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Twat McTwatterson posted:Distillation didn't exist until the medieval era, I think. Wine for Romans, beer for barbarians. Wine was always/usually cut with water. Would the beer that these barbarians were drinking be gruit, or a close relation/variation of it?
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Apr 9, 2013 04:51
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FishFood posted:Philip rises to power after a bajillion of his ancestors are killed in dynastic struggles. He quickly and decisively establishes a stable power base and then proceeds to make some serious reforms. Macedonia wasn't very centralized, with those aforementioned lords/tribal leaders ruling their own little fiefs. To eliminate squabbling amongst his nobles, he takes nearly all of them of fighting age and makes them his Hetairoi, the Companion cavalry, giving them a fancy title and the promise of glory. He increases the size of the military exponentially, by conscripting and training nearly his entire free male population. He rotates them in and out of service so that farms are still tended, etc. To maintain loyalty to him as opposed to his Macedonian subject's tribal leaders, he splits them up and even gives the peasant phalanx a fancy title; the pezhetairoi, foot companions. How could he afford all that? Creating an army and then launching campaigns cost money - was it pretty much loot from fighting and beating less organized people keeping it all running?
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Apr 9, 2013 10:17
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Why do historians praise Pericles when his strategy was the reason for Athens falling to Sparta?
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Apr 9, 2013 11:52
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Comstar posted:How could he afford all that? Creating an army and then launching campaigns cost money - was it pretty much loot from fighting and beating less organized people keeping it all running? Apparently he captured a goldmine at one point according to the article someone posted above.
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Apr 9, 2013 12:18
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Raekwon_Chef posted:Why do historians praise Pericles when his strategy was the reason for Athens falling to Sparta? Because his strategy was why Athens beat Persia? Also he died, like 20 something years before the war was over. A lot of poo poo went down between point a. and point b. and so it's hard to blame Pericles for all of it. The expedition to Sicily, the real 'well poo poo' moment for the Athenians was not, for instance, in line with his policies nor enacted under him. Both Athens and Sparta went into that fight with a. the expectation that they could savage their enemy from an unassailable position, and b. that they could stand the mutual savaging better than the other party. Once they proved to the other that they wouldn't fold but could cause great harm, the war would be over, as it were, by Christmas. Edited out derp. the JJ fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Apr 9, 2013 |
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Apr 9, 2013 12:30
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Pericles' strategy did good things for them in the Archidamian War portion of the great Peloponnesian War which the Athenians won (more or less). Then you have a bit of a gap, and the Sicilian Expedition is roughly the start of the Deceleian War, which the Athenians lost. Associating Pericles too much with the fighting of the Deceleian War would be a mistake in my opinion.
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Apr 9, 2013 12:37
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Comstar posted:How could he afford all that? Creating an army and then launching campaigns cost money - was it pretty much loot from fighting and beating less organized people keeping it all running? There's loot from conquests, tribute from Macedonia's new subject states, such as the poleis in Thessaloniki and parts of Anatolia, and that new mine that was mentioned. I think I remember my professor saying that Macedonia also had more mineral wealth than the rest of Greece overall. I know that much much later, a big plus for the Romans conquering Dacia, which is in the same general area as Macedonia and Thrace, was all the mining there. The most important thing for maintaining loyalty was victory, though. Philip never lost, and so his troops are constantly showered with loot and glory.
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Apr 9, 2013 17:43
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FishFood posted:There's loot from conquests, tribute from Macedonia's new subject states, such as the poleis in Thessaloniki and parts of Anatolia, and that new mine that was mentioned. I think I remember my professor saying that Macedonia also had more mineral wealth than the rest of Greece overall. I know that much much later, a big plus for the Romans conquering Dacia, which is in the same general area as Macedonia and Thrace, was all the mining there. If you're making the comparison to say that Dacia and Macedonia had similar resources geologically, then I can't argue with that, but Dacia is geographically pretty damned far from anything Phillip would have controlled.
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Apr 9, 2013 20:50
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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I'm watching a BBC documentary called The Other Pompeii, about Herculaneum. You should find it and watch it. A statue with a lot of original paint intact.  The only wooden roof piece that survives from the Roman world.  Painted, naturally.
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Apr 10, 2013 04:42
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PittTheElder posted:If you're making the comparison to say that Dacia and Macedonia had similar resources geologically, then I can't argue with that, but Dacia is geographically pretty damned far from anything Phillip would have controlled. Dacia, Macedonia, and Thrace are all in the Balkans. He never controlled Dacia, but it's just over the mountains north of his territory in Thrace. Here's a 2nd Century CE map from wikipedia. Philip's control of Thrace extended all the way to the Danube in the east. 
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Apr 10, 2013 05:13
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Grand Fromage posted:There has been long debate about whether Romans were just pussies or there was something different about ancient wine. The issue is still unresolved. Hmm, I always just assumed that since they drank it so often, they cut it with water in order to prolong the drinking and not get hosed up too quick.
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Apr 10, 2013 05:27
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Grand Fromage posted:I'm watching a BBC documentary called The Other Pompeii, about Herculaneum. You should find it and watch it. There have been a lot of documentaries on the beeb lately about Pompeii, it reached a point the other week where my husband said he was sick of hearing about 'bloody Pompeii'. I'm really glad Herculanium is getting showcased, at first I thought the painting on the statue was a re-creation, it's just so fresh looking. I would love to see some decent documentaries about other Roman things though, besides gladiators and Pompeii. I have a free afternoon, I reckon I'll watch this, thanks. So I was reading Goldworthy's biography on Caesar and he briefly mentions a case of Roman human sacrifice taking place a few years before Caesar's birth as a religious response to the threat posed by the Cimbri and Teutones. I was surprised to hear of that happening so late into the republic, does anybody know more about it?
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Apr 10, 2013 07:41
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Grand Fromage posted:I'm watching a BBC documentary called The Other Pompeii, about Herculaneum. You should find it and watch it. Is that a phillips screw on the middle right?
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Apr 10, 2013 08:50
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Twat McTwatterson posted:Hmm, I always just assumed that since they drank it so often, they cut it with water in order to prolong the drinking and not get hosed up too quick. There's that too. Like back when people literally just drank beer all the time, it was a lot weaker than modern beer.
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Apr 10, 2013 13:29
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Twat McTwatterson posted:Hmm, I always just assumed that since they drank it so often, they cut it with water in order to prolong the drinking and not get hosed up too quick. Well that and it makes the water safer to drink.
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Apr 10, 2013 13:51
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Twat McTwatterson posted:Hmm, I always just assumed that since they drank it so often, they cut it with water in order to prolong the drinking and not get hosed up too quick. People drank beer and wine primarily because it was so much safer than water. The alcohol killed the microorganisms that caused a lot of disease. I suspect most people developed a pretty strong tolerance to it, and the average BAC of an ancient person would stagger most people today.
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Apr 10, 2013 14:28
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Deteriorata posted:People drank beer and wine primarily because it was so much safer than water. The alcohol killed the microorganisms that caused a lot of disease. I suspect most people developed a pretty strong tolerance to it, and the average BAC of an ancient person would stagger most people today.
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Apr 10, 2013 15:37
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It seems like in Rome and other cities with aqueducts bringing in thousands of gallons of fresh water a minute to public fountains, it's really more about a love of wine. It's really not that different from today. How many people after work go to a pub or go home and drink? I don't mean get hammered, just enough to keep a good buzz going and conversation flowing. A substantial part of the population. People love booze, the only thing that changes is the preferred variation of it.
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Apr 10, 2013 16:25
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Rome's sanitation was probably the best in Europe until modern times, but it still wasn't exactly safe. Wine doesn't provide the protection though. It's actually a fallacy that beer protected you because of the alcohol, these were weak drinks. 3% tops--that doesn't kill bacteria. What did it was that to make beer, you have to boil the water. Wine doesn't have boiling. It does have a higher alcohol concentration, enough that it might have been less full of crap. Running aqueduct water was the biggest sanitation thing though.
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Apr 10, 2013 16:29
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Dr Scoofles posted:So I was reading Goldworthy's biography on Caesar and he briefly mentions a case of Roman human sacrifice taking place a few years before Caesar's birth as a religious response to the threat posed by the Cimbri and Teutones. I was surprised to hear of that happening so late into the republic, does anybody know more about it? I can't remember anything specific about that case, but I want to point out something that Prof. Fagan said about the hypocrisy of the Romans: they were happy to call human sacrifices barbaric after a certain point, but they were happy to have gladiatorial fights for ages, which were at heart a religious ritual. I would add that triumphs where enemy kings were strangled were also overtly ceremonies to Jupiter, and hippodromes having the most expensive seats at the turns was no accident.
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Apr 10, 2013 17:44
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Troubadour posted:and hippodromes having the most expensive seats at the turns was no accident. Turn left, Decius!! Noo
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Apr 10, 2013 18:58
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FishFood posted:Dacia, Macedonia, and Thrace are all in the Balkans. He never controlled Dacia, but it's just over the mountains north of his territory in Thrace. Here's a 2nd Century CE map from wikipedia. Philip's control of Thrace extended all the way to the Danube in the east. Yeah, I know, but the The Balkans are a pretty big area. The place where that gold was mined is well north of the Danube, and even further from the parts of the Danube Philip might have exercised nominal control over. It's some 600km from Pella to the Dacian gold mines, about twice the distance from Pella to Athens. While the tribes south of the Danube might have been in possession of gold that would have been mined there, it would be wrong to say that gold could have plausibly funded Philip's adventures.
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Apr 10, 2013 23:29
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In regards to gladiators (sorry Dr Scoofles) were they always battles to the death? Did they ever have "just" fighting till there was a clear winner?
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Apr 11, 2013 03:39
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I have a couple of multi part questions - Why was the senatus consultum ultimum created? Was it just to replace the dictatorship? Was it used after Caesar became dictator for a decade? Why was P Clodius Pulcher so wacky? What was his relationship with Caesar like after having sex with Pompeia? Caesar didn't seem too broke up about it. Did he have any good intentions for the people, or was he just another power hungry late republic figure? Did Caesar have epilepsy?
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Apr 11, 2013 05:00
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Jerusalem posted:In regards to gladiators (sorry Dr Scoofles) were they always battles to the death? Did they ever have "just" fighting till there was a clear winner? Most gladiatorial fights were not to the death, since it was very expensive to train a gladiator. Fights to the death were rare enough that they would be specially advertised and draw larger crowds.
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Apr 11, 2013 05:11
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Grand Fromage posted:Rome's sanitation was probably the best in Europe until modern times, but it still wasn't exactly safe. Wine doesn't provide the protection though. It's actually a fallacy that beer protected you because of the alcohol, these were weak drinks. 3% tops--that doesn't kill bacteria. What did it was that to make beer, you have to boil the water. Wine doesn't have boiling. It does have a higher alcohol concentration, enough that it might have been less full of crap. I apologize but this isn't really accurate, sure it doesn't "kill" bacteria but the alcohol (and to some degree hops) do provide protection; after the water is boiled it's a lot harder for bacteria to establish and thrive because they create an environment that isn't very favorable to the bacteria (specifically bacteria that hurt humans). In part this is because the alcohol in beer makes it fairly acidic, and the hops have bacteriostatic properties. The creation of the IPA was a recognition of this.
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Apr 11, 2013 05:46
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Oberst posted:Why was the senatus consultum ultimum created? Was it just to replace the dictatorship? Was it used after Caesar became dictator for a decade? If I understand it correctly, it was designed to give the currently acting Consuls perceived authority to act with impunity for the good of the nation, effectively making them Dictators but without the troublesome connotation of being an individual ruling Rome like a King. I believe it was first used against Gaius Gracchus in order to prevent his social reforms such as giving everybody in Italy the Roman citizenship and increasing power for the lower classes? Headline posted:Most gladiatorial fights were not to the death, since it was very expensive to train a gladiator. Fights to the death were rare enough that they would be specially advertised and draw larger crowds. Thanks, it made no sense to me that people would ALWAYS die in EVERY gladiator battle but everything I've ever read talks about fights to the death.
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Apr 11, 2013 06:24
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Jerusalem posted:Thanks, it made no sense to me that people would ALWAYS die in EVERY gladiator battle but everything I've ever read talks about fights to the death. Totally, in fact the real killjoy factoid about gladiatorial arenas is that they reserved most of the violent man on man stuff for the prime times of the day, and used animal fighting and public executions to fill out the mornings. And even then, horse and chariot racing was more popular.
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Apr 11, 2013 07:35
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312 posted:I apologize but this isn't really accurate, sure it doesn't "kill" bacteria but the alcohol (and to some degree hops) do provide protection; after the water is boiled it's a lot harder for bacteria to establish and thrive because they create an environment that isn't very favorable to the bacteria (specifically bacteria that hurt humans). In part this is because the alcohol in beer makes it fairly acidic, and the hops have bacteriostatic properties. The creation of the IPA was a recognition of this. Makes sense. But I think most people assume the alcohol itself sterilizes it, and that isn't true until you get up to about 18%. Liquor is inherently sterile, beer and wine aren't. But they aren't very friendly to bacteria either. Having live yeast in the beer helps kill any infections too, like how the good bacteria keeps yogurt safe.
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Apr 11, 2013 11:27
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Jerusalem posted:In regards to gladiators (sorry Dr Scoofles) were they always battles to the death? Did they ever have "just" fighting till there was a clear winner? Haha, it's ok really. I'm facinated by Roman public spectacles and that includes gladiatorial combat, it's just most documentaries ive seen on the subject tend to be hugely misleading with the main focus being on showy 're-enactments' that look like cheap 300 knock offs. Actually, whilst we're on the subject of Roman myths, can I ask about the whole thumbs thing? I read that the sign for 'have mercy' was an extended index finger, which shows up a lot in paintings and mosaics of combat scenes. Has there ever been a thumb gesture used to give or withhold mercy or is that purely a modern invention? Sorry if this has been covered before, but movies use it so often I do wonder.
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Apr 11, 2013 16:16
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Jerusalem posted:If I understand it correctly, it was designed to give the currently acting Consuls perceived authority to act with impunity for the good of the nation, effectively making them Dictators but without the troublesome connotation of being an individual ruling Rome like a King. I believe it was first used against Gaius Gracchus in order to prevent his social reforms such as giving everybody in Italy the Roman citizenship and increasing power for the lower classes? That makes sense There hadn't been a dictator in almost 80 years, and the senate was probably reluctant to have one. That, and the Catiline conspiracy probably didnt warrant one (just enough power to achieve whatever their goal is at the time) It seems like a relatively good idea for the senate's purposes since the next two dictators were Sulla & JC Oberst fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Apr 11, 2013 |
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Apr 11, 2013 19:09
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Did they use real weapons for gladitorial combat?
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Apr 11, 2013 20:04
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Athenians seem to have transported troops and horses in trieres that had only the upper-level rowers, but to me it seems like a waste to use warships that have small cargo capacity for transportation when you have fat-bellied merchant ships. Some fleets were also lost when the ships were beached so the crews could forage and enemy attacked. I think it would have been smarter to carry supplies with the navy. Were navies supplied only by modified rowed warships, or did someone use sailing merchant ships also?
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Apr 11, 2013 21:58
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Dr Scoofles posted:Actually, whilst we're on the subject of Roman myths, can I ask about the whole thumbs thing? I read that the sign for 'have mercy' was an extended index finger, which shows up a lot in paintings and mosaics of combat scenes. Has there ever been a thumb gesture used to give or withhold mercy or is that purely a modern invention? Sorry if this has been covered before, but movies use it so often I do wonder.
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Apr 11, 2013 23:53
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SlothfulCobra posted:Did they use real weapons for gladitorial combat? Yep. Blunted, presumably.
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Apr 12, 2013 02:06
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Very blunt, if you count the cudgel the great Commodus, son of Jupiter, used to beat cripples to death with while pretending they were giants and stuff.
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Apr 12, 2013 17:26
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Yeah you had to be careful. It's still a real fight. I'd bet the majority of gladiator deaths were accidental. They also had a guy dressed as Mercury that came out and caved your skull in with a square hammer if you were denied mercy by whoever was presiding over the game. There are gladiator skulls with (relatively) neat square holes smashed in them that provide the physical evidence.
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Apr 12, 2013 17:32
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I see that there. posted:Very blunt, if you count the cudgel the great Commodus, son of Jupiter, used to beat cripples to death with while pretending they were giants and stuff. Wait, I thought he used it to beat dwarfs to death while pretending that he was a giant. I suppose, given that it was Commodus, he probably did both.
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Apr 12, 2013 18:02
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Mercury does not strike me as the most appropriate god for that. Was it because of Hermes' psychopump feature?
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Apr 12, 2013 18:05
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Mercury would lead the souls of the dead to the underworld. In this case he was being somewhat more active and creating the soul that needed leading. 
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Apr 12, 2013 18:08
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