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One thing that seemed missing from the discussion about how Roman legionaries in the Principate were paid is the fact that yes, they did get grants of land but instead of becoming doughty Roman soldier/farmers most of them just sold off their property to go live off the proceeds in Rome or some other city. This helped along the continuing rise of the latifundia and all it's crappy consequences. Also, it's really true that discussion of the HRE doesn't belong here. I don't mean all my posts to be prickly and one-track, but they are. 753-1453, Roma semi-eterna!
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Jun 13, 2012 10:09
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On the 476 date, I just read a book (popular history, but still) where the author suggested that that date is largely bullshit and basically made up by later historians such as Gibbon who would read their contemporary values into the historical events. So Gibbon would have considered the imperial dynasty important for the existence of the state. But in 476 very little appears to have actually changed, and the main argument of the author is that noone in 476 appears to have noticed it. So I guess the western empire fell either in 410 or 1806?
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Jun 13, 2012 10:21
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I think you mean 1922. I think you mean 1945.
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Jun 13, 2012 10:32
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Octy posted:I think you mean 1945. ROME WILL NEVER FALL.  Morholt posted:So I guess the western empire fell either in 410 or 1806? I posted my argument back a ways in the thread. Short version is I would say late 600s/early 700s. The sack of Rome in 410 carried great symbolic weight but didn't have any actual effect on anything. cheerfullydrab posted:One thing that seemed missing from the discussion about how Roman legionaries in the Principate were paid is the fact that yes, they did get grants of land but instead of becoming doughty Roman soldier/farmers most of them just sold off their property to go live off the proceeds in Rome or some other city. This helped along the continuing rise of the latifundia and all it's crappy consequences. Yeah all these things depend on when exactly you're talking, things change over the centuries. By say Caracalla, the legions are acting like little more than mercenaries and Roman agriculture is entirely dominated by massive plantations owned by the super rich. cheerfullydrab posted:Also, it's really true that discussion of the HRE doesn't belong here. I don't mean all my posts to be prickly and one-track, but they are. 753-1453, Roma semi-eterna! The HRE is kind of an interesting case but yes, it's not Rome. I may post about it a bit later just to give my view. The HRE claim isn't nearly as much bullshit as imperial Russia's claim but it's still, at best, shaky.
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Jun 13, 2012 10:41
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Grand Fromage posted:The HRE is kind of an interesting case but yes, it's not Rome. I may post about it a bit later just to give my view. The HRE claim isn't nearly as much bullshit as imperial Russia's claim but it's still, at best, shaky.
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Jun 13, 2012 11:00
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How tall was the average Roman? Anymore cool info not on google about the Silphium plant that was supposedly used to extinction? And it's mystical powers to cure everything and as a contraceptive.
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Jun 13, 2012 11:05
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Did the Latin language change noticeably over the years that the classical Roman republic/empire existed? I know the Romans invented the Roman alphabet since it's in the name, but is there written Latin in older writing systems? I'm also curious about differences between written and spoken Latin, or I should probably say formal and informal Latin, though I realize that's harder to provide answers for. I'm curious about this since I was taking a look at some older samples of my own language recently, and coming to the discovery that as long as I read it phonetically I can actually get a reasonable idea of the meaning of the older texts even without a provided translation to the modern version. Also unrelated to language, but do we have any idea what kind of day-to-day activities were normal for a regular citizen of Rome in the ancient days? What kind of work would they do, what kind of leisure activities (if any) did they have that weren't large events like the gladiatorial fights? Was it common for regular citizens to travel to different parts of the republic/empire? Basically, I'm curious about anything that has some insight into regular Roman life, rather than the more known about lives of the major historical figures (Not that those aren't interesting), though I realize that this is going to be difficult to answer for the same reason. Smart Car fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Jun 13, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 12:34
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Could you explain all these formal end dates for the Roman Empire to someone whose knowledge of European history stalled out sometime in middle school?
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Jun 13, 2012 13:14
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Girafro posted:Alright, makes sense. So it was basically just a sort of dick waving competition where the name was used just to be a one up then? To be fair, most historians are wary to label Charlemagne's realm as the HRE, or even title Charlemagne as the first HRE. The title of emperor in the Carolingian sense eventually became the plaything of some minor Italian princes before it died off in the 900s. The real HRE (though certainly connected with the Carolingian empire, through Louis the German) started with Otto (son of Henry the Fowler), who was crowned almost 40 years after the last 'emperor.' But yeah, while the HRE liked to maintain the fiction that it was a direct continuation of the Western Roman Empire through translatio imperii, it rarely had direct control over Rome and it certainly didn't operate like the traditional Roman Empire. It was a Germanic country that never really quite figured out how to centralize and unify like her brothers in France. The HRE is an absolutely fascinating subject in history and one that I think gets ignored by quite a few general history classes (seriously, gently caress that quote by Voltaire), but not really appropriate for this particular thread. It's really the history of Germany. Hippopov posted:Could you explain all these formal end dates for the Roman Empire to someone whose knowledge of European history stalled out sometime in middle school? 476 CE: The last legal Western Emperor (Romulus Augustus) is displaced in Rome by the barbarian Odoacer, ending the part of the Roman Empire that contained Rome. This is the traditional 'fall of Rome,' though it wasn't really a huge drastic thing to the people living in Rome at the time. 480 CE: Death of Julius Nepos, a previous legitimate Emperor of the West who was displaced by Romulus Augustus. While he never regained control of the Empire, he never dropped his claim until he was murdered. 487 CE: Death of Syagrius, the last Roman official in Gaul and ruler of a rump state in what is now northern France. These can all be considered the 'fall of Rome,' though traditionally 476 is the most commonly cited one. For the East: 1204 CE: The sack of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade. A rival Latin Empire is set up, though the original Empire eventually kicks them out of Greece and reclaims Constantinople. This event is more-or-less a death blow to the Eastern Roman Empire, which limps along as basically just Constantinople plus the surrounding area and a few other territories scattered across the way. 1453 CE: The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire. Often considered the end of the high middle ages as well. 1460 CE: The fall of Trebizond to the Ottoman Empire. Trebizond was an independent state that had its origins in the sack of 1204, but was distinctly still 'Byzantine.' 1806 CE: The collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, thanks to Napoleon kicking the whole crusty edifice in the face. Really not the 'Roman Empire' as classically defined, but they were considered by many to legally be the heirs to the Western title given up by Romulus Augustus. 1917 CE: Since we're having fun with translatio imperii, this is when the Tsars of Russia were overthrown during a revolution. They were eventually shot in a basement by Bolsheviks. 1918 CE: Fall of the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria after WWI. The Hapsburgs (okay you nerds, the Hapsburg-Lorraines, as the senior male line had died out) pretty much owned the title of HRE until they were forced to give it up in 1806, and if there ever was a revival of the monarchy, they were the strongest claimants to it. Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Jun 13, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 13:19
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Pfirti86 posted:1918 CE: Fall of the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria after WWI. The Hapsburgs (okay you nerds, the Hapsburg-Lorraines, as the senior male line had died out) pretty much owned the title of HRE until they were forced to give it up in 1806, and if there ever was a revival of the monarchy, they were the strongest claimants to it. It's got to suck knowing you're the heir to a thousand year old dynasty and that if it hadn't been for WWI (my knowledge on this period isn't too good so feel free to correct me someone) you'd probably be kicking around as the Emperor of Austria in 2012. Then again, I just checked Wikipedia and it looks like the current head of the house is doing alright.
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Jun 13, 2012 13:48
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Hippopov posted:Could you explain all these formal end dates for the Roman Empire to someone whose knowledge of European history stalled out sometime in middle school? 410 - The Goths sack Rome. Nobody uses this as an actual end date, but it's the first time Rome proper is attacked in 800 years so it is a big indicator that poo poo is Getting hosed. 476 - Romulus Augustus, last western Roman emperor, abdicates and Ordoacer takes over as a Germanic king of Italy. Late 600s/early 700s - The Roman senate continues to meet into the 600s, and the archaeology and the few records we have indicate Roman culture in the west continues more or less uninterrupted until the late 600s, when all the Roman trade routes seem to vanish and things like gold coinage disappear. 1453 - The Ottomans conquer Constantinople, the last bit of remaining Roman territory. Unless... 1922 - ... you are totally into Turks, because the sultan of the Ottoman Empire adopts Emperor of Rome as one of his official titles. Ataturk's revolution establishes modern Turkey and ends the Ottoman Empire in 1922. Alternately, 1806 - The end of the Holy Roman Empire, courtesy of Napoleon. Alternately, Never - Because the Roman Catholic Church is a surviving Roman government institution and if you really want to twist as hard as you can, you can argue that the Vatican represents the surviving Roman state. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Jun 13, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 13:53
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Didn't some Byzantine Emperor take back Italy?
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Jun 13, 2012 14:00
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Grand Fromage posted:you can argue that the Vatican represents the surviving Roman state. And even that is ruled by a German! I was just about to post on the fall of the Roman Senate, as I think it's fascinating that it managed to kick around until the early 600s. I guess if they really wanted to bring back the Roman Empire, they would have to marry the heir of the Hapsburgs with the heir of the Romanovs. I don't think those two lines interbred as much as others out there, though I know more than a few Russian Empresses were German (and some even with British lineage through Victoria). Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Didn't some Byzantine Emperor take back Italy? Yes, during Justinian's reign and the campaigns in the west (which hosed Italy far more than the barbarians ever did by the way). It was eventually lost in the 700s, but it was a part of the greater entity known as the Exarchate of Ravenna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarchate_of_Ravenna). Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Jun 13, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 14:00
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Didn't some Byzantine Emperor take back Italy? Justinian, though his kick rear end general Belisarius did the taking. They kept their hands on some western territory for a while but it didn't stick.
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Jun 13, 2012 14:02
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Octy posted:Then again, I just checked Wikipedia and it looks like the current head of the house is doing alright. Oh yeah, they're still around. Officially though they are as common as you and I, mere citizens of Austria. The patriarch of Habsburg-Lorraine for a long time was a guy named Otto, but he died a few years ago. Now his son Karl heads things up.
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Jun 13, 2012 14:07
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Also important to note that Exarchate of Ravenna is the coolest name any state-like entity has ever had.
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Jun 13, 2012 14:11
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Grand Fromage posted:Also important to note that Exarchate of Ravenna is the coolest name any state-like entity has ever had. It also has the weirdest loving boundaries of any state-like entity that I have ever seen.  e: I didn't realize the Byzantines controlled Carthage as well! Did they inherit those from the Western Half or did they conquer those via Justinian?
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Jun 13, 2012 14:20
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:It also has the weirdest loving boundaries of any state-like entity that I have ever seen. All conquered by Belisarius.
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Jun 13, 2012 14:23
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If there was an unbroken chain of emperors between Romulus Augustus and Charlemagne I would say we would consider the HRE to be the Roman Empire.
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Jun 13, 2012 14:25
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euphronius posted:If there was an unbroken chain of emperors between Romulus Augustus and Charlemagne I would say we would consider the HRE to be the Roman Empire. Good point, but sometimes breaks occur in reigns. The English Commonwealth, France during the Revolution and before the restoration of Louis XVIII, Spain after Franco but before Carlos, etc. Of course these all happened in geographically and culturally unified countries - the HRE is a pretty different case.
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Jun 13, 2012 14:42
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euphronius posted:If there was an unbroken chain of emperors between Romulus Augustus and Charlemagne There was. In Constantinople. Charlemagne's coronation was basically an act of usurping the imperial throne, it had been solidly Greek since 480.
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Jun 13, 2012 14:45
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Ras Het posted:There was. In Constantinople. Charlemagne's coronation was basically an act of usurping the imperial throne, it had been solidly Greek since 480. That's exactly how the Romans saw it. As I recall it's the event that spirals everything out of control and eventually ends in the Great Schism. There had always been tension but that was a blatant attempt to seize both temporal and religious power from Constantinople. At least from the Roman point of view.
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Jun 13, 2012 15:04
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Since we're still vaguely on the subject, why (according to wikipedia) is Charlemagne not considered the founder of the HRE? All I saw to support Otto being considered the founder was he wasn't of Charlemagne's dynasty, and there was a period with no Emperors. Can someone explain this, because to me it seems perfectly legitimate that Charlemagne should be considered the founder. (Hopefully this isn't getting too off topic).
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Jun 13, 2012 15:16
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And while we're on the subject of the early middle ages, how "Roman" was visigothic Spain? How about North Africa? Did the Arabs consider their western conquests to be part of the war on the Roman Empire?
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Jun 13, 2012 15:49
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With post-Roman Frankish/Norman/Saxon conquest of all of Western Europe, including northern Italy, are those areas now comprised of people with Germanic blood? Basically, can the populations of England (especially), France, Spain and Northern Italy be described as predominantly of German stock or are there still primarily Gallo-romanic populations in Spain and France? Sorry for the derail but what comes after Rome is never accurately described in pre-college history courses IMO, Charlemagne is covered as the first post-Roman unifying figure but none of the legacy of the Frankish and Norman conquest is not adequately covered.
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Jun 13, 2012 18:33
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Here's one for ya: What did Romans generally look like? Skin color, height, etc? As a bonus, what did Carthaginians look like? My friend told me this has been a big source of debate.
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Jun 13, 2012 19:12
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Paxicon posted:This is going to cause a bit of bickering I'm sure, but the Holy Roman Empire isn't really the Roman Empire... An old joke goes that the HRE "Isn't Roman, Isn't an Empire and certainly isn't Holy". I always thought that Claudius was thought to suffer from cerebral palsy rather than Asperger's syndrome, but opinion may have shifted and, after 2000 years, who really knows? Determining the illnesses of people from history is always a tricky business. They're still arguing about whether Henry VIII's main health problem was syphilis, scurvy or just being a big fat slob and whether Napoleon died of cancer or arsenic poisoning.
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Jun 13, 2012 20:49
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an skeleton posted:Here's one for ya: What did Romans generally look like? Skin color, height, etc? As a bonus, what did Carthaginians look like? My friend told me this has been a big source of debate. Romans, as in the denizens of the city of Rome, before the citizenship spread looked like Italians. Romans after the citizenship started to spread were white, black, brown, tall, short and anything in between you can find in Europe and North Africa, especially after Caracalla gave the citizenship to every free man in the Roman Empire in 212 AD. I think Carthaginians are generally thought to resemble Middle Easterns, Lebanese primarily.
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Jun 13, 2012 22:07
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an skeleton posted:Here's one for ya: What did Romans generally look like? Skin color, height, etc? As a bonus, what did Carthaginians look like? My friend told me this has been a big source of debate. Romans were pretty much white guys with an even bigger distribution of blondes and redheads than you'd see in modern day Rome. Offhand I think both Julius Caesar and Pompey were blondes, Augustus and Cato were gingers. Sulla was so ginger he ran around in a floppy woman's bonnet to keep the sun off. The lower classes probably shaded a bit darker because the contributions of outsiders into the genepool would have been more frequent. Carthage is debatable. We know the "ruling class" of Carthage were Semites of Phoenician descent, mostly Tyrian. So they were not "African African" and there's no real debate about that. Probably black hair and dark eyes, but skin ranging from off-white to a firm tan. The subject persons of Carthage were everything from Berber to Numidian to Libyan, so there you'd see everything from vaguely Arab colored to "African from Africa". Edit: it's debatable because one of the major groups in North African Antiquity were the Garamantines, who even today are fairly mysterious but can be linked to the modern day Tuaregs. Tuaregs span the spectrum from Arab-looking Berbers to black Africans. Since it's a good bet that actual ethnic Carthaginians were a minority in Carthaginian territory, it get complicated. Average height for a male around the Med is going to run 5'3" to about 5'5". Germans got up to 6'+ which is why the Romans were always mentioning how big they were. physeter fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Jun 14, 2012 |
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Jun 13, 2012 22:13
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General Panic posted:They're still arguing about whether Henry VIII's main health problem was syphilis, scurvy or just being a big fat slob and whether Napoleon died of cancer or arsenic poisoning. I thought it was a hunting wound? Grand Fromage posted:It's not true. Salt was part of the rations. Pliny the Elder says it as an off-hand comment in one of his histories (and he claims it as an old defunct practice even when he's writing) and it got blown out of proportion. They were paid in coin. Wasn't salt extremely valuable in Roman times, and even up until recently?
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Jun 13, 2012 22:20
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Redczar posted:Since we're still vaguely on the subject, why (according to wikipedia) is Charlemagne not considered the founder of the HRE? All I saw to support Otto being considered the founder was he wasn't of Charlemagne's dynasty, and there was a period with no Emperors. Can someone explain this, because to me it seems perfectly legitimate that Charlemagne should be considered the founder. (Hopefully this isn't getting too off topic). I'll do a writeup on this later, but essentially the character of the Carolingian Empire was radically different from that more-or-less refounded by Otto, and even the title of Emperor is somewhat different.
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Jun 13, 2012 22:42
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Farecoal posted:I thought it was a hunting wound? I thought Romans produced Salt in southern Italy? Giving them easy access to it.
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Jun 13, 2012 23:16
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So in the period 476 -> ca. 700 things were still pretty good, yes? Is the lack of written sources then due to the papyrus disease mentioned earlier in the thread?
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Jun 13, 2012 23:45
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Was Alexios Komnenos (Byzantine Emperor) reforms of the Byzantine military similar to the Marius Reforms? e: I mean not gear / formation wise, but its impact on the Byzantine Military.
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Jun 14, 2012 00:04
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Smart Car posted:Did the Latin language change noticeably over the years that the classical Roman republic/empire existed? I know the Romans invented the Roman alphabet since it's in the name, but is there written Latin in older writing systems? I'm also curious about differences between written and spoken Latin, or I should probably say formal and informal Latin, though I realize that's harder to provide answers for. Oh, it did. The history of Latin is generally divided into several phases: Old Latin (from the beginning to ~75 BCE), Classical Latin (~75 BCE to about 200 AD) and Late Latin (from 200 AD onwards until it turns into the various Romance languages). That's always more or less different from Vulgar Latin, the language spoken on the streets, though. Generally the Romans could read older texts without much difficulty, even if there were many small differences (like -os and -om for later -us and -um or gs for x). There were exceptions, however. We don't know enough about Old Latin to say for sure, but it seems that the language underwent some sort of jump in its development somewhen during the 5th century BCE. Texts from the era of the kings were mostly unintelligible to later Romans, but the Twelve Tables could be read without problems. The historian Polybius writes in his Histories (about 140 BCE?) that he had read the very first treaty between Rome and Carthage, set up in 452 BCE, and concludes that "the ancient Roman language differs so much from the modern that it can only be partially made out, and that after much application by the most intelligent men." There was a song (poem?) recited by the Salian priests every year at specific feast days, the Carmen Saliare which probably dates back to the 6th century BCE. Even Cicero could only partially make out the words - the Romans were big on the "correct" pronunciation of words, and therefore ancient texts like these were still recited even though nobody had an idea what they really meant. The Salii were abolished probably somewhen during the 5th century AD along with their rituals. The carmen went like this (those are only the extant fragments, though): divum +empta+ cante, divum deo supplicate cume tonas, Leucesie, prae tet tremonti +quot+ ibet etinei de is cum tonarem ...cozeulodorieso. Omnia vero adpatula coemisse. Jan cusianes duonus ceruses dunus Janusve vet pom melios eum recum. (Sing of him, the father of the gods! Appeal to the God of gods!! When you thunder, O God of light, they tremble before you! All gods beneath you have heard you thunder! ... but to have acquired all that is spread out Now the good ... of Ceres ... or Janus) -> this is just a *possible* translation, we can't be sure. Old Latin was I think mostly written in the Latin alphabet (with only a few very minor deviations from the later alphabet), but there are inscriptions in the Etruscan alphabet as well, probably the older ones.
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Jun 14, 2012 00:25
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How important was religion to Roman life? Actually, Fromage, can you talk about religion in the empire in general? Also, how much do we know about vulgar Latin?
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Jun 14, 2012 00:43
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Paxicon posted:Not to derail the thread too badly, but the basic difference people point out as to why it "isn't an empire" is that the HRE was nowhere near as structured and centralized as the old Roman Empire had been. Times had changed and by the time Charlemagne gets crowned, the feudal system with its sometimes very autonomous local lords had superceded any sort of central bureaucracy. Of course it's not like France went from West Francia to France overnight, the early French kings barely had authority over Paris. Hugh Capet could barely leave his palace and personal lands without being arrested by other lords or bandits and deposed.
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Jun 14, 2012 02:02
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Big Cheese can you write about religion's influence on Roman life, from any period? Props for the thread.
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Jun 14, 2012 02:46
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Religion is a really big subject, I'll do a post on the weekend or something but yes, I will answer that.Morholt posted:And while we're on the subject of the early middle ages, how "Roman" was visigothic Spain? How about North Africa? Did the Arabs consider their western conquests to be part of the war on the Roman Empire? Visigothic Spain was indistinguishable from a true "Roman" area within a generation. They completely adopted Roman culture. North Africa was similar--generally everywhere that was conquered by Germanic tribes, the Germans Romanized themselves. Britain is the only exception. You can see it in the languages. England is abandoned by the Romans and conquered by Angles and Saxons, English isn't a Romance language. France, Spain, Portugal, Italy are all conquered by Germanic tribes that Romanize, and now speak Latin-based languages. North Africa is conquered by the Arabs, who don't Romanize and so they don't speak Romance languages. cargo cult posted:With post-Roman Frankish/Norman/Saxon conquest of all of Western Europe, including northern Italy, are those areas now comprised of people with Germanic blood? Basically, can the populations of England (especially), France, Spain and Northern Italy be described as predominantly of German stock or are there still primarily Gallo-romanic populations in Spain and France? They mix together. The German populations are never that large in any area, these aren't tribes of millions or anything. In most areas the extant Roman population remains the majority. an skeleton posted:Here's one for ya: What did Romans generally look like? Skin color, height, etc? As a bonus, what did Carthaginians look like? My friend told me this has been a big source of debate. Romans were a bit shorter, though there is a persistent myth about people being tiny the further back you go in time. People were unusually small in the early modern era up through the industrial revolution because nutrition sucked balls for the average person. When you go further back to medieval times, people's heights aren't that much different than now. Romans seemed to have been more fair complexioned than modern Italians, which is part of why some people theorize that the Latins originally came from further north in Europe. A lot of Romans would've looked like Italians do now. And once everyone's a citizen, the empire is as diverse as anywhere. Carthaginians would probably have looked like people from the Levant today, so a range from your generic Arab stereotype to white people. They were not black Africans. There is a small but persistent movement that tries to argue that basically everyone ever was a black African, don't believe them. Egyptians were not black either. There would've been some black Africans in the empire but it's not really pointed out in the sources, the Roman concept of race was much different than ours. Skin tone wasn't a factor. Farecoal posted:Wasn't salt extremely valuable in Roman times, and even up until recently? It's valuable but not as valuable as silver. A legionary would laugh in your face if you tried to pay him in salt. Or behead you and choose a new general. Per posted:So in the period 476 -> ca. 700 things were still pretty good, yes? Is the lack of written sources then due to the papyrus disease mentioned earlier in the thread? Possibly, we're not completely sure why we can't find many records from then. The assumption was things were total chaos and nobody wrote anything. I would guess the new German rulers, who didn't have a written language, simply didn't have the kind of record keeping obsession that the Romans did. Some would've written things as they adopted Latin and Romanized but it's still a different culture with no history of writing. The average citizen of the empire probably noticed no difference in their lives during that period. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jun 14, 2012 |
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Jun 14, 2012 03:01
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Grand Fromage posted:The average citizen of the empire probably noticed no difference in their lives during that period. I think that might depend on where one was. Italy proper suffered pretty bad in the 6th century but that was because of the constant wars between the Goths and the Eastern Roman empire, followed by the Lombards, with a little bit of Justinian's plague thrown in.
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Jun 14, 2012 04:28
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