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Apollodorus
Feb 13, 2010

TEST YOUR MIGHT
:patriot:

Eggplant Wizard posted:

Uh. I kind of doubt a virgin goddess would be the reason for a slang word for prostitute. Never heard of her taking a wolf form either.

But at the same time, Artemis (one version of her) is associated with Astarte/Astaroth/Ishtar, a sex goddess.

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sullat
Jan 9, 2012

Apollodorus posted:

But at the same time, Artemis (one version of her) is associated with Astarte/Astaroth/Ishtar, a sex goddess.

I'm not seeing it; the Greek/Roman Pantheons aren't terribly analagous to the Sumerian/Near Eastern ones. Ishtar/Inanna's roles are kind of split up amongst the Greek goddesses; Artemis & Athena take the "war" aspect, Aphrodite/Venus deal with the sexy-time aspects, while Demeter & Persephone take on the fertility & trip to the underworld aspects. Although Tammuz/Dumuzi (who is a dude) are the ones that cause the plants to grow and the seasons to change in the Near Eastern version of things.

Eggplant Wizard
Jul 8, 2005


i loev catte

sullat posted:

I'm not seeing it; the Greek/Roman Pantheons aren't terribly analagous to the Sumerian/Near Eastern ones. Ishtar/Inanna's roles are kind of split up amongst the Greek goddesses; Artemis & Athena take the "war" aspect, Aphrodite/Venus deal with the sexy-time aspects, while Demeter & Persephone take on the fertility & trip to the underworld aspects. Although Tammuz/Dumuzi (who is a dude) are the ones that cause the plants to grow and the seasons to change in the Near Eastern version of things.

A lot of them are related a bit. IIRC large parts of Apollo are a near eastern god straight up borrowed, yeah? But Apollodorus is talking about Artemis of the ManyBoobs/BullTestes:


Apollodorus, I thought about that, but it doesn't fit somehow. The divine aspect of sexy-time is different from that of fertility, to me. That is a gut feeling though and nothing to really go by. In any case, never ever ever heard of Artemis doing the shape-changing thing or being connected with wolves at all.

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.
Roman religion is a lot like American cuisine: some things are changed, some things are rearranged, some names are attached to things that have no connection to their original meanings.

Eggplant Wizard
Jul 8, 2005


i loev catte

cheerfullydrab posted:

Roman religion is a lot like American cuisine: some things are changed, some things are rearranged, some names are attached to things that have no connection to their original meanings.

Paulywallywalrus
Sep 10, 2012
I was just sorta looking over some other world histories and I became rather curious about armies sizes and logistics. I see that the size of armies seems to get rather large during the Hellenic and Roman high points but then it drops off to much smaller numbers. One example was the 15k sent against the goths and then contrast that with medieval armies of maybe 3k to 7k men. Still large numbers (if you have ever seen 7k people all in one place it isn't a big step to imagine how scary a gently caress ton of swords in their hands might be) but it seems that something just stopped working that allowed big armies.

I can understand already how basic supplies would affect size and how money would be important but what gives? Where is the 40k man army after like 700 BCE? For how long does the professional army last in Europe before X? Also, when you have a big army what in the hell do you do with them when you are not fighting anyone?

General Panic
Jan 28, 2012
AN ERORIST AGENT

sullat posted:

The allegation that empresses (and queens and other powerful women) liked to do night-work on the side is a very popular and common accusation. Somehow I doubt many of them have anything approaching "truth" to them, however.

Yeah, this is true, and the extent to which a lot of the ancient historians are reliable sources or just purveyors of gossip/tall tales has been a bit of a running theme in this thread. I think the conclusion is "Well, they're what we've got."

Paulywallywalrus posted:

Professional armies.

This is a big subject, but I think the large armies ultimately disappeared for economic reasons. Big armies need a sophisticated economy where you can spare lots of men from agricultural work for long periods and which provides large tax revenues with which you can pay them.

The Romans and the Hellenic kingdoms had that and mediaeval Europe didn't, generally. But I don't think the professional army ever completely went away. The Anglo-Saxon kings had their housecarles, who were like an elite bodyguard of professionals, for example. Even in the Middle Ages, when in theory you had the feudal system and knights who were obliged to turn up and fight for their overlord, you would still get armies or parts of armies that were paid professionals, especially in the later centuries.

Most knights were basically landowners and it was a pain in the neck for them to have to turn out to war, let alone lead off peasants to fight when they were needed to grow food. Hiring people to do it for them was easier.

DarkCrawler
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

sullat posted:

The allegation that empresses (and queens and other powerful women) liked to do night-work on the side is a very popular and common accusation. Somehow I doubt many of them have anything approaching "truth" to them, however.

Except for Theodora.

WoodrowSkillson
Feb 24, 2005

*Gestures at 60 years of Lions history*

Paulywallywalrus posted:

.
I can understand already how basic supplies would affect size and how money would be important but what gives? Where is the 40k man army after like 700 BCE? For how long does the professional army last in Europe before X? Also, when you have a big army what in the hell do you do with them when you are not fighting anyone?

The Byzantines/Eastern Roman Empire/Roman Empire had professional armies till around 11-1200 AD (very rough number). Finding other stuff for them to do was always a problem, since bored troops start making trouble fast. Either by revolting, pillaging local towns o their own, or carousing and causing trouble that way. The Romans solved the problem by having them drill and train endlessly. a Roman soldier was trained to use his sword , shield and javelin of course, as well as bows, slings, spears, and riding horses. The other big thing the Romans did was make them construction workers. They built roads, forts, aqueducts, bridges, and walls.

sullat
Jan 9, 2012

DarkCrawler posted:

Except for Theodora.

Especially her; we know that she was an "actress" before she became empress, but after? Procopius was just being a dick.

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?


Paulywallywalrus posted:

I can understand already how basic supplies would affect size and how money would be important but what gives? Where is the 40k man army after like 700 BCE? For how long does the professional army last in Europe before X? Also, when you have a big army what in the hell do you do with them when you are not fighting anyone?

Money and organization. Medieval society wasn't based on states really, it was personal relationships and small land holdings. Every individual noble at all the levels of the hierarchy was responsible for a specific area and could draw on it for resources, but you couldn't draw too heavily or the system collapses. Rome did not have that problem. You had lots of spare people in the cities anyway, plus you could draw more from the countryside because places weren't dependent on local resources. Rome's food came from Sicily and Egypt, not from farms in and around Rome. That sort of situation in medieval Europe is very rare.

Slavery also helped. Big estates could be farmed by slaves, so you didn't need citizens to farm as much. Slavery doesn't exist to any large extent in medieval Europe (not counting serfs as slaves). Also, the empire has a ton of cash available. Medieval Europe is shockingly cash poor, even kings have very little. There are a few exceptions to this, mostly the city states in Italy. These are also the largest cities in Europe and have mercenary armies.

The Roman Empire doesn't count here, and maintains its imperial system with professional Roman armies well into the middle ages.

When a legion wasn't fighting they were typically stationed in a border area. A lot of the time they'd be dealing with raids from across the border, or raiding across it themselves. They were also an efficient, well-trained construction force. All those nice straight roads, bridges, aqueducts, etc? The vast majority are built by the legions.

Other times they'd be busy proclaiming their general as emperor and fighting each other.

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


Late antiquity/early medieval question: when did the Italian city-states become capitals of European commerce? They kinda faded in the 17th century or or so, but when did they start?

Power Khan
Aug 20, 2011

by Fritz the Horse

Paulywallywalrus posted:

I can understand already how basic supplies would affect size and how money would be important but what gives? Where is the 40k man army after like 700 BCE?

Last semester I came across numbers for what the germans calculated that they'd need to keep a camp of 10.000 russians prisoners "alive" in 1941. It's quite interesting, because it gives you an idea how much was needed to actually keep a mass of that scale fed. It's safe to assume +100% to keep the people in a condition to march and fight.

The daily supply needed was:

5t potatos
3t bread
~250kg meat
60 stere wood for heating and the kitchen

Substitute potatos with a slightly bigger number of wheat or rye for an antique army, add olives. There's more accurate numbers for civilian rations, like rest that was needed like lentils, meat, dairy products, fats, etc - but these are calculated per person, so you'd have to multiply. I can post a pic of the page if somebody is interested.

This gives you an idea of the scale of "just" feeding 10.000 men for a campaign of let's say 3 months. Then there's the supply needed to feed the pack animals and the horses of the cavalry, also you need to calculate the ammount to supply needed to transport the initial goods to the soldiers. It's really a daunting task that gets more and more ineffective, the longer the supply lines are. Also: friction. Feeding 20.000 just doesn't take twice the ammount of supplies, but 10-20% more, and so on.

Fielding such big armies like the romans or the seleukids takes not only a well oiled economy that can sustain them, but also a very organized apparatus that can allocate the goods properly. Lots of bookkeeping and paperwork involved. And here we are again at a point that was spoken about before: Lots of talk going on about equipment like swords or shields and how they were used, when the intellectual archievements like civic organization leave almost no physical trace (but in buildings).

DarkCrawler
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

sullat posted:

Especially her; we know that she was an "actress" before she became empress, but after? Procopius was just being a dick.

I'm quite sure that "Actress" didn't mean the same thing as it does now.

physeter
Jan 24, 2006

high five, more dead than alive

InspectorBloor posted:

Fielding such big armies like the romans or the seleukids takes not only a well oiled economy that can sustain them, but also a very organized apparatus that can allocate the goods properly. Lots of bookkeeping and paperwork involved. And here we are again at a point that was spoken about before: Lots of talk going on about equipment like swords or shields and how they were used, when the intellectual archievements like civic organization leave almost no physical trace (but in buildings).

For years I've flirted with a simple idea: the Romans left so little trace of their logistical thought and centurion training methods deliberately. It seems laughable at first but it does make some sense. The Romans weren't ignorant of the fact that their real military power lay in being able to reliably and consistently transport goods from one place to another, and in having men on the receiving end who could translate those goods into things like siege equipment and well-trained footsoldiers.

As early as the Jugurthine War we see the enemies of Rome deliberately attempting to copy the Roman legions. Jugurtha tried it, Mithradates definitely builds a respectable legionary-style force. I think the Seleucids did as well. If we think about our own modern military, even with ridiculous glamorization of our own forces, we don't invite camera crews into SEAL training or the nukey part of a ballistic missile submarine.

I think they deliberately didn't publicize the information that was the core of their military power, just like we don't. Can't ever prove it though.

Power Khan
Aug 20, 2011

by Fritz the Horse

physeter posted:

I think they deliberately didn't publicize the information that was the core of their military power, just like we don't. Can't ever prove it though.

Makes sense. If you're able to take a bunch of farmers and train them to be one of the world's best infantry forces within a few months, you don't go around trumpeting your methods.

If we look over to China, it is said that there were numerous books written on military tactics, drills, etc. Yet few of them survived, with Sunzi the most prominent here in the west. Most of them were destroyed intentionally.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading Vegetius.

sullat
Jan 9, 2012

InspectorBloor posted:

Makes sense. If you're able to take a bunch of farmers and train them to be one of the world's best infantry forces within a few months, you don't go around trumpeting your methods.

If we look over to China, it is said that there were numerous books written on military tactics, drills, etc. Yet few of them survived, with Sunzi the most prominent here in the west. Most of them were destroyed intentionally.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading Vegetius.

I wouldn't read too much into that; surviving Chinese literature had to be tough enough to survive the Yellow Emperor, the Mongols, and Ming "no innovation" policies.

sbaldrick
Jul 19, 2006
Driven by Hate

physeter posted:

For years I've flirted with a simple idea: the Romans left so little trace of their logistical thought and centurion training methods deliberately. It seems laughable at first but it does make some sense. The Romans weren't ignorant of the fact that their real military power lay in being able to reliably and consistently transport goods from one place to another, and in having men on the receiving end who could translate those goods into things like siege equipment and well-trained footsoldiers.

As early as the Jugurthine War we see the enemies of Rome deliberately attempting to copy the Roman legions. Jugurtha tried it, Mithradates definitely builds a respectable legionary-style force. I think the Seleucids did as well. If we think about our own modern military, even with ridiculous glamorization of our own forces, we don't invite camera crews into SEAL training or the nukey part of a ballistic missile submarine.

I think they deliberately didn't publicize the information that was the core of their military power, just like we don't. Can't ever prove it though.

Even if it was published most of it would have been destroyed in the Sack. More then likely most major works for the classical age survived till then. They where then all destroyed by Crusaders. One major theory says that the Renaissance was kickstarted by texts from the Sack.

China is a odd place for literature given both Confucianism and Daoisms culture impact. Much of the classical Chinese works that still exists is much more of a culture touchstone then an army manual would have been.

General Panic
Jan 28, 2012
AN ERORIST AGENT

sullat posted:

Especially her; we know that she was an "actress" before she became empress, but after? Procopius was just being a dick.

He made some pretty outrageous claims about Justinian too; IIRC that his father was a demon and everyone knew this because he only slept four (?) hours a night. I'm not sure anyone's ever worked out what his beef was with them, given that he was the court historian, but at some point Procopius seems to have decided Justinian was baaad, m'kay?

Grand Prize Winner posted:

Italian city states.

A lot of the well-known ones, like Naples, Milan or Florence, were to some degree significant cities in Roman times (Milan was the imperial capital for a while) and just stayed that way. They probably started taking on wider European significance in the early Middle Ages when the barbarian invasions were over, commerce became easier and there were monarchs and Popes looking to borrow money.

sullat
Jan 9, 2012

General Panic posted:

He made some pretty outrageous claims about Justinian too; IIRC that his father was a demon and everyone knew this because he only slept four (?) hours a night. I'm not sure anyone's ever worked out what his beef was with them, given that he was the court historian, but at some point Procopius seems to have decided Justinian was baaad, m'kay?

My understanding is that he was a Christian zealot and he suspected Justinian and especially Theodora of heretical and possibly pagan sentiments and decided to smear them.

Amused to Death
Aug 10, 2009

google "The Night Witches", and prepare for :stare:
In regards to Theodora, it may be because she was a monophysite Christian, not the state sanctioned Orthodox version of the time. Though maybe not, I have no idea what side Procopius was on. That had to be an awkward couples situation, if I recall reading correctly in a Cyril Mango book, Justinian often persecuted the monophysites while Theodora openly gave them aid. That's some awkward dinner conversation.

Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Dec 16, 2012

The Anti-Stupid
Jan 4, 2008

InspectorBloor posted:


If we look over to China, it is said that there were numerous books written on military tactics, drills, etc. Yet few of them survived, with Sunzi the most prominent here in the west. Most of them were destroyed intentionally.


The thing about Sun Tzu's Art of War is, if I remember correctly, it was never meant to be a comprehensive military manual. Rather, it was written for the general-knowledge consumption of Sun Tzu's sovereign as a general information piece, not a how-to manual for generals.

Safety Biscuits
Oct 21, 2010

sbaldrick posted:

Even if it was published most of it would have been destroyed in the Sack. More then likely most major works for the classical age survived till then. They where then all destroyed by Crusaders. One major theory says that the Renaissance was kickstarted by texts from the Sack.

It depends how you're defining the Renaissance, but this did have an impact on Italian culture. For instance it was Roman monks fleeing west who brought Plato's complete works to Italy, where Ficino translated them.

sullat posted:

I wouldn't read too much into that; surviving Chinese literature had to be tough enough to survive the Yellow Emperor, the Mongols, and Ming "no innovation" policies.

You mean Qin Shi Huangdi, who burnt the books, right? There are lots of obvious gaps in Chinese mythology too, where we're pretty sure stuff was censored or simply not preserved.

RocknRollaAyatollah
Nov 26, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

House Louse posted:

You mean Qin Shi Huangdi, who burnt the books, right? There are lots of obvious gaps in Chinese mythology too, where we're pretty sure stuff was censored or simply not preserved.

He also buried 460 scholars alive, or so the histories claim. It's quite possible though that some of the stuff about him is untrue or exaggerated due to the tradition of subsequent dynasties to discredit their predecessors. Chinese rulers were, and still are, big on the, "You think I'm bad, look at these guys!" propaganda campaign.

Barto
Dec 27, 2004

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

He also buried 460 scholars alive, or so the histories claim. It's quite possible though that some of the stuff about him is untrue or exaggerated due to the tradition of subsequent dynasties to discredit their predecessors. Chinese rulers were, and still are, big on the, "You think I'm bad, look at these guys!" propaganda campaign.

Actually, he didn't burn the books at all. He gathered them all into his palace complex at Xiangyang which was burnt down by Xiang Yu some decades later during the rebellion. The criticisms of the first emperor recorded in history books are often misunderstood, because Chinese historians and court officials would always use criticize the previous dynasty in order to comment on the current one. We can see this in Sima Qian, Jia Yi, and other Han dynasty writers. Although the Han often said negative things about the Qin, when it came down to it most of the Qin legal and imperial practices were used by the Han to great effect with some slight tweaking over the centuries.

Barto
Dec 27, 2004

sullat posted:

I wouldn't read too much into that; surviving Chinese literature had to be tough enough to survive the Yellow Emperor, the Mongols, and Ming "no innovation" policies.

The Yellow Emperor is a mythical figure, by the way.
The Chinese historical corpus is humongous, it takes up like 10 front and back library shelves. Those people didn't throw anything away...
Anyway, there are a ton of military manuals both theoretical and technical available. There's the five military classics from the Spring and Autumn/Han times, and of course after the advent of printing there's enough material to keep you busy researching for decades. Of course, it's all in classical Chinese and untranslated and unlikely to be translated anytime soon.

Apollodorus
Feb 13, 2010

TEST YOUR MIGHT
:patriot:

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

He also buried 460 scholars alive, or so the histories claim. It's quite possible though that some of the stuff about him is untrue or exaggerated due to the tradition of subsequent dynasties to discredit their predecessors. Chinese rulers were, and still are, big on the, "You think I'm bad, look at these guys!" propaganda campaign.

Augustus actually did collect large volumes of Greek and Latin texts and destroy them, at least according to Suetonius. He must have gotten the idea from Qin Shi Huangdi.

brozozo
Apr 27, 2007

Conclusion: Dinosaurs.
What do we know about ancient music?

QCIC
Feb 10, 2011

die Stimme der Energie

brozozo posted:

What do we know about ancient music?

Music, at least in the Greek sense, was just that which was sung by the muses. That included poetry, prose, and drama. Any of those things might have been accompanied by a lyre/flutes.

As you go forward in antiquity, and especially as you look to the Far East, instrumental music becomes big as court entertainment, and I'm guessing they worked out the rudiments of music theory. But 'music' to contemporary Greeks, Romans, Indians and Chinese could mean vastly different things at any given time in antiquity.

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?


There is a type of written musical notation from the Greeks, and we know the types of instruments and can recreate some ancient music. I don't know much more about it, I've heard it before though. Lots of percussion.

Barto
Dec 27, 2004

brozozo posted:

What do we know about ancient music?

Roman music below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJLXyBzMci0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBLXC1Ue52I

Apparently if you buy the CD/book for this recreation group, you get a pretty informative info dump about what we know of classical music and how we know if it.
Sounds sexy anyway.

This is a recreation of the most ancient known melody, the Hurrian hymn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBhB9gRnIHE

Barto fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Dec 17, 2012

fantastic in plastic
Jun 15, 2007

The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

brozozo posted:

What do we know about ancient music?

In terms of performance or what it sounded like, well, not that much. We can speculate based on ancient instruments things like what Barto posted. I believe Kronos String Quartet has some other examples of early music, and I know there's a group that tries to recreate ancient Greek music but I can't recall its name presently.

In terms of music theory, there's a bit more that can be pieced together from ancient sources.

There's a story that Pythagoras was walking past a blacksmith's or foundry one day and, annoyed by the racket, realized that different hammers were banging out different noises on the same anvil. By loving around with the weights of the different hammers, he worked out the mathematical ratios between notes. (I'm pretty sure this story comes from Boethius, but I'm not 100% sure on its provenance.)

The Greeks also had an idea of different keys, which they called "modes"; I'm not sure whether or not they understood transposition (or, if they did, whether they liked it) or used key changes in their music. They had determined that different modes produced different psychological effects, and some of their opinions about them are of a familiar sort - "the Phrygian mode isn't music, it will make you rape your neighbor's daughter and kill your parents". The modes are named after various regions of Greece, and I'm not sure whether or not that was a mnemonic device or if there's some more meaningful correlation.

Athens called its public education program an education in music, which likely included what we'd term "literature" (though in those days it wasn't written down). Sparta thought that music was a waste of time and forbade much of it. I wouldn't be too surprised if bits of Roman music survived as early hymns.

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 believe Catholic church music (I don't know if it's hymns specifically) is directly descended from some forms of Roman music, yes. A lot of Catholic dress and ceremony and whatnot is an evolved form of Roman government ritual and ceremony. I'm sure that's a huge shock but it's true! :buddy:

EvilHawk
Sep 15, 2009

LIVARPOOL!

Klopp's 13pts clear thanks to video ref

I have a question about a Roman weapon that may or may not have existed. When I was a kid (about 10 years ago) my school went on a trip to a local museum (in Winchester, so very Roman Britain). I half-remember an object, that for some reason I think of as a "Roman mine", but I've never seen it since. It had a wooden base, cylindrical with a spherical bottom, and coming out of it was a spike. From what I remember it was designed so that it would be buried in the ground leading up to a fort, the attack would tread on the spike, driving it into his foot, and then would be unable to remove it without causing more damage. If it would help I can probably sketch up a rough estimation of what it looks like, but can anyone help me identify it?

Alchenar
Apr 9, 2008

EvilHawk posted:

I have a question about a Roman weapon that may or may not have existed. When I was a kid (about 10 years ago) my school went on a trip to a local museum (in Winchester, so very Roman Britain). I half-remember an object, that for some reason I think of as a "Roman mine", but I've never seen it since. It had a wooden base, cylindrical with a spherical bottom, and coming out of it was a spike. From what I remember it was designed so that it would be buried in the ground leading up to a fort, the attack would tread on the spike, driving it into his foot, and then would be unable to remove it without causing more damage. If it would help I can probably sketch up a rough estimation of what it looks like, but can anyone help me identify it?

You are describing a Caltrop and while I don't know anything about Roman ones they're a fairly obvious and simple device so there's no reason to suspect the Romans didn't use them.

EvilHawk
Sep 15, 2009

LIVARPOOL!

Klopp's 13pts clear thanks to video ref

Alchenar posted:

You are describing a Caltrop and while I don't know anything about Roman ones they're a fairly obvious and simple device so there's no reason to suspect the Romans didn't use them.

Yeah I meant to say they were basically caltrops, but the fact that I've never seen or heard them mentioned since makes me wonder if I've made them up.

Paulywallywalrus
Sep 10, 2012

Tao Jones posted:

In terms of performance or what it sounded like, well, not that much. We can speculate based on ancient instruments things like what Barto posted. I believe Kronos String Quartet has some other examples of early music, and I know there's a group that tries to recreate ancient Greek music but I can't recall its name presently.

In terms of music theory, there's a bit more that can be pieced together from ancient sources.

There's a story that Pythagoras was walking past a blacksmith's or foundry one day and, annoyed by the racket, realized that different hammers were banging out different noises on the same anvil. By loving around with the weights of the different hammers, he worked out the mathematical ratios between notes. (I'm pretty sure this story comes from Boethius, but I'm not 100% sure on its provenance.)

The Greeks also had an idea of different keys, which they called "modes"; I'm not sure whether or not they understood transposition (or, if they did, whether they liked it) or used key changes in their music. They had determined that different modes produced different psychological effects, and some of their opinions about them are of a familiar sort - "the Phrygian mode isn't music, it will make you rape your neighbor's daughter and kill your parents". The modes are named after various regions of Greece, and I'm not sure whether or not that was a mnemonic device or if there's some more meaningful correlation.

Athens called its public education program an education in music, which likely included what we'd term "literature" (though in those days it wasn't written down). Sparta thought that music was a waste of time and forbade much of it. I wouldn't be too surprised if bits of Roman music survived as early hymns.

I would like to add to this. One of my favorite anthropology proffs studies ancient and pre-history music and religious sounds. Bad rear end, amiright? Anyways, over all there isn't a big "body" of music we know a lot about. Instead we have our well preserved history of certain hows, such as the development of "modes" and how they were used by the Catholic and Eastern Christians. This gives us some glimpse into ancient music but most comes from major works that have been preserved nearly in entirety (a small number) or half works which have survived in oral or limited liturgical history. A good example would the celebration of Bel Tine (or Beltine). While geared for tourists this celebration contains some accurate musical and liturgical aspects of ancient music that would, for the most part, be recognizable to the ancient time traveler.

Even better!!! You know those totally bitch'n sounds you hear when you are in a cave near water? Well many anthropologists think early forms of music may have been an attempt to recreate the sounds inside sacred caves used for various religious events. Similar instruments and correlation of ancient sites gives us some pretty neat ideas about the origins of, instrumental at least, music.

I hope that was sorta helpful.


GF, could you please tell me about the level of superstition in Rome? I am predisposed to consider Romans to be rather rational but to what degree did Elites believe the myths of Rome? I.e. Brutus family being part of the overthrow of the Roman kings, other patricians seeking to link themselves to the founding of the Republic and 200 senators from Latin and Sabine states. Also, a pet questions, vestal virgins, "7" kings of Rome, and Romulus' mother...the town wolf that everyone knows how to "treat" right? (haha)

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.

Paulywallywalrus posted:

GF, could you please tell me about the level of superstition in Rome? I am predisposed to consider Romans to be rather rational but to what degree did Elites believe the myths of Rome? I.e. Brutus family being part of the overthrow of the Roman kings, other patricians seeking to link themselves to the founding of the Republic and 200 senators from Latin and Sabine states. Also, a pet questions, vestal virgins, "7" kings of Rome, and Romulus' mother...the town wolf that everyone knows how to "treat" right? (haha)
How many people in the US believe that Europeans thought the world was flat till 1492? George Washington and his cherry tree?

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?


EvilHawk posted:

Yeah I meant to say they were basically caltrops, but the fact that I've never seen or heard them mentioned since makes me wonder if I've made them up.

They definitely used sharpened sticks in pits. I don't know if I've seen what you're describing but I'm 99% sure I've seen Roman caltrops, the classic pyramidal four spike style.

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tables
Jul 7, 2011

tables
Were romans/greeks/etc aware of the effects of alcohol to the child while it was in the womb?

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