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DarkCrawler posted:Carthage. If I had a time machine, I'd go be Hannibal's prophet just to see what a world like this would look like. I imagine the American continent would have been discovered at least 500 years earlier.
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Oct 20, 2012 10:55
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Man, I wonder what the world would be like today if they had won. We'd speak some wierd-rear end languages, that's for sure.
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Rincewind posted:Can anybody talk about the decline of Latin in the Eastern Roman Empire? I mean, I know the broad strokes of it (Greek was always spoken throughout the entire Roman Empire even though Latin was the language of administration and government, Justinian was the last native Latin speaker to reign as Emperor, etc.) but I'd still like to know more. Were there still native Latin-speaking populations after Justinian? Was Latin still used in some contexts like it was in medieval Western Europe? What about the Exarchate of Ravenna? The Byzantines always have a great need for Latin, but no real love for it. Foreign interpreters are relied upon heavily, but Greek will still be used whenever possible (such as in a situation where a foreign envoy has taken the time to learn it). One must remember that the Byzantines are entirely convinced of their superiority to other Christian peoples, and their Hellenistic culture, in contrast to the chiefly Latin west, is a central part of that. Courtiers love to drop in allusions to someone like Homer, and writers to those such as Thucydides and Plutarch, but no one cares for Virgil, Seneca and the like. The earliest evidence we have of Byzantines making concerted attempts to learn Latin and put it to use, for diplomacy and in translating literature, comes from the thirteenth century. One area where the influence of Latin does persist is in coinage. Even after Greek becomes the official language of the empire, words appearing on coins will still sometimes feature Latin letters in the place of Greek ones. Here's an example:  Here, the first letter of Constantine IX's name is a 'C' rather than a Greek kappa, and the majuscule form of sigma (which at this time is 'C' - confused? I sure was) is a very Latin 'S.' This is a tradition that persists up to the late eleventh century. Veeta fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Oct 20, 2012 |
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Oct 20, 2012 12:07
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So what was the alcohol content of Roman wine? As I understand, almost everyone (rich and poor) watered down their wine; a lot of drinking games worked this way. Was it just because mulsum had too strong a taste?
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Oct 21, 2012 05:41
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QCIC posted:So what was the alcohol content of Roman wine? As I understand, almost everyone (rich and poor) watered down their wine; a lot of drinking games worked this way. Was it just because mulsum had too strong a taste? I believe it was mentioned before that Roman wine was sold in concentrated form, which is why they added some water before consuming it.
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Oct 21, 2012 05:48
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UberJew posted:It's dignified specifically because for the longest time we figures that was what the Romans did. Hence all the US government buildings and capitals. One of the most closely guarded secrets among the scholars of Roman history is that Julius Caesar was half Nubian.
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Oct 21, 2012 11:11
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furushotakeru posted:I believe it was mentioned before that Roman wine was sold in concentrated form, which is why they added some water before consuming it. Concentrating probably helped the shelf life. Another wine thing, when it turned vinegary it was mixed with herbs and probably honey, and called posca. This was popular among soldiers, as you can imagine if you're besieging a city for a year your wine supply probably is going to go off, so it became a thing. Also didn't get the soldiers as wasted so generals liked it.
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Oct 21, 2012 11:13
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JaggyJagJag posted:If I had a time machine, I'd go be Hannibal's prophet just to see what a world like this would look like. I imagine the American continent would have been discovered at least 500 years earlier. Them Carthaginians sure liked to sail.
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Oct 21, 2012 12:51
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Nenonen posted:One of the most closely guarded secrets among the scholars of Roman history is that Julius Caesar was half Nubian.  Source?
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Oct 21, 2012 15:33
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Eggplant Wizard posted:
freerepublic.com has all the information you need on the Numidian menace threatening our civic virtue. You should register an account and support our legions in Mesopotamia as they prepare for the war against Persia.
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Oct 21, 2012 18:27
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Ceasar was a secret Kemetic*. Don't listen to the lies of the populist orators! *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_religion Kaal fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Oct 21, 2012 |
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Oct 21, 2012 18:48
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Are there any surviving records of any Roman horror stories/urban legends? Was there a roman big foot?
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Oct 21, 2012 20:00
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Prons posted:Are there any surviving records of any Roman horror stories/urban legends? Was there a roman big foot? Well, I'm pretty sure more then one Roman mother told their kids to eat their beets and go sleep early or Hannibal would come and go all Cannae on them, does that count?
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Oct 21, 2012 21:18
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Prons posted:Are there any surviving records of any Roman horror stories/urban legends? Was there a roman big foot? I mean there're ghosts in Pliny, and plenty of witches in popular and literary culture both. I think there's even a werewolf in Petronius. In terms of lit that remains, anyway, I don't think they had a genre of horror stories. Probably some folktales were pretty scary though.
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Oct 21, 2012 22:05
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Can't think if I've ever seen "Latin" written in Greek though it must have been. Dositheus Magister (4th century CE, in Rome) has 'Ῥωμαϊκή.' And he and Plutarch have adverbial 'Ῥωμαϊστί.' edit: continuing the greek/latin relations thing, Dositheus Magister's grammar is kind of interesting for having a really early phrasebook attached. http://books.google.com/books?id=UlUiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA89 ptk fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Oct 21, 2012 |
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Oct 21, 2012 23:03
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Eggplant Wizard posted:
He was born in Ethiopia. Where's the long form birth certificate, Gaius? IF THAT IS YOUR REAL NAME 
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Oct 21, 2012 23:20
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The real test of whether we are still biased against Marians is if he can get through his term without being assassinated. Here's a question, what were the main industries of the Gallic provinces? I'm assuming the light scratch plow was pretty much as bad for French soil as for Germany's, wine was limited in practice to a certain latitude (let's say north of Stuttgart/Alsace) and I don't know of any major precious metal deposits. Cattle? Iron? Subsistence farming and Latin tutors?
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Oct 22, 2012 17:32
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Troubadour posted:The real test of whether we are still biased against Marians is if he can get through his term without being assassinated. I believe there was a thriving Pottery industry and also I want to say... gravel? The History of Rome podcast has an episode that lists all the provinces and what they did.
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Oct 22, 2012 17:45
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Wine production was started in southern France by the Greeks hundreds of years before the Romans fought their way out of Latium. Gaul produced a lot of grapes.
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Oct 22, 2012 17:47
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Weren't the Guals pretty skilled in iron working?
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Oct 23, 2012 11:01
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Troubadour posted:The real test of whether we are still biased against Marians is if he can get through his term without being assassinated. Read as Martians. Disappointed 
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Oct 23, 2012 14:00
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Well, according to his family tree he was a Venusian...
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Oct 23, 2012 18:31
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I know this has probably been brought up, but what was the relationship between Rome and the fringe territories of its empire like? How much control did it hold over them, and how much "Rome" seeped into them, how much influence did Roman culture have on them? Has Roman legacy in these areas survived? Has there simply not been enough archaeological research in these areas to have an accurate picture? By "fringe territories" I mean Colchis, the Caucasus, the Atlantic shore of Mauritania, Mesopotamia and so on.
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Oct 23, 2012 19:25
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Eggplant Witch posted:I think there's even a werewolf in Petronius. A werewolf and a couple of ghosts, yep. One of the ghosts may have been a revenant; it's been a while since I read it and I don't have it to hand. Fun fact: the werewolf story in Petronius contains a Latin hapax legomenon (that is, the word appears only once in the entire classical Latin corpus) - the word circumminxit, which means "he pissed in a circle around (a thing)". In this case, the werewolf has taken off his clothing pre-transformation, and is pissing in a circle around them to turn them to stone so they'll be safe while he turns into a wolf and ravages the countryside. Circa and mingere, separately, are obviously well-attested.
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Oct 23, 2012 21:57
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Latin has a lot of cool words about stuff. English does too I guess. Maybe in 2,000 years a future goon-type will be posting about the word "skullfucked" or "cockmonger".
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Oct 24, 2012 01:18
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Retarded Pimp posted:Weren't the Guals pretty skilled in iron working? Yeah, they were better than the Romans at first. Especially with armor, the standard Roman mail armor was copied from Gaul. Farming was always a big deal everywhere, wine too. YF-23 posted:I know this has probably been brought up, but what was the relationship between Rome and the fringe territories of its empire like? How much control did it hold over them, and how much "Rome" seeped into them, how much influence did Roman culture have on them? Has Roman legacy in these areas survived? Has there simply not been enough archaeological research in these areas to have an accurate picture? Rome liked to maintain some control over all the border areas as a defensive thing. Most of the border kingdoms were on more or less friendly terms with Rome and had to do what Rome said if they didn't want legions showing up to kick their poo poo in. This, obviously, did happen from time to time. I'd say that in general the neighboring kingdoms benefited from Roman trade and not being invaded so they didn't cause a lot of trouble, but Rome was also notorious for being friendly with neighbors and then coming up with some bullshit reason to conquer them in "self-defense". Roman culture went everywhere. The only place I really know about is Armenia, which was constantly in the Roman orbit as an ally/client kingdom but only a province for four years. Even then, there are still Roman ruins there. Example:  Mesopotamia was always more under Persian control, the Roman presence there was brief. Colchis was a standard Roman border area, heavily fortified and constantly being used as a base for trouble in Armenia or Parthia. There wasn't much on the Atlantic coast as far as I know, trade outposts and places to pick up supplies on the way to the Canary Islands maybe. I don't think there's ever been any real exploration of the area.
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Oct 24, 2012 01:36
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When did the Byzantine nobility start changing their names from, for example Claudius and Florentinus to Peter and Paul? How did the cultural progression from Roman to Greek go?
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Oct 24, 2012 05:10
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%96Persian_Wars Jeez, I never realized exactly how much Persians/Parthians/Sassanids and Romans fought against eachother. 719 freaking years. Makes some other historical rivalries look like nothing. And in the end it hosed over them both.
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Oct 24, 2012 11:55
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Grand Fromage posted:
I have to ask, where did the building material come from? Don't tell me it's Italian marble dragged into Armenian territory. I mean sure they could have transported it by ship across the Black Sea but there's still some seriously mountainous terrain to overcome. And how does marble hold up the the constant freeze-thaw cycles? Edit: looking closer at the pic I see it's being partially reconstructed, but still looks like it's in amazing good shape.
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Oct 24, 2012 11:57
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No idea. There's probably local marble, but it's not at all ridiculous that it might be Italian. They transported marble all over, it was a status thing. There's a theater at Pompeii that has a multicolored marble floor, and each color comes from a different part of the empire. Yellow from Africa, blue from... I think Greece or Turkey, white from Italy, pink from Spain or something if I remember right. Anyway, totally possible.
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Oct 24, 2012 12:05
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Mr Havafap posted:And how does marble hold up the the constant freeze-thaw cycles? IIRC, marble resists weathering very well because of it's crystalline structure and it's just less porous than most other stone used for construction, so water can't get into it. In fact, I think they used marble as the layer at water level in Venice because of that.
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Oct 24, 2012 16:19
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Since we're talking about building materials, did any ancient civilisations extensively use granite in architecture? I don't think I've ever seen a granite ruin.
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Oct 24, 2012 16:52
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The Egyptians used granite extensively. Some of their pyramids are made of granite.
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Oct 24, 2012 16:56
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Yep, the quarries of Aswan are particularly famous.
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Oct 24, 2012 20:36
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euphronius posted:The Egyptians used granite extensively. Some of their pyramids are made of granite. A lot of the obelisks too, including most of the ones that are in Rome.
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Oct 25, 2012 04:16
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rockchat2012 Structurally I'd say brick and concrete were the most common Roman materials (and wood obviously but who cares about wood). Marble was primarily used as a facade, though there is solid marble construction too.
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Oct 25, 2012 04:19
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And did the Romans do any gilding? They seemed to store most of their gold in temples anyhow.
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Oct 25, 2012 04:39
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Grand Fromage posted:rockchat2012 But they had so many KINDS of concrete!
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Oct 25, 2012 04:42
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QCIC posted:And did the Romans do any gilding? They seemed to store most of their gold in temples anyhow. poo poo yeah. They gilded everything. Everything!
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Oct 25, 2012 05:00
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So we're coming up to the... 1700th anniversary (?) of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the 28th. Seems like only yesterday.
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Oct 25, 2012 07:20
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Great thread Grand Fromage! I've just now caught up to the present page. Did Romans wear togas? What do we know about Roman fashion? I've got this pastoral image of Roman plebs, legionnaires, and socialites alike wearing togas for hundreds of years. Alright, maybe cloaks for winter or something.
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Oct 25, 2012 07:42
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