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Sleep of Bronze posted:Quite. Its 'outside-the-city'ness being retained symbolically for a long time after it was surrounded by Rome's sprawl and then even encroached on. Did it resultantly have some weird interaction with the pomerium, or does my memory deceive me? It did. The Campus Martius was the stopping point for a commanding general of a legion to wield military authority. Once he entered the pomerium, his imperium reduced. The Romans had a simple way of demonstrating it. Imperium was symbolzed by the "fasces", a bundle of reeds or sticks bound together. This is a symbol you still see in Republics today, including the U.S. In Rome, it was literally an object carried around by an office holder (or his lictor bodyguards). An office holder with imperium put an axe into the bundle of sticks, demonstrating that he had the power to take the life of another citizen. A weaponized fasces is still today often displayed on sovereign heraldry. Anyway, outside the pomerium, fasces get an axe for imperium-holding dudes. Inside the pomerium, axe comes out of the bundle unless they are a dictator.
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Feb 14, 2013 20:53
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sullat posted:I think that the specific procedure for electing the consuls was that everyone who wanted to vote would go outside the city to one of the fields set aside for that purpose. Then you'd divide up by your "tribes", hash out who your tribe was gonna vote for (remember, it was one tribe, one vote), and then the people who were running the election would ask the tribe-bossman who they were gonna vote for. Naturally, the tribes were gerrymandered so that patrician tribes were smaller than the plebian tribes, so there were checks and balances against the power of the plebs with their "numbers". There was individual voting. They didn't get anonymous individual voting until the second century BC sometime (e: Lex Gabinia of 139 BC). You'd be divided up by tribes and tribes would vote until there was an unbeatable majority, so in practice often the last tribes wouldn't get to vote. Patrician vs. Plebeian has no* actual meaning by the end of the 3rd century BC. There were poor Patricians (although they were wealthy-but-fell-on-hard-times) and rich Plebeians. It's not a good word to use to distinguish between noble/non-noble because around that time nobilitas begins to depend on the offices your ancestors have held more than your birth. Being a novus homo (= first guy to be consul in your family) is a bigger deal than being a Plebeian whose family tree has several consuls in it already. Now, the word plebeian-no-capital-letters is often just used to mean 'not an aristocrat' but it doesn't have to accord with the inherited family status thing. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, sorry  * For certain things... Some offices had to have a certain number of Patricians and Plebeians, and certain priesthoods could only be held by Patricians. Eggplant Wizard fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Feb 14, 2013 |
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Feb 14, 2013 22:59
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Who counted the votes? I assume that electoral fraud was as prevalent back then as it is today.
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Feb 14, 2013 23:12
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my dad posted:Who counted the votes? I assume that electoral fraud was as prevalent back then as it is today. We're definitely getting past stuff I know! I have been looking and haven't found anything easy to hand, I'm afraid. I am actually not sure about the details here because I haven't looked into it ever, and it's definitely something where there were multiple methods at different times and probably within the same time period but for different types of elections/votes. I'm just going to quote a huge chunk of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. rev.), s.v. elections and voting, Roman, written by Jeremy J. Paterson: quote:At Rome adult male citizens had the right to vote to elect the annual magistrates, to make laws, to declare war and peace, and, until the development of the public courts in the late republic, to try citizens on serious charges. But the remarkable feature of the Roman system was that matters were never decided by a simple majority. Votes were always cast in assigned groups, so that a majority of individual votes decided the vote of each group, and a majority of groups decided the vote of the assembly as a whole. The three groupings of the curiae (curia (1)), centuries (centuria), and tribes (tribus) made up the different types of comitia.
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Feb 15, 2013 00:07
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Thanks. Holy crap, that was hella complicated. Although I guess it was the best they could do given the tools available. e: What the hell happened to your avatar? 
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Feb 15, 2013 00:44
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my dad posted:Thanks. Check the leper's colony. I'm an uneducated, frothing feminist lapdog nazi. If you need to follow up, discussion should go here. 
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Feb 15, 2013 01:36
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Check the leper's colony. I'm an uneducated, frothing feminist lapdog nazi. If you need to follow up, discussion should go here. Stercus sacrum. That went from comma splices to Hitler startlingly quickly. On-topic: My 12-year-old (soon to be 13-year-old) son wants to study Attic Greek; unfortunately, his school system has even stopped teaching Latin, let alone ancient Greek, so it's left to me to teaech him. While I have a couple years sunk into the language and can probably guide him capably enough at the outset, my textbooks are at a college level (Mastronarde and a couple of older JACT texts). I'd love to find him a text that's geared to teenagers, but I'm not sure what's good. Anyone have any experience here?
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Feb 15, 2013 01:59
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CAE Luschnig's An Introduction to Ancient Greek: A Literary Approach is decent enough, paced well, and in my opinion something a smart teenager could handle given proper supervision. On the extreme other end, Hansen and Quinn's Greek: An Intensive Course is how the pros would roll, but it would be a cruel thing to give it to a thirteen year old.
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Feb 15, 2013 02:28
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The classics thread in SAL is probably the place to ask, if you haven't already.
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Feb 15, 2013 03:08
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Besesoth posted:Stercus sacrum. That went from comma splices to Hitler startlingly quickly. Yeah, classics thread. You might look into Athenaze, which is story-based. Hansen & Quinn is good but it's definitely designed for college level.
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Feb 15, 2013 16:19
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I always forget about the Classics thread.  Thank you.
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Feb 15, 2013 17:09
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So what the hell was going on in ancient Judea? There seems to have been a shitload of civil strife even before Rome was involved between various different factions and then there is constant unrest under Roman rule culminating in some massive revolts.
Pump it up! Do it! fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Feb 16, 2013 |
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Feb 16, 2013 04:57
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Lord Tywin posted:So what the hell was going on in ancient Judea? There seems to have been a shitload of civil strife even before Rome was involved between various different factions and then there is constant unrest under Roman rule culminating in some massive revolts. That's about the short of it. The Hasmodeans rebelled from the Selucid empire in ~150 BC, and then fell into civil war ~70 BC. The losing brother hired some mercenaries, who asked for help from the Romans which ended up with Judea being a Roman "ally" which meant that the Romans got to choose the ruler. They chose Herod, who wasn't very nice (although the "massacre of the innocents" in the nativity story never actually happened.) This led to more revolts, an incompetant ruler, direct Roman rule, etc. Crassus famously barged into the "holy of holies" on the temple mount, Pompey looted the poo poo out of the temple treasury, they installed Roman icons all over the temple grounds which sparked riots, various prophets and would-be messiahs preached rebellion, which led to massacres (and execution of anyone claiming to be a messiah), culminating in the First Jewish War of 70 AD. Read Josephus, it's a good one. Things quieted down a bit until the Second Jewish War (120 AD), after which the Jews were expelled from Jerusalem. Some people label the Jewish and anti-Jewish riots of the 300's as the "Third Jewish War" but that's a bit of a strech.
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Feb 16, 2013 05:26
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Hey there Fromage / thread, this might be a little off topic but... in your opinion whats a good starter book for universal history. Doesn't matter if it is basic stuff.
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Feb 17, 2013 02:00
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turboraton posted:Hey there Fromage / thread, this might be a little off topic but... in your opinion whats a good starter book for universal history. Doesn't matter if it is basic stuff. Fromage posted this series earlier in the thread, and I completely fell in love with it. Crash Course World History: 12 minute videos with great graphics and a good narrator. Plus you can get in on the ground floor of their new US History course. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBDA2E52FB1EF80C9 Kaal fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Feb 17, 2013 |
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Feb 17, 2013 03:10
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I haven't read much in the way of general histories because they're so shallow. I've been watching Andrew Marrs' History of the World documentary, it's overly Eurocentric but not bad as these things go. I understand there's a nice thick book that goes with it, and I generally like Marrs' work. I've heard good things about the History of the World in Six Glasses or whatever the gently caress it's called, those types of work tend to be good since it gives you a wide-ranging field but it's focused on a topic. I find they often mention things in passing that send you off to other places.
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Feb 17, 2013 04:25
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turboraton posted:Hey there Fromage / thread, this might be a little off topic but... in your opinion whats a good starter book for universal history. Doesn't matter if it is basic stuff. When I did History 101 many ages ago, we used "A History of World Societies" by John P. McKay. As I recall it was both informative and well-written.
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Feb 17, 2013 19:13
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Besesoth posted:Stercus sacrum. That went from comma splices to Hitler startlingly quickly. Dude don't teach him Greek. Don't you remember middle school? The Latinists will beat him up!
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Feb 18, 2013 00:08
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Dude don't teach him Greek. Don't you remember middle school? The Latinists will beat him up! There are no Latinists in his middle school (more's the pity, honestly; nobody can seem to figure out why there's no Latin class - shortage of teachers, in which case I'd volunteer until a certified teacher was found, or shortage of students), so I think he's safe.
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Feb 18, 2013 03:04
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sullat posted:Crassus famously barged into the "holy of holies" on the temple mount This sounds hilarious, does anyone know the longer version of this story?
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Feb 18, 2013 03:50
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Crystal Geometry posted:This sounds hilarious, does anyone know the longer version of this story? Quite a few famous romans of that generation did it, apparently. Pompey is said to have slapped the doors open just to see what the fuzz was about - Crassus was at least just looking for cash. Later on, Caligula wanted to put a statue of himself in the temple and Titus is said to have taken a peek at the holy-of-holies before razing it to the ground. It was a happening spot! This is the relevant passage from Josephus War of the Jews regarding Pompeys visit a couple of years before Crassus: "... But there was nothing that affected the nation so much, in the calamities they were then under, as that their holy place, which had been hitherto seen by none, should be laid open to strangers; for Pompey, and those that were about him, went into the temple itself whither it was not lawful for any to enter but the high priest, and saw what was reposited therein, the candlestick with its lamps, and the table, and the pouring vessels, and the censers, all made entirely of gold, as also a great quantity of spices heaped together, with two thousand talents of sacred money... " And this is Josephus on Crassus poking his head in there on his way to Carrhae and disaster: "... In the mean time, Crassus came as successor to Gabinius in Syria. He took away all the rest of the gold belonging to the temple of Jerusalem, in order to furnish himself for his expedition against the Parthians."
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Feb 18, 2013 04:29
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Okay now I'm surprised I've never heard that used as Conclusive Evidence for the Existence of Judeo-Christian God.
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Feb 18, 2013 08:34
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I will never not be annoyed that the words pompous and crass aren't actually derived from Pompeius and Crassus.
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Feb 18, 2013 08:45
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Crassus really strikes me as the Donald Trump of his day. This has been such a great thread, I've read the whole thing, and my questions on the first page were answered 
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Feb 18, 2013 13:49
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To put things in perspective, looting temples was a mainstay of the ancient world. Many of them, in addition to being independently wealthy, operated as banking concerns. Last wills and testaments were lodged with them, royal heirs often stashed away among the priesthoods to keep them safe from palace intrigues. Certain Greek areas were like the offshore Caymans of the modern world. The first thing any conqueror did was hit up the local temples to empty out the accounts, and if they were being kind of dickish, grab the decorations & sell them, maybe grab VIPs and ransom them for cash/favors.
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Feb 18, 2013 17:27
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physeter posted:To put things in perspective, looting temples was a mainstay of the ancient world. Many of them, in addition to being independently wealthy, operated as banking concerns. Last wills and testaments were lodged with them, royal heirs often stashed away among the priesthoods to keep them safe from palace intrigues. Certain Greek areas were like the offshore Caymans of the modern world. The first thing any conqueror did was hit up the local temples to empty out the accounts, and if they were being kind of dickish, grab the decorations & sell them, maybe grab VIPs and ransom them for cash/favors. I think it was also pretty common for the city treasury to be kept in one or other temple. There were often close connections between the priesthood and the government bureacracy in the ancient world (including in Rome, where a lot of aspiring polticians would serve a stint as priest of one or other god on the way up the ladder).
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Feb 18, 2013 21:58
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Phobophilia posted:Okay now I'm surprised I've never heard that used as Conclusive Evidence for the Existence of Judeo-Christian God. Asimov's Left Hand of the Election contains an interesting essay on this angle of the story.
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Feb 18, 2013 23:32
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physeter posted:To put things in perspective, looting temples was a mainstay of the ancient world. Many of them, in addition to being independently wealthy, operated as banking concerns. Last wills and testaments were lodged with them, royal heirs often stashed away among the priesthoods to keep them safe from palace intrigues. Certain Greek areas were like the offshore Caymans of the modern world. The first thing any conqueror did was hit up the local temples to empty out the accounts, and if they were being kind of dickish, grab the decorations & sell them, maybe grab VIPs and ransom them for cash/favors. Did this have an ethnoreligious component? I would guess that temples would get those functions because they're inviolable to the people of that culture, but if you get an invader from afield all bets are off.
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Feb 18, 2013 23:52
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ptk posted:Did this have an ethnoreligious component? I would guess that temples would get those functions because they're inviolable to the people of that culture, but if you get an invader from afield all bets are off. The higher willingness of an outsider to plunder the holy places of a subjugated culture was definitely a factor. I recall the (in)famous Gold of Tolosa, plundered by Gauls from Greece and then later, plundered by Romans from the Gauls. The monetary value of the hoard was staggering. Most of it may have been stolen by a Servilius, who was later convicted and went into exile in Smyrna. Smyrna was one of the most famous Hellenic banking centers, so the Gold of Tolosa made its way home in the end.
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Feb 19, 2013 15:17
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I suppose the stone temples would also have been relatively fireproof.
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Feb 19, 2013 15:21
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There was definitely an ethnocentric factor to it. On the other hand a lot of ancient people viewed foreign religions as being equally true, the Romans especially did it. Egyptian gods were treated as if they were every bit as real as the Roman ones, and some gained traction in the empire, particularly Isis. And the Roman pantheon has at least one god that was intentionally imported whole cloth from Anatolia, Magna Mater. Mithras was from the east and hugely popular in the military. It's a key difference between the ancient treatment of religion and how we think of it today. The idea of One True God and the rest of you are heathen motherfuckers isn't new, but it was not in any way common in the classical world. The Jews believed it (even though the Old Testament kinda straight up says there are multiple gods but that's a whole other thread), but there weren't many of them. It doesn't become a widespread thing until after Christianity. So, there was some reluctance to piss off the gods--any gods--because they would take revenge. But, you know, that temple is full of gold so gently caress it. Human nature. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 15:23
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euphronius posted:I suppose the stone temples would also have been relatively fireproof. Bricks are also relatively fireproof, but that doesn't stop houses burning down (these buildings are full of flammable objects).
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Feb 19, 2013 15:30
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I said relatively fireproof!
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Feb 19, 2013 15:32
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physeter posted:Good armor in particular was really expensive, the early/mid Republican Romans would salvage it when they could and tuck it away somewhere in case they ever needed it. Raiding these emergency supplies became a popular pastime for desperate commanders in the First Civil War. Huh. Didn't know that was done past the spoilia opima. I guess those weren't likely to be touched, even in an emergency.
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Feb 19, 2013 16:50
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Before the equipment was standardized and manufactured at state expense, it was a serious burden. Everyone who held property had to be available to fight, so you had to equip yourself properly. It's a lot cheaper to rip some armor off a guy and take it home than to have it forged for you. And it's nice to have spares.
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Feb 19, 2013 16:54
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Grand Fromage posted:But, you know, that temple is full of gold so gently caress it. Human nature. Also there's the factor of, if their god is so powerful, how did he let his temple get looted (and his people sold into slavery, etc.)?
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Feb 19, 2013 17:26
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I'll just sacrifice some of this loot to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and he'll protect me from your pussy-rear end god's wrath. Problem solved! 
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Feb 19, 2013 17:29
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Alchenar posted:Bricks are also relatively fireproof, but that doesn't stop houses burning down (these buildings are full of flammable objects). Modern houses rely on wood for support a lot more than ancient temples did. When the entire building is supported by stone walls, you're going to have to do some kind of significant structural damage before it'll fall down. The normal things that a temple would have in it just wouldn't be able to do much to the structure, no matter how much they burn. Unless the temple is packed with gunpowder.
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Feb 19, 2013 18:24
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The Babylonians and the Romans were able to burn down the First and Second Temples without having to use any fancy "gunpowder". Where there's a will (and an army to back it up), there's a way. Speaking of temples as banks; here's an article about a temple being used to store treasure from as long ago as right now. Dunno if that's behind a paywall or not, but basically a temple in India has a ton of wealth, but nobody knows precisely how much. A group of devotees sued the custodians (former royal family of the area) to get an audit, and it turns out that there's a lot more wealth than anyone thought. Apparently they used to raid the vaults for money to maintain the temple, but now it's become a major tourist attraction and pays for itself. But now the Communist Party of Kerala wants a piece of the action for the state, while the Indian Supreme Court is wrestling with the legal issues. Apparently, the god actaully owns the treasure and the temple, and the royal family is just the trustee of it. So far the god has not commented on the case. sullat fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 18:29
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Since the thread was recently talking about personal combat. Is there any truth to the idea that during the Marcomannic Wars, Marcus Valerius Maximianus defeated one of the German tribes by killing their leader in personal combat? I heard it suggested, probably in the History of Rome podcast, that this was a case of defeating the enemy tribe through personal combat, but some Googling seems to indicate that he personally killed the chieftain in the context of a broader battle, and that likely broke the German tribe, rather than as a one-on-one loser goes home type battle.
Not My Leg fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Feb 20, 2013 |
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Feb 20, 2013 23:24
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