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mediadave posted:What, if anything, do we know about roman music? Here's a CD I have: http://www.amazon.com/Music-From-Ancient-Rome-vol/dp/B000QQX2AS/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1338734882&sr=1-1 This particular CD concentrates on wind instruments. It's pretty dissonant by today's standards. Sometimes I think it sounds creepy, but I like it.
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Jun 3, 2012 15:49
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Roman music, at least to the extent I've heard some songs on youtube, oddly kind of reminds me of traditional Bulgarian music I've heard before, which is a good thing. Also I realized last night, the only digit on the classic phone pad that has more than three letters has the letters SPQR 
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Jun 3, 2012 17:13
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Who lived in the Crimea / Rus around 2nd-4th century CE? And did the Romans have any contact with them?
Iseeyouseemeseeyou fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jun 3, 2012 |
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Jun 3, 2012 18:23
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Am I wrong or do we actually have no clue as to what Roman, or other ancient, music was like? They had no written systems of notation, at least such that have survived to this day, so we're limited to assumptions based on what instruments were available and how they are banded together in paintings, mosaics and reliefs. I suppose one can also make more or less edumacated assumptions, as assumably ancient musical trends can be studied in the same way that traces of languages that died millennia ago can be studied. Also Rome started from a tiny state and became an empire that lasted for over a thousand years (as a tiny state toward the end). Today musical trends change twice in a generation (that's a conservative estimate not counting the monthly new subgenres) but one must wonder how the music changed between Etruscan kings and Byzanthine emperors as contacts were made with remote civilizations in Africa, Asia, Germania and Britannia.
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Jun 3, 2012 18:26
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edit: double post
Nenonen fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jun 3, 2012 |
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Jun 3, 2012 18:27
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I believe the Greeks did have a writing system for music and that's where we get it from, but this is outside my area of knowledge and into "I think I heard this once" territory. Music definitely would've changed over time. I suspect with the more limited range of instruments and the relative lack of communication it wouldn't evolve anywhere near as quickly as it does now. Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Who lived in the Crimea / Rus around 2nd-4th century CE? And did the Romans have any contact with them? Crimea was mostly inhabited by Greeks who were client kingdoms of Rome. Further inland you get steppe nomads like the Scythians and Sarmatians. Romans knew about them but neither side had any real interest in the other. Mostly they were a nuisance to the Romans. Later the Huns came through that area. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jun 3, 2012 |
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Jun 3, 2012 23:29
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Grand Fromage posted:I believe the Greeks did have a writing system for music and that's where we get it from, but this is outside my area of knowledge and into "I think I heard this once" territory. Sarmatians! Is it true at all (I doubt it) that Rome used Sarmatians in Britain? (I.e. King Arthur movie, reason why I doubt it).
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Jun 3, 2012 23:42
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Yes the Greeks had a system for transcribing music. I think we have an incredibly small number of samples. I do not know if we can read it. Here's a review of a recent book on Greek music.Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Sarmatians! Is it true at all (I doubt it) that Rome used Sarmatians in Britain? (I.e. King Arthur movie, reason why I doubt it). Probably, they had troops from the middle east at least for sure. Off the top of my head I know there was at least one group of Palmyrans (Syrian), so Sarmatians wouldn't surprise me. I feel I have a "I heard one time" idea that King Arthur legends may have developed out of Sarmatian ones, so that could be true. I'd have to look into it a bit. Grand Fromage posted:Do email that to me, grandfromage at gmail. I'd specifically like to know how he explains the widespread use of written advertisements on walls, the graffiti left in lower-class areas, and the Vindolanda tablets. If there's any special area where he addresses those. Public libraries too, though that I don't find as big an issue. Sent. I can dropbox them or something for other interested parties later.
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Jun 3, 2012 23:56
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I'd be interested in that.
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Jun 4, 2012 01:33
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Sarmatians! Is it true at all (I doubt it) that Rome used Sarmatians in Britain? (I.e. King Arthur movie, reason why I doubt it). Romans hired on auxilia from all over. It's possible, Sarmatians were baller on horseback so they would've been good to bring on as cavalry auxilia. And soldiers would be sent all over the empire as needed, it wasn't unusual for a legionary born in Egypt to end up in Britain or whatever. I don't know of any records offhand of Sarmatian auxilia but there's no reason why not. I would be surprised if there weren't any.
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Jun 4, 2012 01:37
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Probably, they had troops from the middle east at least for sure. Off the top of my head I know there was at least one group of Palmyrans (Syrian), so Sarmatians wouldn't surprise me.
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Jun 4, 2012 03:08
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This might not be necessarily coherent, but what's always insane to grasp is the span of time. Let's say the earth is 4.6 billion years old, life pops up in some form around 3.5 billion, humans in our anatomically modern form pop up around 200,000 years ago, agriculture at maybe 10,000 BCE, pyramids at say 2700 BCE and then Augustus first century CE. When Augustus begins his visionary cohesion and expansion, the pyramids are already nearly 3,000 years old. When Justinian reunites the West with the East (albeit fleetingly), Augustus lived 500 years previously. It's like Christopher Columbus to us, comparatively. Just a loving legend. Historical, but such an incredible amount of time in between. And yet from Augustus to Justinian there is still, at its core and all evident outliers, an identifiable Roman civilization. When Christ walked the earth, Alexander of Macedon was three centuries gone. George Washington to you and me. When Trajan was emperor, Socrates had been dead for six loving centuries. Rome survived from 753 BCE to 1453 CE. I've been alive for 25 years. It's loving insane.
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Jun 4, 2012 04:12
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The time is pretty crazy to think about. I mean Pax Romana lasted from roughly from 30 BC till 200 AD, that's almost as old as the United States is right now. The difference though is when Pax Romana began, unlike when the US began, Rome was already a mega power, and basically in many regards the epitome of human civilization and culture.
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Jun 4, 2012 04:34
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It also explains many of the problems with putting together the story of Rome. Think of how legendary early American history is already, and that's not only less than 250 years ago, but also ridiculously well documented compared with anything we have from the pre-modern world. Think how much more legendary it might be if we actually didn't have any records. Now add in that ancient historians did not even have a concept of keeping legend and real history separated.
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Jun 4, 2012 04:51
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cheerfullydrab posted:2. What do you feel about Caracalla's extension of citizenship? It was a good call. The power in the empire had shifted to the provinces, so having them as second-class citizens was bullshit both on ethical and expedient grounds. I don't have any deeper thoughts on it than that. Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:I asked this a few months ago in the Military History thread, but figured yall might be able to answer it better. Following the (second) Dacian War, It's very hard to tell much about Roman economics in detail. Usually, when a new area was conquered and the spoils came in, the reigning emperor (or the victorious general in republican days) would spend a huge amount of it on the public good. The Colosseum, for example, was financed entirely with the loot from the war in Judea. Many of the great public spaces in Rome and other cities were funded by war spoils, so that's where a lot of the money would've gone. Some would've been distributed as bonuses, some would've gone into Trajan's savings (though Trajan wasn't a profiteer), some went into the treasury. Lots spent on the citizens. That's one big difference between the wealthy now and the wealthy in Rome. If you were rich, it was your duty to use that wealth for the good of the people and the state. Something closer to the Rockefeller/Carnegie era, or Buffet and Gates today. DarkCrawler posted:What is the most important piece of writing (etc. mentioned in other works) that we have lost in history? It's amazing that even with so little surviving to the modern era we still know this much about Rome. There are as many answers to this as there are historians. The majority of Tacitus' historical work has been lost, I'd probably go for that. Claudius' works would also be great, none of them survive. Particularly his histories of Carthage and the Etruscans--Claudius is the last known person able to read the Etruscan language. Questions I am still meaning to get to go here so I don't forget: Modus Operandi posted:Also did anyone ever find out what happened to the Altar of Victory in the senate? Did Theodossius melt it down or did archaeologists ever discover any clues as to what happened to it. Pochoclo posted:I'd have to ask about the Roman perspective on the occult. I remember Pliny the Elder (who was also a pal of Vespasianus) being dismissive of it, and generally in the legends and myths, there was a contrast between the "divine" magic (theios aner) and the magic tricks that were almost always evil. WoodrowSkillson posted:The closest thing I can think of if Justinian's James Bond mission to steal silkworm eggs from China. If yours was missed let me know. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Jun 4, 2012 |
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Jun 4, 2012 05:19
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Thanks for getting to that!
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Jun 4, 2012 05:45
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Thanks for getting to that! Sorry I can't give a more complete answer, it's a combination of me not knowing specifically about it and the difficulty with doing economic history in the ancient world. The quantity is likely exaggerated too. A giant number like that in an ancient work of history just means "a shitload of gold", not that it's an accurate quantity.
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Jun 4, 2012 05:50
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DarkCrawler posted:The Crisis of the Third Century? I will preface this with saying that I am not totally fluent in this period so I am totally open to correction/expansion. I'm going to hit the overall points, not intimate detail. What happened is that the Roman state began to break down in the late 100s CE. Commodus is popularly blamed for this, and he sure didn't help any, but the writing was on the wall before he came to power. The economy was wavering, there were all kinds of border problems, and political strife internally. Commodus dies and we have the Year of the Five Emperors in 193, civil war ahoy. Septimius Severus wins and takes charge, cleaning up the last resistance after he takes the throne. Septimius and Caracalla aren't bad policy-wise and keep things going fairly well, though they're not the nicest people around. But the empire is kind of stagnant, and after Caracalla we get Elagabalus, who is really hard to even get your arms around. He was a very odd man following a strange sun religion from the east which he tried to spread in Rome. Various stories of his sexual depravity abound, he's portrayed as something of a ladyboy. He's very young and has a lovely reputation when he's assassinated and replaced with Alexander Severus. Things seem to be okay until the Germans attack in the north, and the Sassanids arise and attack the east. Alexander tries to buy off the Germans, the legions lose faith in him and go over to Maximinus Thrax, and Alexander is assassinated. This occurs in 235, which is the point that all the poo poo hits all the fans. The empire is being attacked on two fronts, the economy collapses into a depression, and we even get a smallpox (probably) plague in 251. There is a constant civil war and stream of generals taking command of legions, fighting each other for the throne, then getting assassinated/killed in battle against the next would-be emperor. By 258 the empire is breaking apart into multiple states: the Gallic Empire, the Palmyrene Empire, and the Roman Empire. Between 235 and 284, there are 20-25 different emperors depending on how exactly you want to count it. In about 270 there is a Gothic invasion which seems to rally some of the people together, and Aurelian also becomes emperor in 270. Aurelian is generally a baller and whoops everyone's rear end: the Persians, the Gallic Empire, the Palmyrene Empire, and the various Germans. He manages to bring the empire back together and end the internal fighting. Aurelian also gets the pro badass title "Restorer of the World". He can't eliminate the problems entirely, and his successor Diocletian puts a ton of reforms into place, most notably splitting the empire into eastern and western parts. This split works out much better in the east than the west. The economic consequences of this strife are huge and continue for ages, through all the horrible economic trouble the western empire will have until it breaks apart for good. There are also decent arguments that this chaos is so bad that the different provinces begin to rely more on themselves internally than on the empire as a whole, which culturally contributes to the division of all these staunchly Roman areas into distinct countries. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Jun 4, 2012 |
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Jun 4, 2012 07:32
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GF, you can disregard my question. I'm not sure what I was asking about. I think it was the Cantabrian Wars. I honestly don't know where I got such a dramatic name for it.
Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Jun 4, 2012 |
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Jun 4, 2012 08:16
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To follow up on Pochoclo's question, what were general views on magic and the occult in pre-christian Rome? Magi and Egyptians? Cults of Mithras? Other references of sorcery, sin, etc?
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Jun 4, 2012 21:51
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Mithra6 posted:This particular CD concentrates on wind instruments. It's pretty dissonant by today's standards. Sometimes I think it sounds creepy, but I like it. Reminds me of Majora's Mask: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJLXyBzMci0  Anyway, what was the most "prestigious" legion, other than the praetorians?
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Jun 4, 2012 23:11
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GamerL posted:To follow up on Pochoclo's question, what were general views on magic and the occult in pre-christian Rome? Magi and Egyptians? Cults of Mithras? Other references of sorcery, sin, etc? Romans adopted every popular religion. Cults and mysterious rites were very popular. The HBO show Rome shows this well I think. Traditional Roman magic included reading the auspices. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auspice Which is where we get the English word auspicious, by the way. Wikipedia has an excellent entry on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Rome
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Jun 4, 2012 23:12
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Details on Roman involvement in Arabia? Coined Arabia Felix, I believe. Felix meaning lucky, but why this term? Arabia is largely, if not entirely, nomadic tribes until Mohammed in the 7th century- if Islam is of the Abrahamic tradition, was that tradition brought to Arabia by Jews as a result of the diaspora? What is the earliest date of Judaism in Arabia? There must be some Jewish involvement...
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Jun 5, 2012 00:00
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So where did the really rich Romans keep their money?
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Jun 5, 2012 01:50
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Bombtrack posted:So where did the really rich Romans keep their money? There were bankers in Rome. They were originally moneychangers called argentarii, and were mostly equites. You could deposit money with them, and they would make loans for profit. Interest rates were between 6 to 10 percent during the late Republic/Early Empire. The Ptolomies of Egypt had a complex system too. I think these banks were pretty limited in scope though. Of course, much wealth was in kind, not money, so things like land/slaves/animals/etc would be held directly as they represented both value and the actual capital needed to generate more wealth. Gold doesn't take up a lot of space, so I imagine that very wealthy Romans could easily store it somewhere in their villa or town house and have a few trusted slaves guard it. Temples and public buildings often served as depositories due to their sacrosanct position in culture - this was also true in Ancient Greece. We know that Romans would often keep a lot of cash gathered in one spot - coin finds in Britain and elsewhere confirm that. Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Jun 5, 2012 |
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Jun 5, 2012 02:15
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Pfirti86 posted:Gold doesn't take up a lot of space, so I imagine that very wealthy Romans could easily store it somewhere in their villa or town house and have a few trusted slaves guard it. There were definitely some huge money chests found in Pompeii, yeah. I think they were right in the atrium. I know in Rome the Temple of Castor & Pollux (correct me if I'm wrong, might be Saturn. Might be both.) was a treasury, but that was the state one. I imagine it was mostly kept in movable goods like jewelry, dishes, statues, slaves, livestock, etc. And in the less movable category: land. Land was a big deal, even for urban dudes. Re: Sarmatians. Checked a book. Tacitus mentions them in Britain, and Marcus Aurelius seems to have sent some (5500 according to this book) "later in his reign" and there is epigraphic evidence of them from later than that.
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Jun 5, 2012 02:41
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Bombtrack posted:So where did the really rich Romans keep their money? Land, slaves, property. That accounted for a lot of it. Buried coin hoards attest to the practice of sticking your money in a pot beneath the floorboards, and there was gold and the aforementioned banks. Rome also later had a basic (relative to today) system of corporations that you could invest in. It wasn't all that different than today, there wasn't a stock market but otherwise most of the modern financial system existed in some form.
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Jun 5, 2012 02:50
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Re: Sarmatians. Checked a book. Tacitus mentions them in Britain, and Marcus Aurelius seems to have sent some (5500 according to this book) "later in his reign" and there is epigraphic evidence of them from later than that. Cool thanks! 5500 seems like a rather large number though, correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that be 11 auxiliaries of them? Also, how did Romans deal with Inheritance and Legitimacy? By Inheritance I mean - who would inherit the lands, gold, leader of the house/family, etc. and by Legitimacy I mean does it matter at all who the mother was? Were Bastards lower on the social ladder than their legitimate siblings (in equite/patrician families), etc?
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Jun 5, 2012 02:50
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They used wills just like we do.
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Jun 5, 2012 04:39
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Yep. Generally it's primogeniture just like later on. The will is what wins out though. Edit: It's hard to overstate how similar the Roman legal system is to what we use in the west today. Our legal traditions come from them and have been consciously based on Roman models throughout the ages. Romans pioneered the frivolous lawsuit--they loving loved suing each other. Many of the government offices included immunity from lawsuits as a perk, and there are numerous instances of people hanging onto their posts or engineering jumps from post to post for absolutely no reason other than to avoid the fuckoff pile of lawsuits awaiting them as soon as they lost that immunity. There is a reason why everything in law has Latin names. If you transported Cicero to the modern day he would understand most of what we do. Probably the biggest difference is that modern trials are not a public performance designed to win over the audience. Roman lawyers spent the whole time mugging for the camera so to speak. Going out to watch a trial was a popular form of entertainment. I'm also unsure if Romans had innocent until proven guilty as their fundamental starting point. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Jun 5, 2012 |
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Jun 5, 2012 04:49
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Grand Fromage posted:There is a reason why everything in law has Latin names. If you transported Cicero to the modern day he would understand most of what we do. Probably the biggest difference is that modern trials are not a public performance designed to win over the audience. Roman lawyers spent the whole time mugging for the camera so to speak. Going out to watch a trial was a popular form of entertainment. Again, Cicero would immediately understand all the tv courtroom dramas and judge shows. Hell, he'd probably understand even The Jerry Springer Show, it's kind of like gladiators except more gruesome.
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Jun 5, 2012 09:56
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How accurate are the Asterix comics at depicting Roman soldier uniforms/weaponry/camps?
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Jun 5, 2012 11:12
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Gambrinus posted:How accurate are the Asterix comics at depicting Roman soldier uniforms/weaponry/camps? I've never seen Asterix, can you post some examples?
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Jun 5, 2012 11:16
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Grand Fromage posted:I've never seen Asterix, can you post some examples? What is wrong with you? On a serious note: How much is known about the languages the Germanic tribes spoke before they had much contact with Rome?
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Jun 5, 2012 11:21
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Grand Fromage posted:I've never seen Asterix, can you post some examples? What is wrong with you? On a serious note: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
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Jun 5, 2012 11:24
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Nenonen posted:What is wrong with you? Asterix is a Europe thing man. I've never seen it in the US.
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Jun 5, 2012 11:27
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Grand Fromage posted:Asterix is a Europe thing man. I've never seen it in the US. Rome is a Europe thing too. If Asterix is too European for you then you'd better stick to your local ancient civilizations, Bub!  Anyway, here's a specimen. The internet is full of more of the likes of this for you to analyze: 
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Jun 5, 2012 11:30
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I might do a little writeup on the factories/standardization later, though I should say that most of what I now about it comes from reading 2-3 books from personal interest. Although I did go through 7 years of Latin & related subjects in highschool (gently caress Greek grammar) but we didn't do all that much history; and what little we did was not really centered on society (oh god the tribes. SO MANY goddamn tribes, don't let anyone tell you that ancient geography is simple).
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Jun 5, 2012 12:48
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Private Speech posted:(oh god the tribes. SO MANY goddamn tribes, don't let anyone tell you that ancient geography is simple). This is a very interesting, important, and really confusing thing to keep in mind when you look at a map of Rome. We consider the area within the borders to be the state of Rome, and think of it like a modern nation state. It totally is not. The concept doesn't exist, and Rome is a patchwork of hundreds, if not thousands of different tribes, territories, quasi-independent allies, client kingdoms, areas that are directly Roman, all kinds of poo poo. Here's an example, a map of Italy from the Samnite Wars:  All those territories and tribes named on there don't just disappear. Even after Italy is all under Roman control, the actual ethnically Roman area, the Latin area, directly controlled by Rome, what we would consider the Roman nation state, is a minority of the peninsula. Rome's territorial control extends over people who are part of the empire but not just one unified group. The Social War illustrates this quite well when the Italian allies rise up against the Romans, demanding either freedom or the rights that Romans enjoy. You could imagine something like the various Soviet republics or the United States under the Articles of Confederation. Even that is far too nation-state but it's a better comparison than thinking of Rome as all one monolithic state. It's a territory under the control of a state but not exactly part of that state. And the borders between those areas are such a complete clusterfuck that I'm not aware of anyone who's even tried to map it out.
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Jun 5, 2012 13:00
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Asterix isn't really historically accurate: Cesar is Roman Emperor, legionaries are wearing the wrong type of armor (lorica segmentata instead of chainmail), Vikings in 50 BC, etc. It is more about making fun of various French and European stereotypes, some Latin based puns, and showing the opposition between the modern (western) state and the traditional (French) countryside, represented by the Roman Empire and the Gallic village: the French love to think of themselves as the Gallic village heroically resisting globalization. That being said, I still absolutely love Asterix comic books (the older ones, before Goscinny died and Uderzo took away all the charm) and can only recommend them to you, especially if you like Roman history. There are even some books in Latin!   Chikimiki fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jun 5, 2012 |
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Jun 5, 2012 13:02
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