Modern archaeologists have shown that these early Swedes, like other Scandinavians of the period, were mostly farmers who raised livestock and/or grew crops using rudimentary plows and other tools. They also supplemented their diets by hunting and fishing. Culturally speaking, they were backward compared to the contemporary Mediterranean civilizations of Greece and Rome. For that reason, the highly cultured Greeks and Romans lumped them together with other Germanic tribal groups whom they collectively referred to, unfavorably, as "barbarians."
One major mark against the early Scandinavians in Greco-Roman eyes was that, at the time, those northern European folk had no towns or cities. Rome had a million residents, and many other towns in its realm had populations in the tens or hundreds of thousands. But all Scandinavians then dwelled either on their remote rural farms or in very small villages of no more than a couple hundred people. Other reasons the early Scandinavians appeared primitive to the Roman world Were that they as yet had no written laws, no literature, and no formal schools.
While the Romans looked down on the residents of Scandinavia, the reverse was not the case, in part because of Rome's more advanced culture. Some of the artistic styles of the early Scandinavians were original to their own lands. However, they could not help but be culturally influenced by the strongest, most widespread, and most envied culture of that era—that of Rome. In the first few centuries a. d., the Roman Empire stretched across all of southern Europe and also included Britain, North Africa (including Egypt), and large sections of the Middle East. In many ways Rome was the envy of and cultural model for the known world. For that reason, the tribal societies of what would later become Denmark, Norway, and Sweden often borrowed artistic, clothing, and jewelry styles from the Romans. (Often this happened indirectly, through contact with the Germanic tribes who dwelled in the lands sandwiched between Scandinavia and Roman territory.) According to Wilson:
The shapes and designs of the arm-rings, brooches and gold pendants worn by [early Scandinavian] men and women, and the forms of some of the pottery which was used for both cooking and storage, were based to some extent on Roman models. Roman ornamental motifs were incorporated into their own art. Occasionally they even attempted to reproduce Roman representational art in their own idiom [personal style]. Provincial Roman statues were copied [and] Roman designs formed the basis for the lively art [of early Scandinavia].15
A clear example of Rome's artistic influences on early, and ultimately later Scandinavian art is the zoomorphic artistic style embraced by both the Vikings' immediate ancestors and the Vikings themselves. Zoomorphic artistic motifs are built around representations of animals. Over the years, Roman coins, medallions, drinking cups, and other artifacts decorated with animal motifs (and often made of gold) made their way, via trade, into Scandinavia. The locals adopted these artistic ideas, producing their own artistic works in the zoomorphic style. These included medallion-like artifacts called bracteates, along with rings, brooches, belt buckles, sword hilts, drinking cups, ship prows, and other ornamental objects.
World History
