piece of land even without social structures like serfdom. So the new ruling class can just take over and there’s not much the farmers can do about it.

So the agriculturalists can beat the pastoralists 9 times out of 10, but if they lose that 10th time it is a disaster.

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This is where my thoughts were going. You’ve got a “civilized” state over here - it’s got wealth, technology, etc. You’ve got an “uncivilized” state next door. Who has what who wants? Yup, you guessed it.

Of course, that is the oversimplified version.

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Uncivilised state? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms, at least as they are being used here?

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Pochacco - great link, thanks for that, though I would disagree with you. I think you’ve pulled out one specifc quote that would lend someone who had not read the entire article to think you’re right. But, more careful reading will reveal that Diamond is discussing the difference between hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies, not the difference between farm-based agricultural societies and herd-based agricultural (or pastoral) societies.

The societies in question within the limits of my OP have both “advanced” beyond hunter-gathering, one adopting settled farms/orchards, the other reamining nomadic, but adopting a social and economic system based upon the herding and raising of livestock.

From further in the Diamond article linked:

“Farming could support many more people than hunting, albeit with a poorer quality of life. (Population densities of hunter-gatherers are rarely over on eperson per ten square miles, while farmers average 100 times that.) Partly, this is because a field planted entirely in edible crops lets one feed far more mouths than a forest with scattered edible plants. Partly, too, it’s because nomadic hunter-gatherers have to keep their children spaced at four-year intervals by infanticide and other means, since a mother must carry her toddler until it’s old enough to keep up with the adults. Because farm women don’t have that burden, they can and often do bear a child every two years.”

This would seem to suggest that the “settled” states were more likely to attain higher population numbers, as the nomadic herders were limited by many of the same factors that limited hunter-gatherers. Though, of course, they could carry quite a bit more on their livestock.

Though I think everyone else has contributed to a good enough answer to my original question, particluarly Lemur866 , (I can never get quotes to work) your observation that the pastorilists only had to win once for it to be disaster clicked a switch in my brain.

I feel as if this is answered pretty much to my satisfaction, though I certainly hope discusion continues.

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Interesting question. A few thoughts in addition to the good points made above:

Diet
I’ve heard it argued that hunter-gatherers were generally much healthier than agrarian peoples. Farming societies tended to have very limited diets, often restricted to a few crops that could be reliably cultivated, and maybe the occasional slaughtered animal. Diets were very high in starch, and not well balanced. In contrast, hunter-gatherer diets were very diverse, as the tendency is to eat whatever is available: bugs, roots, bark, berries, etc.

Desperation
Many successful “barbarian” invasions were perpetrated by people who were forced to leave their homelands for various reasons. Vikings, Visigoths, & Mongols are all examples of this if I recall. When you’ve got nowhere else to go, you’re going to be very determined to make a new home for yourself.

Professionalism
Many nomadic warriors spent their entire lives in the saddle. As herders, they would be intimately familiar with the idiosyncracies of mounted combat. Contrast this with the armies of settled nations, which were generally comprised of conscripts and peasants who had been farmers all their lives. Standing armies did not become common until the Rennaissance.

Mobility
By definition, nomads are more mobile. This capability cannot be underestimated in warfare.

Complacency
When you’re the big kid on the block, it’s easy to get cocky. Think Rome, or the US, pre-9/11. How many attacks did bin Laden have to perpetrate before he was recognized as a serious threat? Stagnation, corruption, bureaucracy, communication problems - all of these limiit the ability of a large organization to compete with a small one.

Leadership
Ultimately, success in warfare is almost always determined by the quality of the commanders. Good leaders can arise in any society.

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I’d also suggest that there is not only some selection bias, but perhaps some problems with definitions. You end up “until Rome” as if the Romans were conquered by their barbarian assailants. I’m not sure that that can be said to be true. Even looking at the barbarian groups that defeated Roman armies or even captured the city of Rome, how many of them truly conquered Rome?
The Visigoths were actually an agrarian society that, pushed out of their lands by marauding Huns, kept looking for somewhere to settle and re-establish their agrarian lifestyle. On the occasions when they defeated Roman armies (when they were not allied with Rome), they were often matched up against Romans divided by civil war. Their cousins the Vandals were similarly agrarian and, by the time they were sacking Rome and adding their name to the vocabulary of nasty barbarians, they had actually been living as successor states to the shrinking Roman Empire, maintaing a parallel level of organization to Rome. The Huns ran wild across Eastern Europe for about 60 years, but by the time they reached their apex, they had been accepting tribute for so long that their entire society had changed and they were no longer simple bloodthirsty pastoralists. Shortly after Attila died, they broke up, unable to sustain themselves as either nomadic mauraders or settled empire.

Similarly, your examples of Medes and Persians as conquering barbarians does not reflect the settled nature of those peoples by the time that they began their stints as conquerors.

I am not claiming that there are no examples of barbarians destroying civilizations–certainly the Mongols can lay claim to that scenario–but I am pointing out that there may not have been as many instances as a popular review of history might suggest.

Which would be nice if Rome did not conquer all the territory they did feeding their troops a diet heavy in grain and light on meat.

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tomndebb - some interesting points. I chose Rome as an end point because I thought the question needed some type of framing, I did include the parenthetical (arguably) for the reasons you mention (the Visigoths, Vandals, et al were pretty advanced agrarian societies - though less so than Rome itself & Rome was brought down as much by internal divisions - possibly moreso - than external factors) but I felt there was a distinct enough difference that it would serve as an able bookend.

As for the Medes being brought down by the Persians in your example, probably true, as the Persians were a vassal state of the Medes they were probably equally “civilized”, however I think the emergence of the Medes as succesor to Babylon fits my criteria.

As I hoped to make clear in the OP, but apparently did not, I realize the definitions are arguable, but I only offered some examples for the sake of clarity, not to create further confusion.

We, or others, may quibble over what constitutes a civilized versus uncivilized society, but the question was intended to solicit opinions as to the reasons behind what seemed to me an identifiable, if controversal, phenomenon:

that for a long period of time (over 1,000 years) seemingly advanced states, with all of the benefits inherent, fell with seeming regularity to supposedly less advanced and organized societies.

I am perfectly willing to entertain better examples than those I offered, but I think most come pretty near to my definition, which to reiterate was urban, argrarian societies, presumably with higher populations, and dedicated warrior and bureaucrat classes, being conquered by nomadic, pastoral societies, why did this happen, and perhaps more importantly and not stated in the OP: why did this stop happening?