|
Moist von Lipwig posted:Then why didn't they? Was later medieval Rome more of a conservative, isolationist state than the raging empire of earlier Rome? Persians, Arabs, Bulgars, Slavs, internal rebellion. Even at the height of its power the Byzantine Empire was not in a position where trying to exert power over Western Europe would have been a good idea. Or was a good idea, considering the results of the wars of the 500s.
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 00:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 19:41 |
|
|
Moist von Lipwig posted:Then why didn't they? Was later medieval Rome more of a conservative, isolationist state than the raging empire of earlier Rome? Yeah, Belisarius tried to reconquer the west in the 500s, and almost re-conquered Italy... and then it fell apart when he was pulled back to deal with a Persian invasion. He managed to salvage the southern part of Italy and Sicily, which remained in Byzantine hands until the Arabs conquered Sicily and Robert the Weasel canquered Bari. But the continuing Persian wars sapped most of the Byzantine's strength. Not until Heraclius destroyed the Persian armies in Mesopotamia was that threat ended... just in time to have most of the empire (Africa and the Levant) fall to the Arab conquest. Past 800 or so, the Byzantines can't really project their power ourside their borders, and starting about 900 or so they contract their navy out to the Venetians... which no doubt seemed like a good idea at the time.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 01:04
|
|
|
Moist von Lipwig posted:Then why didn't they? Was later medieval Rome more of a conservative, isolationist state than the raging empire of earlier Rome? They did under Justinian. Belisarius reconquered a decent amount of the choice parts of the western empire. But they couldn't fight everyone, and eastern Rome had plenty of issues at home--internal problems plus constant assaults on all sides that they were busy holding off. If they had been at peace for a century in 800 and there were no threats, I could have seen Roman armies landing in France to deal with the upstart. But while they were pissed as hell about it, their armies were better used holding off Arab assaults than going off to gently caress around with crowns and titles. Also, while Belisarius did kick a lot of asses and re-establish nominal Roman control over various areas (and also semi-independent Roman aligned states like the Exarchate of Ravenna, which was the best name any state has ever had) it didn't really go well. The territory was never safe enough to add anything to the empire and just got slowly eaten away again. By the time of Charlemagne I suspect they knew they weren't getting the empire in the west back, but that didn't mean they were going to be happy about some German dickbag claiming their titles.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 01:07
|
|
|
The Romans never got isolationist, they just lost large amounts of territory in calamities, tried to get it back, then got hit with another calamity over and over and over again. Manuel I was still making serious attempts to regain Italy and Egypt in the mid-late 12th century, just a few decades before the nuclear bomb that was the Fourth Crusade got dropped on Constantinople.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 01:43
|
|
|
The problem for most of the later empire wasn't power, it was power projection. The Romans couldn't invade western Europe, but if a western European power had tried to invade the empire they would've been annihilated. Probably wouldn't have even made it past the Roman navy to land troops, let alone trying to fight their army. This obviously changes later as the empire loses more and more territory and is in increasingly desperate shape, and then the Fourth Crusade is the final skullfucking. After that is pure decline, though it is impressive how long they manage to keep the empire running and how much territory they reacquire considering how badly hosed they were. The empire is surprisingly resilient. The crisis of the third century was, really, the empire collapsing and then somehow being rebuilt--by all rights they should've been done for in the 200s. And I think there are at least two instances when the eastern empire is reduced to being little more than Constantinople itself, but they get back a bunch of territory afterward and keep on rolling. It helped that until cannons Constantinople was completely impregnable. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Sep 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 01:55
|
|
|
Considering how strategically important a position Constantinople was in, how come it took so long for the Romans to settle it? I assume there was some sort of colony or city or something there prior to the Romans christening it Constantinople, but why did it take so long? Why didn't the Arabs grab it before the Romans did? It's in such a key spot in terms of both economic and military strength.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 02:18
|
|
|
Vigilance posted:Why didn't the Arabs grab it before the Romans did? You have your dates completely off. Constantinople was founded in 330, the Arabs enter the picture in the 600s. And it was a prosperous trading town called Byzantion for nearly a thousand years before it was made the Roman capital.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 02:37
|
|
|
Vigilance posted:Considering how strategically important a position Constantinople was in, how come it took so long for the Romans to settle it? There'd been a city there since the Greeks founded one in 657 BCE. It was renamed Constantinpole (city of Constantine) after Contantine's death, but before that it used its original Greek name of Byzantion, which is where the term Byzantine Empire came from.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 02:41
|
|
|
Yep. It was always settled, it just wasn't that important. Arabs were desert nomads that nobody gave a poo poo about when Constantine started building the new city.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 02:41
|
|
|
To put it another way, New York was just an island until America's economy grew enough to begin seriously exporting goods to Britain. Then it suddenly became a key port and grew like wildfire. Rome needed to fully digest Greece and build up its eastern economy before it could expand its trade into the Black Sea.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 02:45
|
|
|
Kaal posted:To put it another way, New York was just an island until America's economy grew enough to begin seriously exporting goods to Britain. Then it suddenly became a key port and grew like wildfire. Rome needed to fully digest Greece and build up its eastern economy before it could expand its trade into the Black Sea. Grain imports from the Crimea through the Bosphorus were important for Athens already in the 500s-400s BC, though. Alliances with the cities by the Hellespont were very important for them during the Peloponnesian War for that reason.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 02:54
|
|
|
By the time Rome really gets control of the east, it already has the entire Mediterranean under it's control, and quickly gets both shores of the Bosporus under it's control for a very long time. Meanwhile Crimea was for a while a Roman client state, and even when it wasn't, who else is it going to trade with in any major fashion, Rome controls what may as well be most of the world. And it's not like it has a massive navy that might come through the Dardanelles and gently caress up Rome's shipping. Meanwhile since the Roman state was the only major actor in town, it's not like the medieval era where the Eastern empire would just funnel all trade into the city before letting it flow to western states. I can't imagine Byzantium would have any major strategic value during say the Pax Romana era.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 03:32
|
|
|
Kaal posted:If you've ever wanted to play Rome: Total War, today is the day for you! Goddamnit it's not available in Korea. I never actually played the expansion and have been hauling CDs around the world for years. Steeeeeeeeaaaaaaam. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 03:34
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Goddamnit it's not available in Korea. I never actually played the expansion and have been hauling CDs around the world for years. There are  ways of getting it, if denying CA a fraction of a dollar is not a moral issue for you.(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 03:56
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Goddamnit it's not available in Korea. I never actually played the expansion and have been hauling CDs around the world for years. Come into IRC (synirc #steamgoons with usual password) and someone should be able to help you. Totally legally, too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 03:56
|
|
|
Yeah it's only a buck so it should be easy for anyone to get it onto your account. I'd be happy to gift it to you if you provide your Steam account name,
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 04:02
|
|
|
Kaal posted:Yeah it's only a buck so it should be easy for anyone to get it onto your account. I'd be happy to gift it to you if you provide your Steam account name,  grandfromage is my account there as well. I think I have a few gift games kicking around, I'll send a random one back.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 04:59
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:
Alright awesome, I think I befriended you. http://steamcommunity.com/id/kaikaalel
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 06:07
|
|
|
Mach5 posted:And when, roughly, did the Western European nations decided that they weren't part of the Roman Empire any more? That's something I've never been able to figure out. That's a really, really difficult question - The Roman Empire has an incredibly wide socio-cultural range of meanings in European history. It can be the Principate, it can be the eastern roman empire, it can be the HRE if you're feeling incredibly sassy - The papacy has made cases for itself being the last of Rome on and off throughout the centuries! 476 is the traditional date, because of Gibbon. The child-emperor Romulus Augustulus ("Romulus the Little Augustus"  ) was deposed by the barbarian mercenary Flavius Odoacer. Odoacer sent a letter to Constantinople that in its most basic form read "Hi, I'm your king of Italy now. All hail you, Imperator! I, your loyal king, adore and worship you! Ps. Don't send a new loving emperor."But even here we see that Odoacer is not declaring cultural independence from Rome, he's just saying that he's the loyal client of Constantinople as long as Constantinople doesnt ask him to do anything. I'd say the rise of the idea of the divine rights of kings in the middle ages as well as early modern nationalism was a really substantial break, but before then the idea of Empire was cherished by the upper classes and the Catholic Church based much of its legitimacy on its connection with the lost Roman empire. The For instance, Dioceses were formed by Diocletian in the late 200s and later absorbed by church administration and in many cases european dioceses have not changed since antiquity. There's no real answer in my ramblings here, but I hope it might at least explain why there couldn't be any answers.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 07:17
|
|
|
So even barbarian chiefs in ancient times had a fairly keen sense of the political world then. Saying "I got half your empire and it's yours but not really" is a great way of convincing Constantinople to go send an army to clean you up. I somehow imagine he wouldn't have sent it unless he knew that they were having troubles of their own and unable to do so.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 08:15
|
|
|
Most likely if the East was in tip top shape the letter would have been "I'll be your loyal Western King and please here take all my taxes".
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 08:18
|
|
|
AgentF posted:So even barbarian chiefs in ancient times had a fairly keen sense of the political world then. Saying "I got half your empire and it's yours but not really" is a great way of convincing Constantinople to go send an army to clean you up. I somehow imagine he wouldn't have sent it unless he knew that they were having troubles of their own and unable to do so. Well, at this point you have to remember that the entire Western Roman Army consisted from top to bottom of "barbarian" germans. Odoacer had been a general in it and there are multiple famous "barbarian" generals who controlled the Empire (Stilicho, Ricimer et all) through puppet-emperors like Honorius. These "barbarians" were romanized, held citizenship and were literate but perhaps clung to some ethnic traditions - I know Odoacer for one was scandalously portrayed wearing a luscious pornstache on his coins, which was a clear sign of his barbarian origins. By the 3rd and 4th century, the increased threat by peoples from beyond the Rhine and Danube had institutionalized a racism in the Roman upper classes, especially against the goths. That's where we get the archetypical idea of the german illiterate savage raping his way through the Empire, leaving only ashes in his wake. Really, what most of these people wanted was simply to be allowed to settle and become Romans themselves - It was only the reactionary attitudes of the upper classes and a healthy dosage of bureaucratic corruption that made integration impossible.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 08:31
|
|
|
AgentF posted:So even barbarian chiefs in ancient times had a fairly keen sense of the political world then. They weren't exactly barbarians at that point. The Germans who entered the empire Romanized quickly and virtually every German leader from the late 300s on had served in the legions. Hell a bunch of them grew up in the empire. They were barbarians because the Romans of late antiquity started turning racist and exclusionary, and they refused to integrate the Germans. In an earlier era the Germans would've been brought into the system and the conquests probably never would've happened--the Germans wanted to be Romans anyway, the Romans were just being gigantic dicks about it. Look at the Goth kingdom in Hispania. Within a generation they're completely indistinguishable from Romans and they maintain Roman culture uninterrupted well into the 600s at least. E: Example portrait of a German barbarian king:  That was made by Goths, not Romans. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Sep 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 08:31
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:In an earlier era the Germans would've been brought into the system and the conquests probably never would've happened--the Germans wanted to be Romans anyway, the Romans were just being gigantic dicks about it. Ding. Ding. Ding. This is it. This is really the ultimate downfall of the late Roman state. The Empire's inability (or lack of willingness) to assimilate new peoples into the Roman order of things just lead to the slow downfall of everything. The German foe is not humbled and brought into the Roman order of things, but they're made confederates, which only promotes more factionalism, etc. within the empire.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 18:17
|
|
|
Paxicon posted:There's no real answer in my ramblings here, but I hope it might at least explain why there couldn't be any answers. Thank you nonetheless! I figured there was no agreed-upon date and the two sides just kind of drifted apart: like on the West you had Catholicism ascendant but dealing with plagues and whatnot, while in the East you had the Greek Orthodox guys and that pesky Genghis Khan fellow to deal with. I'll hazard a guess that the Mongols kind of inadvertently helped the Eastern Empire remain cohesive a bit longer due to their crazy-rear end tactics, and how it made sense to remain united against those devilish hordes. Then again I could be wrong and probably am, and that's why I love this thread. So thanks in advance!
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 18:35
|
|
|
What were the other cities of the empire like? Throughout the early period you always hear about Rome, and then after it falls, you only hear about Constantinople. Surely there must have been other cities, since I highly doubt the entire empire lived just in whatever the capital was at the time.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 19:09
|
|
|
Mach5 posted:Thank you nonetheless! I figured there was no agreed-upon date and the two sides just kind of drifted apart: like on the West you had Catholicism ascendant but dealing with plagues and whatnot, while in the East you had the Greek Orthodox guys and that pesky Genghis Khan fellow to deal with. I'll hazard a guess that the Mongols kind of inadvertently helped the Eastern Empire remain cohesive a bit longer due to their crazy-rear end tactics, and how it made sense to remain united against those devilish hordes. Hmm? Mongols came at late 1200's at which point Byzantines did not have any territory near them to conquer and were subjected to the latin partition as well. Their enemies were always the Persians and Arabs, Genghis never factored in.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 19:34
|
|
|
Mach5 posted:Thank you nonetheless! I figured there was no agreed-upon date and the two sides just kind of drifted apart: like on the West you had Catholicism ascendant but dealing with plagues and whatnot, while in the East you had the Greek Orthodox guys and that pesky Genghis Khan fellow to deal with. I'll hazard a guess that the Mongols kind of inadvertently helped the Eastern Empire remain cohesive a bit longer due to their crazy-rear end tactics, and how it made sense to remain united against those devilish hordes. Well, the Mongols really helped the East survive longer by devastating the Middle East more than anything. Eastern Roman-Mongol relations were complicated, but often friendly - a couple of princesses ended up married to the khans of the Golden Horde and Ilkhanate, even. I made a post about this way back in the thread, but many Mongols were Nestorian Christians, so it wasn't as unlikely of an alliance as it seems now; the Ilkhanate even tried to get in on the Eighth Crusade by writing a letter to the Pope but that failed before it really even started, so crusader Mongols were never officially a thing. The Golden Horde was much more hesitant to be involved with the Eastern Empire and ended up being pretty hostile eventually. The Turks were the main threat to the East, and they weren't under Mongol dominion for very long. Edit: To put this a little more into perspective, the Christian world had been hearing rumors of "Prester John", a great Christian king in Central Asia, who wanted to link up with the western Christians to defeat the Muslim world. This gave Christendom a relatively favorable initial impression of the Mongols, as they thought that Genghis's Christian foster father (yes, this part was probably true; Christianity was more widely spread at the time than people usually think) was the legendary Prester John. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Sep 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 19:50
|
|
|
This is more a Mythology question, but I'm curious on why is it hard to adapt something like the Trojan War into film, I mean Troy just raped Homer worse than anything Zeus did to a woman. Do any of you guys think that an adaptation of Classical Mythology could work? I think the closest we got was that Odyssey adaptation from the 90s and even that was missing a bunch of the stuff (Lotus Eaters, the Bulls of the Sun God). I really want an adaptation of the Aeneid and the Trojan Cycle done. Get me Peter Jackson's number!!
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 01:29
|
|
|
achillesforever6 posted:This is more a Mythology question, but I'm curious on why is it hard to adapt something like the Trojan War into film, I mean Troy just raped Homer worse than anything Zeus did to a woman. Do any of you guys think that an adaptation of Classical Mythology could work?
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 03:15
|
|
|
achillesforever6 posted:This is more a Mythology question, but I'm curious on why is it hard to adapt something like the Trojan War into film, I mean Troy just raped Homer worse than anything Zeus did to a woman. Do any of you guys think that an adaptation of Classical Mythology could work? Hey now, there's a shitload of crazy sword-and-sandal films about classical mythology.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 03:40
|
|
|
Are any of them good, though?
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 04:53
|
|
|
Grand Prize Winner posted:Are any of them good, though? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mghxZzWVO7A
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 06:45
|
|
|
Heh for some reason that reminds me of the Lou Ferigno Hercules film which was so 
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 07:00
|
|
|
achillesforever6 posted:Heh for some reason that reminds me of the Lou Ferigno Hercules film which was so If by you mean :iamafag:I think it comes down to just being really, almost impossibly, hard to adapt novel to screen. Even Lord of the Rings isn't that good if you're just going by accuracy. A lot of it has to do with length too. Audiences, in general, don't want 6 hour movies. This is getting pretty CineD though...
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 07:28
|
|
|
Moist von Lipwig posted:If by That brings up a new Rome topic, though. What was roman theater like? I got the impression that they went in big for spectacle since it wasn't a religious thing for them like it was with the Greeks. True/false?
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 07:45
|
|
|
Have you guys read The Iliad? It describes a pretty short period of time, it just goes into levels of detail even Tolkien would be surprised at. I mean, the shield. Dear god, the shield.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 20:36
|
|
|
Daryl loving Hall posted:Have you guys read The Iliad? It describes a pretty short period of time, it just goes into levels of detail even Tolkien would be surprised at. I mean, the shield. Dear god, the shield. E: and the last thing I'll say about Troy is that it got rid of the best character, Diomedes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 23:28
|
|
|
achillesforever6 posted:Well it is a pretty badass shield. Movies like Troy, and really any American take on history, are terribly insulting to those involved. Oh what's that, Protesilaus? You were the first to land on the shore, not Achilles? Well this movie is called Troy, not Cypria, so we're just going to assign all the honour and glory to some other character and leave you out in the cold. Did you like the movie 300, lads? What's that, the movie failed to mention half the Greek city states that sent men to the pass? It's okay, we're not big on accuracy or good manners here in future. Hope you enjoy your rhinos and hand grenades.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 01:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 19:41 |
|
|
At least they aren't actively stepping on cultures that are still alive like Avatar did.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2012 01:48
|
|
