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Grand Fromage posted:The lack of seaworthiness of ancient ships is overstated sometimes, but there's no way they'd survive crossing the Atlantic. Eh, people have done it in rowboats and my understanding is that there are currents that will pretty much push you across even without a sail. If they got lucky and didn't hit a storm I could see it happening. Ok fine, it's a long shot. But the point is I (and everyone else) reaallllyy want it to have happened.
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Jul 14, 2013 06:03
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I don't know if it changed as the centuries went by, but my understanding was that the Romans were NOT fans of sailing, formed navies mostly by necessity and considered being a marine to be one of the lowest forms of military service there was. So sailing out into the great unknown doesn't strike me as something they'd be eager to do by choice.
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Jul 14, 2013 06:09
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Did they not have any explorers, though? Surely someone would wonder just what was out there beyond the borders?
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Jul 14, 2013 06:25
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karl fungus posted:Did they not have any explorers, though? Surely someone would wonder just what was out there beyond the borders? Assholes on horses. Lots and lots of assholes. And horses.
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Jul 14, 2013 07:33
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Install Gentoo posted:Hey the Romans were around for a good thousand years, that's plenty of time for such a thing to happen. I certainly wouldn't bet on battered and starved Roman sailors barely struggling to some Brazilian shore being able to make much of a cultural contact though. Their ships would be wrecked and the men would die of exposure long before reaching Brazil. It's really not feasible. karl fungus posted:Did they not have any explorers, though? Surely someone would wonder just what was out there beyond the borders? Rome was surrounded by some very hostile neighbours, who wouldn't take kindly to Roman travellers skulking around their land. Slim Jim Pickens fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Jul 14, 2013 |
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Jul 14, 2013 07:36
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For anyone unfamiliar, this whole conversation comes from some nutjob claiming there are a couple of wrecked Roman ships in a river in Brazil but the Brazilian government is covering it up. As usual the story doesn't hold together from the very beginning--why would you cover up one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever?
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Jul 14, 2013 07:38
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karl fungus posted:Did they not have any explorers, though? Surely someone would wonder just what was out there beyond the borders? Truly distant lands are far too distant to be conquered. No gain to be had. Better to conquer your immediate neighbours.  karl fungus posted:So how did the Vikings do it? Much better ships, a seafaring tradition, some sort of method for navigation at sea, and the advantage of pit-stops in Iceland and Greenland. The Romans never cared much for sailing, even in the very timid Mediterranean, which is basically non-tidal even. The Atlantic is another beast entirely. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Jul 14, 2013 |
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Jul 14, 2013 08:04
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Eh, people have done it in rowboats and my understanding is that there are currents that will pretty much push you across even without a sail. If they got lucky and didn't hit a storm I could see it happening. Ok fine, it's a long shot. But the point is I (and everyone else) reaallllyy want it to have happened. While it's true that folks have made it across the Atlantic in very small boats, those folks in the rowboats have a support ship following them that hold their food and give them a place to sleep. Fresh water and proper navigation are the traditional barriers to transatlantic travel. While the open ocean seems pretty scary to those who haven't sailed, the reality is that the coastline is much more dangerous. I think that the Romans had the technical capability to build sailing ships and get them across the Atlantic, particularly if they followed the Northern route like the Vikings and the early European traders, but the maps they'd need to do it - much less an awareness of the New World - hadn't been developed. Without proper navigation, they'd never be able to hold enough food and water to find their way across.
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Jul 14, 2013 09:12
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They probably could've figured it out if they really wanted to, but why would they? The Atlantic was the end of the world, there's nothing beyond it. Waste of time to develop technology to go out that direction.
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Jul 14, 2013 09:47
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Barto posted:Ya to the canary Islands, but the Carthaginians and Greeks got there first. When Hanno went on his big trip (according to Pliny the Elder) the island was uninhabited but filled with great ruins. Later, there were some folks called the Guanches hanging out there in Romans times. What ruins? Did the Romans ever went into detail about were the ruins came from, or did someone at least try to excavate those ruins later? Stuff like this makes me really curious.
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Jul 14, 2013 10:11
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So where did the Ottomans come from? Like, what were the Turks doing in prior centuries? Were they around as a group during antiquity?
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Jul 14, 2013 16:31
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During antiquity the Turks were out in Central Asia somewhere. They migrate west, and the Ottomans are just the most successful of the various Turkish groups.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:35
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karl fungus posted:So where did the Ottomans come from? Like, what were the Turks doing in prior centuries? Were they around as a group during antiquity? Short answer: they were nomads in Central Asia. It's hard to say what was going on during the antiquity, but the Huns might've been Turkic, and there were some Turkic groups pestering Northern China. Then during Late Antiquity the Turks became ever more significant in Central Asia, with the Göktürk Empire ruling over a huge area, and the Kipchaks, Pechenegs, Cumans, Bulgars and what have you pushing into Europe. Then in the 11th century the Oghuz Turks conquered the Abbasid Caliphate and huge chunks of Roman territory and established the Seljuk Empire in the Middle East and Iran. The Ottomans emerged out of one of the tribes that settled in Anatolia during this period. I don't think many people realise how loving impressive and terrifying a history the Turks have.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:43
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Indeed, 'Turk' should probably have about the same significance as 'Mongol'. Steppe warriors man, loving good at what they do. The reason it doesn't is probably because it got tempered by images of the Ottoman Turks in European experience.
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Jul 14, 2013 20:14
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I dunno about having the same significance as "Mongol", but they should definitely have at least the same significance as "Hun".
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Jul 14, 2013 20:17
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Actually here in modern Turkey, people tend to suggest that "Mongol" and "Turk" are in antiquity the same thing, and many folks claim that Genghis Khan is ethnically Turkish. "Dengiz" and "Cengiz" (the letter C is pronounced as a J) are pretty common names out here. Couldn't find anyone to talk to about the newly-found graffiti in Smyrna, and naturally the area they're looking at is all wrapped up -- I'll try to post something halfway interesting about it when I get the time.
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Jul 14, 2013 20:38
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Are the sassanid's and the medieval turkish groups of the same ethnicity?
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Jul 14, 2013 21:03
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Were the Persians also affected by the migration of the various barbarian groups? Also, did they react at all to the fall of the west? I'd imagine they would have been pretty amused at the collapse of half of their rival.
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Jul 14, 2013 21:07
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Litmus Test posted:Are the sassanid's and the medieval turkish groups of the same ethnicity? Nope. Sassanids are Persian, not Turkish. (though the argument can be made that Turks in the middle east were vastly changed as far as ethnicity goes via intermarriage with Arabs, Persians, etc. compared to, for instance, Turks in Central Asia) EDIT: The Persians weren't affected by the same groups that the Romans were (aside from the fact that the Romans would use Gothic Foederatii, amongst others, to fight the Persians), but they were plagued by the Hepthalites, a Central Asian nomadic confederation. Someone posted earlier in the thread about the Hepthalites basically decimating the Sassanid nobility (and killing the Sassanid Emperor) via a feinted retreat that led the Sassanid heavy cavalry into a ditch - after that, the Sassanids basically had to pay them tribute to stop them from raiding them. AdjectiveNoun fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Jul 14, 2013 |
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Jul 14, 2013 21:10
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karl fungus posted:Were the Persians also affected by the migration of the various barbarian groups? Yes, but particularly earlier in their history. Herodotus starts The Histories with the story of how Scythian nomads took over much of Persia. And obviously eventually Islamic Persia was conquered by the Turks, and then the Mongols and so on, but that was just an unholy mess all over. They weren't affected by the Great Migrations in the same way that Rome was, as the Germanic groups were located north of the Black Sea, and the Huns steered that way too.
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Jul 14, 2013 21:22
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karl fungus posted:Were the Persians also affected by the migration of the various barbarian groups? Well, I'm sure they were somewhat amused, but from their point of view the Roman empire was there and still in their way. They had border skirmishes for a bit and then the sassanids attacked during the reign of Justinian; Belisarus was recalled from Italy to sort them out, so the war ended with a rather bizarre treaty others have mentioned. Didn't accomplish except for showing why the Byzantines couldn't win back lost lands... As soon as they tried someone else would try and kick them in the pants. The Sassanids tried again during the reign of Phocas and Heraclius, and that ended with the sack of Csestiphon and a civil war in Persia, which made both empires easy pickings for the Arabs. As far as barbarian troubles, tne Byzantines allied with the Pechenegs to attack Persia. And supposedly the Sassanids built a series of walls in northern Persia to help keep them out. Or at least, that's what a booth I saw at an Iranian cultural exhibit was claiming.
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Jul 14, 2013 21:31
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Persia is kind of a pain in the rear end to attack too. If you have a choice between going there or into the Roman Empire, Rome's the easier target. Persia's just like one giant pile of mountains with a desert around it.
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Jul 15, 2013 01:37
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Grand Fromage posted:Persia is kind of a pain in the rear end to attack too. If you have a choice between going there or into the Roman Empire, Rome's the easier target. Persia's just like one giant pile of mountains with a desert around it. Yeah, check out this map: http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/images/maps/iran_map.gif It's all mountains, and it's all surrounded by mountains too, except towards Turkmenistan. And you did get various nomad groups pushing from there, all the way until the Mongols and poo poo. But it wasn't like Rome, where on this whole border stretch from the Northern Sea down to Constantinople you had a massive fertile territory open towards the east, and you had new and unknown tribal groups popping up every other month at some border fortress.
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Jul 15, 2013 01:46
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Ras Het posted:Yes, but particularly earlier in their history. Herodotus starts The Histories with the story of how Scythian nomads took over much of Persia. And obviously eventually Islamic Persia was conquered by the Turks, and then the Mongols and so on, but that was just an unholy mess all over. They weren't affected by the Great Migrations in the same way that Rome was, as the Germanic groups were located north of the Black Sea, and the Huns steered that way too. And the Parthians were originally steppe nomads too- and even before the Scythian kingdom, didn't the Elamites or Manneans or someone get kicked in by proto-horse nomads? Domesticated horses originated from Central Asia after all. And regarding the Turks:  They get less exposure than the Mongols because nobody in Europe cares about incursions into Persia and Afghanistan but they're really up there.
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Jul 15, 2013 02:47
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Ottoman monarchs also claimed the title "Kayser-i-Rum"--Caesar of Rome, though for them it was purely ceremonial. It was there main title in reality. Conquering Constantipole was such a huge thing you have no idea. Almost all Ottoman coins where printed with the "Kayser-i-Rum" title first till the 19th centurye,
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Jul 15, 2013 04:03
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So Wikipedia is telling me differing things and notes that there isn't entirely an academic consensus, but: were the Getae a part of the Dacians, or merely related? And how were the Dacians related to Thracians? Question inspired after learning about Zalmoxis, an interesting figure in Getae beliefs.
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Jul 15, 2013 04:19
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What was the general reaction to the fall of Constantinople across Europe/the Middle East? And did anyone outside of nobility really take to heart any claims of succession to Rome?
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Jul 15, 2013 08:28
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MothraAttack posted:So Wikipedia is telling me differing things and notes that there isn't entirely an academic consensus, but: were the Getae a part of the Dacians, or merely related? And how were the Dacians related to Thracians? Question inspired after learning about Zalmoxis, an interesting figure in Getae beliefs. The relationship between Getae, Thracians and Dacians is muddled. Greco-Roman historians tended to lump them all in the same category, calling them Thracians and Dacians interchangeably at times. One book I read a while ago - I'll try to find it and cite what sources the author used to form his theories - that focused specifically on the Dacians claimed they were different ethnically and linguistically from Thracians, but incorporated several Thracian (as well as Germanic and Scythian) tribes into their proto-state. He claims this is what confused Greco-Roman historians - they encountered Thracians first in Dacian territory and thus assumed the Dacians were Thracians. The Getae connection is similarly muddled by Greco-Roman confusion over the peoples of the Eastern Balkans, I can't recall what the author's view of the Getae was, I'll check back if I find the book again.
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Jul 15, 2013 15:47
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AdjectiveNoun posted:Greco-Roman historians tended to lump them all in the same category, calling them Thracians and Dacians interchangeably at times. Yeah, the Romans did this a lot. Found a group of people on the land where the Tribii lived 200 years ago? Must be the Tribii.
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Jul 15, 2013 18:23
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What do we know about Roman coin minting? Were coins used exclusively as currency? Was bartering completely gone?
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Jul 15, 2013 19:33
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bobthedinosaur posted:What do we know about Roman coin minting? Roman coins initially had a consistently high silver content so their value was pretty fixed, but as time passed and resources became scarcer/wars broke out/the empire teetered on bankruptcy etc the value of the coins was gradually debased and inflationary pressures started coming into play. A new coin with less than 5% silver content was supposed to be worth the same as an old coin with 40% silver content for example, but people weren't idiots and could tell just by the weight of the coin that it was worth less. There was a ton of corruption to it as well, naturally, with the people who made the coins and the people responsible for managing them debasing the coins even further for their own profit, and riots actually broke out at their instigation when they began to fear one of the emperors was close to figuring out they were responsible. As a result the Imperial Mint was shut down in Rome and mints were operated near to strategic military locations so the army would always be paid on time, but the coins were still strongly debased and a system of bartering and IOUs (or gently caress you, we're taking what we want anyway! from the army) remained in place as a result. Diocletian attempted to reform the economy to deal with inflation, and set the Edict on Maximum Prices which was mostly ignored. Hopefully I haven't screwed anything up there, and somebody else can give more detail I'm sure. In brief anyway - Roman currency did well when the Empire was doing well, and badly when the Empire was doing badly, and barter and "in kind" payment were often used as alternatives. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 22:39
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Does anyone have an explanation for changes in the equipment of the Roman army in late antiquity? We've talked about the barbarianization of the Roman military, and the shift to a more mobile reactive defensive strategy, but do we have any sources or theories that explain why the Roman's began using smaller shields? What was the tactical change that made thrusting spears the primary infantry weapon? Alternatively, what is the general logic behind shield form? Like it seems the vast majority of cultures and eras have used a very similar shield, round, maybe slightly concave, about two feet in diameter or a little more, which suggests to my probably misinformed brain most designs are converging on a single ideal type. Now obviously there are many different roles requiring different shields, like an archer laying siege can use something much heavier than a typical foot-soldier, for example. However for close quarters ordered infantry combat, everyone seems to go for the same design. I wonder why a round design is preferred to rectangular, for example, or why asymmetric designs aren't more common.
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Jul 15, 2013 22:58
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Squalid posted:I wonder why a round design is preferred to rectangular, for example, or why asymmetric designs aren't more common. I don't know for sure, but I'd wager it's because people have pretty oval shapes all in all. Relatively narrow at the legs (particularly if you're turned sideways), wider with the important poo poo in the middle, and then tapering off again at the top. The head is important of course, but it's a small target, and you need to see out of it, and you can just armor it up separately. Also, I'm not sure there was a transition to thrusting spears as a primary weapon? PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 23:16
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I've been given a possibly false impression the Roman soldier preferred a long spear as his primary weapon by the fourth century. Here are some depictions I pulled up after 5 minutes of googling: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Roman_army  quote:Drawing of Flavius Stilicho, the half-Vandal general who was magister utriusque militiae (commander-in-chief) of West Roman forces 395–408. The general is depicted in the standard attire of a common foot soldier of the time when not in combat, wearing a chlamys (military cloak) over his tunic and carrying a heavy thrusting-spear and oval shield (in combat most late soldiers wore mail shirts and helmets). He was made a scapegoat for the barbarian invasions of 405–6, although in reality his military skill may have saved the West from early collapse. Derived (1848) from an ivory diptych at Monza, Italy  Looks like thrusting spears to me, although I guess they could be javelins quote:Late Roman soldiers, probably barbarians, as depicted (back row) by bas-relief on the base of Theodosius I's obelisk in Constantinople (c. 390). The troops belong to a regiment of palatini as they are here detailed to guard the emperor (left). I dunno if the western and eastern empire retained similar equipment. I've seen recreations of byzantines using large spears but also once that seem to show more javelin like weapons but I'm really not qualified to interpret ancient illustrations. Modern illustrations of medieval byzantines seem to depict long spears but I dunno how similar their equipment is to what earlier soldiers used.
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Jul 15, 2013 23:57
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You might very well be correct there. I knew they switched over to longer swords, but I thought spears were still limited to use as missiles, rather than thrusting weapons. But I'm not expert on such details of the Roman army. Or anything else Roman really. 
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Jul 16, 2013 00:24
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I don't know much about the late army either, unfortunately. The spatha became more common than the gladius but I'm not sure about spears. I would guess a few reasons. One, spears are actually pretty good weapons--we're kind of conditioned to think of them as primitive from video games, but they're not bad, especially in groups. Two, they're good against cavalry and the Roman army gradually is dealing with a lot more cavalry forces. Three, they're cheap to manufacture and the later empire, particularly in the west, doesn't have the resources anymore to maintain the kind of manufacturing base it did during the golden age.
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Jul 16, 2013 01:42
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How were Romans with garbage? Like, did they just make giant garbage dumps? Did they have a basic concept of recycling? I would imagine you could at least melt down old, unused tools or use discarded clothing to patch up other garments.
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Jul 16, 2013 02:04
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't know much about the late army either, unfortunately. The spatha became more common than the gladius but I'm not sure about spears. I would guess a few reasons. One, spears are actually pretty good weapons--we're kind of conditioned to think of them as primitive from video games, but they're not bad, especially in groups. Two, they're good against cavalry and the Roman army gradually is dealing with a lot more cavalry forces. Three, they're cheap to manufacture and the later empire, particularly in the west, doesn't have the resources anymore to maintain the kind of manufacturing base it did during the golden age. is it that documentation is much worse in late antiquity and we just don't have the sources available for the early empire? Seems likely.
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Jul 16, 2013 02:23
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karl fungus posted:How were Romans with garbage? Like, did they just make giant garbage dumps? Did they have a basic concept of recycling? I would imagine you could at least melt down old, unused tools or use discarded clothing to patch up other garments. There was no garbage collection system at all, so people basically just jumped trash wherever, including throwing it out the window onto the street. Eventually they'd put down new stones over the layer of garbage causing the level of the street to raise up a little higher, and new buildings would end up being built on a foundation of garbage. Lionel Casson, Everyday Life in Ancient Rome posted:Other urban services were not quite as effective as water and food supply. Sanitation, for example, had some serious lacks. There was a good enough system of sewers to carry off rainwater, water from the public baths, and other waste waters. There were public latrines in all the bath complexes and spotted about the streets - an absolute necessity in a city where only private homes or ground-floor flats had facilities of their own. The latrines were first-class: they had handsome and durable marble seats, were flushed by a constant stream of running water, and were even heated, considerately sparing the users the chill of cold stone during the winter months. A commission existed to "repair, pave, and maintain streets." Unfortunately its functions did not include house-to-house garbage collection, and this led to indiscriminate dumping of refuse, even the heedless tossing of it out of windows. "Think... of the number of times," says Juvenal,"Cracked or broken pots fall out of windows, of the amount of weight they bring down with a crash onto the street and dent the pavement. Anyone who goes out to dinner without making a will, is a fool... you can suffer as many deaths as there are open windows to pass under. So send up a prayer that people will be content with just emptying out their slop bowls!" There is a long section in the corpus of Roman law given over to causes for action "against those who pour or throw anything on passersby," which goes into all the niceties of liability (for example, if a slave did the dumping, who was liable, he or his master? If a guest, he or the host?). Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 02:32
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There were people up to modern times whose jobs were to wander the streets and towns going through garbage and attempting to repair or reuse broken things. Some of them also specialized in hitting up random people's houses and offering to repair things they hadn't yet thrown out.
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Jul 16, 2013 02:36
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