All,
The Romans used the word "barbarian" in the way we use the word "foreigner." It certainly had its negative connotations, but then so does "foreigner."
By this measure, the Greeks were barbarian, the Carthaginians were barbarian, the Levantine peoples were barbarian, the Persians were barbarian and so on, up to, at least, their conquest. It's not, then, a suitable antonym for civilized.
That said, "The Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians were numerically more populous and more socially organized (ie, people in charge had more control over their people). Those were their only advantages. Period." is little more than political correctness. The Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians, Persians, Syrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, et al, in their various times and places, had a slew of advantages over their uncivilized (i.e., non-city dwelling) neighbors and exercised them to tremendous effect. This is not a modern reading of colonialism. "Civilized" states in the ancient world were urban-centered, literate and organized, and thereby technologically advanced and capable of marshaling massive labor and military resources for extended periods of time. "Uncivilized" villages, clans, tribes and tribal federations were inherently incapable of doing so, and even highly organized nomadic groups (made so in large part by the necessities of being nomadic), which possessed many of the qualities of civilization in transit, invariably became civilized as a result of conquest and in order to maintain it.
The civilized states ought not walk all over the uncivilized "states," but there were vast differences between them and those ought to be in the game. I realize Germanic tribes have lately been romanticized as proto-democracies in which men and women alike, and equal, gave their lives for liberty Tom Paine style, Gaelic towns as peaceful, tidy centers of learning and trade, Briton uprisings as the viva la resistance of the Pax Romana, but romance is what it is.
