|
We don't know much about the lower classes, but upper class Roman education was memorization and repetition. Marcus Aurelius has some writings about it and how lucky he felt to not have to go through it. Someone else around here knows it better and posted some stuff earlier in the thread. If you're familiar with Chinese/Korean/Japanese education, rote learning derived from the old Chinese Mandarin exam system, it's quite similar. Just without the examinations.
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 02:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 18:01 |
|
|
Nobody asked about this, but I spotted this on the BBC and thought it would be interesting here. 'Hairdo archaeologist' solves ancient fashion mystery quote:Janet Stephens earns a living trimming, straightening and dyeing the hair of customers seeking the latest look. There's a video at the link (don't see any way to embed the video here) regarding how hair was styled in ancient times.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 04:01
|
|
|
AdjectiveNoun posted:How about Han Wudi of China? Wasn't he able to pretty much break a nomadic confederation by going on the offensive /on/ the steppe? Granted, it was costly as heck, but that's got to be an achievement. He wasn't a general though. Li Guang and Wei Qing were some of the generals involved in that series of conflicts, but Chinese history, especially in the Han, doesn't emphasize or record military matters the same way western history does, so it's hard to tell. The archaeology isn't as advanced or understand as it is in Europe either.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 04:16
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:We don't know much about the lower classes, but upper class Roman education was memorization and repetition. Marcus Aurelius has some writings about it and how lucky he felt to not have to go through it. Someone else around here knows it better and posted some stuff earlier in the thread. If you're familiar with Chinese/Korean/Japanese education, rote learning derived from the old Chinese Mandarin exam system, it's quite similar. Just without the examinations. I don't know much and could be wrong about any of this, but I seem to recall that the focus was entirely on memorizing specific classics and understanding their writing styles, so that you could reproduce that sort of language on command. That is, students would have to be able to give speeches in the same styles as the great poets and orators - stuff like that. There was also some mathematics, I think, but it also took the form of strict memorization. Remember multiplication tables from grade school? Yeah, now imagine you have to memorize addition tables, subtraction tables, division tables, and maybe some other stuff. No processing, no solving of equations or practical examples, just memorizing tables and lists. Apparently it was widely regarded as soul crushing, and as you mentioned Marcus Aurelius considered his having avoided it to be very fortunate. I would assume lower classes got a more practical, skill oriented "education" - that is, kids probably helped parents in workshops or in the fields, and learned the way things were done apprentice style. That's purely a guess though, and I don't know how or if they learned things like reading or basic maths.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 12:36
|
|
|
Barto posted:He wasn't a general though. Li Guang and Wei Qing were some of the generals involved in that series of conflicts, but Chinese history, especially in the Han, doesn't emphasize or record military matters the same way western history does, so it's hard to tell. The archaeology isn't as advanced or understand as it is in Europe either. It's not that the archaeology isn't as advanced, its that the archaeology has to show results that follow China's pattern of history somewhat.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 16:01
|
|
|
sbaldrick posted:It's not that the archaeology isn't as advanced, its that the archaeology has to show results that follow China's pattern of history somewhat. I don't mean technology wise, I mean they haven't dug as much stuff up as the Europeans have. Alternatively, they dug a bunch of stuff up in the last thousand years (from the previous two thousand years) and lost it again. No need to make it political, archaeology needs time to do right and even more time to get the results of that to the history/literature community and even more time to digest it into "cool books for general public form." China hasn't had an Edward Gibbon yet- and to be honest, they don't a historical tradition in the same sense as the west anyway. But they are working on it! I've seen some interesting stuff in Chinese, but it's going to be another decade or two before we get anything- let alone anything in English. Anything you see in English is no good and out of date usually. Got to remember: you read a cool book about Hittites, that's based on 30 or 40 years of recent, well-funded archaeology. 40 years ago, they were actively destroying their cultural heritage. So... Barto fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Jun 3, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 16:43
|
|
|
Possibly one of the most interesting things to witness in our age next to the mars landing might be the opening of Qin Shi Huangdi's tomb. I really hope that I'll see that happen. Somebody posted some youtube videos with the hairstyles a few pages back. Quite interesting. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Jun 3, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 20:48
|
|
|
karl fungus posted:How did ancient education work? Was there a set curriculum? Did you receive a grade? Were there set classes that were required by others? Could you choose what you wanted to learn about? Or, are all of these modern concepts? With regards to the Roman system, there were both primary school teachers (litterators) and secondary school teachers (grammatici) : 1. There was a set curriculum, in the sense that once pupils could actually read and write, teachers concentrated heavily on (a) the art of rhetoric and (b) teaching Latin and Greek poetry and literature, partly because it was felt that without a good grasp of poetry you would never be an effective public speaker. Almost everything else was ancillary to the rhetoric i.e. if you learned some history, it was because your teacher wanted you to make a speech defending (insert famous Roman) against (insert charge) after he (insert famous action of well-known Roman). 2. I don't think they gave grades as such - there was no public exam system of any kind. 3. Choice?  It was Rome. You did what you got told or you got a beating, basically. The Romans didn't really go for progressive methods of child-rearing.4. Set classes - I think it would have been a case of having one teacher for everything. This was pretty much for boys from the upper classes, hence the obsession with rhetoric, since they would be expected to have a public career of some kind. Upper class girls sometimes got some schooling, enough so they were at least literate, but not usually as much as the boys, because they weren't going to go into politics or the law. In the really wealthy families, the boys might have been sent to finish their education at one of the universities in Greece or the Greek colonies, which mostly concentrated on Greek philosophy. With poorer Romans, it would have been pretty much a case of "boy learns father's trade, girl learns domestic stuff from mother," although there were some local initiatives to provide schools for poor children and some might have scraped the money together to pay a teacher to at least make sure their children were literate.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 20:48
|
|
|
I distinctly remember hearing somewhere how Roman literacy education was particularly bad. That is you would learn the letters of the alphabet first. Not, you don't get to see what they look like, just what they sound like, totally out of context as well. No A is for apple. Just A, B, C, D... and so on until you got it. Then you learn to draw them, still no association of what these things are, what they mean or how you use them, just draw idiot. Having not used quills or whatever before, having no lessons on it just, teacher draws A, you copy and its beating time if it isn't perfect first time. Can you imagine how long it takes to become literate like that? And don't think it suddenly picks up either. It's like they were 2500 years ahead of their time and were creating a plan to program a computer to use language rather than a human being. Maths was the same. Learn these numbers. Just like you learnt the letters. Don't learn what they mean. Then learn that this one and this one, make this other one. It'd literally be like someone telling you. Qubork + Qubork = Wizzo Qubork + Wizzo = Bibble Qubork + Bibble = Pontispule And so on, for every reasonable combination of addition. And you'd be expected to memorise it all. Beatings if you mess up and every day dusk till dawn, no weekends, no holidays (aside from major public holidays). Oh and your dad is paying a lot for this as well.
|
|
#
?
Jun 3, 2013 22:41
|
|
|
(Posted with kind permission from Eggplant Wizard) Hi, I've been enjoying the thread a lot, and came across a Indiegogo kickstarter that might be interesting for people posting here.  The Timbuktu Libraries in Exile kickstarter is collecting funds for the preservation of the manuscripts evacuated from Timbuktu during the recent occupation of the city by Ansar Dine militants. As you'll recall, there were concerns that the ancient collections -covering subjects like astronomy, genealogy and history- were destroyed by fundamentalists. However, the caretakers of the collection and locals organized a vast rescue operation, storing the manuscripts into footlockers and smuggling them to different parts of Mali (as detailed in this article: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112898/timbuktu-librarians-duped-al-qaeda-save-books) Having been removed from their dry and arid home, however, the manuscripts are in danger of being damaged by moisture in their new humid environments. They are currently being stored like this, with about 300 texts in one box:  As only about 2,000 of these manuscripts have been digitized, their loss would remove a vast, largely untapped source of historical research. The kickstarter is collecting money for archival boxes, moisture traps and other materials needed for proper archiving of the documents. The stated goal of the organizers is 100,000 dollars, but as of this writing only about 20,000 has been raised. A donation of 30 would be enough to cover the cost of preserving one manuscript. The organizers are offering a variety of rewards (such as having your name and photo affixed to the archive box of the document your donation has preserved), fully detailed in the kickstarter homepage, but I feel that safeguarding at least some of these unresearched texts is a worthy cause in itself. The fundraiser is using the "flexible funding" option, meaning that any funds collected will be donated even if the goal of 100,000 is not met. Hopefully the texts can eventually returned to Timbuktu once political unrest in Mali calms down. I'm not personally involved in the project, but given the many examples of knowledge being lost forever in this very thread, I thought it would be nice to mention an opportunity to help preserve our common cultural heritage. I have donated 30 dollars myself, and even with that I got a very heartfelt thank you-message from the organizers. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 11:15
|
|
|
Thanks for that, soon as I get paid I will kick some money their way. Going to send it to my uni's classics department too. If only we couldve kickstarted the Mongols out of Baghdad. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 11:53
|
|
|
That kickstarter's amazing.Cast_No_Shadow posted:Maths was the same. Learn these numbers. Just like you learnt the letters. Don't learn what they mean. Then learn that this one and this one, make this other one. It'd literally be like someone telling you. How did Romans do arithmetic, anyway? If they used the "traditional" "IV = 4" notation, even addition is tricky (III + I doesn't equal IIII), and multiplication would have been almost impossible. It's like they would have had to do all the sums mentally, or perhaps addition, and then write the answers out. Roman logistics must have been hellish.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 11:12
|
|
|
I assume that's why they memorized a million different sums rather than practicing calculations. Once the danger has passed, those guys should organize a second Kickstarter to digitize those books.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 11:53
|
|
|
House Louse posted:That kickstarter's amazing. Well, memorization will take you a good ways; using pebbles or bread-crumbs will show you why those results work. This isn't too different from how first- and second-graders learn arithmetic now: there's a lot of drilling and practice sums, and playing with little blocks or widgets to "see" that the sums really do add up like that. And though it's clunkier, multiplication is not as impossible as it might seem: for instance, to multiply IV by VI, you can split the digits apart thus: multiply V by V and V by I, and then remove I by V and I by I: in general, you want to take the largest kind of digit in each number as the first one to work with, and finish a calculation with just that digit when working with the other number, and then repeat with the other, lower digits in the number. Numbers to the right of the largest kind of digit in a number get added as you go along; numbers to the left of it get subtracted. You can even write these figures down as you go along, like we do when doing multiplication longhand; you just can't assume that the numerals you write down are going to show up in your final sum. It's a little harder than our system, but I don't see that it's radically so. I think addition actually looks harder to grok: there's a lot of arbirariness in what counting-numbers get represented by a new sign in the notation, and sometimes the next sign in the notation is dictated by what's coming up later, not by what's already been counted (e.g., XXXIX is followed by XL, which is indicated by nothing counted before the 40th number or by any patterns in the counting from 1 to 40). Once you have these oddities from addition memorized, I think multiplication is not much harder to learn in the Roman numeral system than it is in our own. It seems quite systematic if you already know how to add in Roman numerals. But learning to add at all looks like a bitch. (Not that our own system is free of arbitrariness: it's just that it's systematically organized, by adding a sign after 10 is hit, and then another after each multiple of 10, etc. The real problem with the Roman system, pragmatically, seems to me just this lack of a common base. Of course a lot of higher mathematics is wildly more intuitive with a sign for 0 and our other conveniences we've invented in the past millenia, but I don't see a gigantic problem with doing arithmetic in Roman numerals.) But this is all armchairing it from my perspective: Anyone know what sort of arithmetical shortcuts Romans actually used? Having ways to check large calculations other than memory is really important for e.g. trading and shipping large amounts of things, so it seems like the sort of thing that would've been written up somewhere for other people to benefit from. Was there anything like an abacus that was specialized for using alongside Roman notation?
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 12:29
|
|
|
House Louse posted:That kickstarter's amazing. http://turner.faculty.swau.edu/mathematics/materialslibrary/roman/ explains how you can do arithmetical operations with the Roman numerals. Whether or not the Romans actually used those methods is questionable (we don't have any ancient Roman arithmetic primers), but it's not impossible and quite possibly wasn't just a matter of rote memory.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 12:33
|
|
|
Re roman counting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus I believe these are shown being used in the BBC HBO Rome miniseries as well.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 13:31
|
|
|
Promontory posted:
This is great. And a little sad, considering how little funds they've managed to gather during this time compared to more commercial projects. Then again indiegogo + flexible funding is not the best combination. Hopefully they'll pull through. I've enjoyed this thread a lot. Refraining from my own questions, here's something small that I found interesting: The Draco, the Late Roman military standard. Windsock banners that were originally used by more cavalry-oriented peoples (maybe to determine the direction of the wind for horse archers, if it was the Parthians instead of Dacians), that the Romans adopted during the 2nd century.   The head was made of bronze and had a mechanism that made a whistling (or even "hissing") noise when run against the wind. And the heads were goddamn dragons hell yeah.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 16:53
|
|
|
euphronius posted:Re roman counting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus You can do a lot of math pretty quickly with one of those things. It's pretty amazing. Roman mathematicians would also just use Greek for complex equations, particularly for trigonometry. But in general Romans were engineers, not scientists, and they didn't have a lot of use for "pure mathematics"
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 17:02
|
|
|
Barto posted:I don't mean technology wise, I mean they haven't dug as much stuff up as the Europeans have. The Chinese have dug up as much stuff as Europeans, and often in a better more controlled way due to the Soviet influence (they did great archaeology in Central Asia most of which has never seen the light of day in General history books). China doesn't need an Edward Gibbon due to a culturally difference in the way history has been recorded and it's story within the culture. The fact is the Cultural Revolution set archaeology back at least 50 years in China. My favorite world shaking archaeology at the moment in Indus Valley Stuff which seems to have stalled.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 18:14
|
|
|
Still are a lot of untranslated Sumerian tablets left, too. Probably mostly receipts for sheep sales or tax rolls, but might be some interesting stuff in there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 22:08
|
|
|
Were the Romans aware of civilizations that preceded them? Like, did they know about the Sumerians?
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 00:06
|
|
|
From what we currently know, the Romans based most of their understanding of ancient history from greek historians such as Herodotus who, living in the 5th century BC, takes them back about 2000 BC using Egyptian sources that are pretty shaky. Herodotus is a cool as gently caress dude, and if anyone is interested they should pick up "The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories." Because it has awesome maps and stuff. So, anyway, because we've lost so many Roman sources, we don't know exactly what they knew about the ancient world, pre-600 BC, other than the fact that Herodotus is often cited and still extant, so we know they knew that much. Were there other sources and lost texts, most probably, how accurate or how far back the went, no one will ever know. We do know that the Romans considered both the Jews and Egyptians (in the historic sense, not the Ptolemaic sense) 'exotic' and interesting because of their ancient cultures.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 01:58
|
|
|
Kind a confusing discussion since Egyptians, Jews and the people who are now Iraqis were all also Romans.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:05
|
|
|
sbaldrick posted:The Chinese have dug up as much stuff as Europeans, and often in a better more controlled way due to the Soviet influence (they did great archaeology in Central Asia most of which has never seen the light of day in General history books). Um, no? They've also destroyed tons of stuff in recent years. The Three Gorges Dam probably flooded tons of important sites and they knew it when they did it. Also, not better controlled at all. The biggest discovery lately has been some documents that got dug up from a tomb illegally (of course they don't know which one) then bought by a philanthropist on the black market to donate back to the university. China has been in absolute political turmoil for the last 150 years. Westerners were stealing stuff and busting open tombs, millions of people have been dying, they had ten years where any sort of ancient object was fair game for destruction. Before that from the Song onwards digging up stuff for literati collections...and losing it again in the following thousand years let alone important information like...where it's from. It's been for the last 30-40 that Chinese archaeology has been going anywhere productive- and all you have to do is walk into a Chinese museum to see how they're still loving it up badly. China has absolutely so much stuff and so much is being destroyed from ignorance and willy-nilly city expansion that it's disgusting. Their policies and level of understanding of their own archaeological past is not at the European level yet. The reason is simple: they usually have some sort of literary evidence for a lot of things but almost never are able to hook that up with something they've dug up. They don't even know where most of the important ruins of major cities are in a lot of cases. There is a major disconnect between a) the literary tradition and b) their very incomplete archaeological record. Just look at what scholars of Rome can say with confidence based on archaeological evidence- Chinese scholars don't have that certainty and won't before another 20 or 30 years have gone past. Like I said, it's a work in progress and they're getting there. But you don't just replicate 200 years of European archaeology in 30 years. That's why there's no Chinese Gibbon. Gibbon had a lot of resources from ancient times that the Chinese historical/literary record just doesn't provide. Anyone who wants to piece together a really good critical history of ancient China based on crunchy details needs to get in the dirt. Theory and reading old books will just not cut it. This is a need that people in the field are aware of. Not because they don't need a Gibbon or they don't have a bunch of people publishing and trying to be that guy. They'd be disappointed to learn their efforts are unnecessary due to "orientalism." Let me just add a note here: Traditional history is part of the Chinese department in Chinese speaking countries normally. That's because their Chinese departments are more like "Chinese studies" than pure literature- it's a tradition thing. History as a discipline is western and separate. 1998: "Looting is epidemic in Wushan and Fengjie counties, Sichuan, where scientific excavations in advance of the dam project have been thwarted by a lack of funds. Flush with money from sales of pillaged artifacts, looters are reported to carry high-frequency radios, cellular phones, and prospecting equipment. Burial grounds in both counties are known to have been dynamited to make way for construction projects. One thousand tombs dating between the Han and Ming periods (206 B.C. to A.D. 1644) were blasted away to make way for a new country seat in Baotaping, Fengjie. Peasants scavaging for artifacts exposed by the dynamiting and bulldozers assaulted Fengjie cultural relics officials who attempted to stop them. Another thousand tombs are estimated to have been destroyed at another construction site in Ziyangcheng, Fengjie." http://archive.archaeology.org/online/news/china.html Barto fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Jun 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:10
|
|
|
Not really that confusing. Both Jewish and Egyptian were seen more along cultural or religious lines rather than distinct geographic area. I think the religious cultures of both were pretty familiar to romans and there were enclaves of both inside the republic prior to the physical locations of Egypt and the Levant being brought in as provinces. I see that there. fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Jun 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:12
|
|
|
I think maybe what the question is more " what did Latin or Italian Romans know of Mesopotamia?"
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:19
|
|
|
euphronius posted:I think maybe what the question is more " what did Latin or Italian Romans know of Mesopotamia?" "drat Parthians live over there. Thereabouts. Maybe?"
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:23
|
|
|
Do we have contemporary Byzantine writings from between the fall of the west up to the early spread of Islam? I'm very curious as to what the Byzantines thought of what was going on around them at the time, and how they viewed the loss of the western empire, or perhaps the new Islamic expansion providing a potent threat.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:39
|
|
|
Barto posted:Um, no? We will have to agree to disagree. Do you honestly think that Schliemann or Carter did archaeology or history any real favors? Schliemann used dynamite to clear Troy, the Chinese have had least had the good sense not to break into Qin Shi Huang tomb. I love Edward Gibbon, he did some great work and Decline and Fall is a great read. However, given the Gibbon main part of modern history is the adding of secondary and primary sources to historiography its not really need given that everyone that works in serious History already does that.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 03:46
|
|
|
sbaldrick posted:Do you honestly think that Schliemann or Carter did archaeology or history any real favors? Schliemann used dynamite to clear Troy, the Chinese have had least had the good sense not to break into Qin Shi Huang tomb. Schliemann is an obvious outlier, but I hardly think you can say Carter did no favours to history. How about capturing the imagination of every child for a hundred years? If you're going to bring up destructive western archaeologists Carter is about the last person you should call out- he did more good for history in the public eye than anybody else ever has, and very possibly ever will again.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 03:54
|
|
|
sbaldrick posted:Do you honestly think that Schliemann or Carter did archaeology or history any real favors? Schliemann used dynamite to clear Troy, the Chinese have had least had the good sense not to break into Qin Shi Huang tomb. That was the bad old days when it was transitioning from pure looting to science. No one would defend those guys, though I wouldn't at all put Carter in the same category as Schliemann. E: Actually no Carter doesn't qualify as bad at all. I saw Schliemann's name and had a rage blackout. Scientific archaeology is relatively new even in the west. And it's something of a luxury of money. China is absolutely not well explored at all archaeologically, but they're making the effort now and it'll catch up. They just got a later start. Consider that the origin of something resembling real archaeology is in the late Qing. China was basically hosed from then up to Deng Xiaoping's reforms, so they missed all that time that the west had to develop its archaeology. It may be a good thing ultimately, since they also skipped a lot of the crap that the west did ruining sites before we figured out how to do it properly. But China ruins its archaeology in other ways, too. loving Cultural Revolution. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Jun 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 03:55
|
|
|
sbaldrick posted:We will have to agree to disagree. Well, all I can say is talk to a local Chinese archaeologist or historian. As for Gibbon, his contribution was obviously the fusion of a lot of sources and ideas into one vision that sets the stage for historical studies in the west. Chinese history is still looking for that defining vision (as a western discipline). Again, go into a Chinese book store or University library, look around. I gave you concrete information, you give me one-liners. You don't believe me, go to the source. Also for gently caress's sake- European archaeology isn't currently (RIGHT NOW) dynamiting 2000 year old tombs for construction projects. There's a lot of stuff, really important stuff, that's been discovered and destroyed in the last decade because the person building the apartment building knows that discovery will halt his project. There's no oversight. The state of Chinese and European archaeology is not comparable.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 03:57
|
|
|
Turkey gradually bulldozing Antioch is probably the greatest currently occurring archaeology crime in Europe. There are problems in Italy and Greece, because basically any time you dig literally anywhere there, you find something and it fucks up your construction project. Things get destroyed or smuggled to the black market to try to avoid anyone from the government finding out and halting the project until the archaeologists can come in. It's not nearly as bad as in China, but unfortunately it does happen. The UK has a great system to discourage looting where if you find something, the government will have it appraised and pay you a reasonable market price as if you'd sold it. Looting is almost nonexistent in British sites because of that, most everything gets properly excavated.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 04:04
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Turkey gradually bulldozing Antioch is probably the greatest currently occurring archaeology crime in Europe. They're bulldozing Antioch?? I thought Turkey was better about this sort of thing.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 04:06
|
|
|
While we're on the subject of Antioch, what was notable about it? It's a name I've heard often, but I'm unsure of which events it took part in.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 04:10
|
|
|
Barto posted:They're bulldozing Antioch?? Unfortunately. Finds in Istanbul are usually well taken care of but Antioch is a tragedy. The modern city of Antakya is expanding into the ancient site and typically it's just flattened and built on, with no archaeology or preservation done.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 04:12
|
|
|
 Holey moley he even looks like Snidely Whiplash.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 05:40
|
|
|
karl fungus posted:Do we have contemporary Byzantine writings from between the fall of the west up to the early spread of Islam? I'm very curious as to what the Byzantines thought of what was going on around them at the time, and how they viewed the loss of the western empire, or perhaps the new Islamic expansion providing a potent threat. I would also love to know the answer to this.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 07:41
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
I just looked at some graffitis from Pompejii. One of the most reoccuring themes: street-making GBS threads. How bad was it?
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 07:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 18:01 |
|
|
Those raised bricks in the road were partly so you could walk across them without stepping in poo poo. In medieval towns, shoes with ridiculous heels/platforms were common to keep your feet out of the poo poo. Roman ones had much better sanitation but major roads could still get pretty gross.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 07:50
|
|