|
So, this is something I've been wondering for a while and I can't find any sources that even mention it in any detail. Do we have any records from Romans traveling outside the Empire? By that I mean way outside of the Empire, like an exploratory expedition to Scandia or even just into interior Germania. I know missionaries were sent to the Goths - that's why they were mostly Arian - but there is rarely any detail to the accounts. Am I missing something important or do we have absolutely no Roman "travel lit"?
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 04:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 05:31 |
|
|
Smirking_Serpent posted:How true is the ending line of Patton – the story about a slave standing behind a general during a triumph and whispering that all glory is fleeting? I've always heard that was apocryphal*, but the Popes in Rome have a similar tradition during a papal coronation, where the master of the ceremony would stop and shout "Sic transit gloria mundi!" Really not a bad line to remember. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic_transit_gloria_mundi The theme of course is also heavily represented in western art, particularly from the Middle Ages - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori *Wikipedia indicates that this was a legit practice. The citation for this practice is from Tertullian's apologetics, which I don't have to independently check. Memento mori indeed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Triumph#Processional_order_and_rites Foyes36 fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Jul 17, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 05:13
|
|
|
Smirking_Serpent posted:How true is the ending line of Patton – the story about a slave standing behind a general during a triumph and whispering that all glory is fleeting? It's true, although exactly what the slave said to the imperator* is unknown. We do know that it was common to have a slave ride in the chariot with the imperator and hold a golden wreath over his head, some think that the slave did this while also repeating a phrase. As for actual suggestions for what may have been said, the best guess comes from the writings of Tertullian (an early Christian writer) who said that it was "Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori!" which basically means "Look behind you, remember you are but a man, remember you will die" it's generally shortened and referenced as simply "Memento mori" by people today. *As an aside: this is where the term Emperor comes from, originally it was just the honorific given to the general receiving the triumph for an especially fantastic victory
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 05:23
|
|
|
canuckanese posted:*As an aside: this is where the term Emperor comes from, originally it was just the honorific given to the general receiving the triumph for an especially fantastic victory Emperor derives from the Roman Imperator, meaning commander, which was then assumed by the Princeps as one of his titles. and Imperator held Imperium over the jurisdiction he was assigned to, which is to say he commanded that area.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 05:45
|
|
|
Who were some of the more socially progressive statesmen/philosophers/other big names in ancient Rome? How did they feel about things like slavery, gender, and religion?
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 05:59
|
|
|
WoodrowSkillson posted:Emperor derives from the Roman Imperator, meaning commander, which was then assumed by the Princeps as one of his titles. and Imperator held Imperium over the jurisdiction he was assigned to, which is to say he commanded that area. Which is why I said that emperor comes from the term imperator, although there were imperators who did not also serve as "emperors" of Rome, such as Pompey Magnus and Germanicus. In those cases it was a title earned for obtaining a great victory. I'm fairly certain that overall imperator was a much rarer honorific than you make it sound. From my understanding, generals would have had to have imperium in order to command legions, but they would not be hailed as an imperator unless they had won a great victory and were recognized for it with a triumph. Imperium was the right to command Roman legions, in the Republic this was only given to consuls and praetors. In Imperial times the Emperor held all the imperium (known as maius imperium), but could delegate to subordinates (typically senators still referred to as consuls/praetors, although not always) who would command legions in his stead. A huge part of the emperor's authority was based on their power of maius imperium over the Roman military (hence why they were referred to as imperator) and it became a hereditary title and power for emperors. Like I mentioned, it was possible for non-emperors to obtain the honorific in special circumstances, such as Germanicus, but this was pretty rare.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 06:31
|
|
|
Imperator means conquering general. It's a title for people who do some serious successful militaryin'. Holding imperium is a different thing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 06:35
|
|
|
You said it better in three sentences than I did in my whole stupid post.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 06:40
|
|
|
Imperium can be summed up in essentially power bestowed to various officials to act within their sphere of influence of their position, yes? Also, wasn't the technical legal power of the emperor in part granted through not only various powers like the tribunical power or the office of pontifex maximus but by being granted a wide scope of imperium in regards to how far his powers from these offices could extend?
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 06:45
|
|
|
Smirking_Serpent posted:How true is the ending line of Patton – the story about a slave standing behind a general during a triumph and whispering that all glory is fleeting? 9-Volt Assault fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jul 17, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 08:21
|
|
|
It's perfectly sensible, it's primarily a Republican era tradition (later triumphs are reserved for the emperor almost exclusively) and Romans would absolutely not want a general to get a big head and think he should be in charge. The idea of a king or anything like it was repugnant to them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 08:28
|
|
|
What is the origin of the roman Solar cult and Sol Invictus? Was he as a deity basically equated with Apollo/Helios? What about the relationship between the Solar cult and Christianity when they co-existed?
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 08:54
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:It's perfectly sensible, it's primarily a Republican era tradition (later triumphs are reserved for the emperor almost exclusively) and Romans would absolutely not want a general to get a big head and think he should be in charge. The idea of a king or anything like it was repugnant to them. Im doing my MA in ancient history after a BA focussing mostly on 17th/18th century (with some dabbling in Roman history), and something that i've always noticed is how its apparently normal to publish articles full of statements like 'well Cicero/Seneca/Tertullian says <X>, which means this is how it really was'. I know the lack of sources makes it hard to confirm or deny most citations we got, but the certainty with which authors make statements still baffles me at times.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 08:54
|
|
|
There are a few versions of what was said, but to me all of them read more like "you are not a god, just a man" more than saying life is fleeting.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 09:40
|
|
|
Charlie Mopps posted:Im doing my MA in ancient history after a BA focussing mostly on 17th/18th century (with some dabbling in Roman history), and something that i've always noticed is how its apparently normal to publish articles full of statements like 'well Cicero/Seneca/Tertullian says <X>, which means this is how it really was'. I know the lack of sources makes it hard to confirm or deny most citations we got, but the certainty with which authors make statements still baffles me at times. I once had a professor who said half the time being an academic is spent on disagreeing with other academics.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 09:53
|
|
|
Jazerus posted:Do we have any records from Romans traveling outside the Empire? By that I mean way outside of the Empire, like an exploratory expedition to Scandia or even just into interior Germania. I know missionaries were sent to the Goths - that's why they were mostly Arian - but there is rarely any detail to the accounts. Am I missing something important or do we have absolutely no Roman "travel lit"? Exploratory expeditions in the way of Columbus etc. are not made without a good reason, and Romans had little incentive to seriously explore the northern lands where sun set for months at a time, or the malaria infested lands beyond the great desert. In the east were Parthians. Nevertheless there was a busy trade going on in the east, both on sea and through the Silk Road, and the reports from Greek sailors allowed Ptolemy to construct a reasonably detailed picture of Asia. Here's Indochina as recorded by Ptolemy.  Sometimes Roman merchants or their representatives travelled long ways to try to negotiate better deals and skip the middlemen. The first Roman embassy in China was founded in 166 AD, although I think it's still unclear whether the emissaries were officially sent by the emperor, as they said, or if they were just some Roman merchants' self-assertation. But many more emissaries came to China over the centuries.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 10:52
|
|
|
I swear there are Roman travel records and I'm trying to locate them. They might just be rewrites of Greek stuff. The amount of knowledge the Romans had of the wider world suggests they did explore some but we don't have a good Marco Polo style book or anything. A lot of exploration was probably done by spies and merchants rather than dedicated explorers.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 10:54
|
|
|
What did Romans believe about ghosts?
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 11:00
|
|
|
Pfirti86 posted:See, I've heard allusions to this document trove before, but I'm curious where it actually exists. Random national libraries across Europe? Old university vaults? Ancient churches? Can you link to some sources on it? It seems like a fuckin' goldmine for any graduate student in the field. A lot of stuff found after colonial independence tends to end up in museum archives in the country it was found in. I tried to find a link to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, but the url I found for their site isn't working. I looked at the National Archaeological Museum's site to see if they had any interesting links, but the information for researchers wasn't available yet in English and the same page on the Greek-language website just said, in essence, "if you're a researcher or student and want access, call this official". (The Italian, Greek, and Egyptian governments are not exactly known for their efficiency, or, lately, stability.) Older finds that have mostly been translated by now are mainly spread throughout university archives in Europe/the US. For example: the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, which were found around 1900 and have been translated, ended up (as you can see on the wiki page) mostly at Oxford and so on. The wiki page appears to just list the Biblical fragments found, which makes it seem like it's more interesting than it is. Here is the table of contents for the Oxyrhynchus collection. You can see that there's definitely fragments of classical texts there, but a whole lot more pages of things like receipts, land leases, marriage contracts, wills, letters - not that these things are necessarily uninteresting, but if you're aiming to find a completely lost Important Ancient Text, well, good luck to you. It's much more a salt mine than a gold mine.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 11:09
|
|
|
Charlie Mopps posted:Sure, i can see them not wanting the generals to start thinking too high and mighty of themselves, but focussing on the passing of life kinda feels out of place for me. But eh, perhaps they did say it, who knows.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 12:51
|
|
|
A major problem in Antiquity is that merchant-explorers of all peoples are basically huge liars. This isn't an age where international law exists so a merchant who discovers a route or location has no reason to announce it to anyone. The Roman state emerged into a Med that was an economic battle with the lines roughly split between the Greeks and the Phoenicians. And of course, since both cultures organized around the city-state, there's likely plenty of internal strife between mercantile concerns betwixt cities and even between opposing merchant houses. TLDR is that few written accounts survive and most could not be trusted anyway because they may have been red herrings meant to get opposing merchants to squander resources. Solid routes and locations of trade outposts were not going to be advertised in general, at least not back home.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 16:37
|
|
|
Tao Jones posted:A lot of stuff found after colonial independence tends to end up in museum archives in the country it was found in. I tried to find a link to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo, but the url I found for their site isn't working. I looked at the National Archaeological Museum's site to see if they had any interesting links, but the information for researchers wasn't available yet in English and the same page on the Greek-language website just said, in essence, "if you're a researcher or student and want access, call this official". (The Italian, Greek, and Egyptian governments are not exactly known for their efficiency, or, lately, stability.) This is just a fun story, but the best primary sources for Ottoman and late Byantium history are sitting in railcars in Bulgaria. They have been there for more then a century now as the Bulgarians go through them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 17:01
|
|
|
Jazerus posted:So, this is something I've been wondering for a while and I can't find any sources that even mention it in any detail. Scandinavia was long a huge white spot on the map. It wasn't until after year 1000 that a monk travelled there to explore and see if there were any Christians there and he probably didn't make it further than Denmark.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 17:25
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:Exploratory expeditions in the way of Columbus etc. are not made without a good reason, and Romans had little incentive to seriously explore the northern lands where sun set for months at a time, or the malaria infested lands beyond the great desert. In the east were Parthians. Nevertheless there was a busy trade going on in the east, both on sea and through the Silk Road, and the reports from Greek sailors allowed Ptolemy to construct a reasonably detailed picture of Asia. Here's Indochina as recorded by Ptolemy. Well, I'm aware they did go outside of the Empire all the time - my question had more to do with whether, as GF mentioned, any kind of Marco Polo type stuff survived. Knowing what I know of the Romans and their taste for exoticity, I would have thought one of the merchants that went to the East might have written semi-accurately about Indochina and then spun some bullshit about the gold paved roads of China to sell a ton of copies of his book. So in response to some of the questions earlier about lost books and their potential importance, something along the lines of Marco Polo's book would be a fantastic find since apparently travelogues didn't interest monks for one reason or another.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 17:47
|
|
|
Jazerus posted:Well, I'm aware they did go outside of the Empire all the time - my question had more to do with whether, as GF mentioned, any kind of Marco Polo type stuff survived. Knowing what I know of the Romans and their taste for exoticity, I would have thought one of the merchants that went to the East might have written semi-accurately about Indochina and then spun some bullshit about the gold paved roads of China to sell a ton of copies of his book. Isn't there guaranteed to be some record of them establishing their trading outpost in India? Might be destroyed but hey, mostly likely they made one I'd assume.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 18:29
|
|
|
Alhazred posted:Scandinavia was long a huge white spot on the map. It wasn't until after year 1000 that a monk travelled there to explore and see if there were any Christians there and he probably didn't make it further than Denmark. Considering the Vikings were not just raiding but conquering parts of the British Isles quite a bit before this, that seems a bit unlikely. I mean Beowulf is set in Scandinavia, even.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 19:12
|
|
|
Jazerus posted:So, this is something I've been wondering for a while and I can't find any sources that even mention it in any detail. In her introduction to an edition of Livy's histories on the Second Punic War, Betty Radice says that "the Romans did not travel for the mere pleasure of sight-seeing" (as a partial explanation for why Livy isn't always a very reliable historian i.e. he never visited the places he was writing about). Whilst there will have been people who went beyond the Empire to trade or as soldiers, it seems that they didn't write about it or that the writings didn't survive. There are writings by Romans who travelled within the Empire, usually on official business. Cicero, for example, wrote letters during his stint as governor of Cilicia (south-eastern Turkey). Unsurprisingly, he thought he was a jolly good governor, and made sure to point this out to all the people he was writing to. Shimmra Jamaane posted:Socially progressive Romans The concept is pretty anachronistic in the context of the ancient world. For example, there were apparently some Stoic philosophers who came close to regarding slavery as unnatural, and some Romans (e.g. Seneca) said stuff like "Well, we really should be nice to our slaves", but no-one really challenged slavery as an institution. Seneca also criticised gladiatorial contests, which I suppose would count as progressive. General Panic fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Jul 17, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 20:32
|
|
|
Can you explain how taxation worked in Rome? Bible uses it as some kind of McGuffin, but in the end doesn't tell if Joseph and Mary actually paid any tax. Did people back then understand taxes in the same way as we do now?
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 20:37
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Who were some of the more socially progressive statesmen/philosophers/other big names in ancient Rome? How did they feel about things like slavery, gender, and religion? I am going to catch some flack by listing the Gracchii (Tiberius Gracchus and younger brother Gaius Gracchus) as some really progressive populists. Admittedly for self-serving reasons, but they did come down on the side of the peoples' assemblies vs. the Ayn-Rand-Admiration-Society shortened hence as "The Senate". They tried to appropriate the former kingdom of Pergamom and redistribute it to the landless proles that the Senate had been displacing off their italian farmlands for decades. They got clubbed to death. This one is probably even more controversial, but he is as socially progressive as they went (As well as psychotically vindictive and anarchic); Publius Clodius Pulcher. Note the "Clodius" - He was born a member of the finest line of patrician nobles, but chose the plebeian spelling. He had himself adopted by a plebeian, in order to become a Tribune. Once a Tribune he burnt the poo poo out of Ciceros house, razed that eyesore to the ground and put up a temple to liberty over the smoldering ashes. But living the dream of anyone whose ever had to read Cicero during a latin class wasn't the only thing that made Clodius so interesting. Quoting the wikipedia summaries of the Leges Clodiae Wikipedia posted:
I am not including the fiendish or downright brutal reasons behind all these laws, but the end result must be seen as progressive: Famine relief, less chances for nobles to gently caress with plebiscites, a check on the immense powers of the Censors office and a half-assed attempt to open up the franchise. Clodius WAS a brutal thug and he DID cause alot of mayhem (gently caress you Cicero, you go in his "Good" column!), but he was in my opinion definitely as much a progressive voice as a populist one.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 20:58
|
|
|
Clodius is a super-interesting part of the whole fall of the Republic story. Actually, it's kind of amazing how much influence Caesar's "hipster" friends like Clodius ended up having in trying to pull the Republic in a more progressive and populist direction - that circle of friends largely remained friendly for life from what I remember, even when Clodius was boning Caesar's wife. An interesting alt-history divergence point might be an early death for Cato the Younger, who was a major figure in exacerbating the Republic's political polarization in later years and absolutely hated Caesar and everyone he associated with. Honestly, I would put Caesar forward as a reformer if not especially progressive in his personal views. He saw pretty clearly what was wrong with the Republic and what structural issues needed to be solved to prevent disaster down the line - the reforms he did manage to get through before he was assassinated prove that much, and we have records of some of his intended future projects too. It's impossible to know for sure, but in a less polarized political climate he could very well have survived his dictatorship long enough to do what he wanted to do and then step down; but in a less polarized political climate he also probably would have just been consul at some point, not dictator.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 22:08
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:Considering the Vikings were not just raiding but conquering parts of the British Isles quite a bit before this, that seems a bit unlikely. I mean Beowulf is set in Scandinavia, even. Going off of Wikipedia here, but Ptolemy's world map from around 150 CE has at least Jutland and Sealand of Denmark. Of course, it's pretty much at the edge of the map, and Sweden is not included at all. I think it's fair to say that Scandinavia was pretty much a huge white spot on the map, especially before 500 CE.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 22:42
|
|
|
Sure. This is half a millennium before 1000 ad. That's a long loving time.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 23:17
|
|
|
NFX posted:The vikings, at least in the sense of seaborne raiders, didn't really do much before, say, 700 at the earliest. That is surprisingly accurate.. Did they have any tools to help them make these? I mean in the sense of geographical shape
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 23:25
|
|
|
Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:That is surprisingly accurate.. Did they have any tools to help them make these? I mean in the sense of geographical shape It's especially surprising given that no original copies of Ptolemy's maps are around any longer. But Ptolemy established a universal system of coordinates, and with the coordinates those maps could be recreated much later.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 23:29
|
|
|
I find it curious that the map seems to indicate that the Romans had at least an inkling that Earth is round, not flat. edit: Ah, if this is a 15th century reproduction using coordinates, the cartographer might have drawn it using his or her then-modern understanding of the globe.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 23:31
|
|
|
Nenonen posted:Can you explain how taxation worked in Rome? Bible uses it as some kind of McGuffin, but in the end doesn't tell if Joseph and Mary actually paid any tax. Did people back then understand taxes in the same way as we do now? It was essentially "how much money can we squeeze out of the provinces?". By the time of the empire, Rome and Italy as a whole were no longer required to pay taxes, this responsibility was put entirely on the provinces. I may be mistaken though and it was only the war tax, called tributum, which paid for the legions that Rome/Italy were exempt from. Since that's what I'm most familiar with I can talk a little about that. Also since you asked about the Bible, Judea is a good example because it would have been a province and had to pay the tributum. Essentially what happened is that the Senate would say "we need X amount in taxes in order to pay for the legions this year" and each governor was required to provide a certain amount of that total. Beyond the total sum they needed to supply, there were no rules, and governors could tax as heavily as they wanted. Obviously if you over-tax though you risk rebellion, so it was essentially seeing how much you could get out of the provincials before they got significantly riled up. Actual tax collection duty could be done by Romans, but oftentimes leading members of the native populations would do it as a way of sucking up to the governor and potentially getting citizenship if they were loyal servants (plus they could also skim off the top and enrich themselves if they chose to). Many senators coveted governorships in rich provinces because they could use it as their personal piggy bank and as a way to enrich themselves. Your average person wouldn't know how much they were going to have to pay, and taxes were just a reason to hate the Romans. I believe there were certain tribes in Egypt (and probably elsewhere) who would simply go hide in the desert/hills when it came time to pay taxes, a practice which annoyed the Romans so much that they occasionally had to send troops after them to round them up and force them to pay the tax.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 23:38
|
|
|
Everyone knew the earth was round. It is obvious. The flat earth stuff is some weird Renaissance meme. The Romans called the world "Orbis". euphronius fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Jul 17, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 23:38
|
|
|
euphronius posted:Everyone knew the earth was round. It is obvious. The flat earth stuff is some weird Renaissance meme. Not even Renaissance, more so Victorian revisionism. Heck think about the most famous voyage ever, Columbus gets hired by the government to find a sea route to China, you're not going to China on a flat Earth. Most of his men didn't want to turn back because they were worried about falling off the Earth, they were worried about starving to death.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2012 23:50
|
|
|
canuckanese posted:Your average person wouldn't know how much they were going to have to pay, and taxes were just a reason to hate the Romans. I believe there were certain tribes in Egypt (and probably elsewhere) who would simply go hide in the desert/hills when it came time to pay taxes, a practice which annoyed the Romans so much that they occasionally had to send troops after them to round them up and force them to pay the tax. Thank you! I guess I know that procedure, "taxation" used to mean "let's gather some troops and go exploit the reindeer herders" around here. In the case of Joseph the carpenter, who would he have paid his taxes to and what would have been done if he had fled to, say, Egypt? Bible says "and all went to be taxed, every one into his own city". But what if nobody came? euphronius posted:Everyone knew the earth was round. It is obvious. Everyone with some modicum of sophistication knew that, and also that earth orbits the sun. But for your average uneducated person though that'd be like explaining global warming on a cold day.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2012 00:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 05:31 |
|
|
Nenonen posted:Everyone with some modicum of sophistication knew that, and also that earth orbits the sun. But for your average uneducated person though that'd be like explaining global warming on a cold day. Rome was fundamentally a sea power for most of its existence, so the knowledge that the Earth was round would have been well-understood by everyone but the most provincial.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2012 00:49
|
|
