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Namarrgon posted:e. Also 'keizer' is obviously a bastardization of 'kaiser' coming from Caesar. Rome still lives. It's interesting that even after Rome ceased to be a valid political force in the West, everybody was still obsessed with claiming its legacy. In the modern world we tend to be quite forward thinking. We're pretty confident that today we are better off in terms of our education, welfare, health, technology etc... than we were 200 years ago, and can generally expect things to improve in the future. To be an average person in 600-700AD Western Europe, though? I wonder if they at all considered themselves on the downslope from the height of human achievment? It's often said that a lot of Roman infrastructure and engineering wasn't even matched, let alone surpassed, until the Victorian period. It must have been a weird feeling to be squatting in the ruins of a civilisation. Or maybe I'm overthinking it.
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# ? Aug 10, 2012 17:59 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 18:47 |
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There is very much a feeling throughout the Middle Ages that the classical world was the peak of civilization and they were living in some kind of almost post-apocalyptic end times. I've always thought it's a very haunting image, thinking of someone wandering through the ruins of Rome, aware of the greatness that was lost, surrounded by these structures in this massive, incomprehensible city. People weren't stupid, they could look at the things Rome made and then look at the way they lived and lament something great had passed from the world.
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# ? Aug 10, 2012 20:15 |
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So in a way we are the post-apocalyptic society rising greater than before and not repeating our mistake (yet) of making generals the boss. I think that's kind of a nice thought.
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# ? Aug 10, 2012 20:36 |
WoodrowSkillson posted:it has been mentioned before, but many cognomen were jokes, Ceasar was balding at a very young age, hence the name. It's pretty funny that the kaisers and the czars were all named after a guy with a George Costanza hairstyle. They were often jokes, but usually about the first guy in the family to have the name - cognomen were literally nicknames in early Roman society and only solidified into hereditary clan names later, though long before Rome became even a regional power. By Caesar's time it was pretty uncommon to have a cognomen based on yourself unless you were essentially new nobility like Pompey - agnomina were used for that purpose instead, though the line between a cognomen and an agnomen is pretty vague sometimes. It's often thought that Roman names were all tri-partite or larger but that's really only true for patricians; they're the ones that gave each other goofy nicknames and thought it would be a good idea to make the system official. Caesar's baldness was in line with his name because of his genetics, but the Caesars were a very old patrician family so Mr. "Hairy" was several hundred years before Gaius Julius Caesar, Dictator. Oberleutnant posted:Might have been mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but even the Russian Czar/Tzar are descended from the word Caesar. No, you're not, or at least not much. 600-700 is actually a supremely interesting time period for what you're talking about, because that's approximately when it became clear that Constantinople was not going to be able to retake the West and also when Gothic Italy fell - well, you need to go back to 550 or so for all of that, but in 600 it was very much recent history. The Ostrogoths had preserved most of Italy's Roman social structure and very much viewed themselves as successors to the Western Emperors. The Goths were not really "barbarians" by 476, as they were very Romanized, so I am generally skeptical of the idea that 476 is a relevant date in any way - either the West fell earlier, when Emperors were puppets for Gothic generals, or in the 550s-560s when the Lombards came. In any case, 600-700 was the first century with no Western successors to the Empire aside from Byzantium's tentative hold on Rome and a narrow band of other territory throughout Italy. This was, perhaps, when the true nature of the situation became clear - before ~600 it was still possible that this was just a very extreme version of the late parts of the Crisis of the Third Century, when the Empire split and was reassembled. So yeah, there was a definite shifting point to "we're something other than Roman now" around this time. Geez, I've written a lot and not really addressed your point. Yes, there was a distinct feeling of decline, at least among the educated, which was mostly reflected in the religious sensibilities of the day - an emphasis on the fleeting, corrupted nature of the material world. Generally, until the Renaissance or even a while after, there was more of a sense that Creation (i.e. the world) was fated to grow worse, not better - progress would be lost, man would become sinful and animalistic, etc. There's probably a pretty intimate link between Roman decline and this belief.
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# ? Aug 10, 2012 20:41 |
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Yeah. Odoacer for example was the Western Emperor in all be name.
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# ? Aug 10, 2012 20:45 |
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Grand Fromage posted:Part of the problem is Romans reused the hell out of names and you would've had no idea who the gently caress someone was talking about--this is part of why the names keep getting longer over time, adding more and more parts to distinguish people. The Carthaginians too. All of Carthage seems to have been made up of a coalition of Hamilcars, Hasdrubals and Hannibals. Religious naming conventions will do that.
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# ? Aug 10, 2012 21:09 |
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I was taught that nearly 75% of all Roman Emperors were assassinated or fell to pretenders. Is this true? Why were the Roman Empire's intelligence gathering mechanisms so poor? I know you have briefly touched upon the frumentarri but I would be interested in hearing more.
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# ? Aug 11, 2012 02:00 |
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I think it's more like 40%, but it was still a dangerous job. For comparison, probably the most dangerous job in the US has a mortality rate of ~10% (~1 in 10 workers die as a direct result of the job, whilst at work. Another ~1 in 10 die doing the job but can't be directly attributed to the job). Can you guess which industry it is? ʇuǝpısǝɹd Captain Postal fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Aug 11, 2012 |
# ? Aug 11, 2012 03:45 |
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QuoProQuid posted:I was taught that nearly 75% of all Roman Emperors were assassinated or fell to pretenders. Is this true? Why were the Roman Empire's intelligence gathering mechanisms so poor? Take my words with a grain of salt since I'm no expert but didn't a lot of Roman Emperors get killed by their own guards? Not sure what any intelligence gathering community could do about that. Imagine if the secret service made a habit of betraying the President. What could anyone do about that? They are close to him all the time.
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# ? Aug 11, 2012 04:09 |
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Vigilance posted:Take my words with a grain of salt since I'm no expert but didn't a lot of Roman Emperors get killed by their own guards? You can see a good list detailing the relationship between the Guard and the Emperors. More often they were abandoned by the Guard, but some were in fact killed directly (for example Caligula): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praetorian_guard#Relationships_between_emperors_and_their_Guard
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# ? Aug 11, 2012 04:18 |
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The difference between the Preatorian Guard and the Secret Service is that the Guard was an actual military force that could defend itself against an attack by another legion and hold Rome and Italy hostage if they offed the emperor. The Secret Service would get routed if they killed the president.
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# ? Aug 11, 2012 04:20 |
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euphronius posted:The difference between the Preatorian Guard and the Secret Service is that the Guard was an actual military force that could defend itself against an attack by another legion and hold Rome and Italy hostage if they offed the emperor. The Secret Service would get routed if they killed the president. True, but my point is, they had the best access to the emperor, just like the Secret Service is always around the president. Therefore, if either decided to plot against the person they are supposed to protect, or else is purposefully negligent in their duties, then the emperor/president is pretty much hosed, and I don't see how an intelligence agency could do anything about either group taking matters into their own hands.
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# ? Aug 11, 2012 04:25 |
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QuoProQuid posted:I was taught that nearly 75% of all Roman Emperors were assassinated or fell to pretenders. Is this true? Why were the Roman Empire's intelligence gathering mechanisms so poor? I'm way too lazy to check the number but a lot were killed. It wasn't a matter of gathering intelligence really, mostly it was the result of the system of succession. As in, there was none. There were a couple stable dynasties but for the most part (this is classical Rome, the east got its poo poo together reasonably well in the Middle Ages) there was no clear method of succession and whoever could raise the troops/bribe/assassinate his way into power was in charge. So, naturally, people did that a lot. It's a hyper-competitive culture, which produced a lot of great men in stable times and a lot of conflict in unstable ones.
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# ? Aug 11, 2012 04:37 |
QuoProQuid posted:I was taught that nearly 75% of all Roman Emperors were assassinated or fell to pretenders. Is this true? Why were the Roman Empire's intelligence gathering mechanisms so poor? If you include shitshows like the Year of Four Emperors then the figure is pretty high, but your average emperor was reasonably safe if he managed to survive his succession and didn't piss off a legion he was commanding or his Guard. As the Big Cheese said, it's not really an indictment of Roman intelligence gathering. Roman political assassins were not Lee Harvius Oswaldius - they weren't random dudes in the crowd or anything like that, at least not when you're talking about killing an emperor. Most imperial assassins fell into at least one of a few broad categories: A. Usurper or dude working for one. These possible-usurpers had pretty low life expectancy after the deed most of the time, whether they actually managed to become emperor or not. There were several chains of these guys doing each other in as they sat on the throne in rapid succession during the more unstable periods in Roman history. B. Some assholes in the Praetorian Guard that decide to go for a succession "bonus" (bribe) and aren't too attached to the current guy. Legions did this too but it was less common. C. An advisor or family member close to the emperor that's absolutely tired of their poo poo. As you might imagine, these aren't circumstances where an intelligence service makes too much difference. These weren't typically conspiracies that could be picked up upon, nor were the people involved necessarily people that the Emperor would have had watched anyway. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Aug 13, 2012 |
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# ? Aug 11, 2012 16:37 |
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The average gets thrown off hugely by the Crisis of the Third Century, too. The average life expectancy of an emperor during that time is like fourteen months. And there were a few who reigned for several years as well as guys who were in office for literally weeks. Marcus Aurelius is the last emperor to die of natural causes until Diocletian, I believe.
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# ? Aug 11, 2012 19:11 |
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Don't forget Septimius Severus! Also Claudius Gothicus and Carus depending on what you believe. You know, the Carus who was maybe killed by lightning. Claudius Gothicus is the only important one after Septimius Severus who wasn't murdered, and he did die pretty young of plague so it's not like his death was an old man in his sleep sort of thing. The Crisis of the Third Century has a lot of amazing stories and personalities.
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# ? Aug 12, 2012 12:58 |
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Grand Fromage posted:There is very much a feeling throughout the Middle Ages that the classical world was the peak of civilization and they were living in some kind of almost post-apocalyptic end times. I've always thought it's a very haunting image, thinking of someone wandering through the ruins of Rome, aware of the greatness that was lost, surrounded by these structures in this massive, incomprehensible city. People weren't stupid, they could look at the things Rome made and then look at the way they lived and lament something great had passed from the world. I've heard that Pepin the Short, father of Charlemagne once boasted about the Frankish role in crushing Rome with the justification that they were a sinful nation that killed Christ. Isn't the kind of thing you're describing more of a renaissance anachronism of the 'dark ages' toppled with the general apocalyptic bent ("We're living in the last days for the last 1000 years or so!") of medieval Christianity?
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# ? Aug 12, 2012 13:25 |
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No, it's definitely there in medieval writing. I don't have any examples though, it's not material I've read anytime recently.
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# ? Aug 12, 2012 13:31 |
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The mindset Paxicon exists does present itself in sources from time to time, though. In the account of his embassy to Constantinople in 969, Liudprand of Cremona, sick of the Byzantines asserting their superiority by virtue of their Roman inheritance, claims to have launched an invective against the empire of old, attacking it for its purported immorality. This is the thin end of the wedge though, a much more common idea is that Rome, as grand as it was, set a standard which it was possible for the people of the middle ages to surpass. Gregory the Great gets very pleased with himself once he manages to stretch the boundaries of his spiritual jurisdiction beyond the temporal ones of the contemporary emperor, and future popes and prelates feel much the same as Christianity spreads into northern and eastern Europe, and newly-arrived tribes such as the Magyars are brought into the fold. Gothic architecture is another expression of this sentiment, it's ornate features intended to improve upon plainer Romanesque forms, and many of its buildings made tall enough to dwarf older structures.
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# ? Aug 12, 2012 14:43 |
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Well, it's not like the Middle Ages are different than any other time, there's certainly a range of opinion out there. You can find primary sources with a whole variety of views of the classical world. The lamentations are one of them. In the Renaissance there is definitely a lot of energy spent making GBS threads on literally everything about the Middle Ages, which stems both from things getting better and the classical world fetish that they get. It's where a lot of our incorrect, negative views of the medieval world come from.
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# ? Aug 12, 2012 14:48 |
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I was always taught that the Middle Ages started in 1066 and ended in 1492. I don't think I was ever taught what happened between the fall of the Roman Empire and The Battle of Hastings in school. Luckily I took a great course on the early middle ages in university and it was fascinating. One thing I've always wondered though, after the Romans left Britian and the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrived, why did the romanized Britons leave their towns, cities and villas to live in villages?
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# ? Aug 12, 2012 16:24 |
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Here's a lamentation of Rome from 8th century England.
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# ? Aug 12, 2012 21:39 |
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Pretty easy find nostalgic things for a "golden age". See that plenty of time today with the classic "it used to be better!", throwbacks to the mythical 50ies America or even earlier (Flappers, cowboys). Or you know, across the pond: Russians being nostalgic for the Soviet Union. People have a tendency to forget the bad parts (especially after a few hundred years removed).
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# ? Aug 12, 2012 23:27 |
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Are any emperors remembered for being sneaky assholes? Constantius II comes to mind, but are there any more obvious ones?
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 03:42 |
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archduke.iago posted:Are any emperors remembered for being sneaky assholes? Constantius II comes to mind, but are there any more obvious ones? Augustus, obviously. Brilliant as gently caress but the man was a snake.
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 12:37 |
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Oberleutnant posted:It's interesting that even after Rome ceased to be a valid political force in the West, everybody was still obsessed with claiming its legacy. In the modern world we tend to be quite forward thinking. We're pretty confident that today we are better off in terms of our education, welfare, health, technology etc... than we were 200 years ago, and can generally expect things to improve in the future. Don't get too far ahead of yourself, though. Humanity is still yet to recover in may ways; we have regressed politically, philosophically, culturally, and socially from Classical Greece. I can think of ways we are behind Ancient Rome, too. It's not hard to find people today that will talk about how we've lost certain positive values and practices; out in the colonies you might not have any physical ruins to squat around, but there's still the mire of intellectual and social ruin.
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 17:09 |
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Agesilaus posted:Don't get too far ahead of yourself, though. Humanity is still yet to recover in may ways; we have regressed politically, philosophically, culturally, and socially from Classical Greece. No, no we really haven't.
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 20:28 |
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I love the classical world as much as anybody but you are looking through some seriously rose tinted glasses if you think society was better off back then.
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 20:54 |
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Well, at least the rich back then had some kind of societal pressure to actually do a few things for people in general, fund the maintenance of some aqueducts, sponsor a day of games, whatever. Our rich have become a bit more Ayn Rand tinted since then. However, from the Gracchi brothers to a millennium later in the eastern empire up till today, legally trying to get the rich to part with a small bit of their holdings or say pay taxes could in fact lead to your downfall. Oh how some things never change.
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 21:05 |
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Amused to Death posted:Well, at least the rich back then had some kind of societal pressure to actually do a few things for people in general, fund the maintenance of some aqueducts, sponsor a day of games They still do that and contribute a fraction of their income in exchange to much better outcomes to themselves, just like they did in classical times.
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 22:14 |
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Yeah but most of them are forced into it through law, there's no "You need to be a noble patrician and do what's best for Rome" type of atmosphere anymore, which to be fair is also in large part due to 1/2 the non rich in the country screaming STOP PUNISHING SUCCESS For you see, some day I shall be a tribune and then a Senator as well, and I'll be damned if I have to fund a temple. I'm just currently a temporary embarrassed proletarii.
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 23:19 |
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Amused to Death posted:I'm just currently a temporary embarrassed proletarii. You can't be "a" plural, get it right bro.
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 23:21 |
Amused to Death posted:Well, at least the rich back then had some kind of societal pressure to actually do a few things for people in general, fund the maintenance of some aqueducts, sponsor a day of games, whatever. Our rich have become a bit more Ayn Rand tinted since then. However, from the Gracchi brothers to a millennium later in the eastern empire up till today, legally trying to get the rich to part with a small bit of their holdings or say pay taxes could in fact lead to your downfall. I think you're overgeneralizing when you talk about a broad societal pressure on the rich to do things for society - this was really more of an obligation if you wanted to gain political power, not something you were expected to do as a rich private citizen really. Also, a lot of the donations and funding for public works functioned on a similar basis to how universities fund new construction - you donate because it gets your name plastered on the building, or a statue of you put up or whatever. You can explain a great deal more of wealthy Roman behavior with vanity and desire for power than with noblesse oblige - this is particularly apparent when you look at the Crisis of the Third Century, when towns were sent into serious insolvency sometimes because the wealthy ceased supporting them in one way or another as that path to political power became seriously unreliable during the turmoil. Eventually, if I remember right, Diocletian had to compel service and 'charity' from wealthy city-dwellers to solve this particular facet of the crisis. Things haven't changed that much since Tiberius Gracchus was thrown into the Tiber, you're right. Unfortunately, they've changed even less than you state in a lot of ways because the state of wealthy/society relations didn't have very far to fall to begin with. I try not to read much Ayn Rand if I can help it, but I've always thought of Crassus when I read about John Galt. Edit: Also, many of the wealthiest Romans weren't patricians and so had relatively little incentive to buy into the kind of values you're talking about. I'm not saying that no wealthy Roman ever had a strong sense of noblesse oblige because that's obviously nonsense and we have records otherwise, but it wasn't really the norm either. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Aug 19, 2012 |
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 23:23 |
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Amused to Death, you're creating an anachronism--applying very current events to very ancient ethical systems. You want to compare modern-day American politicians to 2,000-3,000 year old Greek and Roman politicians. And you just can't compare the two. Go back and read the rest of this thread; it's incredibly informative. One key theme that pops up over and over again is that Romans were not like us. They had a completely different set of beliefs that was completely alien to us today. And the Ancient Greeks were just as different from the Romans as the Romans were to us. In all cases--modern West to Rome; Rome to ancient Greece--we claim a lineage and admire the older society. But we have to remember that we have changed radically from those societies. In your particular examples, the patricians felt a patriotic duty to Rome, the idea. They felt little obligation to other patricians, and none at all to the lower classes. They funded aqueducts to keep their own houses free of poo poo, and they sponsored games for their own entertainment. If the plebs blew off some steam watching a chariot race, that was great. But it wasn't the goal. Patricians fought for Rome, and for themselves, not for the rest of the people. And don't forgot the Gracchis failed miserably and were slaughtered along with thousands of their followers. e;f;b by Jazerus,
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# ? Aug 19, 2012 23:34 |
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Jazerus posted:I think you're overgeneralizing when you talk about a broad societal pressure on the rich to do things for society - this was really more of an obligation if you wanted to gain political power, not something you were expected to do as a rich private citizen really. But this is kind of the point actually. As is said above, it is pretty ridiculous to compare Romans to us, or anyone else for that matter, but one thing that was said earlier in the thread is Roman politics could be summed up in what was good for Rome was good for you. Just put this into perspective, the current main contender for the highest elected office of the United States is a man through his whole life basically did things that helped ruin the lives of plenty of Americans. Romney was what I was originally thinking of when I thought of that because the US has reached a point where "gently caress you, got mine", and selling off the nation to the highest bidder can in fact be the platform of the man running for the highest office of the land. I mean Romney and his ilk have never needed to pretend to even have any sense of public duty to America and yet it works to get him elected. Though this isn't even a now vs them comparison, could this man really even really be a serious contender for high office in any other nation. But yeah, it is a bad and over simplified comparison. One thing it is good on though, money shall always be able to acquire someone vast political power.
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# ? Aug 20, 2012 00:27 |
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Bagheera posted:Amused to Death, you're creating an anachronism--applying very current events to very ancient ethical systems. You want to compare modern-day American politicians to 2,000-3,000 year old Greek and Roman politicians. And you just can't compare the two. Yes, we can compare the two, as evidenced by this very thread. Why do you think we can't compare the ancients to the moderns? There's nothing in your post that suggests that we cannot; at most, you say that ancient Romans are different from modern people, but I've never heard someone claim that you can't compare different things. I'm not a huge fan of the Romans, but at any rate we've certainly regressed in certain ways from classical societies. Studying the classics is an ennobling practice. Agesilaus fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Aug 20, 2012 |
# ? Aug 20, 2012 01:44 |
Agesilaus posted:Yes, we can compare the two, as evidenced by this very thread. Why do you think we can't compare the ancients to the moderns? There's nothing in your post that suggests that we cannot; at most, you say that ancient Romans are different from modern people, but I've never heard someone claim that you can't compare different things. Would you mind discussing what those ways are? I'm honestly curious. I can think of relatively few ways that classical societies are markedly more "progressed" than ours, but I can think of reasons that it might appear that way - restricted literacy, emphasis on Athens, and our distance in time from the Ancient Greeks give them the appearance of being generally highly educated and intellectually progressive when the average Greek was, well, anything but. Amused to Death posted:But this is kind of the point actually. As is said above, it is pretty ridiculous to compare Romans to us, or anyone else for that matter, but one thing that was said earlier in the thread is Roman politics could be summed up in what was good for Rome was good for you. Just put this into perspective, the current main contender for the highest elected office of the United States is a man through his whole life basically did things that helped ruin the lives of plenty of Americans. Romney was what I was originally thinking of when I thought of that because the US has reached a point where "gently caress you, got mine", and selling off the nation to the highest bidder can in fact be the platform of the man running for the highest office of the land. I mean Romney and his ilk have never needed to pretend to even have any sense of public duty to America and yet it works to get him elected. Though this isn't even a now vs them comparison, could this man really even really be a serious contender for high office in any other nation. But yeah, it is a bad and over simplified comparison. One thing it is good on though, money shall always be able to acquire someone vast political power. "Patriotism is easy to understand in America; it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country." I think the decline in national pride and, by extension, serious patriotic acts is both a very recent phenomenon and (opinion!) not a wholly terrible one, though of course not wholly positive either. People like Romney try to make a play for the top during times of economic or political instability - I would point you to Didius Julianus as a Roman who literally was the highest bidder for the Empire, giving the money to people with just as much relevance to the average person as politicians do today (the Praetorian Guard vs. TV/radio stations). Crassus, too, provided Caesar what amounted to an inexhaustible war chest for his political career, and if you've not heard of Crassus's for-profit fire department then I suggest looking it up - about as odious as Bain Capital to me, or more so, and Crassus became unbelievably rich from many, many similar FYGM types of schemes. The idea of Roman politics just being about serving the state and being rewarded for it was already something of a myth by the late Republic. Marius and Sulla saw to that, if nobody else before them did. The early Republic era does seem to have been markedly less corrupt, though someone correct me if that's just Cato the Younger-style "back in the old days" rhetoric. I realize that it's strange for someone who posts as much as I do in this thread to sound so down on the Romans, but they were just as human as we are. Yes, many of the ways that they approached things were very different from how modern Western culture does today, and it's very easy to find "parallels" between Rome and America that are overblown or nonexistent, but the fundamental mechanisms of power and wealth and how they impact human behavior don't vary that much between societies. Edit: And to be fair to Romney, though it's not my first impulse, it's very possible that he sincerely believes that what he does is for the good of America. A lot of voters apparently do. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Aug 20, 2012 |
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# ? Aug 20, 2012 04:38 |
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Agesilaus posted:Yes, we can compare the two, as evidenced by this very thread. Why do you think we can't compare the ancients to the moderns? There's nothing in your post that suggests that we cannot; at most, you say that ancient Romans are different from modern people, but I've never heard someone claim that you can't compare different things. Studying classics is actually not that helpful if you are looking for guidance for the here and now. You are mostly studying the elite of the elite, filtered through 2000 years of civilizations trying to compare themselves to their idea of what Rome was (i.e. mostly Rome as an example of what the people wanted themselves to be).
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# ? Aug 20, 2012 10:31 |
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Are there any good book recommendations besides classics - specifically for the beginnings of rome, and anything after Augustus? Those are the periods I really barely know anything about.
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# ? Aug 20, 2012 14:43 |
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# ? May 16, 2024 18:47 |
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Sadly no one knows much about the beginnings of Rome and most of the stories are "merely" legends.
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# ? Aug 20, 2012 14:48 |