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I haven't read that one yet, but both Rubicon and Persian Fire are excellently researched and presented so I would tend to assume he treated that subject the same way. But again, haven't read it nor do I know the subject super well.
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Mar 30, 2013 08:18
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Did the hoplite phalanx really fight with the back ranks pushing against the front ranks? Was the interlocking of shields actually practical, or was it more of a form of posturing?
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Mar 30, 2013 12:19
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Jerusalem posted:Did Mark Antony indulge in pretended homosexual affairs in his youth in order to scandalize Roman society? Over the past decades of classical scholarship, Cicero has lost quite a bit of his luster and these speeches are no longer considered true accounts of Antony's early life. For example, I was taught several times that Antony used to run around in women's clothing to scandalize Rome, when in fact this comes from a clumsy reading of the Philippics where Cicero refers to Antony wearing the garb of a woman, which was a poetic way of calling Antony a bitch, not meant to be literally interpreted. But McCullough's books (I never finished the series or made it as far as Antony) are probably from the "Cicero told literal truth" school of research, I'm guessing. Certainly, Antony ran with a shabby crowd. He was known to be a bad seed as a young man, but I'm aware of no corroboration for the homosexuality/cross-dressing accusations. And we all know who got the last laugh. 
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Mar 30, 2013 14:35
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Amyclas posted:Did the hoplite phalanx really fight with the back ranks pushing against the front ranks? Was the interlocking of shields actually practical, or was it more of a form of posturing? A. I doubt. It'd limit mobility, and we see far too many retreats that don't turn out bloody for that to be happening. I think that is much more a conscript army with musket thing. B. Is yes and no. It's not like the shields had clips or whatever to lock into each other, and (usually) they were round. I mean, the Romans had the tortoise, but they had the shields for that (and even then, only used it to ward off arrows, not a point blank ranges.) Anyway,Soldiers were responsible for defending each other. Amusingly, this lead to people scooting right to get their unshielded side covered by the guy to their right, so the guy on their left has to move right so the guy on his left etc. etc. and sometimes you got battles where both sides slowly rotated around counterclockwise.
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Mar 30, 2013 17:31
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Just a quick post to say that anyone interested in Holland's Rubicon but can't commit to reading (another) book right now should check out the audiobook. I thought it was excellently done.
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Mar 30, 2013 17:54
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I was reading about Crassus and Varus on Wikipedia last night, and both of the articles mentioned that their defeats in battle led the to the early termination of promising careers for their respective sons. Was that a typical thing to happen if a senior family member hosed up, or were Carrhae and Teutoburg such disasters that no one in Rome wanted anything to do with the relatives of those fallen leaders?
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Mar 30, 2013 19:55
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physeter posted:Certainly, Antony ran with a shabby crowd. He was known to be a bad seed as a young man, but I'm aware of no corroboration for the homosexuality/cross-dressing accusations. And we all know who got the last laugh. Yeah, Jesus Christ, Fulvia  Speaking of which, did she die of a "sudden illness" or did she commit suicide/was she murdered? It seems strangely convenient that she would happen to die so shortly after Antony decided he had no use for her anymore. Also I just read Augustus' epigram re: Fulvia  "Because Antony fucks Glaphyra, Fulvia has arranged this punishment for me: that I gently caress her too. That I gently caress Fulvia? What if Manius begged me to bugger him? Would I? I don't think so, if I were sane 'Either gently caress or let's fight,' she says. Doesn't she know my prick is dearer to me than life itself? Let the trumpets blare!"
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Mar 30, 2013 21:11
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brozozo posted:I was reading about Crassus and Varus on Wikipedia last night, and both of the articles mentioned that their defeats in battle led the to the early termination of promising careers for their respective sons. Was that a typical thing to happen if a senior family member hosed up, or were Carrhae and Teutoburg such disasters that no one in Rome wanted anything to do with the relatives of those fallen leaders? iirc Crassus' son(s) died in battle. I guess you could say their early termination cut short their military careers
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Mar 30, 2013 21:59
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Jerusalem posted:Speaking of which, did she die of a "sudden illness" or did she commit suicide/was she murdered? It seems strangely convenient that she would happen to die so shortly after Antony decided he had no use for her anymore. I'd vote murdered. I don't typically sensationalize sudden deaths in the Roman upper classes, but the political situation of the times and the relatively immense power Fulvia wielded would have made her a tempting target, which brings me to the other question raised, about Caesar's Suburan upbringing and his mother. McCullough's ridiculous treatment of the patrician family living there and their little pet assassins' guild is part of what put me off the series, but it does inadvertantly shine a light on a more contemporary view of the class relationships in Rome. As I've mentioned in this thread, virtually all classes of men participated in the clientship system, which was a quasi-legal vassalage network that permeated their entire society. That system is likely one of the roots of medieval era vassalage, and bears an eerie resemblance to modern day mafia structures. Organized crime doesn't have much meaning in a place where the organizations already permanently exist, the only question is whether members of those organizations happen to be breaking the law at any given time. In history, Aurelia Cotta is (of course) the perfect Roman matron. In Masters of Rome, she's a quirky naive woman who just happens to win the altruistic adoration of the local criminal gangs. In reality? The Aurelii Cottae were a consular family with plenty of money and power, the Julii weren't as wealthy but certainly powerful. I wouldn't be shocked at all if Aurelia (or more likely, a male member of either house) was administering family connections and business in the Subura out of the insula where Caesar grew up. But that's just a conclusion based upon circumstantial evidence, I'm not aware of anything textual. But then there might not necessarily have been any reason to record it, since the Romans didn't see it as anything exceptional.
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Mar 31, 2013 01:04
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I've lurked in this thread for some months now and I've learned an amazing amount of stuff so thank you for a grand thread! Also I got a question, are there any contemporary Roman sources talking about Alexander the Great? I know that pretty much every warlord since then compared himself to Alexander, but it would be intresting to know what the romans at the time thought. Like if they were scared that he might turn west or if they just didn't care enough, if they even knew about him.
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Mar 31, 2013 01:34
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I'm not aware of any contemporary Roman sources, no. I imagine at the time they were more caught up in just holding their own in all the Italian wars going on and trying to work out the power balance between the classes whenever the fighting stopped (and often during the fighting too, because political brinksmanship is hardly a modern invention). Mediterranean trade networks probably brought them rumours but I'm not sure that Alexander would really have figured into their thinking hugely.
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Mar 31, 2013 01:56
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Latin literature only began nearly a hundred years after Alexander's death, from before like 250BC we only have small fragments and brief inscriptions.
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Mar 31, 2013 02:24
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I have been absolutely loving this thread since I worked my way through it months ago. I'm currently working my way through The Horse, the Wheel, and Language because of this thread and I'm enjoying it immensely. It's really piqued my interesting in ancient cultures, particularly ones that we only really know about from archaeology. Since this has become the general ancient history thread, I was wondering if someone could talk about one of these cultures, specifically the Mississippian culture and the associated Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. I only know what I have read on Wikipedia and it seems utterly fascinating.
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Mar 31, 2013 02:49
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Speaking of historical novels set in Ancient Rome, I recently finished The Corpus Conundrum, a murder mystery "From The Journal of Pliny The Younger". It was actually rather good. I don't know how historically accurate it was in general (and if anyone here has read it and can tell me about that aspect, please do) but the setting of Pliny's country villa was at least described accurately in accordance with the description in Pliny's own remaining letters.
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Mar 31, 2013 07:19
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How do present-day politics and economics affect antiquarian studies? I mean, there are scads of Roman and earlier/later sites all across Syria, Egypt, and Libya--and other presently-unstable countries. Are there any factors aside from the danger of the sites getting shelled and trouble with the local regime that affect their excavation?
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Mar 31, 2013 07:59
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Grand Prize Winner posted:How do present-day politics and economics affect antiquarian studies? I mean, there are scads of Roman and earlier/later sites all across Syria, Egypt, and Libya--and other presently-unstable countries. Are there any factors aside from the danger of the sites getting shelled and trouble with the local regime that affect their excavation? Well, you should also include "can't get any funding". There are, as you might expect, an awful lot of unfound, unexcavated Roman sites in any former core Roman territory, but few nations devote very much money to digging them up to be honest. This means that even Europe is not really fully explored for Roman stuff.
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Mar 31, 2013 14:45
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I just finished the Caesar Augustus part of the History of Rome podcast, so my question is how did the "Livia kills everyone" school of thought take root? As I understand it, the Julio-Claudian sons all died in very different places, sometimes even near the borders of the Empire. How could Livia had reached all those places?
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Apr 1, 2013 06:27
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I wish I knew more about Mississppian culture as well. I'd suggest reading up on the Caddo too since they were of the same cultural complex and continue to exist as a tribe. Anyone have book or podcast recommendations?
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Apr 1, 2013 07:54
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just finished the Caesar Augustus part of the History of Rome podcast, so my question is how did the "Livia kills everyone" school of thought take root? As I understand it, the Julio-Claudian sons all died in very different places, sometimes even near the borders of the Empire. How could Livia had reached all those places? I think it was more down to her arranging the deaths rather than personally running and up and stabbing everyone in the Empire that happened to die while she was around. Really I'd say it took root for the same reasons most rumours and the like do, it fits with certain stereotypes (the wicked stepmother trope) and lots of people being suspicious about her involvement in one or two different deaths would soon translate into her being associate with all of them. That may mean that she goes from being suspected of involvement in an unlikely but possible case to turning into the Father Christmas of Strychnine but by that point people are going with received wisdom and not really thinking through all the practical implications.
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Apr 1, 2013 09:46
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Fader Movitz posted:I've lurked in this thread for some months now and I've learned an amazing amount of stuff so thank you for a grand thread! Echoing, but yeah. We really don't have anything until later (Plutarch, et all). The sources just aren't there. As Philip, his father, was extremely good at branding, he set the stage for his sons name to promulgate in more ways than one. Alexander was even better--to the extent that HIS successors used the same tools, with slight variations of him still featured, as significant basis for their authority (coins, tombs, etc). Add this to the fact that he died before his conquests could explode into rebellion, which they almost certainly would have, and you have an environment for his legend to be almost mythical. His name, even likeness, was extremely well known throughout the Aegean and it was by no means an accident. The early Romans would almost certainly know about him, though being 'worried' would be unlikely. His conquests were so FAST and he was months away on campaign in Persia/India. Bluff fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Apr 1, 2013 |
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Apr 1, 2013 19:37
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Some of his earlier expeditions were more to the north in tribal Celtic lands, mind. I've seen people theorise that the Romans were indirectly helped in their wars by him because he was messing up the power balance of their enemies' homelands.
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Apr 1, 2013 19:57
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Man, Alexander was pretty nuts. Anyone else make such a huge impact on the world in such a short time before Genghis?
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Apr 2, 2013 01:28
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DarkCrawler posted:Man, Alexander was pretty nuts. Anyone else make such a huge impact on the world in such a short time before Genghis? Julius and Augustus Ceasar?
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Apr 2, 2013 01:34
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Julius and Augustus Ceasar? Yeah, what do they say on the History of Rome podcast? Most rulers would visit Alexander's tomb and reflect on how they would never accomplish so much so fast and so young. But he figures when Octavian visited Alexander's corpse he's probably one of the only people who could thought he had perhaps done as much or more.
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Apr 2, 2013 03:32
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How could Alexander's sarcophagus just disappear? Reading up on it the tomb was closed to the public and then basically nobody knows what the hell happened to it?
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Apr 2, 2013 03:40
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DarkCrawler posted:Man, Alexander was pretty nuts. Anyone else make such a huge impact on the world in such a short time before Genghis? Did he really make as big an impact as he get's credit for? I mean the Greek successor states in Asia appear to be continuations of the old Persian Satrapies, and although he definitely contributed to the spread of Greek culture it had already been spreading gradually around the Mediterranean for hundreds of years, and I don't know if it really took off until the Roman period. Certainly outside of Roman territory Greek influence rapidly faded. In terms of influence Cyrus the Great had as much or more impact than Alexander, if for no other reason than by creating the administrative system Alexander would later co-opt. Although admittedly much of Cyrus's empire was a continuation of the older Median state. In any case Persian culture, language, and religion have long endured and left an indelible impact on modern society. The old testament refers to Cyrus as the "Lord's Messiah". Glorified by Ezra, and by Isaiah, Cyrus is the one to whom "Yahweh, the God of heaven" has given "all the Kingdoms of the earth", so apparently he made a big impact on the ancient Jews. Zoroastrianism, like Greek philosophy, has probably had an important influence on Abrahamic religion.
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Apr 2, 2013 04:49
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Squalid posted:Did he really make as big an impact as he get's credit for? I mean the Greek successor states in Asia appear to be continuations of the old Persian Satrapies, and although he definitely contributed to the spread of Greek culture it had already been spreading gradually around the Mediterranean for hundreds of years, and I don't know if it really took off until the Roman period. Certainly outside of Roman territory Greek influence rapidly faded. When you think about it, the fact that everyone has said he had such a big impact for the past 2300 years is proof that he did make as big an impact.
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Apr 2, 2013 04:58
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The inspiration factor can't be underestimated. And I doubt you'd be finding legacies of Greek culture as far away as Japan without Alexander.
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Apr 2, 2013 05:02
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Install Gentoo posted:When you think about it, the fact that everyone has said he had such a big impact for the past 2300 years is proof that he did make as big an impact. I dunno, if that's your proof there's a lot of people who didn't even exist with big impacts, like Romulus and Remus. Although if we're going by the inspiration factor separating the reality of his accomplishments from mythology isn't important anymore.
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Apr 2, 2013 05:50
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Grand Fromage posted:The inspiration factor can't be underestimated. And I doubt you'd be finding legacies of Greek culture as far away as Japan without Alexander. Can you give me some examples? I've heard of Roman glassware in Korea (and Japan?) but haven't heard anything about Japan-Hellenic contact. edit: not disbelieving you. I find the idea intriguing and don't know where to look.
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Apr 2, 2013 05:55
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Squalid posted:I dunno, if that's your proof there's a lot of people who didn't even exist with big impacts, like Romulus and Remus. Although if we're going by the inspiration factor separating the reality of his accomplishments from mythology isn't important anymore. Difference is that noone really was talking about Romulus and Remus until a few hundred years after their supposed deaths. People were lining up to say what a big deal Alexander was practically before the body had cooled.
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Apr 2, 2013 05:57
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Can you give me some examples? I've heard of Roman glassware in Korea (and Japan?) but haven't heard anything about Japan-Hellenic contact. Greek style statues.
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Apr 2, 2013 06:00
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DarkCrawler posted:Man, Alexander was pretty nuts. Anyone else make such a huge impact on the world in such a short time before Genghis? Probably Muhammed.
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Apr 2, 2013 06:18
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Install Gentoo posted:Difference is that noone really was talking about Romulus and Remus until a few hundred years after their supposed deaths. People were lining up to say what a big deal Alexander was practically before the body had cooled. Yeah what he did was impressive but I don't seem him fundamentally changing the world the way Muhammed did. What's really impressive is what he didn't have to do to conquer the known world. He inherited a large expansionist state with a revolutionary army from his father and then much of the Persia Empire simply surrendered, probably didn't matter much in Egypt if they were ruled by a Greek or Persian. Compare Mohammed and Genghis Khan who started with nothing and yet completely redefined and reorganized their societies. Alexander changed comparatively little, even the political boundaries look about the same after his conquests. Sure maybe the Seleucid realm extends a bit farther into India than the Persian Empire, and Egypt becomes independent again, but Persian rule had been fragile there for a while anyway. I really shouldn't start a stupid who was more influential dick waving contest-Who can say whose actions were more important? It's just Alexander seems to get hyped because he was Greek (sorta) and the Greeks were the guys who wrote European history.
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Apr 2, 2013 08:05
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Squalid posted:Did he really make as big an impact as he get's credit for? I mean the Greek successor states in Asia appear to be continuations of the old Persian Satrapies, and although he definitely contributed to the spread of Greek culture it had already been spreading gradually around the Mediterranean for hundreds of years, and I don't know if it really took off until the Roman period. Certainly outside of Roman territory Greek influence rapidly faded. Alexander was an enormous player, and you're really understating how far he brought Greek/Western culture onto the map. Western civilization was just not a big deal before he came around, blowhards in Persia probably made tons of "jokes" about it being an oxymoron before he came and plugged their assholes. It's the year 335 BC, the Achaemenid empire encompasses literally half of the known world. There is India and there is China, but impressive natural borders prevent conflict from flaring up between them so there are essentially three spheres of the world, and Persia is the top dog in the Middle East. Greece is a backwater. The Persians don't care about Marathon or Salamis, to them, the Greeks are a hassle like the Scythians, and just not worth the effort to conquer. There are plenty of Greeks within Persian borders, it's literally just Hellas proper that is too much trouble to deal with, but the Persians are content to let it slide and leave the Greek hicks be. Macedonia is bumpkin land to the Greeks down south. They make jokes about them, Macedonians drink grape gasoline, Macedonians gently caress their horses, it's like Nebraska to us. They are on the fringe of the fringe of the great glory that was Persia, and suddenly these bumpkins and their boy king rush out and wipe out the greatest empire in history, and make a new one on top of that. It's a real shift! Alexander alone didn't do anything special, but he was literally the first person from the "west" that was actually important in the context of the world. It didn't matter that it wasn't his army, and it wasn't his administration, he was there and he used it, now the world is the way it is. I can't even imagine what the world would be like if the Persian empire wasn't conquered the way it was, it's just such an integral part of our existance that there's hardly any comparing to it. I understand why people want to shift away from blindly glorifying western history, but dismissing Alexander as somebody who didn't change world is pretty silly. In the end, it was still European who dominated the world, and guess who started the whole shebang?
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Apr 2, 2013 08:45
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Western civilization was just not a big deal before he came around, blowhards in Persia probably made tons of "jokes" about it being an oxymoron before he came and plugged their assholes. Slim Jim Pickens posted:I understand why people want to shift away from blindly glorifying western history, but dismissing Alexander as somebody who didn't change world is pretty silly. In the end, it was still European who dominated the world, and guess who started the whole shebang? I agree with your main point that bringing down the Persian empire was something huge but I think you're massively oversimplifying history by ignoring that it was almost 2000 years after Alexander that Europeans actually started dominating the rest of the planet (starting with the colonisation of the Americas after 1492). Even the Roman empire didn't have that much influence outside of its borders. Also Western/European civilisation is a notion that started its existence in Europe during the Middle-Ages after the fall of Roman empire and the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate. At its most basic it's defined as not being the Muslim world (the Middle East). Obviously, saying that it existed before the birth of Islam is an anachronism. It was traced back to classical Greece during the Renaissance because of the influence of Greek philosophers in Europe. The Classical Greeks themselves certainly didn't see that they had anything in common with all the nations existing west of Anatolia. As you said, they barely acknowledged the Macedonians as being Greeks so you can imagine how they saw the Celts or the Germans.
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Apr 2, 2013 10:49
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:I understand why people want to shift away from blindly glorifying western history, but dismissing Alexander as somebody who didn't change world is pretty silly. In the end, it was still European who dominated the world, and guess who started the whole shebang? And then a bare 40 years after he's dead, the Pyrrhic War happens and Rome starts its upwards trajectory.
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Apr 2, 2013 12:03
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Kassad posted:I agree with your main point that bringing down the Persian empire was something huge but I think you're massively oversimplifying history by ignoring that it was almost 2000 years after Alexander that Europeans actually started dominating the rest of the planet (starting with the colonisation of the Americas after 1492). Even the Roman empire didn't have that much influence outside of its borders. Arguably at the time no country had much influence outside its borders beyond whether or not they instilled enough fear to keep neighboring people's friendly enough to tow your line. I think the point though is no nation in Europe at the time period had any kind of widespread renown for power on the scale empires in Egypt, the middle east and Asia had accumulated. Alexander changed that. Rome changed that as well. Rome may not have been able to colonize Australia, but it united a huge amount of area under one administration, it was still a superpower in terms of its time whose only global rival was China. You can see it in how far Roman trade has gone, permanent trading posts in India, Roman glass showing up in Japan. Even the myths the Chinese and Romans came up with for each other. GF probably knows exactly what it was, but if I recall during the empire days, the Chinese thought that Rome may have been a land ruled by a body of elected enlightened philosophers and who never went to war. Point being though when a superpower you don't even have direct contact with is making up all kinds of good ridiculous myths about you, you're probably doing pretty well for yourself.
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Apr 2, 2013 14:52
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Barto posted:Greek style statues. Yeah, art. Buddhist art in particular is hugely influenced by Greeks. Prior to Alexander, the Buddha is represented abstractly, but after Greek art makes its way east you start seeing human representations in Buddhist art. Plus all sorts of other art esoteric things get adopted. The influence of Greek art on Asian art is massive. What everyone else is saying is true too. Prior to Alexander, Europe just doesn't matter to anyone except locals. The idea of a western identity begins with the Greek-Persian wars, and Alexander's conquests are the first time a European power steps onto the world stage in any real way. Plus, the other ancient power centers--Egypt, Persia, India, China--don't have a single figure such as Alexander that totally revolutionizes everything. You can draw some parallels. Cyrus, Ashoka, Qin Shi Huang. But I'd argue none of them are the kind of clean break Alexander is. The big man theory of history is not popular anymore, but I think there are a few people that most historians will admit are singular, transformational figures that did something extraordinary. Alexander is one of those. Though, to be fair, had his father not died/been killed we might be talking about Philip instead.
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Apr 2, 2013 15:07
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Grand Fromage posted:Though, to be fair, had his father not died/been killed we might be talking about Philip instead. On that note, what do we know about what Philip intended to do in his campaign against the Persians? Is it likely that he would have attempted to do the same things Alexander did, ie campaign all the way to India and marry his officers to Persian noblewomen, that sort of thing?
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Apr 2, 2013 15:41
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