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The Routledge History of Genocide THE ROUTLEDGE HISTORY OF GENOCIDE Edited by Cathie Carmichael and Richard C. Maguire I~ ~~~¡~;n~~~up LONOON ANO NEW YORK 2 GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER IN SECOND IRON AGE EUROPE Methodological issues and case studies in the Iberian Peninsula Fernando Quesada-Sanz The concept of'genocide' presents several definitional dilemmas in the contemporary world. There are literally dozens of cogent definitions of the concept, which are quite distant and distinct. 1 These dilemmas increase almost exponentially when we start to apply them to the ancient world, to the extent that sorne of the more important recent syntheses practically omit the period.2 To begin with, it is often difficult to dif- ferentiate the legal concept of genocide from mass murder, although in the present era it is a very pertinent difference with regards to the law. It is also difficult to apply the very precise and often criticized definition of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide from 1948 to the ancient world.3 This defined genocide to be acts carried out (whether successfully or not) with the intent to destroy 'in whole or in part, of a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such'. Other categories ofviolence, directed on the basis ofclass, gender, politics or age were not included.4 Despite much written orvisual documentation orwitness testimonies, it is not always easy to demonstrate the concept of 'intent' in genocide.5 Additionally, it is often difficull to distinguish the concept of 'combatant' from the 'civilian' or 'non- combatant', although this distinction remains critical both to legislation and ethical notions intended to limit the devastation and savagery ofwar. It is therefore likely that in late Prehistory and the Iron Age, in contexts far removed from the great classical cultures, war was proportionately even more deadly than in the modern era.6 There is sorne discussion of the actual demographic scale slaughter must reach for it to become 'genocide'. In antiquity, as in the contemporaryworld, complete annihi- lation or genocide was more of an aim than a realistic possibility. More frequent were whatwe might define as 'genocidal massacres', which were more limited in extent than genocide and often conceived as 'object lessons for other members of the group',1 but a term that could be applied to the most remote Prehistory.a Sorne authors main- tain that actions such as mass enslavement9 or mass deportationslO that could have a devastating effect even though they did not involve the physical extermination of a population, should be considered genocidal. This definition might relate more to the concept of 'ethnic cleansing',ll which was perhaps more common in antiquity than today. Even the term 'ethnocide' which has been proposed for a cultural rather than physical destruction, is directly related to genocide. 12 The most applicable term for the Iron Age would be a looser and intuitive, though legally imprecise, definition of genocide which would essentially be of an anthropological nature.13 9 FERNAN DO QU ESADA-SANZ GEN If all these issues are thorny in the contemporary world, it is clear that the methodo- Predicl2 logical and conceptual dilemmas multiply when applied to antiquity. For this reason, degree of 1 most recent work on genocide in the ancient world avoids being too precisely bound by ent.25 Wha l theory, and suggests intuitive parameters not based upon current legal tenninology.11 in the yeal It even questions the use of the tenn 'genocide', preferring the category of 'genocidal death of t1 massacres' which itselfwas notspecified in the 1948 Convention. 15 In particular, modern vened, the legal and even ethical conceptions of 'war crimes', which are often associated with - and by his legi< committed during - genocide, but remain distinct from itl6 are difficult to apply to the to 110,000 classical world. This problem is amplified by a paucity of written sources. 17 The tenn return, utt, 'atrocity' would perhaps be more appropriate for many of the examples documented such as th( through archaeological sources in the Iron Age. The concept of 'collateral damage' is although ti alien to the ancient world as such, but it could be argued that in many cases it could Where ( apply as long as mass death was not the desired outcome, but an almost predictable tural, etc.) , result ofthose actions deemed necessary to achieve political, religious or military goalS. 18 war could r The Late - or Second - Iron Age in Europe and the Mediterranean is an archaeologi- 'Melian dia cal and chronological concept that, in the case of Greece and Rome, overlaps with the oftheir unr concept of 'classical culture'. Periclean Athens, (scenario of the terrible Peloponnesian for all the i War which saw sorne of the worst and most well documented massacres in antiquity), temporary seems distinct from the proto-historic cultures of 'La Tene l' in Central Europe or the reference te Iron Age in the east of the Iberian Peninsula. Yet these societies were strictly contem- not an isola porary and remained fairly close1y linked. In those contacts between them, sorne of the But here more obvious instances ofwhat might be considered 'genocide' occurred. other' cont< There is no doubt that the city-states of Classical Greece or Republican Rome car- in their fine ried out massacres and deportations on a sufficiently large-scale for the category of to that of a 'genocidal massacre', and in sorne cases, that of 'genocide' to be applied. Yet it would that period) be much harder to attribute other modern notions associated with the concept to these League,ort cultures, especialIy the moral (social) and the ethical (personal). That is partly due to were sparse the absence at that time of formal internationallaws of warl9 of military regulations, Peninsula, a or indeed of 'rules ofengagement'. Similarly, many 'Iaws' ofwar among primitive peo- multiple lay pies both in the ancient or modern eras developed in the context in which they lived. from very su Concepts like 'humanitarianism' or 'the rights ofnon-combatants' are not realIy appli- these archac cable.20 We must deduce much the same for the European Iron Age. This is mainly bouring eth. due to the fact that there was no ethical rejection of the very idea ofviolence and war It is onl} in ancient times; although it might be an evil, it was considered inseparable from civi- Greek and: lization and even necessary.21 Nor was there a moral rejection of its consequences such Gennans ar as mass slaughter and slavery, except by isolated minds ahead of their time. The sum- nomenono mary of Polybius on the views of contemporary Greeks over the final destruction of the method Carthage, in a war that we judge iniquitous today, is very illustrative.22 On the contrary, should be il the idea of total annihilation of the Trojans seemed reasonable and normal to the 'genocide' I minds of most listeners of Homer.23 That does 'not mean that war in classical cultures flexible. Th was always wild and total. Several strongly ingrained cultural constraints in the social not states ir fabric, especialIy those associated with re1igious or sacred places often (but not always) of mass-kilIi served as regulators ofviolence. The capacity for wholesale destruction and slaughter portion to t was in itself limited by available technology, basicalIy human and animal strength. In There is 1 fact, ancient warfare, as modern, was usualIy limited, and the concept of annihilation outon the p was rarer than is generaIly accepted. On the other hand, war was not always highly understood ritualized and re1atively benign as sorne modern theorists have maintained, offering great classic inadequate ethnographical paralle1s.24 . cases, these 10 GENOCIDE AND MASS MURDER IN SECOND IRON AGE EURorE Predictably war was often at its most brutal in conflicts between states with a high degree of urban development and ethnic groups perceived as 'barbarian' i.e. differ- ent.25 What the Helvetii did to the Callic tri be of the Aedui in their southward migration in the year 58 BC (destruction of their cities, devastation of fields, enslavement or death of their inhabitants) perhaps falls short of genocide. 2G But when Caesar inter- vened, the killing of 258,000 of the Helvetii (warriors, but also women and children) by his legions certainly goes beyond the concept of simple mass murder, even if up to 110,000 survivors of the tribes that tried to migrate south were finally allowed to return, utterly defeated and humbled, to their land of originY Later, other polities such as the Eburones suffered a similar if no worse fate, and vanished fram history28 although they could perhaps later reappear as the Tungri. Where conflicts between polities which shared the same tradition (linguistic, cul- tural, etc.) dragged for years or decades, such as in the case of the Peloponnesian War, war could reach new heights of cruelty, and very high rates of destruction. The chilling 'Melian dialogue'29 contains a rational and cold narrative of the Athenian'sjustification of their unrestrained exercise ofthe 'might is right' belief, and its terrible consequences for all the inhabitants of Melos. The text is still studied by political scientists and con- temporary philosophers of history, and is consistently one of the examples cited with reference to genocide in antiquit:f° or even more generally.31 And the fate of Melos is not an isolated case ifone thinks of the earlier First Sacred War and the fate ofKirrha.32 But here our interest is not simply in the classical world, but in the perspective of 'the other' contemporary cultures of the Iron Age. These were proto-historic societies which in their final stages were familiar with writing, coined currency and organization close to that of a state (within the limited use of the concept of 'state' usually employed for that period), but did not have demographic resources available to Athens and its Delian League, or to Rome and its Italian allies.
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