Some Talking points to your history buff freinds.
Origin of the word ‘All roads lead to Rome‘- During the glory days of the Roman Empire, Rome was the centre of the empire and road from all over Europe led there. These roads helped hold the empire together because they allowed messengers to travel across regions carrying instructions from the emperor to the Roman governors. Interestingly, this was also a reason for the eventual decline of the Rome. The same roads that carried the Roman army out of Rome made it easier for outside invaders to march into the city.
The word ‘Barbarian‘ was a Greek word for someone who spoke no Greek. The Romans dismissed non-Greek and non-Latin speaking tribes as barbarians and looked down upon them as primitive, uncultured and vastly inferior. Least to say, these were the tribes that drove Romans out of England and attacked Rome itself.
Vandals are a group of barbarians who attacked the Romans (along with other Huns, Goths, Visigoths, Astrogoths tribes) and caused so much destruction that, even today, we still use the word ‘Vandalism’ to describe acts of destruction.
In the 400s, Attila the Hun was a notorious barbarian who terrorised and savaging Eastern Europe so badly, that the mighty Roman Empire was on the verge of devastation. In hopes of saving Rome, Pope Leo I, the bishop of Rome, rode out to meet with the feared Hun general. Most Romans thought that was the last they would see of Pope Leo. But, in a dramatic face-to-face meeting, Attila thought he saw he saw a halo around the Pope’s head. The cruel conqueror who feared no army, was awed by the Pope and thus he decided to spare Rome.
Attila’s death was even more bizarre. After a feast celebrating his latest marriage to a beautiful and young woman named Ildico, that very night, he suffered a severe nosebleed and choked to death in a stupor.
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