Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

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Octy: Apr 1, 2010

Sooo... worth reading I take it? I'd definitely read a biography of Obama if it was like that.

# ? Sep 1, 2012 06:53

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# ? May 11, 2024 21:34

Base Emitter: Apr 1, 2012; ?

Grand Fromage posted:

My main professor/mentor/all around cool guy converted me to the side of people who say neither Caligula or Nero were insane

I only ever took one proper Roman history class but I recall my professor had the same opinion. I got the impression that Nero in particular had the reputation he did because Tacitus trashed Nero to make political points, plus later various Christians talking up persecution stories.

# ? Sep 1, 2012 06:54

WoodrowSkillson: Feb 24, 2005; *Gestures at 60 years of Lions history*

Nero I can see being a bit unhinged, but not a total madman. He did make an astounding number of bad decisions, and was hardly a paragon of restraint.

WoodrowSkillson fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Sep 1, 2012

# ? Sep 1, 2012 07:03

Teriyaki Hairpiece: Dec 29, 2006; I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

If you take the historical sensibilities of Washington Irving and merge them with the sensationalism of British tabloids, you get Suetonius. This is why so many books, TV shows, etc. use the guy as their primary or sole reference with no mention of the dubious nature of a lot of the poo poo the guy wrote down. He's the source of many myths, just like Washington Irving was. Suetonius is fun but he's just not someone whose accounts you should ever take as gospel truth.

# ? Sep 1, 2012 07:43

bean_shadow: Sep 27, 2005; If men had uteruses they'd be called duderuses.

FreudianSlippers posted:

Imagine if a couple of thousands years from now somehow enough of contemporary sources will get lost or muddled for future generations to be certain that the ancient president Barack HUSSEIN Obummer was a mad communist tyrant who set up death panels and ate dogs for dinner every night and played electric guitar while the forests burned.

So basically what the Republicans say now?

# ? Sep 1, 2012 16:18

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

bean_shadow posted:

So basically what the Republicans say now?

That's the point. Imagine it's 2000 years from now and only Glenn Beck's books survived. You're going to have a totally hosed up view of this time, and that's analogous to what we're often dealing with in ancient history.

# ? Sep 1, 2012 16:35

Mr Havafap: Mar 27, 2005; The wurst kind of sausage

Golden_Zucchini posted:

It comes from Latin pompa (a procession) from the Greek pempein (to send). I suppose it's possible that the name Pompey is related to pompa, though.

You sure?
I have indistinct memories of Pompey being of Oscian descent and in Oscian the pom-syllable is equivalent of the Latin quin-, so Pompeius is more like Quintus, but I could be wrong of course.

Great thread!

# ? Sep 1, 2012 22:08

General Panic: Jan 28, 2012; AN ERORIST AGENT

cheerfullydrab posted:

If you take the historical sensibilities of Washington Irving and merge them with the sensationalism of British tabloids, you get Suetonius. This is why so many books, TV shows, etc. use the guy as their primary or sole reference with no mention of the dubious nature of a lot of the poo poo the guy wrote down. He's the source of many myths, just like Washington Irving was. Suetonius is fun but he's just not someone whose accounts you should ever take as gospel truth.

A lot of the Roman historians have similar problems. Livy, for example, is full of "ROME, gently caress YEAH!" and hardly objective about Hannibal or Scipio. Ancient historians generally just weren't as worried about objectivity or sources as modern ones would be - they primarily wanted to tell a good story.

However, they are what we have to go on.

# ? Sep 1, 2012 23:51

Golden_Zucchini: May 16, 2007; Would you love if I was big as a whale, had a-
Oh wait. I still am.

Mr Havafap posted:

You sure?
I have indistinct memories of Pompey being of Oscian descent and in Oscian the pom-syllable is equivalent of the Latin quin-, so Pompeius is more like Quintus, but I could be wrong of course.

Great thread!

I double checked, and pomp as in pompous does derive as I described above, but pom- as in the city of Pompeii (named for its five districts) comes from the Oscian as you said. I still don't have anything specific on Pompey, but I'd think the Oscian origin more likely than the Greek one.

Edit: On further reseach it seems that Pompey's father was from an area that spoke an Osco-Umbrian language rather than a Latin or Greek language, so yeah, Pompey seems to be the Sabellian version of Quintus.

Golden_Zucchini fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Sep 2, 2012

# ? Sep 2, 2012 01:13

mediadave: Sep 8, 2011

I'm currently trying to learn Latin, and today picked up Ovid's Metamorphoses (Loeb classical library)to help me with this and learn some Roman literature if nothing else. But having only read a few pages (of the English) already my mind has been blown.

In the prologue Ovid talks about the formation, and the form, of the world. He writes that the world is divided up into five zones - two covered in snow and ice, one in the middle too hot to inhabit, and in between two temperate, inhabitable zones. He clearly means the poles, the equator and the bits inbetween. But how did he know south of the equator there were habitable lands? Everything I've read and heard suggests the Romans never went south of the Sahara and previously I had thought that was pretty much what they considered the end of the world. And how did Ovid know there was another icy region south of that again?

Same chapter he writes 'above these all (ie, earth) he placed the liquid, weightless ether, which has naught of earthy dregs." [my itallics] That isn't a description of the vacuum of space...is it?

mediadave fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Sep 2, 2012

# ? Sep 2, 2012 22:19

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Well, they could see things floating around up there. They knew five planets plus the sun and moon. Obviously they had no idea what they were, but they're visible.

The original conception of the world is the further north you went, the colder it got until it was uninhabitable. Then the same south except with heat. I don't know where they got the idea of two habitable zones but it was probably a symmetry thing.

# ? Sep 2, 2012 23:22

WoodrowSkillson: Feb 24, 2005; *Gestures at 60 years of Lions history*

Wouldn't there have been some limited contact with sub saharan tribes? The Romans explored pretty far along the western African coast, they had to have found out there was at least some people down there, even if it was totally not worth trying to find them.

# ? Sep 2, 2012 23:26

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Nobody knows. There aren't any records of exploration beyond the Sahara or any contact with anyone past it. There's Ethiopia but Ethiopia is special and wouldn't have been included.

# ? Sep 2, 2012 23:55

Grand Prize Winner: Feb 19, 2007

Why's Ethiopia special? Because it was a centralized state? Because its royalty converted to Christianity too?

# ? Sep 3, 2012 00:37

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Ethiopia occupied a magical place in Roman culture. It was a mystical faraway land in the furthest reaches of the mysterious east (not south) where gold was so common it was used for chains and nails and iron was rare. Where men with dog heads roamed and ambrosia fell from heaven and all your dreams come true as soon as you think them. I made that part up but it's the gist of it.

Ethiopia is more like Thule or the kingdom of Prester John than a real place, though it obviously was also a real place and they had contact and trade eventually.

# ? Sep 3, 2012 00:56

achillesforever6: Apr 23, 2012; psst you wanna do a communism?

Bitter Mushroom posted:

What was social mobility like? Did any former slaves rise particularly high? Was there ever any kind of criticism of slavery?

Weren't a lot of the Emperor's top aides usually were his former slaves?

# ? Sep 3, 2012 03:21

Ginette Reno: Nov 18, 2006; How Doers get more done; Fun Shoe

Romans knew about China, right? I mean I know they did at a certain point because Justinian or whoever it was stole/acquired knowledge of the silk trade from the Chinese.

So what did Romans think of the Chinese? Did they acquire any Chinese customs via trade/contact?

# ? Sep 3, 2012 04:12

Foyes36: Oct 23, 2005; Food fight!

Vigilance posted:

Romans knew about China, right? I mean I know they did at a certain point because Justinian or whoever it was stole/acquired knowledge of the silk trade from the Chinese.

So what did Romans think of the Chinese? Did they acquire any Chinese customs via trade/contact?

The wikipedia article on this subject is pretty exhaustive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Roman_relations

The gist of it is that, yeah, they were vaguely aware of each other and a few enterprising people even made it all the way to Rome/China, but they were so far apart and separated by a variety of unfriendly kingdoms (e.g. Parthia/Persia) that they never really interacted much face-to-face. The biggest impact the Chinese had on Roman culture was through the trade of silk, which became such a desirable luxury good that Roman men would complain that their wives were spending them into penury. Conversely, Roman glassware has been found as far as the island of Japan (and I believe in Korea as well).

# ? Sep 3, 2012 04:42

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

One of the various bits of Roman glass dug up from royal tombs in Korea.

There was no trading of culture, there just wasn't enough contact. Buddhism did reach both places though. Somewhat more successful in one of them than the other.

# ? Sep 3, 2012 05:06

Phobophilia: Apr 26, 2008; by Hand Knit

Speaking of which, can I post this infuriatingly bad essay that I found posted on another forum?

quote:

Comparing the Ancient Empires of Rome and China

The ancient civilization of Rome was far superior to ancient China in many ways, government and leadership being the two most important ways. Rome�s government was more detailed and left no room for error. It was well thought out and the structure was very defined all though out Roman history, while the Chinese government changed every time a new ruler came to power. Rome also produced better leaders like Caesar and Augustus. China�s government lacked the essential parts needed to make a great government and leaders; neither was as great as the Rome�s.

The structure of the Roman government was far better than China�s government because the Chinese lacked many things the Roman government had. The Roman government was made up of the Senate, Emperor, the Consul and Proconsul, the assemblies, priests, and other Roman officials. The Senate was originally a board of elders who advised the king. Later it became comprised of ex-office holders and its decrees developed the force of law. Often it was understood that a measure had to be approved by the Senate before it could be voted on in the Assembly. The Emperor was like a president. A dictator was put in control over the state only for extreme emergences. The dictator could only hold office for up to six months and while in charge he had absolute power. This allowed the ruler deal with what ever emergences were at hand without having to wast time and go threw the government to get stuff done. The Consul, chief executive officer, could only (theoretically) hold office for one year, and couldn�t be consul for another 10 years. Eventually proconsuls were created, men who were given some of the powers of a consul, especially for commands far from Rome, such as being governors of provinces. The assemblies were the gathering of people to vote on laws and such. The priests also played an important role in the Roman government. There was a Pontifex maximus, and 9 other pontiffs which were like the high priest and other priests. The other Roman officials included Tribunes had the power to veto, Censor had the power to remove unworthy people from senate, Questors financial people, and Aediles supervised public works. There were many more jobs and positions in the Roman government and they all contributed to the success of Rome.

Chinese government was not as detailed as the Roman�s government. Chinese started with the ideal that all power should come from above, from the centre, from a single supreme ruler. (Pye 183) This ruler was called the emperor but was more like a dictator. Democracy was out of the question in China as it was around 200 BCE in other civilizations. (Frank) The Chinese never had a permanent senate but during some dynasties there were courts, like the Court of Imperial Clansmen, that dealt with family, state and society matters. There were priests and such but they all answered to the emperor instead of answering to the people like in the Roman government.

Roman leadership was far more advanced than Chinese leadership in many ways. The Romans has leaders like Julius Caesar, Augustus (formally Octavian), and Justinian. Once theses leaders found a system that worked for Rome they stayed with that system. While that Chinese change their form of government every time a new leader emerged. The leaders of Rome moulded, shaped and made Rome a very successful and prosperous state.

Julius Caesar was a great general for the army and a dictator from 61-44 B.C. He was a great military leader and won many battles. He is better known for his death. The Senate feared that he would disband them but didn�t want to do anything because the people loved him. A group of conspirators assassinated him in 44 B.C. His adopted relative Octavian, whose name is changed to Augustus, would becomes Rome�s first emperor.

Augustus, Rome�s first emperor from 27 B.C. to 14 A.D, uncanny political abilities and his meticulous attention to detail provided a stable government that brought peace and prosperity to the Roman Empire for the next two hundred years. He wrote the Deeds of the Divine Augustus when he was seventy six. This essentially stated all the things he did in his life and showed how future emperors should lead. During his reign many images of power were built. The temples of Mars, Jupiter Subduer and Thunderer, Apollo, divine Julius, the senate house, the theatre of Marcellus, and many more things.

Justinian was the last great emperor of Rome. He was in power from 527 -565 A.D. He was known as a strong ruler and an excellent administrator. One of his most valuable contributions to modern society was his code of Roman law. He had the best legal scholars of the empire take all the Roman laws on the books from the time of Augustus and condense them into a uniform code of laws. Justinian taxed the people heavily to pay for his wars and for the construction of magnificent buildings in Constantinople, but his taxation was justified in the public's eyes.

The Chinese leadership during this time was less organized. Each time a new leader came in power everything would completely change. It was not like the Roman governments which said pretty much the same. The Chinese government was influenced by Confucianism and Taoism. The Han Dynasty was probably the most successful of all the Chinese Dynasties, but not as successful as Rome.

Resulting from the chaos left over by the Qin Dynasty came the Han Dynasty. It built on the strengths of the earlier dynasties and removed the faults. Taxes were reduced and economic recovery was widely promoted. Examinations were used to identify potential candidates for official posts and gifted scholars, while the teachings of Confucius were promoted and encouraged. At the height of its power at around 140-87 B.C. under Emperor Wu Ti, the Han Dynasty began to expand ferociously. However, the royal treasury was feeling the strain of these expansionist policies. The peasants and merchants were feeling the strain too. Men, horses, armour, and supplies were needed for war and the royal treasury was draining. Taxes were raised as a result. The common people protested as the rapidly growing population aggravated the situation. This aggravated state caused a period of discontentment similar to that of the former dynasties. China would never really advance. China would have a prosperous time and then everything would eventually revert back to chaos.

Confucianism was a main part of Chinese leadership but the problem was that none of the leaders listened to Confucius until after his death. Confucianism dealt with moral virtues and values such as piety and respect. The keynotes of Confucian ethics are love, goodness and humanity. One who possesses all these virtues becomes a ch�n-tzu (perfect gentleman). The Confucian golden rule was: do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself. Politically, Confucius advocated a government in which the leader is benevolent and honourable where the subjects are respectful and obedient. The ruler should cultivate moral perfection in order to set a good example to the people. In education Confucius upheld the theory, unheard of in his time, that in education, there is no class distinction.

Taoism played a role in Chinese leadership but it hurt China rather than helping. Taoism encouraged its followers not to stick to a strict system of society but instead to follow the "Tao" way. Taoism was also mixed with a bit of alchemy in the form of elixirs and pills. When opium was introduced to China people would get addicted and refused to work. This was just another factor that made China far from superior to Rome.

Rome�s government was far more detailed and thought out and their leadership was better trained. China had a few good leaders, but none were as great as Roman leaders, and the one person they should have followed from the beginning, Confucius , they didn�t follow until after his death. The Chinese government left too much power in the emperor�s hands. This is why the government changed from emperor to emperor. The Roman government did the exact opposite it put more power in the people which enabled the government last longer. Over all Rome was a better empire.

# ? Sep 3, 2012 05:43

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

I was going to take that apart but it was written by a twelve year old and literally everything about is terrible and wrong. I would be dead of starvation before I finished writing the line-by-line.

Thank you though, I forgot what my life would be like if I were a history teacher.

# ? Sep 3, 2012 05:49

fantastic in plastic: Jun 15, 2007; The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

mediadave posted:

I'm currently trying to learn Latin, and today picked up Ovid's Metamorphoses (Loeb classical library)to help me with this and learn some Roman literature if nothing else. But having only read a few pages (of the English) already my mind has been blown.

In the prologue Ovid talks about the formation, and the form, of the world. He writes that the world is divided up into five zones - two covered in snow and ice, one in the middle too hot to inhabit, and in between two temperate, inhabitable zones. He clearly means the poles, the equator and the bits inbetween. But how did he know south of the equator there were habitable lands? Everything I've read and heard suggests the Romans never went south of the Sahara and previously I had thought that was pretty much what they considered the end of the world. And how did Ovid know there was another icy region south of that again?

Same chapter he writes 'above these all (ie, earth) he placed the liquid, weightless ether, which has naught of earthy dregs." [my itallics] That isn't a description of the vacuum of space...is it?

The ancients knew that the world was round, and Aristotelian physics held that fire was an element that was naturally drawn upward. (Look at smoke, it comes from fire so it must be fire, and it's drawn upward, so therefore...) So I don't think it's that big of a stretch for an ancient Roman to imagine that given coldplace to his north and hotplace to his south, there's logically another warmplace on the other side of it and another coldplace beyond that.

Ether isn't a vacuum. It's an element in Aristotelian physics (air, water, fire, earth, ether/quintessence), and it's what the universe is made out of once you get out beyond the moon. Aristotle thought that the universe was basically a gigantic nested series of spheres, with our planet in the center. Our planet is comprised of fire, water, earth, and air. Water and earth are heavy elements, attracted downward (because if you drop them they fall) and fire and air are light elements, attracted heavenward. Our planet's sphere extends out to the moon, and everything beyond that is made of pure ether. The ether-sphere extends out to the stars, which Aristotle thought were all the same distance from earth (because go outside at night and look up - you don't really see any bigger or smaller stars, and if you look at it over time, the stars rotate in a fixed pattern all at the same speed, so therefore...), and beyond that sphere is the realm of the Prime Mover.

That is to say, in ancient cosmology, "space" isn't a vacuum like we understand it, but instead, space is literally a sphere and it's literally made out of stuff that doesn't exist at all in the sublunary sphere. I think it's almost certain the Aristotelian picture of cosmology/physics was commonly known by educated people in Rome, and probably by everyday people who were at least curious enough about how the universe worked to ask an educated person.

# ? Sep 3, 2012 11:38

Foyes36: Oct 23, 2005; Food fight!

Here's another good article on Roman-Chinese contacts, very detailed and complete - http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/romchin1.asp

# ? Sep 3, 2012 14:30

Agesilaus: Jan 27, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Grand Fromage posted:

Nobody knows. There aren't any records of exploration beyond the Sahara or any contact with anyone past it. There's Ethiopia but Ethiopia is special and wouldn't have been included.

Yes there are, just you don't look to the Romans for them. A learned Roman could have picked up a copy of Herodotus, for example, and read about people sailing around Africa. Many authors mentioned pygmies living far to the south. Romans had access to many books that are lost to us today, too.

# ? Sep 3, 2012 16:56

achillesforever6: Apr 23, 2012; psst you wanna do a communism?

Grand Fromage posted:

It wasn't a taboo, just that in Greek and Roman culture if you didn't fight hand to hand you were a giant pussy. Manly virtue required a sword.

Yeah hence why Paris in the Trojan Cycle is probably the biggest pussy in all of classical mythology, something which the movie Troy got completely wrong.

# ? Sep 3, 2012 17:12

Agesilaus: Jan 27, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

achillesforever6 posted:

Yeah hence why Paris in the Trojan Cycle is probably the biggest pussy in all of classical mythology, something which the movie Troy got completely wrong.

Is there anything that Troy got right?

# ? Sep 3, 2012 17:23

Sleng Teng: May 3, 2009

Agesilaus posted:

Is there anything that Troy got right?

The action movie formula?

# ? Sep 3, 2012 17:44

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

An emphasis on masculine sexuality?

# ? Sep 3, 2012 18:23

Groda: Mar 17, 2005; Hair Elf

cousins, totally cousins

# ? Sep 3, 2012 18:34

General Panic: Jan 28, 2012; AN ERORIST AGENT

achillesforever6 posted:

Weren't a lot of the Emperor's top aides usually were his former slaves?

Yes, this was often the case. Probably the most well-known of them were Narcissus, Pallas and Callistas, who were Claudius' secretaries. Pallas and Callistas were in charge of finance and petitions to the Emperor respectively, and Narcissus was more or less his prime minister.

The tradtional aristocracy centered on the Senate really hated these kind of upstarts, but they had to put up with them. Eventually, Hadrian gave into their pressure and reserved the very top jobs for members of the order of Equites. However, a lot of the slightly more junior posts were still occupied by freedmen even after that.

# ? Sep 3, 2012 19:36

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Agesilaus posted:

Yes there are, just you don't look to the Romans for them. A learned Roman could have picked up a copy of Herodotus, for example, and read about people sailing around Africa. Many authors mentioned pygmies living far to the south. Romans had access to many books that are lost to us today, too.

I've never read that part of it, but unreliable is a mild term for Herodotus, especially the further you get from Greece. There aren't any reliable records and there's no archaeological evidence.

That doesn't mean they didn't do it. Considering the vast amount of trade through the Red Sea and the lack of desert on the east coast, I'd be surprised if no one ever decided to take a right at Somalia and sail down the coast some. It's purely speculative, though, and clearly if people did do it, it didn't have much of an effect--didn't open up any noticeable trade or end up recorded in any surviving sources. I don't think there's been a lot of archaeology done along the east African coast, I wouldn't be surprised if a few Roman things turned up there someday when there is proper exploration.

E: What part of Herodotus is it in, do you remember? I just did a search with an online copy and don't see anything about sailing around Africa.

Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Sep 4, 2012

# ? Sep 4, 2012 01:36

Foyes36: Oct 23, 2005; Food fight!

Grand Fromage posted:

E: What part of Herodotus is it in, do you remember? I just did a search with an online copy and don't see anything about sailing around Africa.

I don't recall it in Herodotus, but the The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea indicates ports pretty far south in Africa and a general understanding (though it comes off as speculation) that eventually one could round the continent and go back up towards Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_Maris_Erythraei

# ? Sep 4, 2012 01:47

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

Pfirti86 posted:

I don't recall it in Herodotus, but the The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea indicates ports pretty far south in Africa and a general understanding (though it comes off as speculation) that eventually one could round the continent and go back up towards Europe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periplus_Maris_Erythraei

Interesting. Looks like they did trade down there, I didn't know about these ports. I wonder how it fit into their conception of the world map.

The dominant idea was that Africa was an island encircled by the world ocean, like Europe and Asia. So the concept of being able to circumnavigate it wouldn't have been strange to them.

# ? Sep 4, 2012 01:53

Jamwad Hilder: Apr 18, 2007; surfin usa

Kind of off-topic, but Herodotus rules. My favorite "true story" is the one about the giant ants who dug up gold.

# ? Sep 4, 2012 02:42

Agesilaus: Jan 27, 2012; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Grand Fromage posted:

E: What part of Herodotus is it in, do you remember? I just did a search with an online copy and don't see anything about sailing around Africa.

Book 4; the story is believable because the sailors who managed to circumnavigate Africa stated that the sun was on the right-hand side of their boat. At any rate, the story could be complete nonsense, but the Romans would still have it freely available to them if they wished to think about what was south of the Sahara.

# ? Sep 4, 2012 02:55

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

quote:

For my part I am astonished that men should ever have divided Libya, Asia, and Europe as they have, for they are exceedingly unequal. Europe extends the entire length of the other two, and for breadth will not even (as I think) bear to be compared to them. As for Libya, we know it to be washed on all sides by the sea, except where it is attached to Asia. This discovery was first made by Necos, the Egyptian king, who on desisting from the canal which he had begun between the Nile and the Arabian gulf, sent to sea a number of ships manned by Phoenicians, with orders to make for the Pillars of Hercules, and return to Egypt through them, and by the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians took their departure from Egypt by way of the Erythraean sea, and so sailed into the southern ocean. When autumn came, they went ashore, wherever they might happen to be, and having sown a tract of land with corn, waited until the grain was fit to cut. Having reaped it, they again set sail; and thus it came to pass that two whole years went by, and it was not till the third year that they doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and made good their voyage home. On their return, they declared- I for my part do not believe them, but perhaps others may- that in sailing round Libya they had the sun upon their right hand. In this way was the extent of Libya first discovered.

For anyone curious. The Erythraean Sea is the Red Sea/Indian Ocean, and the Pillars of Hercules is generally believed to be Gibraltar. Libya means all of Africa.

It's not much but it's rather low on bullshit by Herodotus standards and there's no technical reason why they couldn't have done it, so who knows.

# ? Sep 4, 2012 03:01

Moist von Lipwig: Oct 28, 2006; by FactsAreUseless; Tortured By Flan

If the Romans ever did circumnavigate Africa it may have been like our moon shot, really cool but really expensive and ultimately, no money was made from it so we/they haven't done it since (this is not a condemnation of space exploration).

Now this is reminding me of my favourite big red title 'ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT' :3:

# ? Sep 4, 2012 07:41

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

If it were that they would've made a big deal out of it. Presumably there weren't any trade ports worth bothering with south of there or on the west coast.

# ? Sep 4, 2012 07:59

SniperWoreConverse: Mar 20, 2010; Gun Saliva

Moist von Lipwig posted:

If the Romans ever did circumnavigate Africa it may have been like our moon shot, really cool but really expensive and ultimately, no money was made from it so we/they haven't done it since (this is not a condemnation of space exploration).

Now this is reminding me of my favourite big red title 'ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT'

You know I remember that title too, what was the story?

There's that Roman instrument the tibia. It's pretty much two flutes + reeds, if I got it right. The question is, were the first ones traditionally made out of the tibia and fibula of an animal or something? Or did the bone get named after the instrument?

Unrelated to Rome, but I seem to remember a scrap of a myth that has a "Death playing a flute made of human bones / some kind of evil dude with cannibal music" sort of trope going on, but I can't remember any other details. Anyone have a lead on that or know what I'm talking about? It is possible that the whole thing's some kind of hosed up figment of my imagination. I think it might be related to the general idea that music is a form of magic in some way, but I'm not really sure.

e: google was way too eager to autocomplete "flute made from human bone"

SniperWoreConverse fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Sep 4, 2012

# ? Sep 4, 2012 08:48

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# ? May 11, 2024 21:34

Morholt: Mar 18, 2006; Contrary to popular belief, tic-tac-toe isn't purely a game of chance.

The bone is named after the instrument, because someone thought it looked like it. Fibula means something like "safety pin", and it does resemble one somewhat.

# ? Sep 4, 2012 16:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

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