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Octy posted:Care to give more of a write-up about this? Greco-Roman religion is something I'm only vaguely knowledgeable about and its origins I'm even less aware of. Sorry, I'd be flattering myself if I claimed to be even amateur in this. I can tell you that Greco-Roman religion originates from Proto-Indo-European religion. Romans were heavily influenced by Etruscan religion (e.g., the Etruscan Vortumnia becoming the Roman Fortuna), but Etruscans were also apparently influenced by Proto-Indo-European religion, most obviously through their chief deity Tinia. PIE religion, at least its pantheon, has been reconstructed through linguistic analysis. The most notable PIE deity is Dyēus ph2ter, "Sky Father", from whom Jupiter, Zeus, and others, including the Devas, are derived. The influence of Deus Pater, or at least his name, has obviously been strong: he figures into non-PIE languages too, e.g. Finnish taivas ("sky"). Other examples include the Greek Eos and Hestia and the Roman Aurora and Vesta, who are all related to the same PIE deity. Of course, not all deities match perfectly, and usually the connections are merely linguistic. Another PIE deity, Perkunos, is merely the demigod Perseus in Greek mythology despite being a central figure in slavic mythology as Perun (the root being the PIE word for "strike, ravage"). Another example is Dyēus ph2ter naming an entire class of deities, the Devas, or both actually being named after the PIE word for "sky". When Greeks and Romans sought for counterparts for their deities in other pantheons, they could sometimes find essentially the same deities. But they didn't look for them in just Indo-European religions: the Greeks identified the Egyptian Thoth with Hermes, after all. The "Dispater = Sky Father" theory is from Barry Cunliffe, if I remember correctly. He attests that as the Gauls spoke an Indo-European language, their chief deity was most likely Dyēus ph2ter. The name of Gaulic Dyēus ph2ter was probably so close to the original that the Romans mistook it for Dispater, a chtonic god of riches. e: VVVVV It's supposed to be in subscript, but SA's browser kind of mangles it in quotation. "h2" is a phoneme in PIE (If you want to pronounce it, I'm told that it's similar to the Arabic Muhammad). BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Oct 21, 2013 |
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Oct 21, 2013 17:12
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What the heck is that 2 doing in ph2ter.
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Oct 21, 2013 17:20
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I am curious too, only time I've seen that is for tone markers but I'm reasonably sure Indo-European never had tones.
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Oct 21, 2013 17:24
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It's the way PIE laryngeals get differentiated. We don't know how these sounded, but we do know that the different ones became separate sounds in subsequent languages, so they may have been separate sounds back in the day. Edit: have a thing that knows more about it than I do.
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Oct 21, 2013 17:46
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This thread is becoming schizophrenic in the jumping between Greece/Rome and China/Japan. I would suggest that someone start an "Ask me about totally sweet ancient Asian history" thread. There is enough material to warrant its own thread and would be easier to follow.
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Oct 21, 2013 19:53
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It doesn't fall neatly into European and Middle Eastern eras, either, really. I would also like to see Arglebargle's China posts continue through more of history. 
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Oct 21, 2013 19:58
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rzeszowianin 44 posted:This thread is becoming schizophrenic in the jumping between Greece/Rome and China/Japan. I would suggest that someone start an "Ask me about totally sweet ancient Asian history" thread. There is enough material to warrant its own thread and would be easier to follow. The first Qin empire was led to ruin by Marius whose reforms brought about the start of the Romance of the Third Century.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:03
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rzeszowianin 44 posted:This thread is becoming schizophrenic in the jumping between Greece/Rome and China/Japan. I would suggest that someone start an "Ask me about totally sweet ancient Asian history" thread. There is enough material to warrant its own thread and would be easier to follow. Eh, I feel like the Asian one would die out on its own. Better to keep it schitzo than dead.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:34
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A little variety is good for the thread I think. There's a few things that do keep being asked though, which I wonder if we wouldn't be better off putting in the OP(Christianity/Fall of the Empire/Empire Successors mostly).
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Oct 21, 2013 20:38
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Speaking of switching between Asian and Greco-Roman history, I think the most frequently asked question is the one about contact between classical Rome and China.
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Oct 21, 2013 20:55
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cheerfullydrab posted:Speaking of switching between Asian and Greco-Roman history, I think the most frequently asked question is the one about contact between classical Rome and China. As is often the case, the best starting point is already covered by my girlfriend, Ms. Pedia.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:07
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veekie posted:A little variety is good for the thread I think. There's a few things that do keep being asked though, which I wonder if we wouldn't be better off putting in the OP(Christianity/Fall of the Empire/Empire Successors mostly). Yeah, I don't mind jumping back and forth. It's all interesting to me. And I'd love an FAQ for the OP. I'm new to the thread, so that would benefit me (and, by extension, everybody else, as it would prevent me from re-hashing old topics).
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Oct 21, 2013 21:17
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homullus posted:As is often the case, the best starting point is already covered by my girlfriend, Ms. Pedia.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:21
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We just need someone with a lot of time on their hands one day to go through the entire thread and categorize and link discussions going on through it. And I'd like to think there'd be enough interest in an Asia history thread for it to stay afloat; we've had one on Mesoamerican history that's at least not died for like a year or something. I like reading about Asian history here but it'd be nice to have more discussions on it that aren't just in relation to Western Eurasia.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:23
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cheerfullydrab posted:I wasn't asking, I was just pointing out that a lot of people have asked about that topic over the course of this thread. To be honest, I myself was like this close to it, but realized that that information was probably readily available on the internet already and was planning to google it first.
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Oct 21, 2013 21:36
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A FAQ would be cool but I no longer have a job where I gently caress around on a computer half the day, so I don't really have the time. If anybody's bored enough to find posts I'll definitely stick it in the OP. I'm okay with jumping around all things ancient or if anyone wants to start an Asian history thread. Someone could start one for non-ancient Asia anyway. Someone not me, since I don't know enough to do that.
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Oct 22, 2013 01:48
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I already said though I don't wanna be the guy that does an ancient Chinese history thread. I don't have a degree or anything. I may be posting about it here but I have less that two pages of posts in this thread, I don't think I would keep a whole thread afloat. I also think it's better to have a thread that jumps around a bit than a living thread and a DOA thread. Besides, this thread is technically the Roman/Greek/totally sweet ancient history. I think we can squeak under the bar with totally sweet.
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Oct 22, 2013 02:45
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Yeah me too. But since it's ancient I want to generally limit to before around 500 AD. Obviously that has not at all been a strict rule and it won't be but if anyone wants to talk Asian history after that, feel free to go for a thread. And yeah I'm using 476 as my declaration of the end of ancient history for convenience's sake. 
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Oct 22, 2013 02:49
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Grand Fromage posted:And yeah I'm using 476 as my declaration of the end of ancient history for convenience's sake. You mother fucker.
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Oct 22, 2013 03:29
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Grand Fromage posted:And yeah I'm using 476 as my declaration of the end of ancient history for convenience's sake. Oh man I am going to bankrupt the empire to get you to change your mind 
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Oct 22, 2013 03:49
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Who am I to fight against convention. Few Roman historians consider it the end of the empire, but it's a convenient break point for late antiquity/middle ages, rather than the nebulous "somewhere in the 600s" for when the economy goes to poo poo and the senate stops meeting and Roman culture really starts dying in the west.
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Oct 22, 2013 03:52
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Grand Fromage posted:Who am I to fight against convention. Few Roman historians consider it the end of the empire, but it's a convenient break point for late antiquity/middle ages, rather than the nebulous "somewhere in the 600s" for when the economy goes to poo poo and the senate stops meeting and Roman culture really starts dying in the west. I didn't know the senate went on meeting into the 600s, that's really cool. Seems like that would go far to explain why deposing the last western emperor was not seen as such a great catastrope by his contemporaries.
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Oct 22, 2013 05:29
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joxxuh posted:I didn't know the senate went on meeting into the 600s, that's really cool. Seems like that would go far to explain why deposing the last western emperor was not seen as such a great catastrope by his contemporaries. Yep. For most of the west Roman culture went on more or less uninterrupted into the 600s, but then things began to change radically as the Roman trade economy in the west died off. We don't know many details because of the lack of written sources--the reason the term Dark Ages began is that we have very little in the form of written history from that era, so our information is very sketchy.
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Oct 22, 2013 05:33
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The senate was more of a municipal body by then anyway. They lost all influence over imperial matters sometime around Domitian.
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Oct 22, 2013 05:36
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I've always tended to go with the rise of the Arabs as a good starting point of the "Medieval" era, mostly because that's where Larry Gonick started his third volume in his world history series.
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Oct 22, 2013 05:56
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joxxuh posted:I didn't know the senate went on meeting into the 600s, that's really cool. Seems like that would go far to explain why deposing the last western emperor was not seen as such a great catastrope by his contemporaries. Also the Roman Emperor had direct control of Rome after Justinian until the late 8th century. The Emperor ruled through the Exarch at Ravenna and through the Pope. Popes had to have the approval of the Emperor. Most of them were from areas of the Eastern Mediterranean. There was Imperial control over all kinds of specific things in Italy. Pope Martin I had himself seated without approval and was arrested in Rome, tried in Constantinople, and exiled to the Crimea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Papacy But again, a Roman Empire, ruling over Rome, just isn't considered Roman after 476.
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Oct 22, 2013 08:41
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Grand Fromage posted:Who am I to fight against convention. Few Roman historians consider it the end of the empire, but it's a convenient break point for late antiquity/middle ages, rather than the nebulous "somewhere in the 600s" for when the economy goes to poo poo and the senate stops meeting and Roman culture really starts dying in the west. Theodosius presided over a lot of the destruction of old pagan traditions. No more Olympic games, no more Vestal Virgins. He presided over the promulgation of the Nicene Creed as the standard of Orthodoxy and the institution of Christianity as the mandatory state religion. His death caused the last large split of the Empire. That's personally where I would place the dividing line between the classical phase and whatever sort of periods you want to define afterward.
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Oct 22, 2013 08:49
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cheerfullydrab posted:You've fought the good fight in enough posts and I won't direct any animosity towards you. How do you like 395, the death of Theodosius I, as the end of the classical period? Stopping at 395 still ignores the next 70-80 years where the Western empire accelerates towards collapse. It also falls short of the first sack of Rome in 800 years. It just goes to show that you can't really make neat and tidy dividing lines for major eras in history. But you can argue all you want.
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Oct 22, 2013 13:39
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Thwomp posted:Stopping at 395 still ignores the next 70-80 years where the Western empire accelerates towards collapse. It also falls short of the first sack of Rome in 800 years. 500, on the basis that it ends with a zero and makes things tidy chronologically. I think that is a better reason then a lot of the others.
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Oct 22, 2013 13:47
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Thwomp posted:It just goes to show that you can't really make neat and tidy dividing lines for major eras in history. But you can argue all you want. Basically this. There are very few clean breaks you can point to in history. This is definitely not one of them, there are convincing arguments to put the end of the empire in the west anywhere from like 200 AD to the 800s. At some point you just pick something for convenience.
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Oct 22, 2013 14:38
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See hearing people say that 'Rome' ended in 300 and whatever CE really puts my perspective out of whack since I haven't seriously studied anything after the 1st century BCE. (mostly because Ancient Greece > Rome)
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Oct 23, 2013 12:59
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Rome ended in season 2 and it's NOT FAIR!
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Oct 23, 2013 13:48
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Arglebargle III posted:Rome ended in season 2 and it's NOT FAIR! Much better it finish than continue with the crap they stuck in with Octavian and the new actor.
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Oct 23, 2013 14:44
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I'm pretty sure they put it into fast-forward so that it would end at all, hence Octavian's new actor and accelerating from 1-2 months per episode to years.
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Oct 23, 2013 15:09
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The murder of Caesar and the death of Antonius & Cleopatra are the two highlights, and they did those well. 300 years of gradual evolution into a Christian Empire does not have the same . . . dramatic points. Marcus Aurelius kicking rear end on the frontier and maybe the psychodrama of Hadrian would be ok tv. Going back in time would have been cool. The tragedy of the Gracchi maybe or the war between Marius and Sulla. Marius and Sulla doesnt really have a dramatic end though. Marius dies of old age and Sulla retires to the coast. euphronius fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Oct 23, 2013 |
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Oct 23, 2013 15:12
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Arglebargle III posted:I'm pretty sure they put it into fast-forward so that it would end at all, hence Octavian's new actor and accelerating from 1-2 months per episode to years. Yes, originally it was going to be five seasons. They cut out the Jesus stuff that would've been big in season 5, and pushed 2, 3, and 4 together into 2.
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Oct 23, 2013 15:15
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I like how Lucius name-dropped the Gracchi at one point and Titus was just like "who?" because it was already history.
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Oct 23, 2013 15:36
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euphronius posted:The murder of Caesar and the death of Antonius & Cleopatra are the two highlights, and they did those well. 300 years of gradual evolution into a Christian Empire does not have the same . . . dramatic points. Marcus Aurelius kicking rear end on the frontier and maybe the psychodrama of Hadrian would be ok tv. It could have worked well as a serial, with each season covering a dramatic period of history, and not necessarily being tied to the one before it in any significant way. The "Octavian is played by a new actor but everyone else looks the same age" part was...jarring at first, I'll admit, but I dunno, I grew to like that actor. He played "cold and heartless" very well. I don't know enough about the real Augustus to say whether or not that was accurate but it worked for dramatic purposes I thought. And it would have been weird to have Augustus be played by an actor as young as young Octavian, even if he was very good. While we're talking about the HBO show, did anyone feel that the story arc with Timon and his brother in season 2 felt a little unnecessary? It didn't really have anything to do with anything else. Maybe it was going to come up again with the Jesus stuff.
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Oct 23, 2013 15:37
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Ainsley McTree posted:While we're talking about the HBO show, did anyone feel that the story arc with Timon and his brother in season 2 felt a little unnecessary? It didn't really have anything to do with anything else. Maybe it was going to come up again with the Jesus stuff. It seemed like they were going to try to take it somewhere, then decided to kill it.
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Oct 23, 2013 16:11
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It was cool at least to see how lower-class, immigrant minorities existed in Rome.
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Oct 23, 2013 16:27
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