|
Arglebargle III posted:
Your post generally seems to reflect the consensus views of this thread, so don't feel I'm targeting you specifically, because I'm really trying to address a narrative I've seen repeated a few times. However I was looking at the wikipedia article on the Late Roman army and it basically goes through a point by point refutation of how you described the strategic operations of the late Roman army. The essential points I took away:
Some more arguments against defense-in-depth. Although fortifications increased massively across the empire the deployment of troops in border regions remains largely unchanged from the second to fourth century. For example Hadrian's wall was maintained until Roman authority evaporates completely in Britain, and the "mobile" field armies were actually immobile insurance against usurpers. Campaigns against foreign tribes across the Rhine and Danube occurred as late as the 370s. Further the Empire lacked the kind of logistical and intelligence structure necessary to implement a concerted empire-wide defensive strategy. The increase in internal fortifications merely reflects the more frequent failure of Roman defenses. This debate seems to stem from the theories of historian Edward Luttwak, who proposed the theory of a shift to defense-in-depth. The wikipedia article is well cited and includes responses to Luttwak's ideas from several authors, including B. Isaac, J.C. Mann, and Goldsworthy, if anyone has opinions on those writers. The article does admit to continuing academic debate on the subject, but only presents Luttwak as advocating defense-in-depth. Has wikipedia merely elided Luttwak's supporters, or is he a lone voice aggressively pushing his own pet theories into the public discourse?
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2013 23:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 20:30 |
|
|
I think it's a general rule that the simpler and more coherent the historical narrative, the more likely it is to have holes in it. I'm not surprised to hear that there were contradictions to the general trend towards defense in depth, or that the trend wasn't uniform and wasn't concerted, or that the Limitanii were a more complicated organization than just a militia. I think what you're describing doesn't contradict the narrative of a general shift to defense in depth and a less professional army.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 03:34
|
|
|
shallowj posted:Can anyone tell me more about Pyrrhus ? Why was he so well-regarded as a general? Is it a case of, Romans playing up the strength of their defeated opponent to make themselves look good? I believe Hannibal was a big fan as well. Information about Epirus as a kingdom, and any interesting roles they played in Greek/Roman politics would be welcome as well. Is the story of him being killed by an old woman dropping a roof tile on him true, or merely apocryphal? Can anyone speculate on what roles he might have played in future affairs had he not died in such an unspectacular fashion? Pyrrhus sure knew how to win his battles. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 07:30
|
|
|
Against anyone except the Roman "we-absolutely-refuse-to-concede-defeat-for-any-reason" Republic, that probably would have been enough.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 18:02
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
PittTheElder posted:Against anyone except the Roman "we-absolutely-refuse-to-concede-defeat-for-any-reason" Republic, that probably would have been enough. He probably would just have misruled and then started another war, Pyrrhus just took over places, didn't consolidate properly, offended the local people and then went off to conquer some new place.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 18:35
|
|
|
What kind of pumps did people have in ancient times? Were there pumps in say, triremes?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 20:49
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:The manorial tax system? Him too. Roman coinage had lost most of its value during the 3rd century, so Diocletian developed a stop-gap system of taxation by a complex table of material goods and their relative values, so that tax could be collected in whatever the region had. So many bricks equaled so much leather or so many pigs or so many swords etc. As long as you paid your abstract units of tax in whatever you produced, your taxes were settled. This actually improved tax revenues immensely, which gives you an idea of how broken the old tax system had become. To his credit Diocletian tried to reform the currency but didn't understand monetary policy well enough to fix the monumental coinage problem. So this temporary system stuck for 1000 years. Just how developed was monetary policy at the time? Like, was Diocletian just trying his best with macro-scale economic issues that people still didn't really grasp, or was there a third century Paul Krugman banging his head against a desk? Though from what I vaguely remember Diocletian's initial policy wasn't terrible (cutting gold coinage with silver and other materials to lead to inflation which emerging from a debt crisis wouldn't be a terrible thing), the real issue is that it wasn't used as a temporary measure and eventually inflation just got out of control and the currency fell apart. And the whole tablature of professions thing was a really, really bad idea. But that's another thing where I just wonder if policy really just wasn't up to the task to know better. In any case it kind of seems like the Roman Empire as of antiquity was pretty much gone emerging from the third century crises as things just were really, really hosed.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2013 22:48
|
|
|
I imagine that they didn't have enough records to really know what would happen while they were monkeying around with their money supply.Hogge Wild posted:What kind of pumps did people have in ancient times? Were there pumps in say, triremes? They had the Archimedes screw!  This thing could pretty easily move water when you spun the crank, so it could move water anywhere you want it to go, it could get rid of water flooding mines or help push it through pipes. I don't know if they were ever used in triremes, but they were used in the ridiculously huge Syracusia. It's no death ray or robot hand to lift ships from the sea and toss them around, but it's much more useful in day to day life and y'know, probably more real.
SlothfulCobra fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Oct 10, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 05:25
|
|
|
Hogge Wild posted:What kind of pumps did people have in ancient times? Were there pumps in say, triremes? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadoof seems to be the earliest form of pump, invented by the Egyptians. Bailing out triremes would probably have been done manually with waterproofed reed baskets.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 05:34
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:They had the Archimedes screw! I have an intensely difficult time trying to figure out how that works. I mean, I read the Wikipedia article, saw the little animated picture, and yet my brain just shorts out when I try to understand it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 05:57
|
|
|
Bailing out triremes with buckets was probably quite fast, because the ship isn't that tall, and if it isn't rowed, there's lots of crew for it. Those massive Hellenistic ships are fascinating. But how large were they? Wikipedia gives 55m and 110m as Syracusia's length. And what about the Chinese Treasure ships. What are the most reasonable estimates about the ancient giant ships' lengths?
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 06:19
|
|
|
Rockopolis posted:I have an intensely difficult time trying to figure out how that works. I mean, I read the Wikipedia article, saw the little animated picture, and yet my brain just shorts out when I try to understand it. Okay, so, do you know how a screw works? Okay, it's like that, but you hold the screw still (well, except rotationally but whatever) and move the medium along it, instead of it into the medium.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 06:28
|
|
|
Berke Negri posted:Just how developed was monetary policy at the time? Like, was Diocletian just trying his best with macro-scale economic issues that people still didn't really grasp, or was there a third century Paul Krugman banging his head against a desk? Diocletian was trying his best with economic issues people didn't really yet understand. He inherited a huge currency problem and tried to fix it but failed. His fix focused on restoring the purity of the coinage, which we now understand is mostly irrelevant. He made a serious effort at it which is to his credit, and he even reformed the mint system effectively, but he failed to solve the inflation problem. From the perspective of the time his reforms were supposed to have worked; I imagine he was very frustrated when it didn't fix anything*. That's why I say it's hard to blame him for failing to revalue the currency. The currency problem was absolutely not Diocletian's fault. For decades before he came to power the petty Emperors of the 3rd century had been cutting silver out of the coins in order to mint more. Even at this time people knew that would end in trouble, but in the mid-late 3rd century nobody cared about what would happen 20 years down the road because that money often meant the difference between life and death for an emperor. When Diocletian ascends to the throne the silver denarius has lost most of its value which is not surprising since they minted gajillions of them with <5% silver. Diocletian did three things to combat this. First, he created a whole new tax system based on goods in kind which as I said before improved the Empire's tax situation immensely. Previously they had been paid in worthless "silver" coins and sometimes not even that since the tax system had accumulated loopholes big enough to sail Caligula's pleasure barge through. So that all went well. Second, he reformed the mints. The Imperial mints had been running on a contract basis, which meant that there was an awful lot of incentive for adulteration. Silver would go into the building, workers and owners would pocket a lot of the pure metal, and coins would come out below spec. Diocletian nationalized the mint and ended that scam. Again, so far so good. Third is the problem. Diocletian created a new series of silver coins, began minting them, and published exchange rates between the old and new coins. But critically, they didn't collect and destroy the old coinage. Why they didn't I don't know. Maybe they didn't understand the problem, maybe they did but decided they weren't able to carry out such a massive undertaking. The huge volume of debased coins in circulation would have made doing it the right way a long and expensive task. Personally I think they probably didn't understand that the underlying problem was the huge number of coins with now worthless face values, not the silver content. The result was that the attempt to revalue the silver denarius failed. Diocletian's coins were worth more in real terms than the old ones, but they did nothing to solve the real problem of inflation caused by reckless minting. Eventually the Empire switched over to the gold standard** and enjoyed a renaissance of the money economy, but the general trend towards barter transactions continued until money was no longer the dominant mode in the West. *This is the story of Diocletian's life really. **I think the switch to gold was a success not because of metal purity, but because it got everyone to stop using the old silver coins, which was the root of the inflation problem. I forget who switched to gold but I would bet he solved the problem more or less by accident. If Diocletian had minted new gold coins he might have succeeded and erroneously attributed that success to the higher metal purity of the coin, when it was the retirement of the silver coins which was the real fix.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 07:03
|
|
|
Great explanation, thanks! Didn't the switch to gold only really make things better for the rich*, since the rich were the only ones who could actually afford to use gold coins? Leaving the poor with basically no choice but to use the old, worthless currency and go further into poverty? * The guys in charge probably didn't really see any problem with this.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 08:20
|
|
|
I don't know. I know more (and history in general knows more) about Diocletian than the later emperors, and as I said I forget who introduced the gold standard. But it makes sense. I do want to point out that the currency problem wasn't necessarily driving people into poverty, it was driving people into a barter economy. The currency problem was one of the forces slowly pushing Europe towards self-sufficient manor communities and away from integration and trade. Trade without stable currency is very hard to do on a large scale.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 09:19
|
|
|
The gold solidus was introduced by Constantine I think.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 12:10
|
|
|
Ironically I know so much about this sort of thing not because of Rome but because China, my real field, had its own share of serious problems with currency. You might be surprised at how much historical fortune and calamity can be traced to exchange rates.
Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Oct 10, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 12:26
|
|
|
Going back to all the talk about early dukes, what's a good survey book covering the very late Western Roman Empire/early Frankish, etc. societies/early medieval transition? I.e., a solid "Dark Ages" history with a focus on social and political developments.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 15:34
|
|
|
I enjoyed The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather, it's the biggest book I've read about late antiquity. It doesn't go into anything after Rome though, just late antiquity in the west. His basic thesis is that there really wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the empire that couldn't have been fixed, it was the Germans that was the unsolvable problem. But not in the old RAGING BARBARIANS AT THE GATES way, it's a lot more complicated. Everything Argle has been posting is essentially the same as Heather writes about, if it sounds interesting then I'd recommend the book. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Oct 10, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 16:07
|
|
|
Heather's pretty good. His earlier books are all about the Goths, so The Fall of the Roman Empire seems to go on about them a bit more than other Germanic groups, but it's nonetheless a solid read. I thought the basic thrust of his argument was that the Roman Empire's governing structure was simply not fit to deal with a massive influx of migrants, and hadn't been fit for that sort of thing since Antonine times.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 16:14
|
|
|
Basically. There are different camps, and there was for a long time (and still is, though it's not as common as it once was) a popular idea that the empire fell apart because of decadence and the systems collapsing and poo poo. Gibbon is the prime example here. Heather's argument is that this provably not true, and had the Germans never showed up there's no reason to believe the western empire wouldn't have survived another thousand years like the east did.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 16:22
|
|
|
From what it sounds like in the rest of the thread, it seemed more like the straw that broke the camel's back. Rome was under many kinds of stress at once, and that last big german burden was just enough to tip it over into a downward spiral, particularly if you factor in the conservative and xenophobic reactions to the ailing empire. Obviously it has to be the fault of all those foreign people and new, degenerate behavior that the empire is in such poor health! Which in turn only sped the downfall.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 16:53
|
|
|
Jerusalem posted:Great explanation, thanks! Without specific knowledge of this issue, I'd guess a switch to gold currency was only possible because the money economy had already collapsed. You can't pay wages in gold, and workers can't buy bread with it. It's like requiring all transactions be conducted with thousand dollar bills.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 17:00
|
|
|
veekie posted:From what it sounds like in the rest of the thread, it seemed more like the straw that broke the camel's back. Rome was under many kinds of stress at once, and that last big german burden was just enough to tip it over into a downward spiral, particularly if you factor in the conservative and xenophobic reactions to the ailing empire. I believe the most unique aspect of Heather's thesis (there is a lot more to it than what I'm about to post) is not that the "Germans" were too much for the empire to handle by themselves, but that the rapid onslaught and then collapse of the Hunnic empire created too much instability for the Western Roman Empire to handle. If they had stuck around as a political entity for a while longer, Rome would have been able to incorporate them (or at least their presence) into their political system, put pressure on other peoples, like the Goths, to support Rome for their own reasons instead of making land grabs, and so on. Of course, like Fromage says, there's a whole lot more to it than that. Say what you will for his points, it's filled with great details and is a very fun read. Grand Fromage: you might want to check out Empires and Barbarians, as it takes up pretty much where his previous book leaves off. I found it a little less interesting, but it's still pretty cool.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 17:33
|
|
|
veekie posted:Obviously it has to be the fault of all those foreign people and new, degenerate behavior that the empire is in such poor health! People were whining about this at every single point in Rome's history, from first to last, in the highest of its highs as well as the lowest of its lows. Romulus probably got upset when he realised that founding a city meant he had to have other people who weren't him, the poor fucker. For all their warring, conquests and empire building, the Romans were basically the antisocial neckbeards (yo Nero) of their era. I think that's what I'm trying to say.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 18:59
|
|
|
Sleep of Bronze posted:For all their warring, conquests and empire building, the Romans were basically the antisocial neckbeards (yo Nero) of their era. I think that's what I'm trying to say. Hey now, at least the romans got invited to orgies.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 19:02
|
|
|
Sleep of Bronze posted:People were whining about this at every single point in Rome's history, from first to last, in the highest of its highs as well as the lowest of its lows. Romulus probably got upset when he realised that founding a city meant he had to have other people who weren't him, the poor fucker. Well obviously it couldn't be any deficiency in the proud, successful Roman people of yore. Has to be all these foreigns and degenerate youngsters. The story of every generation ever.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 19:09
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Ironically I know so much about this sort of thing not because of Rome but because China, my real field, had its own share of serious problems with currency. You might be surprised at how much historical fortune and calamity can be traced to exchange rates. Has there ever been a China thread? I know this is thread is supposed to be all ancient history now but I'd love to see a China thread. There is just so much China history and it is so often glossed over in the West.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 22:15
|
|
|
There was a good one by a Vietnamese Scholar-Bureaucrat which was pretty good. Probably in the archives now.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 22:50
|
|
|
I've always heard that Constantine fixing the purity of gold coinage was a major step on the path to Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages since only a few, very wealthy people would actually have transactions large enough to use gold coins. The failure to ever adequately restore silver coins continued to disrupt trade and provided preference for bartering/payment in agricultural goods.
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 22:57
|
|
|
Sleep of Bronze posted:For all their warring, conquests and empire building, the Romans were basically the antisocial neckbeards (yo Nero) of their era. I think that's what I'm trying to say. I love Nero's neckbeard. "They aren't plays mum, it's called (And then he had her killed.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 10, 2013 23:57
|
|
|
Knockknees posted:Has there ever been a China thread? I know this is thread is supposed to be all ancient history now but I'd love to see a China thread. There is just so much China history and it is so often glossed over in the West. There's a few China threads around the forums but not about ancient history. You'd need someone else to do the OP since I'm not a historian. I just took a bunch of Chinese history and culture classes as part of a related major, and a lot of that was modern history. Ancient economic history just happens to be an area of interest for me since I studied economics and history as part of two majors, neither of which was economics or history. I actually found this thread from the east Asia threads since GF and I both live in East Asia. If this thread is really all ancient history I guess you could ask about it but I've only seen Roman history. GF gets to decide since he mods this subforum anyway. For now maybe limit questions to the impact of Rome on China and vice versa. They had very little diplomatic contact but the two economic giants of the ancient world had an influence on each other that ironically only modern people can fully appreciate. Grand Fromage I was wondering if you could weigh in on the economic decline of the late Empire and how it did or didn't progress in the east. I think the narrative I've given is valid for the west but it doesn't seem to jibe with the continued prosperity of the Mediterranean region until the 7th century that you mentioned before or the continued prosperity of the east. What did the medieval Roman economy look like? Oh and I also think the turn this thread is taking towards the Germans is interesting. I'd like to hear more about their failed integration. I seem to recall a German King saying something about previously wanting to conquer Rome but changing his mind and wanting to rule it instead. Anyone have that quote? Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Oct 11, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 00:24
|
|
|
Strategic Tea posted:(And then he had her killed.) Eventually. After botching the job first, of course!
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 01:35
|
|
|
veekie posted:Obviously it has to be the fault of all those foreign people and new, degenerate behavior that the empire is in such poor health! Which in turn only sped the downfall. Well, this was a new attitude. In an early age the Germans would've been integrated into the empire like the thousands of other tribes the Romans had conquered, and everything would've been fine. But the Romans turned xenophobic, and by the era of the barbarian invasions they were totally unwilling to try to bring the Germans into the fold. So instead the Germans forced the issue with axes and took over. And the timing was bad. Had it been like 100 AD, Rome probably could've fought them off. But when they showed up the empire wasn't in the greatest shape anyway, so they couldn't deal with the extra pressure. Arglebargle III posted:Grand Fromage I was wondering if you could weigh in on the economic decline of the late Empire and how it did or didn't progress in the east. I think the narrative I've given is valid for the west but it doesn't seem to jibe with the continued prosperity of the Mediterranean region until the 7th century that you mentioned before or the continued prosperity of the east. What did the medieval Roman economy look like? I don't really know that much about late antiquity or the east, so keep that in mind. The continued prosperity was because the trade routes continued to function for a while, and Roman culture took several centuries to transition into medieval isolation. We don't have written sources, but the archaeology suggests Roman culture continued on more or less uninterrupted until into the 600s. That doesn't mean there wasn't economic trouble in there, just that things still worked. The fact is that without written sources, there's not really any way to know exactly what was going on. Breaking the empire up into different kingdoms may have solved the issues that had been caused by such a centralized economy. The east had a lot more people and access to international trade markets. The economy of the east took full advantage of their relationships with the middle east, the trading kingdoms down the east African coast, India, China, etc. After the Romans stole silk, that became a huge export good along with the glass, olive oil, and wine they'd been making for centuries. I think the majority of the profits were still the trade routes. Remember that Italy doesn't really ever turn into the same kind of place as the rest of medieval Europe, it retains a trading culture and city states that are massive compared to any cities in the rest of western Europe. These merchants (among others) want to trade with the east. Any east-west trade, the Romans are taking a cut. E: Also, ancient Chinachat is encouraged. I just don't know enough to post about it myself, but I'd enjoy reading people who do know things. I'd say if it's before around 500 AD (very roughly speaking, don't get pedantic) anywhere in the world, it's okay for this thread. Though I personally don't care about anything in the Americas and I think there's a Mesoamerica thread for that stuff.
Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Oct 11, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 01:38
|
|
|
Okay ask away about So about tradewith the east, what were they using as a medium of exchange? There are a lot of reasons why large scale trade is difficult to impossible without money but this isn't an econ thread. Sufficed to say they had to be using something for money. Was it all gold solidi or did they adopt Parthian coins or what? Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Oct 11, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 04:39
|
|
|
~3600 years please. This is a no nationalism zone. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 04:43
|
|
|
Actually I think the jury's still out on the Xia Dynasty. Sima Qian's account of the formation of the Xia state is uncannily similar to hydraulic theory*, so elements of it are certainly plausible. It's just uncorroborated and not likely to ever be corroborated. The history is too vague to ever confirm with archeology. Then again they said the same thing about the Shang and I've visited their capital city and seen the grave goods and oracle bones in person. So it could very well be 4000 years. There's something at the Erlitou site that looks for all the world like proto-Chinese writing but the sample is so small that we can't know. They found what looks like three characters. *Ok really it is hydraulic theory. Finding conclusive evidence of the Xia would be a hydraulic theorist's dream. According to Sima Qian the Yellow River tribes were like "UGH this river sucks so bad somebody deal with it already!" and some guy named Yu was all "okay but I get to be king and you have to do what I say" and then China happened. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Oct 11, 2013 |
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 05:09
|
|
|
Burden of proof and all. The Xia may turn out to be real like the Shang did, but right now there's no evidence. And since the story of the Xia is about magical emperors living 500 years and creating the Chinese people I'm not willing to put that in the historical column. Do you have a picture of the possible writing? I haven't seen that.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 05:15
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:~3600 years please. This is a no nationalism zone. You keep it up and we're gonna push it to 6000 buddy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 05:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 26, 2024 20:30 |
|
|
China is not older than the earth.
|
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2013 08:32
|
|
