How do I justify that some civilizations become advanced city states while others become barbarian tribes?

>implying there was a big gap between the greeks and the celts
Most of the roman roads in Gaul and Britain are either built on top of older roads or existed mainly for the purpose of allowing the legions to control the provinces.

I think your idea of what the ancient greeks were like is likely a complete fantasy.

Wet/dry seasons aren't that good for agriculture. You'd want temperate regions, usually.

And there are a lot of other important geographic factors to consider besides latitude.

Like, reminder that the Romans were completely in awe of gallic agriculture because they couldn't even fathom agriculture not being done by hordes of slaves instead of fucking ploughs, and most of their warmaking technology was from Spain and Gaul. The greeks used scrapers because the concept of soap eluded them.

The great temples of the hellenistic period were almost entirely based on phoenician architecture adapted for hellenic religious tastes.

>it's almost as if races differ in average intelligence

Funny the sort of things that make total sense when you stop trying to be a pussy leftist.

>races
So ethiopians are vastly superior to germanics

>Wouldn't civilization be entirely centered around the equator and uniformly fall off further north or south, then? That didn't happen in real life.

All of the megasprawls where a billion+ people live in squalor are in the semitropics because that's the easiest place to support human life. Living conditions are shit because of the abundance of insects and other animals, but if we get nuked back to the Stone Age and lose all our infrastructure, technological capabilities and knowledge, civilization will probably restart from somewhere in SEA.

These videos are pretty neat, and might help you with your worldbuilding:

youtube.com/watch?v=3PWWtqfwacQ

youtube.com/watch?v=aQSxPzafO_k

Naturally. The only field in which Germanics can claim superiority to anyone else is in destruction. Lacking the means to do this through honest skill and wits, as a Roman would, they often rely on treachery and tricking those who overestimate their ability to act like decent fucking human beings.
>Varus' legions were destroyed because he actually believed the G*rmanics who told him there was a rebellion in the far north that claimed innocent lives
>Napoleon the Great, despite the disaster of Russia, would've proven his superiority once more if his -own- G*rman troops didn't betray him
>The nations of Europe have meticulously guarded their borders through various treaties including the Dublin Agreement, which M*rkel violated only to later state that all nations of Europe must take their "fair share" of "refugees"

If anyone wishes to see the face of Satan, look no further than the G*rman: hair that resembles putrid piss and ooze, emotionless autism that can experience neither true fear nor true joy and a coarse tongue that sounds like infernal incantations even when describing ung*rmanic concepts such as kindness and morality.

The point that many here are missing is not that the Celts were primitives, but that their social structure was. So whatever their achievements in technology, they were crushed by the Southerners who were able to organize better than them.

>their social structure was
Describe me the social structures of the greeks and try to explain in what way you think they were somehow more advanced than celtic tribes.

Specifically what the fuck do you think were the social structures of northern greek states or the social structures of Sparta, of all things.

>they were crushed by the Southerners
The celts were absolutely not crushed by fucking greeks whose style of warfare was a laughable joke outside of the balkans and anatolia.

Some people are simply inferior.

in addition to that, there were celts (Galatians) that immigrated and just moved up to Anatolia and nobody could do that much to stop them.

There wasn't.

The "tech level" wasn't really that different. A roman gladius wasn't a rifle to a celtic sword. It wasn't the 1800s.

It was the society that was different.

...

>swedes
>swarthy

nani????

> trusting the eternal anglo

Horses.

>How do I justify that some civilizations become advanced city states while others become barbarian tribes?

Weather and geography. Cities happen when you can plot down a bunch of people in one place and have them not starve, and advance from there through trade networks for what they don't have.
Barbarians never get that local dependency and just migrate if shit gets too hard to deal with where they are.

Also, remember to include Double Barbarians on the other side of your Barbarians, to cause migration pressures.

>genetics has nothing to do with it lol my only knowledge of this subject is Jared Diamond's book lol

>Ethiopians (you mean negroids when you say this, not pre-1000 BC Ethiopians) had any form of civilization
Wew

>Still no idea why there was such a big gap between Persians/Greeks and Celts/Germanic tribes
Climate, natural borders and access to resources

>Ctrl + F Guns Germs and Steel
>No results.

That's really what it is. Resources and leadership.

That's because people are having an intelligent conversation. Also, 3 posts above you, idiot.

Well they did. We have tons of archeological evidence for that. Metalworking, agriculture, domestication of animals etc. If you choose to ignore that then it's your problem, just don" t try to pass it off as science.

Oh hey, the Northern end of the conflict that caused the Bronze Age Collapse.

>The great temples of the hellenistic period were almost entirely based on phoenician architecture adapted for hellenic religious tastes.

I don't think you can make any kind of a case for Phoenicians being a barbarian people.

Decent redpilled individual detected

For some reason ancient egyptian dress gets me diamonds instantly

Have one then

Suberashii

Flipfag here. We're a country with a shit ton of resources, but the leaders are corrupt (The government decides how taxes are spent.) and the people are either passive or blinded by religion and tradition, or both.

Hope this helps your worldbuilding somehow.

Because some are lazy and prefer building house made of shit.

You do realize that if genetics was the matter, nowdays Iraq would be the most successful country on the planet like 3000 years ago, right?

Actually, it mostly did. You are just to much of a retard to realize that the Earth has still been warming up since the last Ice Age. As such, mankind moved farther and farther away from the equator, and each other as time progressed. Probably to get away from shitstains like you that can't be bother to learn basic crap.

Always seeking the next horizon, with hopefully less morons.

>implying there was any significant migration movement in Ethiopia
Even their shitty ass backwards tribes speak chamitic languages.

I'm mostly just saying that the greeks were for the most part backwards fucks, not that the phoenicians were savages.

The only "truly civilized greeks" in the sense of better than the celts were Athenians (a fucking tiny anomaly), Ionians (who were fully under Anatolian and Phoenician influence) and Sicilians (Phoenician influece also)

>genetics has everything to do with it lol my only knowledge of this subject is Carlton Coon' s book lol

It has been up to, say, the 1400s. Europe (not mediterrenean europe, at least) is bizzarely "northern" because of the Gufl Stream but has been a real powerhouse since not that many centuries.

Now, uniformely it wasn't at all, but still, it was mostly subtropical allright. The equatorial zone proper isn't that good for more than one reason.

The gap was actually really narrow.

Read most of the Europa Barbarorum material, and you'll find links there with archaeological and historical papers about 'barbarian' civilizations. That's just a start, there is so much we don't know about them.

As some people on this thread already said, most roman roads in the rest of Europe were built over the celtic ones (which were a network of roads, not a spiderweb-like structure like the roman one, where most of the important roads lead to Rome because of how centralized it was).

In terms of metalworking, the celts were miles ahead of the romans btw. And in some other areas too. There are not much roman scientists, only lawmakers. Celtic druids were invited and actually went to the 'mathematical geniuses gathering' in Alexandria a few times.

But yes, their society was pretty much feudal by the end of the La Tene culture, instead of slavery-based economics, and that meant they were MUCH less centralized and they could produce much less stuff.

Celtic chainmail, swords and helmets were of much better quality, but that's not good if you can only equip 10-20% of your troops with it, even if they're your best warriors and retainers.

And by the way, greeks were FAR LESS advanced than you think, please stop watching movies and taking them as actual history.

Also the romans were MUCH more numerous! Whenever the romans lost a battle it was like "Yeah, okay, we'll send two more armies". Whenever celts or germanics lost a battle it was like "Yeah, half of our tribe is dead, wounded or disorganized"

Romaboos are the worst. Maybe even worse than Deus Vult idiots or /pol/tards

>an Anglo that wants to be whiter than a Swede
What the fuck the indians gave him to smoke?

>And by the way, greeks were FAR LESS advanced than you think,
Did celts calculated Earth radius or made mechanical calculator? Oh no, they could not even write.

>Did celts calculated Earth radius or made mechanical calculator? Oh no, they could not even write.
Ogham were a thing. If writing is your main standard do note that we have no writings left behind by either the Harrapean or the Incas that are still clearly understandable to this day, and you're making the mistake of taking a few great men for the general direction of a society.

Copernicus doesn't change that medieval Poland was a shithole.

The Gauls used a slight variant of the greek alphabet. The celtiberians had developed their own alphabet. (And all alphabets ultimately came from Phoenicia).

See this Please just read a bit before posting.

>he hasn't read Guns, Germs and Steel

Aside from the ogham problem (not everyone knows WHEN it started, possibile before Caesar) your examples are... wrong, I am afraid.

The first is a scientifical observation, it's not really a technological achievement. It's more of a administration feat, oddly enough: the fact is that Eratostenes had a nice snazzy measurement of the distanc between the two cities, made by a metric fuckton of fiscal measurements of the land.
Impossible in Gaul and perhaps anywhere in the world.
(it's worth mentioning that this wouldn't have been possibile in Greece proper, both for geographic and administrative reasons)

The Antikitera thing is... interesting, exactly because of its uniqueness. Personally I don't think it makes sense to say that an unique feat of engeneering (possibily not even that outlandish per se) is a sign of technological advancement. Usually we don't think of the 1700s automatons as a something really important: the look at the cronographs they made.

I guess on the other hand architecture counts, but of course it's not architecture that makes armies win or lose.

Obviously you know nothing about Rome

Their tech level was far more advanced than Gaul - and technology was more than just weapons. When the Gauls built a fort, the Romans built a fort around their fort. When the Romans built a tower, the Gauls laughed because it was so far away, until they realized it was on wheels and could be pushed to their walls. They then ran in terror. The Romans, when unable to pilot their ships in the rough waters of the Atlantic to attack the Gauls on the french coast, they were able to mimic the Gallic style of ship and build a better one. The Romans could dig a 10-ft ditch around camp in a few days. The Gauls used their swords to hack at sod to build a pitiable dirt wall in comparison.

Should I go on?

Most of Celts were illiterate no matter what you say while almost every Roman and Greek knew writing and shitposted on walls or made letters.

Not only they couldn't do anything to stop them, but they were fucking terrifying and they were hired as mercenaries for almost ALL of the Successor Kingdoms because they would fuck up most of the other infantry.

To be honest though, celts were actually decent cavalrymen because they had contact with Macedonians pretty early in history, that's why they were hired as heavy cavalry for the romans.

But infantry-wise, they were top tier. For 200 years they fucking dominated romans in most battles, from the sack of Rome to Telamon.
And also romans had MUCH more troops and that gave them the capacity (not the ability, they both had that) to learn from their defeats and improve their tactics for the next time.

If a celtic tribe was defeated, poof, it was probably gone, or had to wait dozens of years to reach the peak of their power again

as someone who studies archeology, there weren't much different between them

>this romaboo fanfic
>gauls who had fucking chariots ran in terror at a tower with wheels
a million keks

Yes, they had more advanced siege warfare, something they got from conquering the greeks (thanks Archimedes), so fucking what? Read about actual technological advancements that each of the ethnic groups had, how they lived, etc.

I'm not saying one was better than the other, just saying that no one was actually 'more advanced' than the other, and the romans certainly didn't have a 'more complex or advanced social structure' as most people here claim.

The same thing you wrote can be said about the plough, about soap, about metalworking, etc. Each and every civilization has marveled about things that others considered completely average, common and mundane.

But saying that some civilizations were 'barbarians' is so idiotic

Also this, what the fuck where you thinking?

Also Caesar didn't use siege towers like that in the siege of Alesia, he just built a fort around it.

No, who ran in terror at the Romans coming in to fuck them up.

Individually, the Gauls were fine warriors. But in every major battle they got destroyed. They lacked siege technology, discipline, organization, and leadership. Romans had all of that. Even though Rome was sacked a few times, it was the Legions stomping around Gaul and not vice versa.

Also building a ditch and a fort fast around a city is not technology, it's discipline. Nothing to do with advancement, just with the amount of people that can sustain a profesional army or not.

Well I never said Alesia, and I never said they were barbarians. But to say there was no technological disparity between Gauls and Romans is just stupid. No, the Gauls were not "uncivilized" or vastly below Roman levels of technology. But to claim they were on par with Romans is just contrarian.

The gauls had actual functional sailboats that didn't have to hug the coasts. The gauls tore Rome a new asshole multiple both on the battlefield and off. Literally the only reason the Romans could pull it off was how intensely divided they were.

Gauls sacked Rome dude. They also dominated most of Europe for hundreds of years. They stomped their way through greek and macedonian lands into Anatolia.

They were hired as mercenaries all around the western world, gallic Cavalry was a much valued asset in most post-Marian roman armies.

Even then, it wasn't celts vs romans. It was just celts vs celts and romans.

Read some history, please. Yes, tribal armies didn't have much discipline. But neither did the romans till the Marian reforms.

Hannibal, one of the greatest commanders ever, who defeated dozens of roman armies, had a force consisting mostly of celts and spaniards, who made up much of the medium and heavy infantry, and almost half of the cavalry.

>Yes, I checked history. Still no idea why there was such a big gap between...
I couldn't say about the others, but in the case of Britain. It's mostly because the Romans wrote down that, that was the case, then proceed to kill off all the druids.

Read something, please. You're just thinking about movies.

Take a look at a noble or a celtic retainer's equipment and then look at pre-Marian romans. Marian reform legionaries were just copying celtic retainers (except for the celtic longsword, that did not fit roman fighting style)

I'm not saying that the legions were much better as soldiers as the celts were (they were professionals after all) but technologically, celts were on par, if not more advanced in most things except maybe architecture

And that's only because romans (and greeks, off which they based all of their early architecture) built with stone. Most celtic cities and villages had 3-4 story buildings, while except for public buildings, Rome did not, being a mostly 1-2 story building city. But yes, let's concede Roman architecture, since it's really amazing

Oh sorry, I forgot how we speak a Celtic language, copy Celtic architecture, have a Celtic legal system, use Celtic words every day, a a religion the Celts adopted is the 2nd most popular in the world, and how the great Celtic empire stretched for a large portion of the known world.

You speak a germanic language, the only reason your germanic language has latin borrowings is because you were conquered by gallicized vikings, and common law is derived from germanic customs.

Also this is a retarded argument as only about 10 million people still speak greek worldwide and their legal system is based on fucking 19th century greek law, which had only a vague imprint of romanness because of romaboo tendencies.

Persians use muslim sharia, a system based on arabic law.

I don't think we should discuss any further, you are making weak arguments to support your even weaker case instead of reading some useful stuff. Don't be a romaboo user, go and read something!

It's nice to learn

"speak a celtic language"
You do
"have a celtic legal system"
Your legal system has never been roman either
"use celtic words every day"
You do
"a religion the celts adopted is the 2nd most popular"
The celts did adopt christianity under roman rule, it's the #1 most popular, actually.

How can someone unironically get in a discussion about ancient history when they say shit like this, honestly?

>You do
Technically he most likely doesn't, english has only about 60 celtic borrowings and some of them are through french which is germanized romance with a very thin celtic substrate

No need to be condescending. Im having a discussion, not an argument.

I dont know what movies you think I'm getting this from, I've read lots of accounts of the Romans in Gaul (which I know are greatly exaggerated) and my Latin professor constantly emphasized how discipline, organization, and technology is how 10,000 Romans could defeat many thousands more Gauls. The fact that there were mercenaries doesn't prove anything either. Highways, irrigation, large scale metal production, writing, are all things the Romans did better than Celts. This wasnt because they were "superior masterrace" but because of a more favorable climate and more contact with other advanced cultures of the day. And Rome was simultaneously waging war on many of its borders as it was at war with the Gauls.

I don't know who that is.

I know because I've actually moved around, lived at different latitudes and had gardens, so I actually paid attention to that kind of shit, but yeah blame some kind of book.

Rome fell because they overplowed and fucked up their local farmland and had to spend too much to import food to support the city. Everything else was a symptom of that hubris. Romans fucking loved plowing. They thought it was like deep dicking Gaia. Cock obsessed degenerates, the lot of them.

> Roman cities are made of mostly 1-2 story buildings

Romans pretty much invented the apartment complex, Crassus was so wealthy because he invested in real estate and turned almost all of his properties into apartments which he then rented out.

I will concede that Roman metalwork was not the best, I believe that prize goest to the spaniards with their steel and sword design being the best and was later copied by the Romans.

While certain elements of other cultures where better than the Romans, they were able to copy it and apply it on a massive scale. Roses strengths were their disipline and organisational abilities, in the form of their army, and their legal system. Now I recognise that many people have been commenting on the scientific advancement of barbarian societies, but those where primarily in specific fields such as metalwork or ship building and made them highly specialised. Rome was able to apply things on a massive scale and thus actually utilise those scientific advancements effectively.
However if we are judging the level of a civilisation, shouldn't we base it off of things like its legal system? After all that is what is important for organising large masses of people which is what civilisation essentially is. Seeing as to how most of Europe has a legal system based on elements of Napolenoic law, which intern is based on the Justinian code, itself based upon Roman law, and seeing as the US has based its government and legal system off of republican Rome, no one can deny the high standard and quality of Roman law. Even British common law draws elements from Roman law, despite being derived from Germanic legal systems.

t. A Roman

Rome fell because of loose fiscal policy and slaves forcing plebs to be dependent on the welfare state.

ITT: Neckbeards confuse martial success for civilization and refuse to acknowledge agricultural and civil engineering feats

Surprisinfly, they actually wuz kangs n sheeit.

Then, as was often the case, muzzies ruined it.

>agricultural
Again, the romans were awed at gallic agriculture.

>muzzies ruined it.
Ethiopia is still majority christian

And had a large chunk of itself stolen by muzzies, and is constantly tly harassed by them.

>had a large chunk of itself stolen by muzzies
Somalia is not a chunk of Ethiopia (and the closest it came to be part of it was after the muslim conquest of Somalia), and the majority of Eritrea's population is christian

Well yeah, Germans are the destructors of civilization, they only learn enough to sperg, kill and maim. We have the luck than merkel will end the german people with his massive importation of muzzies.

Tech levels don't exist execpt in bad games, bruh.

The only sane example you go on is the the castrum. Which, well, was made by spades: I think gallic metallurgy was at a "level" alright for that.

Citation needed.

>genetics mattering in civilisation
Is that a meme?

/pol/ education.

Are you kidding? It literally sounds like the Phoenicians are constantly saying "bar bar bar" all the time.

>Flipfag
Who? Where?

History.

Clean drinking water and a stable food source suitable to a sedentary lifestyle + a defendable location.

...

Adding on to what's been said, some people just don't really care about big fancy buildings, especially if they haven't been conditioned to "need" them.

Apathy is a powerful force.

The Celts didn't even use war chariots. They were basically just transport for rich people, like carriages.

Reminds me of a recent game I played,
The home tribe is seen as savages to most of the outside world due to a isolationist bent, and while a bit technophobic are overall resonate

The big tribe with a big ass city was built in the backs of slaves, which granted has been changed due to recent revolutions but even then they don't have the best tech

The guys that do have good engineering have no interest in buidling bigass cities and monuments and live in smaller rustic villages with central forges,

The last tribe are nomads but have a very good understanding of the wild

Point is that while superficially the big city is advanced it was kinda brute forced and is likely to bee superseded by another, which is why it's seeking alliances now no doubt, and each tribe had their own merits

Caesar described them using them, IIRC, at least in Britain.

>i know nothing about the subtleties of metallurgy
I just wish to see 500 years into the future where people will try to tell you that 1 ww germany was no different than post iraq usa technologywise