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Grand Fromage posted: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. Then they'd get meathooked and dragged into the basement to have their throat cut, just in case. Slantedfloors fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Apr 12, 2013 |
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Apr 12, 2013 19:46
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Slantedfloors posted:The guy dressed as Mercury just poked downed gladiators with a hot poker, to see if they were playing possum or were unconscious. It was a guy dressed like Charon who did the skull-smashing. Ancient mascots were so much more hardcore. I rarely see the Mariner Moose run out to stab an injured player with a trident.
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Apr 12, 2013 20:37
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Oberst posted:Did Caesar have epilepsy? The short answer is that no-one really knows. It has been suggested he had it by some historians but posthumous diagnosis of the ailments of historical figures in general is a minefield, especially from the ancient world because the sources are scantier. Basically, you have to go off descriptions of symptoms the person showed written by some guy who probably didn't have any medical training even by the standards of the day and likely as not lived a couple of hundred years after the events he was describing anyway. If they say "He had a fit", that could be epilepsy or it could be a lot of other things that can cause you to have seizures. I would approach all of those kinds of diagnoses with caution.
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Apr 12, 2013 21:19
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General Panic posted:If they say "He had a fit", that could be epilepsy or it could be a lot of other things that can cause you to have seizures. I prefer the mental image of Caesar having really bad temper tantrums, like a 4 year old.
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Apr 12, 2013 22:09
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Anti-Hero posted:I prefer the mental image of Caesar having really bad temper tantrums, like a 4 year old. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmeCru4n0yg
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Apr 12, 2013 23:46
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Anti-Hero posted:I prefer the mental image of Caesar having really bad temper tantrums, like a 4 year old. Well if it's overwrought, red-faced babyman temper tantrums you want, you really can't go wrong with Caracalla. When an Alexandrian stage troupe performed a play making fun of him, he ordered a general massacre of the population. He also proposed a political marriage to the Partian royal family and then murdered the wedding party for no real reason other than he was a monstrous twerp. paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Apr 13, 2013 |
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Apr 13, 2013 01:24
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Seoinin posted:Well if it's overwrought, red-faced babyman temper tantrums you want, you really can't go wrong with Caracalla. When an Alexandrian stage troupe performed a play making fun of him, he ordered a general massacre of the population. Ties with Valentinian stroking out while screaming at Quadi envoys.
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Apr 13, 2013 02:37
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This is one of the reasons I love that show. It's minor but still totally accurate. Maybe this exact scene didn't take place but it's the way Romans treated it. Slantedfloors posted:The guy dressed as Mercury just poked downed gladiators with a hot poker, to see if they were playing possum or were unconscious. It was a guy dressed like Charon who did the skull-smashing. Are you sure? In my gladiators course there was no mention of a Charon, and if you're right I need to go give my professor some poo poo on facebook. 
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Apr 13, 2013 04:00
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Grand Fromage posted:Are you sure? In my gladiators course there was no mention of a Charon, and if you're right I need to go give my professor some poo poo on facebook. Slantedfloors fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Apr 13, 2013 |
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Apr 13, 2013 07:00
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PittTheElder posted: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. Point taken. I just know that my professor said that Philip had access to more mineral wealth than southern Greece which helped him finance his military. The tribute from the poleis around Thessaloniki and the Hellespont helped too.
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Apr 13, 2013 09:31
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General Panic posted:I would approach all of those kinds of diagnoses with caution. Right. Seemed dubious at best
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Apr 13, 2013 09:45
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Hogge Wild posted: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 13, 2013 09:47
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cheerfullydrab posted:Pretty sure the use of modified warships was for speed. Speed was probably one of the reasons, but modified trieres were also slower than normal trieres. I think that the main benefit would have been that they could operate without winds. But the thing is that one supply triere could carry about 10 tons of cargo and had crew of 80, and one merchant ship could carry over 100 tons of cargo and had a crew of about 15. So the admirals could afford more warships if the navy was supplied by merchant ships. I'd think that it would have been better to arrive few days later with more warships, the enemy city isn't going anywhere. Unfortunately there are few songs made about supplying compared to epic last stands, so I haven't found if merchant ships were used. Would anyone have good sources about ancient navies? Or about ancient ships in general?
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Apr 13, 2013 17:32
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Lionel Casson's your guy for ancient ships. I'm inclined to say his Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World would be where you'd want to start.
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Apr 13, 2013 17:38
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Ancient ships are a continual mystery. There are a few problems. One, writers didn't write much detail about them. This occurs in lots of other areas as well--the writers assume their audience knows the basics. Which is a perfectly reasonable assumption. Unfortunately it's frustrating when you're trying to parse the stuff 2000 years later. Two, frankly the cultures that romanticized ships didn't leave us much. Most of our records are Roman and they were at best practical when it came to sailing. So it was never a topic that garnered any special interest and was likely to leave us unusual material. Third, and most importantly, ships are made almost entirely of biodegradable material and we don't have any. For a ship to survive any length of time it has to sink in very special circumstances. Or be buried like a Viking ship funeral, and be buried in the right place like a peat bog. Ships do sink in the proper environments, but it's incredibly rare. As far as I'm aware the most we've ever found from a Roman ship are a couple of bronze rams from the Punic Wars. And plenty of cargo, but the ships were gone. Fourth, underwater archaeology is a pain in the rear end so even if there are ships out there to be found, it's very difficult to do the finding. If we are ever going to find a reasonably intact Roman ship, it will probably be in the Black Sea somewhere since it's cold and very low oxygen, it's pretty dead water. Stuff at the bottom of there tends to survive better than anywhere else in the Mediterranean world. We do know some but it's quite sparse compared to, say, the legions.
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Apr 13, 2013 17:39
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Tao Jones posted:Lionel Casson's your guy for ancient ships. I'm inclined to say his Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World would be where you'd want to start. Thanks, the previews look great. Björn Landström has also some great books: Ship, Ships of the Pharaohs and Sailing Ships They are mostly picture books, but the pictures are awesome:  Click for larger. Grand Fromage posted:As far as I'm aware the most we've ever found from a Roman ship are a couple of bronze rams from the Punic Wars. And plenty of cargo, but the ships were gone. I think that we've found plenty of Roman shipwrecks, the problem is that only thing left is just the bottom. A shame, really  .
Hogge Wild fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Apr 13, 2013 |
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Apr 13, 2013 18:55
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Hogge Wild posted:I think that we've found plenty of Roman shipwrecks, the problem is that only thing left is just the bottom. A shame, really Oh yeah. You might be able to tell this is not my field, but I remember that now that you mention it. Some bottom planks. They answer a few questions but as you can imagine it's not like finding an entire quinquireme buried in the mud somewhere. Maybe someday.
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Apr 13, 2013 19:01
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It always pisses me off when I think of the Nemi Ships. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemi_ships Granted they weren't practical ships you would see in the Med, but still. How crazy would it be to go see the ships Caligula used to party on? God dammit World War 2, why did you have to destroy so much cool poo poo? edit: I stumbled across this site while looking up stuff about ancient ships:http://www.abc.se/~pa/uwa/wrekmed1.htm seems pretty interesting. Mustang fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Apr 13, 2013 |
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Apr 13, 2013 19:29
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Seoinin posted:Well if it's overwrought, red-faced babyman temper tantrums you want, you really can't go wrong with Caracalla. When an Alexandrian stage troupe performed a play making fun of him, he ordered a general massacre of the population. And he absolutely despised his brother, Geta. Caracalla couldn't even last a year as co-emperor with Geta before assassinating him he right in front of their mother. What a dick. He then tried to erase his brother's memory from record, which resulted in this:  I don't know who he thought he was fooling. That guy was a tremendously terrible person. thehoodie fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Apr 13, 2013 |
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Apr 13, 2013 21:10
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thehoodie posted:And he absolutely despised his brother, Geta. Caracalla couldn't even last a year as co-emperor with Geta before assassinating him he right in front of their mother. What a dick. He then tried to erase his brother's memory from record, which resulted in this: To be fair, Geta probably would have done the same thing. Septimius Severus seems to have had trouble raising decent sons.
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Apr 14, 2013 00:03
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gently caress, I can only pick one? gently caress. Umm... B?
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Apr 14, 2013 04:30
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Hogge Wild posted:Speed was probably one of the reasons, but modified trieres were also slower than normal trieres. I think that the main benefit would have been that they could operate without winds. But the thing is that one supply triere could carry about 10 tons of cargo and had crew of 80, and one merchant ship could carry over 100 tons of cargo and had a crew of about 15. So the admirals could afford more warships if the navy was supplied by merchant ships. I'd think that it would have been better to arrive few days later with more warships, the enemy city isn't going anywhere. Unfortunately there are few songs made about supplying compared to epic last stands, so I haven't found if merchant ships were used. Would anyone have good sources about ancient navies? Or about ancient ships in general? I think one of the theories behind naval supply in that era was that you'd always be able to buy/forage supplies from the locals when needed. Like in the Sicilian Expedition, I think the Athenians bought a bunch of supplies in Croton (where Alcibiades decided to book it) and their allies in Sicily promised a lot of supplies (that they never delivered. Whoops!).
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Apr 14, 2013 05:24
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raverrn posted:gently caress, I can only pick one? gently caress. Umm... Somewhere, this is a let's play missing audience participation. Or possibly debating what relevance nude wrestling has to video games.
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Apr 14, 2013 07:55
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Seoinin posted:Well if it's overwrought, red-faced babyman temper tantrums you want, you really can't go wrong with Caracalla. When an Alexandrian stage troupe performed a play making fun of him, he ordered a general massacre of the population. How I wish that Rome could have had more seasons and perhaps eventually covered down on the later emperors. Game of Thrones ain't got poo poo on the Romans.
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Apr 14, 2013 09:20
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Ho Chi Mint posted:How I wish that Rome could have had more seasons and perhaps eventually covered down on the later emperors. Game of Thrones ain't got poo poo on the Romans. One thing you could track down is the 1970's BBC production of 'I, Claudius.' If you like intrigues, and general WTF-ness of those who come after Augustus, it's fantastic. Plus see "before they were famous" roles for Patrick Stewart and John Rhys-Davies.
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Apr 14, 2013 15:18
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Buttonhead posted:One thing you could track down is the 1970's BBC production of 'I, Claudius.' If you like intrigues, and general WTF-ness of those who come after Augustus, it's fantastic. Plus see "before they were famous" roles for Patrick Stewart and John Rhys-Davies. The first 3 episodes at least(didn't look any further) appear to be on Youtube actually! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjKoWPoEIW0
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Apr 14, 2013 17:46
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Ho Chi Mint posted:How I wish that Rome could have had more seasons and perhaps eventually covered down on the later emperors. Rome was supposedly going to cover the life of Christ in the later seasons.
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Apr 15, 2013 14:48
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Alhazred posted:Rome was supposedly going to cover the life of Christ in the later seasons.
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Apr 15, 2013 15:10
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They'd make it work, the show can do no wrong. It's only wrong was being only two seasons.  On side a note, some goldbug on the Telegraph has an article today warning about the perils of government overspending and over regulation, which caused Roman to collapse. I guess we're heading into the crises of the third century  Hyperinflation ho! I guess trying to compare to Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe wasn't absurd enough anymore.Oh well, still less stupid than this guy http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/29/ben-carson-marriage-equality-could-destroy-amer/193345 Amused to Death fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Apr 15, 2013 |
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Apr 15, 2013 16:53
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I agree with the general principal that a government that allows its businesspeople to run wild and spends a truly staggering amount of its funds on the military is one that has issues. Oh wait I think that went a different direction than he was intending. I have to say that all the modern idiots making Rome comparisons seriously skews the way people view history. It's pretty bad with medieval history too, maybe even worse. E: You'd think people arguing for Christianity wouldn't use Rome falling as their comparison, since they're obviously using the common trope of the end of the western empire = the death of Rome and that accelerated the more Christian the empire got. (Christianity had nothing to do with that but these are dumb people so correlation now equals causation) Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Apr 15, 2013 |
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Apr 15, 2013 16:57
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Halloween Jack posted:Were they going to drop Stevenson and McKidd and skip ahead 20-some years? I can't imagine that going over well. The plan was to extend the story out to five seasons, which would have given them time to field new protagonist characters. But while I'd have loved to see more Rome, I'm pretty alright with them not really focusing on the Christ story. I want a show about Rome, and Christianity doesn't really affect Rome for 300 years.
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Apr 15, 2013 16:57
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There's a tendency for any given regime or political cause to try and tie itself to Ancient Rome for validation. Sifting through the detritus of this behavior becomes a sort of mental archaeology in and of itself. You can watch it happen (live!) with the growing acceptance/hot button issue of homosexuality in modern society, and the constant inquiries as to just how "gay" were the Romans. I usually just answer "they were flamingly loving gay" because it's easier than trying to explain the vagaries of archaeological evidence, Greek immigration trends, cultural norms shifting over centuries, and the huge dose of Roman upper class irony in the historical record, to an individual who is just looking to identify with the rest of humanity.
physeter fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Apr 15, 2013 |
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Apr 15, 2013 18:27
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physeter posted:"they were flamingly loving gay" This should be the thread title one day. Hell that was one of the first questions in this thread.
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Apr 15, 2013 19:40
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Only gay if you're receiving.Grand Fromage posted:E: You'd think people arguing for Christianity wouldn't use Rome falling as their comparison, since they're obviously using the common trope of the end of the western empire = the death of Rome and that accelerated the more Christian the empire got. What I don't get is how this caught on in the first place. 1) Europeans admire Rome 2) Europeans are Christians 3) So how does Christianity destroy Rome? I do remember someone earlier in this thread suggested that Gibbon's historiography was also an attempt to separate England from Continental Europe, which had alot more Roman influence.
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Apr 15, 2013 23:46
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physeter posted:There's a tendency for any given regime or political cause to try and tie itself to Ancient Rome for validation. Sifting through the detritus of this behavior becomes a sort of mental archaeology in and of itself. You can watch it happen (live!) with the growing acceptance/hot button issue of homosexuality in modern society, and the constant inquiries as to just how "gay" were the Romans. I usually just answer "they were flamingly loving gay" because it's easier than trying to explain the vagaries of archaeological evidence, Greek immigration trends, cultural norms shifting over centuries, and the huge dose of Roman upper class irony in the historical record, to an individual who is just looking to identify with the rest of humanity. I don't know, I think there are some decent parallels between homosexuality in ancient Rome and modern America. In both societies, anyone who wants to get anywhere is politics is supposed to be a man, married to a woman. In Rome's case, it's because patronage and alliance networks being what they are means you have to publicly adhere to gender roles, rather than Family Values. But in either case, the folks in power often have action going on on the side, homosexual or otherwise. The homosexuality in America just tends to skew Republican because of all the messed up psychological baggage that makes people Family Values Crusaders.
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Apr 15, 2013 23:50
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Phobophilia posted:Only gay if you're receiving. Not an expert on the matter, but I believe Gibbon was writing at the time of The Enlightenment, where there was somewhat of a backlash against religion by some intellectuals of the day. He posited that Christianity destroyed Rome due to people having more loyalty to the Church than the State, giving their money and labours in the service of Christ rather than Caesar, and ultimately weakening the State to a point where it was unable to stand.
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Apr 16, 2013 00:51
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PittTheElder posted:I don't know, I think there are some decent parallels between homosexuality in ancient Rome and modern America. In both societies, anyone who wants to get anywhere is politics is supposed to be a man, married to a woman. In Rome's case, it's because patronage and alliance networks being what they are means you have to publicly adhere to gender roles, rather than Family Values. But in either case, the folks in power often have action going on on the side, homosexual or otherwise. Come on now, it's only gay sex scandals that are a republican thing. No one cares if anyone else gets it on. Pretty much the only gay people amongst the republicans are so repressed and deep in the closet that it blooms into something beautiful. But this is a bit of a side thing. I think it was just a thing people did, it wasn't a part of people's core identities. It was more important to be a dignified hypermasculine badass.
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Apr 16, 2013 01:02
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AdjectiveNoun posted:Not an expert on the matter, but I believe Gibbon was writing at the time of The Enlightenment, where there was somewhat of a backlash against religion by some intellectuals of the day. Pretty much this. It was common for Enlightenment-era thinkers to blame Christianity for everything.
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Apr 16, 2013 01:15
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Grand Fromage posted:Pretty much this. It was common for Enlightenment-era thinkers to blame Christianity for everything. Yes, most clearly seen in writings like Nietzsche but in the anglophonic tradition there was a strong secular backlash against 'medieval' church institutions. Broadly the idea of religious institutions as a parallel power structure to the state, as such parallel structures tend to be corrosive to the institutions they accompany. So as people began to turn to the church rather than the state for court decisions and tithe money rather than pay it in taxes you saw the church become more influential and talented individuals would seek success in the church rather than state offices leading to a general spiralling of state power and influence. Like GF and others have said there was far more to the fall of Rome than that just Christianity but as part of a backlash against a medieval society that was viewed as opposed to rationalism and social empowerment and was seen as fundamentally Christian, it's understandable. Just wrong. Although I like that guy looking to Rome for guidance on the sanctity of marriage. Should we go back to making sacrifices to Aphrodite as part of marriage ceremonies and adopting political rivals as well? Their vision of the Roman family unit doesn't quite match up with what people of the time were actually doing. It does make me curious though as to how common marriage was among the everyday folk in Rome. My impression of inner city living in, say, Victorian era metropolises was that the family unit tended to be far more informal than we would view it today. Most people didn't have much in the way of property to pass on so getting a legally recognised marriage wasn't all that important but due to city living you didn't have the same social institutions that many people would have been used to as well. Do we know much regarding marriage and family life among the working class of Rome or is pretty much everything we've got coming from high class biographies?
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Apr 16, 2013 10:43
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I'm not aware of any sources. Given that it was ~traditional marriage~ the only purpose would be financial, so if you had nothing there wasn't really any reason to bother. If you had any property then I'd guess marriage would be necessary for inheritance and stuff, though since Romans did inheritance by legal wills I think you could leave your poo poo to anybody you wanted to. On the other hand women were property to some extent and marriage passed the ownership from father to husband, so it might've been necessary. But again, hard to say what class lines were involved in that.
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