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Koramei posted:Huh, I always thought the connection was more firm than that. I don't suppose you (or anybody that knows about them) feel like doing a write up on the Scythians do you? That whole region is fairly neglected in general history. No, you're right, I didn't mean to write it like that. I should clarify: the Scythians and Sarmatians were closely related, what I mean is that our knowledge of the area is a bit shoddy, so the relationship between these two and the other peoples that might've fallen under the Scythian banner isn't clear. Essentially, first you had the Scythians, then the Sarmatians (a sub-tribe of sorts) took over, but the difference between the two isn't always obvious.
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Mar 5, 2013 00:56
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my dad posted:Since the Divine Comedy is essentially medieval fanfiction - self-insert, perfect yet distant love interest, super-awesome popular character that guides the self-insert, coopted bits of everything cool the author read, and numerous jabs at everyone the author dislikes included - I'm pretty sure that it doesn't count. True enough, but Christianity did adopt a ton of pagan stuff as it spread. It's usually explained as incorporating local gods in order to make conversion easier. I'm not sure how much truth there is to that reason but for whatever the reason, many of the festivals and the saints and such are straight up lifted from the various pre-Christian faiths around Europe. And there has always been debate on whether Christians actually worship a single god or two gods or a pantheon with one at the head or whatever the gently caress. At the beginning the debate was quite intense, presumably because Christianity was new and the idea of following multiple gods was familiar. The Old Testament does straight up say that there are many gods but the Jews should only be worshiping ME because I am the best god, which is a remnant of that transition. The break between polytheism and monotheism isn't a clean one. You also get to blow people's minds when you tell them Hinduism is (essentially) monotheistic.
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Mar 5, 2013 02:08
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Grand Fromage posted:You also get to blow people's minds when you tell them Hinduism is (essentially) monotheistic.
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Mar 5, 2013 02:41
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Azathoth posted:As someone who knows next-to-nothing about Hinduism, I'd really like you to elaborate on that statement. I'm not an expert and there are multiple traditions/sects/whatever, but essentially in Hinduism there is a single god, Brahman. All the gods we know like Vishnu or Shiva are aspects of Brahman, but are not themselves gods. So it is worship of a single god through various forms. Roman gods did it too, there's Jupiter Feretrius and Jupiter Optimus Maximus and Jupiter Stator and so on, it's all Jupiter but different aspects for different uses. Or Father/Son/Holy Ghost, for a familiar example. Again, not at all a Hinduism expert but this is my understanding of it from my one class like seven years ago. 
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Mar 5, 2013 02:47
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There's a bunch of different Hindu traditions, but of the big four only one isn't monotheist. They all have different ones as the main god, that's one of the main differences. Vishnu, Shiva and Shakti, namely. Smartism is a bit more tangled, and that's the one where common Western notions of Hinduism come from. I think you could argue that it's monotheistic too, and everything leads to Brahman or w/e.
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Mar 5, 2013 04:20
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Grand Fromage posted:True enough, but Christianity did adopt a ton of pagan stuff as it spread. It's usually explained as incorporating local gods in order to make conversion easier. I'm not sure how much truth there is to that reason but for whatever the reason, many of the festivals and the saints and such are straight up lifted from the various pre-Christian faiths around Europe. And there has always been debate on whether Christians actually worship a single god or two gods or a pantheon with one at the head or whatever the gently caress. At the beginning the debate was quite intense, presumably because Christianity was new and the idea of following multiple gods was familiar. The Babylonian captivity is what finally shook the Hebrews free from their polytheism. They never really figured it out beforehand, but were quite changed when they came back. Some exposure to Zoroastrianism probably helped.
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Mar 5, 2013 05:23
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Deteriorata posted:The Babylonian captivity is what finally shook the Hebrews free from their polytheism. They never really figured it out beforehand, but were quite changed when they came back. Some exposure to Zoroastrianism probably helped. Or, to put it in less inane terms, a monotheist faction within Israeli court took control of its religious policies during the Babylonian captivity.
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Mar 5, 2013 05:25
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Ras Het posted:Or, to put it in less inane terms, a monotheist faction within Israeli court took control of its religious policies during the Babylonian captivity. However you want to put it. The Judaism that came back from Babylon was quite different than the one that went.
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Mar 5, 2013 05:28
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Morol posted:Read this book, it doesn't really go into the Celts, but it explains the origin and spread of the Indo-European languages. Looks like there's a Kindle edition, so I'm adding it to my list, thanks. Really appreciating the posts from everyone about this stuff. I'm going to do some looking into things... And will be back with more to share/ask.
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Mar 5, 2013 06:02
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Ras Het posted:Or, to put it in less inane terms, a monotheist faction within Israeli court took control of its religious policies during the Babylonian captivity.
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Mar 5, 2013 12:37
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cheerfullydrab posted:I don't like anyone drawing parallels between the Biblical state of Israel and it's current monstrous semi-descendant, even casual parallels. I find it funny that you consider the contemporary Israel as "monstrous" compared to the Biblical kingdom that would slaughter entire cities and enslave the survivors...
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Mar 5, 2013 12:43
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Biblical Israel was also monstrous. They can both be bad. I guess the main difference is that humans have come up with the concept of "crimes against humanity" in the interim.
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Mar 5, 2013 13:06
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I was mainly upset at using the same term for the current inhabitants of that area and the people who lived there 3000 years ago. I feel that they should be differentiated.
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Mar 5, 2013 13:10
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Without commenting on the relative merit of your position, let's keep modern politics in D&D, please.
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Mar 5, 2013 14:58
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Agreed, not down this rabbit hole. Let us assume all references to Israel or Jews is the ancient Israel and people, not anything that's happening these days.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:10
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cheerfullydrab posted:Biblical Israel was also monstrous. They can both be bad. I guess the main difference is that humans have come up with the concept of "crimes against humanity" in the interim. Historically pretty much every society was monstrous, for the the reason you mentioned at the end. It's really hard to judge ancient societies by modern morals, since you are asking people to make moral leaps 2000 years or more into the future of human development. Nearly all of them were some combination of what we would call racist, sexist, violent, genocidal, oppressive, etc... etc... Even hunter gatherer societies are tremendously violent by our standards to those outside the band or tribe.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:11
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Grand Fromage posted:Agreed, not down this rabbit hole. Let us assume all references to Israel or Jews is the ancient Israel and people, not anything that's happening these days. Now with modhat!
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Mar 5, 2013 15:20
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Now with modhat! Oh no I backseated. 
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Mar 5, 2013 15:22
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Grand Fromage posted:Oh no I backseated. No silly I was saying I'm A Mod And I Approve Of This Message. In case anyone didn't listen.
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Mar 5, 2013 15:23
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Eggplant Wizard posted:No silly I was saying I'm A Mod And I Approve Of This Message. In case anyone didn't listen. Oh god I'm gonna get abducted in the middle of the night and taken to Something Awful Incorporated's dungeon. Guys! Help!
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Mar 5, 2013 15:31
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*grabs Grand Fromage's Toga and tears it down*
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Mar 5, 2013 15:33
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Koramei posted:It took a very long time to transition, didn't it? I thought that even Medieval Christianity (and I guess even to this day to an extent) was more monolatry than actual monotheism; what really are the archangels but minor deities themselves, not to mention coopted mythologies in the Divine Comedy and so on. E: I say was, but I'm honestly not that familiar with modern religious practices for all the variations of Christianity, I'm pretty sure it's not done by Protestants though, but it could still be an active practice depending on what type of Christian you are. Smart Car fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 16:22
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So what's the most distant place we can certainly know that a Roman (as in citizen of the Roman Republic/Empire) has ever been to? East Rome obviously counts!
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Mar 5, 2013 17:01
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DarkCrawler posted:So what's the most distant place we can certainly know that a Roman (as in citizen of the Roman Republic/Empire) has ever been to? East Rome obviously counts! Rome sent multiple envoy's to China, I think in the area that is now Southeast Asia and not China proper. Theoretically there is no reason they could not have gone further north to Korea as Japan, but there is no record of this ever happening so its all speculation.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:10
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DarkCrawler posted:So what's the most distant place we can certainly know that a Roman (as in citizen of the Roman Republic/Empire) has ever been to? East Rome obviously counts! West coast of India for sure, there was at least one permanent Roman settlement and two trade posts that may have been permanent, but were at least occasionally visited. I am personally sure that Luoyang, China (the court of the Han emperor at the time, I believe) would be the furthest place Romans definitely went, but there is some debate on the subject. I think most would say it happened, there are numerous records of Roman envoys arriving in the Chinese court. There's a reasonable chance someone went all the way south along the east coast of Africa, but Luoyang is further I think. I doubt anyone went to Korea or Japan but it's possible. There's no evidence of it, Roman goods have been found in both but were likely just trades. There is also solid proof of Roman trade routes around the Malay Peninsula up to China but unclear if those were Roman manned ships. The envoys to China probably sailed so the east coast of China somewhere would be the furthest point.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:13
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WoodrowSkillson posted:*grabs Grand Fromage's Toga and tears it down* Oh bravo, tell me you meant that in the Manius Aquillius sense.
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Mar 5, 2013 17:43
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Tilius Cimber actually, the guy who initiated the attack on Caesar.
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Mar 5, 2013 18:43
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Manius Aquillius was a patrician legate of Gaius Marius in the battles against the Germans, among other accomplishments. In later life, he was tried for some sort of bullshit or other. Marcus Antonius Crassus Orator conducted the defense, and completed his oration by marching up to the witness stand and ripping Aquillius’ toga off. Aquillius stood naked before the jury, his chest covered in scars from German weapons. The jury voted unanimously for acquittal. (Years later some punk tried the same trick, but Cicero remembered the stories and remarked that the new lawyer wasn’t Crassus Orator, and that the new defendant’s scars were very small and likely from womens’ teeth.)
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Mar 5, 2013 19:00
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physeter posted:(Years later some punk tried the same trick, but Cicero remembered the stories and remarked that the new lawyer wasn’t Crassus Orator, and that the new defendant’s scars were very small and likely from womens’ teeth.) "Sir, I knew Marcus Antonius, and you sir are no Marcus Antonius."
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Mar 5, 2013 19:30
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I had a professor who compared Roman trials to be almost like rap battles at times.
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Mar 5, 2013 20:08
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canuckanese posted:I had a professor who compared Roman trials to be almost like rap battles at times. I think the analysis of the evidence did often come second best to the sickness of your advocate's burns on the other side and the noisiness of the crowd you brought with you. Which sounds very like a rap battle. And they were also a form of popular entertainment, although to be honest trials nowadays can sometimes be that too. In fairness, the ones we know most about are the ones that involved politicians or other well-known people. They probably didn't roll out the big guns quite so much when Lucius was suing Sextus because a loose tile from Sextus' roof hit him on the head.
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Mar 5, 2013 21:08
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canuckanese posted:I had a professor who compared Roman trials to be almost like rap battles at times. Vos, quod milia multa basiorum legistis, male me marem putatis? Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo (bitch).
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Mar 5, 2013 21:27
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Jeoh posted:Vos, quod milia multa basiorum legistis, male me marem putatis? Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo (bitch). Honestly the first line of that poem is quite possibly filthier than anything I've heard in a modern rap song.
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Mar 5, 2013 21:40
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Columbia University Press is having a 50% sale: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3536848 They have a bunch of books on ancient stuff. Look under History > Classical History. They have other non-Mediterranean ancient history stuff too. (x-posting elsewhere for all and sundry)
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Mar 6, 2013 04:32
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The first Romans to have reached China were firmly recorded in the Han Annals. They claimed to have been sent by Marcus Aurelius, but were more likely enterprising merchants using the name of the emperor to gain favor in the Han court. The gifts they presented to the Han emperor were fairly common trade goods, like tortoise shell. Other Romans reached China in time, but there is no evidence they were sent as an official embassy. Likewise, the Chinese never reached Rome, even though they tried. They got as far as Nabataea, probably, before turning around. Roman merchants likely reached other parts of southeast Asia, and certainly a great many reached India. Trade in the Indian Ocean exploded after 27 B.C., paricularly after the Augustan campaigns into Ethiopia and Arabia. A poo poo ton of coin hoards dating to the Augustan and early Julio-Claudian eras have been found throughout India.
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Mar 6, 2013 15:45
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Ras Het posted:There's a bunch of different Hindu traditions, but of the big four only one isn't monotheist. They all have different ones as the main god, that's one of the main differences. Vishnu, Shiva and Shakti, namely. Smartism is a bit more tangled, and that's the one where common Western notions of Hinduism come from. I think you could argue that it's monotheistic too, and everything leads to Brahman or w/e. I was reading a book by a low caste Indian titled Why I am not a Hindu and it really confused Indian religion for me. He claimed he had never heard of Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, or Brahma until he entered high school and was subjected to education by Brahmins, and that his own caste had an entirely different pantheon of gods I had never heard of. It wasn't really written for a western audience and had an anti-Brahmin political slant so I'm not sure how accurately it portraid religious differences between varnas but it was really opened my eyes to the huge gulfs between Hindu denominations.
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Mar 7, 2013 00:14
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canuckanese posted:Honestly the first line of that poem is quite possibly filthier than anything I've heard in a modern rap song. Just checked, and there are loads of products named pedicare.  
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Mar 7, 2013 01:22
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Squalid posted:I was reading a book by a low caste Indian titled Why I am not a Hindu and it really confused Indian religion for me. He claimed he had never heard of Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, or Brahma until he entered high school and was subjected to education by Brahmins, and that his own caste had an entirely different pantheon of gods I had never heard of. It wasn't really written for a western audience and had an anti-Brahmin political slant so I'm not sure how accurately it portraid religious differences between varnas but it was really opened my eyes to the huge gulfs between Hindu denominations. If anyone knows about Indian theology, I'd love to hear the deal with this.
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Mar 7, 2013 23:21
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Grand Prize Winner posted:If anyone knows about Indian theology, I'd love to hear the deal with this. Part of it is probably the fact that India is a ridiculously diverse place with serious regional differentiation. I mean, even now there are hundreds of languages there. Hundreds.
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Mar 8, 2013 00:36
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Part of it is probably the fact that India is a ridiculously diverse place with serious regional differentiation. I mean, even now there are hundreds of languages there. Hundreds. This actually brings up something that's always interested me. Both Europe and India are both really diverse and heterogenous, and whilst (sub)continent-spanning Empires did arise on both subcontinents, they never really took. Meanwhile China became very homogenous and its subcontinent-spanning Empires lasted just as long as its periods of division, and after the Sui+Tang at least, and for some people, probably during the Han Dynasty, a unified China ended up being considered the norm, with the periods of division as complete abberations. I wonder what it was, exactly, that caused China to become so readily unified - it was just as large, if not a larger area than India or Europe, and still rather diverse - there are 56 recognized ethnic minorities in the PRC today, and a further 15 unrecognized minorities according to Wikipedia, but unlike the Roman or Mauryan Empires, Chinese Civilization was able to put itself back together fairly readily, and I'm not quite sure why.
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Mar 8, 2013 00:50
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