d its high standards of
             civilization. Agriculture and division of labor (in addition to the
             prevalence of slavery) allowed for all the trappings of a wealthy and even
             bloated social structure. (King, 2004) These material signifiers were more
             or less stationary, and an important element of the satisfaction of the
             individual. Barbarian culture, on the other hand, was essentially mobile
             and unmaterialistic due both to harsh living conditions and lifestyles that
             did not lend themselves to the amassment of wealth. (Sazerac, 2002) Though
             many barbarians may have had settlements, many of those who presented the
             greatest threat to Rome were nomadic. "The Goths [were]... a people with
             [a] nomadic lifestyle and a love for warfare... [a] hunter-gatherer
             society... the Huns were a fierce, warlike nomadic people." (Lewis, 2004)
             Obviously there are significant differences in the demands of urban culture
             and hunter-gathered primitivist cultures. This material difference in
             culture, one expects, would have reasonably led to a difference in military
             Rome would have had a vested interest in defending its holdings and
             expanding its territory in order to gain access to new resources and new
             and affordable workers (both slaves and other laborers being often
             acquired through warfare). The barbarians, on the other hand, one would
             have expected (at their most pacifistic) to be little interested in
             expanding their territories or citizenry, and primarily interested in
             survival and gaining supplied and other physical (if short-term) goods.
             Rome would be able to act in defense of specific geographic areas while the
             barbarians had the advantage of being flexible and capable of free
             movement. These expectations apparently played out in real history.
             Barbarians seem to have originally engaged the Romans in battle in response
             to predatory attacks aimed at their land, which a survival based attack,
             and su...