Germanic Tribes: The Complete Four Hour Saga

Rome-barbarian contact I agree with at least one other reviewer in that this documentary "is more about contact between the two groups, rather than showing Germans as they saw themselves." I also share the view of others in that origins of Germanic tribes are not really examined. Some tribes such as the anglo saxons are not even mentioned. That said, I still recommned highly this documentary as it incorporates some new views (to me at least) in that contact between Rome and peoples living right outside their territorial limits were pacific or of mutual interest, to some extent. Digital reconstruction of towns and fortifications to guard imperial limits are cool and enjoying. Good picture quality, no subtitles provided. Rating: 5 (Luis, 2010-06-25) Germanic Tribes: The Complete Four Hour Saga customer review

The Germanic Tribes It was okay, but found it to be more related to archaeological than historical information. Rating: 3 (Inge Wolf, 2010-06-14) Germanic Tribes: The Complete Four Hour Saga customer review

Nothing new, nothing insightful, Germanic tribes still a mystery I do not penalize the series' score based on my own misunderstanding. I was under the impression this was a historical documentary, but a good 90% of it is pure archaeology. To a military historian like me, I simply DO NOT CARE about the angle of holes in skulls indicating how a person was killed in combat. I just don't. The documentary gives me far too many instances of this. The reviews complaining about this being too Rome/Latin-centered... what the hell do you want? The Germanic tribes wrote nothing, drew nothing, sculpted nothing, anything and everything they did was purely contemporary, or else lost, destroyed, or too incoherent to be understood (like runes). Tacitus is cited frequently in the first two parts of the documentary because he's LITERALLY one of the only sources of information we have on the Germanic tribes in this period! But my problem is perhaps one that is indeed my fault; everything covered in this "saga" is absolutely 100% unremarkable, and has been covered far better and more thoroughly in other works, books, documentaries. The entire second part is devoted SOLELY to Arminius and the Battle of Teutoberg Forest. The vast majority of the first part is barely concerning the Germanic tribes until Caesar's contact with him during the Gallic Wars. As usual with "pop history", there is NO MENTION AT ALL of the Teutones, Cimbri, and Marcomannii, the three marauding Germanic tribes that flooded into Gaul in the early 100s BC, then attacked Rome in 107 BC and inflicted the heaviest amount of casualties Rome had ever suffered, more so even than the Battle of Cannae---80,000 at the Battle of Arausio minimum to the 50,000 at the Battle of Cannae minimum. And the amount of time it would have taken to cover these events could have easily been fit into the first part if they'd just NOT covered Caesar's Gallic Wars, which involved GAUL about 90% of the time. The rest essentially takes random artifacts, such as the head of a spear, or a bracelet, and creates a FICTIONAL CHARACTER out of it to journey around ancient Rome and Germania, telling a fully fictional story based on a real world, focused so much on archaeology that I was just plain BORED most of the time. It really bugs me intensely that they essentially make a historical fiction out of their documentary, doing what authors like Steven Saylor does so much better---creating a fictional character based in an entirely real place, on entirely real events, and placing him more or less alongside or at the center of these events. One of the FICTIONAL CHARACTERS is even depicted as Arminius's closest bodyguard, who saved his life at the Battle of Teutoberg Forest. It doesn't hurt to try to characterize some random people, but it just bugged me, and it felt like the documentary could have done without this half-hearted attempt at a personalized narrative that always managed to fizzle out about 3/4ths of the way through some of the parts. And the vast majority of the archaeological things are presented as these SHOCKING and REVOLUTIONARY discoveries, and maybe it's because I'm not an archaeologist, but these discoveries amount to bits of metal or a necklace or a skull with a coin lodged in its teeth, and it tells us... nothing new. Something discovered in 2005 is presented as though it's a wholly new discovery, and it's something I knew about from a book written years earlier. Maybe it's PHYSICAL evidence of it, but it sure ain't presented as such half the time. Part 3 was probably the most vapid, blank, and just plain empty documentary I've ever seen on the subject of "barbarians" as it was literally filled with nothing but archaeological finds on Romanized Germanic artifacts, showing us that some Germanic tribes were Romanized around the 200s AD. And in that sentence, I've summed up the entire 50 minute piece. There was literally nothing to it except explaining that some Germanic tribes were Romanized, and adopting Roman style and custom and architecture. They went all out with production values but as a historical documentary, it's an empty and pointless replacement to a quick book. Rating: 1 (Andariel Halo, 2010-04-02) Germanic Tribes: The Complete Four Hour Saga customer review

Very Rome-ish and Politically Correct view with a religious persuasion What about Germany s interaction with England,Scandinavia,what about the Mongols.Where were the Germanic tribes from. And I really wanted to learn more about the Anglo Saxons and less about Rome .I think they left out a lot of credit due to the Germanic tribes. And the biggest thing i disagreed with. The idea that the sun cross was a adaptation of the Cristian cross. Even though the sun cross was used for a thousand years before the Christian cross . Most likely the Christian cross was an adaptation of the sun cross. This documentary should be labeled Rome and its promotion of Christianity. Rating: 2 (D. Burton, 2010-03-07) Germanic Tribes: The Complete Four Hour Saga customer review

Superb presentation of Germanic-Roman contact This miniseries manages to give an excellent introduction to the state of archeological and historical scholarship on the contact between Germanic and Roman cultures. The authors present the viewer with a comprehensive picture of how the Germanic tribes might have perceived themselves and how they were perceived by those they came in contact with. This series is relevant for anyone who is interested at all in how the late ancient/ early medieval contact zones between peoples shaped the political, cultural and linguistic histories and literatures of a multicultural Europe. Rating: 5 (Chapel Hill, 2010-03-06) Germanic Tribes: The Complete Four Hour Saga customer review