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The Pope did end up reigning over what was left of the western half of Rome, and he ended up giving away the title of emperor to a Frank, so you can foist some of the blame on him. Like gently caress is anybody going to acknowledge the eastern half of the empire at that point in time though. It's the enlightenment, not the age of crazy greek orthodox lovers.
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Apr 16, 2013 14:13
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I think we discussed it before. The argument fails simply when you notice that the Roman Empire continued existing and thriving for a thousand years in the east and it was Christian as all hell.
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Apr 16, 2013 14:34
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Grand Fromage posted:I think we discussed it before. The argument fails simply when you notice that the Roman Empire continued existing and thriving for a thousand years in the east and it was Christian as all hell. Implying the Roman Empire is no longer extant~ Iseeyouseemeseeyou fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Apr 16, 2013 |
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Apr 16, 2013 15:11
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Phobophilia posted: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. Yeah, I definitely meant to include the word scandal in there. Would make zero sense to imply most homosexuals weren't democrats. quote: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. This is one of those things I've really loved about watching the new Spartacus series. I mean, it's about as historical as Gibbon's reasons for why Rome fell in the west, but it certainly does this point well. Just about everyone is a hyper masculine badass, and nobody says a drat thing. But you will get called a girl for fighting with a net, even if you get to throw that net on someone while it's fire. MrNemo posted: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? Only if the birds fly the wrong way. Otherwise you'd be sacrificing for nothing. Gotta have a good Augur. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Apr 16, 2013 |
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Apr 16, 2013 17:27
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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MrNemo posted: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? "Working class" becomes a little problematic because this includes not only Italo-Romans, but Jews, Persians, Scythians, Gauls, etc etc. But presumably you mean Italo-Romans. In which case this is actually an interesting topic! Because Romans had at least two forms of marriage: regular "common" marriage, and something called confarreatio. Regular marriage was the relatively enlightened Roman-style marriage, technically a transfer of woman not as property but as legal ward, similar to a minor child today. Someone has to have custody because, you know, it's a woman.  Both parties had the power of divorce and dowries were a big deal, meaning that if the woman was wealthy her family could insist that her dowry be held in a form of trust for her in case she ever got dumped and was no longer marriageable. Much is often made of the legal power of the Roman pater familias, or head of household, including his power to kill his entire family. But in reality, by the time the Romans are recording their own history, this is very rare. I think the last time a notable Roman pater familias executes a family member for impiety it was a Fabius Maximus that did it, and it caused a scandal that was talked about for years (Gens Fabius was a very old and some have suggested, insanely inbred, patrician family). Domestic abuse by the husband in any event was illegal. Confarreatio, on the other hand, was strict form Roman patrician marriage, for life. Only two pure patricians would marry this way, and even then with increasing rarity. It was optional. No divorce was permitted except by some sort of religious absolution ritual that was apparently so heinous that suicide was a legitimate alternative. The existence of confarreatio is one of the major selling points for the argument that the original patricians were an entirely distinct ethnic and cultural group from the plebians. But we don't have any "Diary of a Suburan Midwife" or anything, which is really unfortunate.
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Apr 16, 2013 22:07
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So I've gotten back up to where I left off years ago in the History of Rome podcast, the breakdown of the tetrarchy. It has one of my favorite moments in history - Maximian begging Diocletian to come out of retirement and getting, as a response: "you kidding me? come look at these cabbages I'm growing, see if you want to go back into government then."
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Apr 16, 2013 22:21
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Jeez, next time someone asks about Roman sexuality, just tell them Roman statesmen were totally gay for cabbage.
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Apr 16, 2013 22:26
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Halloween Jack posted:Jeez, next time someone asks about Roman sexuality, just tell them Roman statesmen were totally gay for cabbage. quote:he will evacuate such a quantity of bile and mucus that he will wonder himself where it all came from
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Apr 16, 2013 22:32
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Seoinin posted:Thanks, Cato. Thato. Tato. Potato. Po-ta-toe. And so it was discovered that Romans sailed to America. Wasn't there a Roman general who had half the Senate persuading him to give up farming so that he could lead the Roman armies?
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Apr 16, 2013 22:37
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Sounds like Cincinnatus.
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Apr 16, 2013 22:54
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Halloween Jack posted:Jeez, next time someone asks about Roman sexuality, just tell them Roman statesmen were totally gay for cabbage. One of my favorite jokes from the old Asterix comics is when Caesar is having a trying Senate session where one fat Senator keeps mocking him over the Belgians kicking his armies' asses while another is desperately trying to make a speech about cabbages, and Caesar finally loses his temper and screams,"OH STUFF YOUR BRASSICA OLERACESA CAPITATA!  "Edit: Seriously, I love the way the old Asterix comics portrayed the Caesar/the Roman elite   The admittedly little I've read indicates this is a pretty accurate portrayal of how things went between Caesar and the Senate in general 
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Apr 17, 2013 02:55
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What little I know of Latin says that the 'C' is a hard one, like in 'cat'. So does that names like 'Iceni', 'Vercingetorix' etc. are all pronounced with a hard C? I can definitely see it in Vercingetorix, assuming that there was a bit of language diffusion between the Frankish and Germanic peoples.
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Apr 17, 2013 07:36
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I'm working through the Rome HBO mini-series, and I had a couple of questions: 1. Did the romance between Servilia and Octavia have a historical basis? 2. Did the tryst between Titus Pullo and Cleopatra have a historical basis? This one really bothered me. 3. What was it that Cleopatra was smoking? Anyway, I think the series is just brilliant and serves as a really cool visualization after having experienced Dan Carlin's Fall of the Roman Republic series. I got chills when Pompey was killed on the shores of Egypt, just as I had imagined it, laughed out loud when Atia "accused" Octavian of seducing Uncle Julius, but perhaps was just a little disappointed when Cato the Younger's suicide omitted the stitch-pulling parts.
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Apr 17, 2013 12:48
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Jerusalem posted:One of my favorite jokes from the old Asterix comics is when Caesar is having a trying Senate session where one fat Senator keeps mocking him over the Belgians kicking his armies' asses while another is desperately trying to make a speech about cabbages, and Caesar finally loses his temper and screams,"OH STUFF YOUR BRASSICA OLERACESA CAPITATA! Old, white-haired Caesar always got me 
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Apr 17, 2013 13:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm working through the Rome HBO mini-series, and I had a couple of questions: 2. Nope 3. Opium Big fan of the series myself.
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Apr 17, 2013 13:24
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Jerusalem posted:One of my favorite jokes from the old Asterix comics is when Caesar is having a trying Senate session where one fat Senator keeps mocking him over the Belgians kicking his armies' asses while another is desperately trying to make a speech about cabbages, and Caesar finally loses his temper and screams,"OH STUFF YOUR BRASSICA OLERACESA CAPITATA! I love the "You can leave that one in." in the last panel.
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Apr 17, 2013 16:10
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Now that I'm plowing back through the History of Rome podcast, there's one thing that struck me as really weird: why weren't there more Agrippas? You see lots of guys backstabbing each other to get at that purple, but you really don't see too many working together like Agrippa and Augustus did. Funny thing is, the title of Emperor starts looking like a total booby prize at a certain point - the best way around to really loving truncate your life expectancy. And yet dudes still shanked each other left and right to stick their necks into that particular noose. Maybe it's just the benefit of hindsight but it seems like the only guy to realize that cooperation and delegation was more productive than unitary executive power and being a pointlessly huge bastard was Diocletian of all people. I guess friezes of you stomping your rivals into the ground looks better on a triumphal column than friezes of you having a big workshopping session where you posit the theory that "fellas, this poo poo is getting stupid." paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 18:00
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I think hindsight plays a role, but remember that every Emperor probably was quite convinced his rule wouldn't be like those other incompetents. I would guess that Roman culture also pushed them to go for the purple instead of the second prize.
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Apr 17, 2013 18:12
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Agrippa stands out because he was unbelievably talented in a well-read time period. Also, there's zero doubt that much of what we know about the relationship between Augustus and Agrippa was the product of PR. That doesn't make it false but it will never be less than suspect. For all we know Agrippa might have been just as amitious and treacherous as anyone else. With all that being said, the Romans had a respectable tradition of what they called the "militum vir", or military man. These were patricians and plebs who chose to spend the bulk of their lives in military command positions, with attention to the cursus honorum being secondary if any was paid at all. These men might become tribunes or prefects or consuls, but would do so on the backs of their military careers, and often just to get access to better resources or to raise their family's standing before heading back out on campaign. Gaius Marius was well-regarded in this respect and really only turned to serious politics late in life. Quintus Sertorius didn't give a poo poo about politics, he only took positions if there wasn't a good war going on. Tiberius can be regarded as a true militum vir who was shoved onto the throne and was never happy as emperor. Vespasian was definitely in this class. The list is pretty long actually.
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Apr 17, 2013 18:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm working through the Rome HBO mini-series, and I had a couple of questions: One thing to keep in mind is that while Lucius and Pullo are 'real', they're only real as much as they are mentioned in like one line, one time, in the entirety of 'de Bello Gallico' and never seen in history again. There's no mention of, nor would I ever suspect, they had anything to do with any of the events seen in HBO's Rome. Most likely they probably died of disease while on campaign in obscurity. Also a good number of those events in the series, while well portrayed, are conflated in chronology and stuff, so really take anything other than the main event happening with a grain of salt. Anytime there's any colorful story, language, whatever, surrounding an event in the series, it's totally just romanticized. I see that there. fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 18:29
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Seoinin posted:Now that I'm plowing back through the History of Rome podcast, there's one thing that struck me as really weird: why weren't there more Agrippas? You see lots of guys backstabbing each other to get at that purple, but you really don't see too many working together like Agrippa and Augustus did. My personal (and unbacked) opinion is that Agrippa was a sort of a 'last of his kind' man in history. He's brought up still in the Republic era in a traditionalist family that prizes power, yes, but also loyalty to the state. When Octavian BECOMES the state, he stays loyal to him/it. Also, with Augustus being the truly first unopposed emporer (imperator?), there really hasn't been a precedent set of what the gently caress would happen were he to die or become disenfranchised. For all he knew, usurping Augustus would have brought the Senate back around to power and left him holding the bag. There hadn't been any kind of precedent set in even passing along the inheritance of the role, let alone what would happen were he to revolt against it or assassinate him. Though in my heart of hearts I hope Augustus and Agrippa did a lot of "gently caress yeah!" high-fives behind the scenes just because. Also, speaking of the Rome series, Jesus loving Christ Allen Leech is seriously a dead ringer for Agrippa. quote:Funny thing is, the title of Emperor starts looking like a total booby prize at a certain point - the best way around to really loving truncate your life expectancy. And yet dudes still shanked each other left and right to stick their necks into that particular noose. I believe that I've heard that power was so ingrained in the Roman psyche and ego that this is what drove so many men to what was, in hindsight, purely suicidal. It was more important than money or eternal prosperity for their families or whatever, it was driven into generation after generation to grab the brass ring no matter what the cost, and drat the consequences. Certainly there are times when they're mowing through emporers where that's pretty much the only reason I can come up with. "Sure the last 4 guys got killed within months of doing this, but MAN, look at dat purple silk!" I see that there. fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 18:45
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I see that there. posted:Certainly there are times when they're mowing through emporers where that's pretty much the only reason I can come up with. "Sure the last 4 guys got killed within months of doing this, but MAN, look at dat purple silk!" My favorite hapless 3rd century dork has to be Gordian I, because he's one of the few guys who seems aware of the complete screw-job the Imperatorship entails. He's just sitting around doing his thing in Africa when suddenly some guys blow in and are all like "hey guess who just became Emperor?" "why the hell would I want that job? I'm like a million years old and the prospectus includes fine print to the tune of 'may be murdered by huge psychotic thracians on short notice'. gently caress a whole bunch of that noise." "no, man, I don't think you're quite grasping the nuances of your situation..." Xguard86 posted:If you're american and don't get suicidal ambition, I want to move to your town. It may just be that I'd make a terrible Roman. If you squint a little, the civilization kinda looks like it was made up entirely of rear end in a top hat middle management types. 
paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 19:05
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If you're american and don't get suicidal ambition, I want to move to your town. More seriously, a lot of these guys ended up in positions where if they didn't take the purple they'd be killed as a threat to whomever did, no matter how much they swore second was good enough.
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Apr 17, 2013 19:14
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I see that there. posted:I believe that I've heard that power was so ingrained in the Roman psyche and ego that this is what drove so many men to what was, in hindsight, purely suicidal. It was more important than money or eternal prosperity for their families or whatever, it was driven into generation after generation to grab the brass ring no matter what the cost, and drat the consequences. Certainly there are times when they're mowing through emporers where that's pretty much the only reason I can come up with. "Sure the last 4 guys got killed within months of doing this, but MAN, look at dat purple silk!" There was also the very real threat that if you didn't seize power yourself, then someone else would try. If they succeeded, you would now have a massive target on your back as both a supporter of the deposed guy, and a potential threat. The new Emperor might well use his waning time of popularity to have you killed off. I've seen that sort of question posed a few times; where with the benefit of hindsight we can see that so-and-so did A Dumb Thing, if you stop to examine his motivations in the moment, you can see how that really was his best choice. Caesar before crossing the Rubicon is certainly an interesting example. He's a reasonably successful statesmen, and he's got control of a powerful army, but his imperium is running down, and Pompey is sitting as sole consul back in Rome and accusing him of treason. If Caesar respects the pretty flimsy rules of the Republic and goes back to Rome without his army, there's a decent chance Pompey will have him strung up. If he goes back with the army, he's the guy that started a civil war, but at least he might win. If he doesn't go back, he's another Sertorius, and Pompey is sure to come after him with all the power of Rome behind him. And at the risk of a WWII derail, I think pre-Barbarossa Hitler is another great example. Germany has overrun western Europe, which is great and all, but the German economy is still a shambles. Britain clearly isn't about to surrender, and there's basically no possible way to defeat her before the economy collapses. Even if Britain can be defeated in North Africa, it's questionable what that really buys Hitler; Britain still likely wouldn't give up, and he'd still have the Soviet juggernaut to contend with eventually. Even though a land war in Russia tends to be a bad choice, perhaps it really is better to attack them now while Britain is still reeling and the U.S. remains out of the war?
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Apr 17, 2013 19:23
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Xguard86 posted:More seriously, a lot of these guys ended up in positions where if they didn't take the purple they'd be killed as a threat to whomever did, no matter how much they swore second was good enough. Well, the world is still full of politicians who say, if they get asked, that they "have no ambition to be Prime Minister/run for President because I'm completely focused on my current job", and I suspect the Roman emperors were as cynical about that sort of statement as we are.
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Apr 17, 2013 19:31
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Oh, I agree with all of you saying that sometimes the guy had to do it or he was going to be the first up against the wall when some other guy got there ahead of him. I certainly think that was a large part of it, but that type of power and ambition to drive yourself into a "I must rule or die" scenario becomes at least seemingly rarer as we near modernity. In as much as the later on in history you go, there's much more politicking than there is just sheer balls out power-grabbing in the middle empire. Taken amongst how the Republic was failing and strong men were grasping for power, Caesar's "I'd rather be the first man in bumfuck than the 2nd man in Rome" is obviously telling.
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Apr 17, 2013 19:38
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I guess what gets me is less the eagerness for the purple and more the willingness to completely wreck the whole house of cards by trying to take down a sitting emperor. Like, how many times do you see instances in the histories of some schmuck winning a victory against the Goths or the Franks or whatever, and immediately parlaying that into getting hailed Caesar by his legions and marching on Rome. True, sometimes that schmuck turns out to be Constantine and ends up completely blowing everyone's doors off. But more frequently he's loving Vitellius and ends up getting offed by the emperor he rose up against or the next guy in line who goes through the exact same process of flipping the table over so he can make his bid. And the whole time this routine's going on, the Alemanni or the Vandals or the 3rd Street Saints or whoever are writing postcards home with a picture of the provincial capital of Gaul in flames and them giving a thumbs up in the foreground. Again, maybe I'd just be a lovely Roman. I get ambition, but a culture being so rabidly ambitious that the whole empire gets knocked out of whack multiple times in a generation by guys trying to topple each other? That's nuts.
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Apr 17, 2013 19:51
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Just finished reading the whole thread over the last few months and really enjoyed it. A couple of questions 1) War elephants, were they really that effective? Apart from the "holy poo poo what is that" effect they had on people who had never seen them before, they don't seem like a real trump card. I can't see that Hannibal used them to much effect in his Italy campaign. 2) Julius Caesar seems kind of awesome: charismatic, greater general, ladies man. His main fault seemed to be his arrogance in not seeing the threat of assassination. Was he really a superman? 3) The thread seems to paint homosexuality in Rome as not a big deal as long as you were giving it. The Masters of Rome series mentions some pretty severe punishments for being gay (ancient laws that were rarely enforced), is there any truth to that? 4) I've read that even after Cannae, Rome didn't pull their armies back from other theatres so perhaps they weren't too stressed about Hannibal taking Rome? Was Hannibal more a convenient bogeyman for Rome? 5) Logistics seems the key to Roman armies, what foods did the legions eat that must have had a long shelf life? Their winter camps seemed ready to last for months without resupply.
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Apr 17, 2013 20:10
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Seoinin posted:Again, maybe I'd just be a lovely Roman. I get ambition, but a culture being so rabidly ambitious that the whole empire gets knocked out of whack multiple times in a generation by guys trying to topple each other? That's nuts.
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Apr 17, 2013 20:17
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Scapegoat posted:5) Logistics seems the key to Roman armies, what foods did the legions eat that must have had a long shelf life? Their winter camps seemed ready to last for months without resupply.
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Apr 17, 2013 20:32
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Scapegoat posted:Just finished reading the whole thread over the last few months and really enjoyed it. A couple of questions 1. They were effective in the role that you describe them - "shock and awe" attacks. Even Hannibal's use of them was, mostly, for just that. Him bringing them through the Alps was legitimately impressive and added to the whole "Holy poo poo, if he's still got elephants what's next?" They were rarely, if ever, a truly decisive military unit. 2. Yes and no. He was extremely charismatic, he was a very good general. He got a lot of his clout from literally destroying larger enemy forces using the superb Roman military organization and morale that his opponents lacked. This charisma and reputation of crushing the enemy had a lot to do with his effect on the Roman armies and cities he encountered on the way back to Rome. He was willing to be genocidal to barbarian opponents and a skilled general, and it's hard to face that when he comes knocking on his way back to Rome. He had an excellent finger on the pulse of Roman society, but was dogged equally by his character among the Roman elite. He was in no way perfect, he just had a motive and an opportunity to be "that guy" during that time in history. edit: as to his assassination - he had to have known it was a very likely possibility, but he was so intent on doing his own thing that he couldn't let every fear of it keep him from what his goal was. As an aside - I'd love to hear what people feel his 'goal' actually was. Once he was named dictator for 10 years, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of what he actually intended to do with it or how he was going to pass it on. I'd love to know what the man himself thought was actually going to happen, because he kind of lands on the 'king of the mountain' trope and then goes "uh..parthian campaign?" 3. In Roman upper society, life was seemingly a lot like today, in as much as "Yep, some people are gay." There were still a lot of taboo's associated with it. Imagine that a politician of some importance were gay today. It's certainly a thing, but most people would deal with it accordingly. There's also a lot of states with sodomy laws and such on the books for whatever reason. Does that play into how they're perceived? Maybe, but chances that they'd be prosecuted or whatever on it are slim. Same then. 4. People were supposedly freaked the gently caress out. I wouldn't say it was convenient, more than they couldn't afford to pull back legions from other fronts. Using a terrible analogy, it'd be like if the Nazi's had landed in the UK during WWII while the allies were still holding down other fronts. poo poo was crazy, but they just couldn't pull more people off the lines in other areas. That said, it was a "big deal", but there's some question of if Rome would have fallen even if Hannibal had assaulted it when given the chance. There's a reason he didn't, after all. 5. Logistics are the key to all armies, all the time throughout history. They foraged and looted the poo poo out of everything, and their organized camps allowed them to process and store it better than 'roving band of bandits'. I see that there. fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 20:34
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I see that there. posted:4. People were supposedly freaked the gently caress out. I wouldn't say it was convenient, more than they couldn't afford to pull back legions from other fronts. Using a terrible analogy, it'd be like if the Nazi's had landed in the UK during WWII while the allies were still holding down other fronts. poo poo was crazy, but they just couldn't pull more people off the lines in other areas. That said, it was a "big deal", but there's some question of if Rome would have fallen even if Hannibal had assaulted it when given the chance. There's a reason he didn't, after all. Yeah, they didn't really have a whole lot of ability to recall those guys. It would have taken weeks to get any sort of message out to them, by which point the threat could have passed/war could have been over. Since Rome just kept raising army after army anyway (Cannae wasn't really their last defeat in Italy), seemingly without too much trouble, there would be no point in recalling them anyway. Then there's the part where Hannibal probably could never have taken the city in the first place. He definitely wasn't confident in his ability to do it (apparently he didn't have much in the way of siege engines; he kept asking Carthage to send some), nor were Roman generals. Hannibal marched on Rome in 211, hoping to draw the Romans off from their siege of Capua and then engage them in pitched battle, but the Roman generals called his bluff and just sat where they were. Hannibal then just marched away from Rome again. quote:5. Logistics are the key to all armies, all the time throughout history. They foraged and looted the poo poo out of everything, and their organized camps allowed them to process and store it better than 'roving band of bandits'. Indeed, 'foraging' (read: looting, from what I can tell) has been a the key to almost every army ever. You buy supplies from the locals, and if they won't sell, or won't sell at the price you want, you send out soldiers and take it. The home country would supply you with weapons, armor, ships, siege equipment, and things of this nature.
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Apr 17, 2013 21:05
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physeter posted:It's actually how a stunningly large part of the world has expected things to be for the majority of its history. This is what happens when we view the history of Italy through the lens of the English-speaking peoples, who for whatever reason, have not suffered a rash of coups and juntas in so long that we do not have words in the English language for those scenarios. Many Africans, South Americans, and Asians alive today have first hand experience with individuals jeopardizing the stability of the state for personal ambition. It is an entirely normal if unfortunate state of affairs for humanity, and should serve as reminder of how anglicized Roman history can get. This is almost exactly right, in my mind. State power struggles ad infinitum seemingly define history for obvious reasons. But I have a question for you - these types of power struggles and constant coups that you're talking about happen in areas where there are severe international pressures. So very many of these struggles in the Roman Empire happened while Rome was standing nearly alone on the global stage. Would you define this as some type of experimental shaping of a government or something else? Coups, military infrastructure insolubility, and all that crap happens even when the Roman Empire is seemingly standing alone and unchallenged. Sure, there are times when a campaign against "X" is gearing up, but is that the same? For example, I expect to hear about coup attempts in besieged nations, or those facing massive hardships due to international relations, etc. But Rome was like, "THE guy" when a lot of that kind of crap went down over centuries.
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Apr 17, 2013 21:16
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I see that there. posted:This is almost exactly right, in my mind. State power struggles ad infinitum seemingly define history for obvious reasons. Thanks for throwing this out there, as I had a similar question but couldn't think how to phrase it. A lot of history for a lot of places is comprised of strong men kicking each other around, but it occurs in situations that don't quite have a 1:1 equivalence to the Roman Empire. Even if you limit it to the era of the empire, you see some significant variations. Arsacid Parthia comes close to Rome's coup-happy behavior, but they had the excuse of being really decentralized in comparison. The Sassanids had a lot of dynastic tension of their own, but it was at the palace level.
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Apr 17, 2013 21:34
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CommissarMega posted:What little I know of Latin says that the 'C' is a hard one, like in 'cat'. So does that names like 'Iceni', 'Vercingetorix' etc. are all pronounced with a hard C? I can definitely see it in Vercingetorix, assuming that there was a bit of language diffusion between the Frankish and Germanic peoples. That is correct, although I don't understand what your last sentence is about. Fun fact: v was pronounced like English w, so the Latin pronunciation was "werking-getoreex".
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Apr 17, 2013 21:54
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Rome always had enemies at their borders resisting them, if not actively then biding their time, even if these enemies weren't strong enough to march on Rome directly. Samnites and Carthaginians first, then local kings like Jugurtha or Mithridates during the Republic, then the Parthians and various Germanic tribes when they got that far out during the Empire. If they ever stopped fighting these groups, they would definitely start encroaching on Roman territory. By the time Rome moved beyond being a regional power, they effectively had to fight several regional powers simultaneously. With the way the world worked, they were going to be in near-perpetual war because of this.
Azathoth fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Apr 17, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 22:11
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PittTheElder posted:Indeed, 'foraging' (read: looting, from what I can tell) has been a the key to almost every army ever. You buy supplies from the locals, and if they won't sell, or won't sell at the price you want, you send out soldiers and take it. The home country would supply you with weapons, armor, ships, siege equipment, and things of this nature. Certainly there is a lot of that kind of "procurement" in any inhabited area. But of course Roman legions also operated way out in the boondocks where the locals were hunter-gatherers themselves, at which point the foragers would tackle large-scale hunting and fishing. This is somewhat off topic, but Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman goes into great depth about the nature, difficulties and virtues of foraging in his memoirs of his western campaign during the American Civil War. Like the Romans, he organized dedicated foraging companies who would spread out into the countryside collecting corn and seizing rebel supplies; to his mind it was a significant advantage that he held over the Confederate generals, whose hodge-podge armies prevented that kind of organization. Those memoirs are a must-read for anyone interested in military logistics.
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Apr 17, 2013 22:16
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I see that there. posted:3. In Roman upper society, life was seemingly a lot like today, in as much as "Yep, some people are gay." There were still a lot of taboo's associated with it. Imagine that a politician of some importance were gay today. It's certainly a thing, but most people would deal with it accordingly. There's also a lot of states with sodomy laws and such on the books for whatever reason. Does that play into how they're perceived? Maybe, but chances that they'd be prosecuted or whatever on it are slim. Same then. I'm definitely just a layman here, but did the Romans really think about being "gay" like we would today? Today we think of a gay man as a man that is sexually attracted to other men and not women. When I think about Roman homosexuality I think more about something like Hadrian. Yeah he was probably boning Antinous but he was married and probably messed around with women too. And the sexual part, if any, of what he got up to with Antinous was kept on the dl from what I can tell. So yeah Hadrian probably slept with a dude, but I don't think that maps onto what we think of as "gay" very well .
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Apr 17, 2013 23:34
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I see that there. posted:Oh, I agree with all of you saying that sometimes the guy had to do it or he was going to be the first up against the wall when some other guy got there ahead of him. I certainly think that was a large part of it, but that type of power and ambition to drive yourself into a "I must rule or die" scenario becomes at least seemingly rarer as we near modernity. In as much as the later on in history you go, there's much more politicking than there is just sheer balls out power-grabbing in the middle empire. Well one of the main causes is because you couldn't just take over like in the Roman era, since even though you were a successful General and statesman you just couldn't depose the King in a way that Roman generals deposed Emperors, to do something like that you needed to actually have a claim to the title of King yourself. Pump it up! Do it! fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Apr 18, 2013 |
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Apr 17, 2013 23:39
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Lord Tywin posted:Well one of the main causes is because you couldn't just take over like in the Roman, since even though you were a successful General and statesman you just couldn't depose the King in a way that Roman generals deposed Emperors, to do something like that you needed to actually have a claim to the title of King yourself. Sort of. Mostly it's just weird how Roman emperors had a lot of trouble keeping dynasties going. Like the Chinese empires had plenty of unrest and coups and civil wars, yet the emperors there had better luck in keeping their male heirs alive.
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Apr 18, 2013 01:11
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