“Barbarians” are certainly not a culture or a lack thereof. Neither are they a “stage” of historical or evolutionary progress in which the highest stage is life in the state as taxpayer, in line with the historical discourse of incorporation shared by the Romans and Chinese. For Caesar incorporation meant moving from tribal (friendly or hostile) to “provincial” and perhaps eventually to Roman. For the Han it meant progressing from “raw” (hostile) to “cooked” (friendly) and perhaps eventually to Han.
