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You can see parallels to this in modern MMA; more rules and restrictions have vastly increased the quality of the sport, because fewer injuries means better-trained fighters and more talented athletes being willing to compete.
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Oct 31, 2013 02:49
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MMA is probably the closest modern equivalent to the ancient fighting sports, also. Especially like pankration.
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Oct 31, 2013 02:53
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Nenonen posted:At the same time, they both were remnants of Alexander the Great's empire. Maybe Egypt would have been less respected if it weren't for the Ptolemaic dynasty of the time..? Egypt would have been more respected if it weren't for the Ptolemies, honestly. The Romans viewed them as inbred degenerates, and Cleopatra was a rare exception (until she shacked up with Marc Antony, then it was back to being a degenerate).
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Oct 31, 2013 03:01
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Grand Fromage posted:This is exactly correct. Fights to the death would be throwing away valuable men. The owners were presumably paid well for their gladiators when they were used in such matches. What about the "off broadway" fights shown in Spartacus? Were all gladiatorial fights in the big arenas and forums with respectable no-kill rules or were there the ancient equivalent of dingy dog-fights except involving men?
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Oct 31, 2013 03:14
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Jazerus posted:Egypt would have been more respected if it weren't for the Ptolemies, honestly. The Romans viewed them as inbred degenerates, and Cleopatra was a rare exception (until she shacked up with Marc Antony, then it was back to being a degenerate). Eh. Respect is all well and good, but wealth and power is much nicer. The Romans certainly coveted that, so much that they argued literally for generations over how, and more specifically who, to best rob the place.
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Oct 31, 2013 03:23
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Jazerus posted:Egypt would have been more respected if it weren't for the Ptolemies, honestly. The Romans viewed them as inbred degenerates, and Cleopatra was a rare exception (until she shacked up with Marc Antony, then it was back to being a degenerate). To be fair, they were objectively inbred degenerates.
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Oct 31, 2013 03:24
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Halloween Jack posted:You can see parallels to this in modern MMA; more rules and restrictions have vastly increased the quality of the sport, because fewer injuries means better-trained fighters and more talented athletes being willing to compete.
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Oct 31, 2013 03:52
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achillesforever6 posted:Plus I bet there was a lot of almost Prowrestling showmanship. 'Almost.' I'd put every dime I have there was some sort of similar system at play.
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Oct 31, 2013 04:04
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VanSandman posted:'Almost.' I'd put every dime I have there was some sort of similar system at play. Oh I'm sure. I don't think there's any material about it but people are people and I guarantee that dynamic was at work. And there were probably underground fighting circuits like in Spartacus; again, I know of no material for it but it should have existed for the same reasons it exists today.
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Oct 31, 2013 04:06
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Something mentioned in the medieval thread that caught my eye. How far back did fancy hats go as a symbol of authority?Install Windows posted:To be fair, they were objectively inbred degenerates. I remember seeing Cleopatra's family tree somewhere. Pretty much every male ancestor for 4 generations were either uncles or brothers to every female ancestor.
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Oct 31, 2013 06:20
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veekie posted:Something mentioned in the medieval thread that caught my eye. How far back did fancy hats go as a symbol of authority? quote:I remember seeing Cleopatra's family tree somewhere. Pretty much every male ancestor for 4 generations were either uncles or brothers to every female ancestor. What freaks me out is how little bad poo poo happened genetically.
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Oct 31, 2013 06:35
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Well, inbreeding pretty much amplifies recessives and minor defects into major defects. If you don't have anything nasty to amplify, then it could be kept up over four generations easy. Makes me wonder though, what was the most pimping hat in history?
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Oct 31, 2013 06:47
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veekie posted:Makes me wonder though, what was the most pimping hat in history? There can be no other choice than Suleiman the Magnificent's custom-made, four-tiered crown patterned after the papal tiara, even if it wasn't actually meant to be worn regularly.
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Oct 31, 2013 07:02
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I'd like to learn more about Roman fashion/clothing. Did they rock tunics/robes all the time? What about underwear underneath it? I imagine that a Roman who didn't scrub hard enough with the sponge stick at the communal toilet and left a mark on the backside of their robe would get mocked endlessly. edit: What about their shoes/sandals?
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Oct 31, 2013 07:27
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Not to stretch out the discussion too much, but I think the best summation of Roman views of Hellenic culture is that they loved the idea of Hellenes, but not the reality. They were not only attracted to art, literature, and philosophy, but also Eastern exoticism and splendor. It doesn't really matter whether or not post-Alexander Greeks lived up to their legacy in Roman eyes - they never could, because Romans compared them to an unachievable ideal. It has some parallels with Orientalism and the like: I think that many Westerners love, for example, the idea of China and Chinese civilisation, but actual modern Chinese people tend to be divorced from the idea. Or hell, compare it to Japanophilia. Somebody already brought up Nero as the first goon.
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Oct 31, 2013 07:49
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VanSandman posted:What freaks me out is how little bad poo poo happened genetically. I remember reading somewhere that the Egyptians (and the Ptole-krew) weren't really big on making a fuss about bastardry and infidelity. So the actual children might have been fathered by whoever, all that matters was that the political power stayed inside the royal family.
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Oct 31, 2013 11:38
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Inbreeding only increases the chances that negative recessive traits express themselves and gently caress you up. In the end, this is still a) a chance process and b) not necessarily visible. It could be that they were just lucky, or maybe the pathologies were not visible from the outside and I can imagine they were not very keen on writing out their internal well-being and storing that somewhere safe for a few thousand years. So maybe they were just lucky, maybe they put on a small propaganda campaign or maybe more are bastards than we know. Probably a bit of all three.
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Oct 31, 2013 12:02
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Well, Cleopatra was a famous beauty right? Presumably no visible deformities in the lineage. Maybe they somehow lucked out and had no negative recessives.
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Oct 31, 2013 12:09
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Also, wouldn't a bastard like every other generation introduce enough variation to avoid the worst of the inbreeding's harms?
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Oct 31, 2013 13:29
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veekie posted:Well, Cleopatra was a famous beauty right? Presumably no visible deformities in the lineage. Maybe they somehow lucked out and had no negative recessives. She was more famous and beautiful than a famous beauty. She's describes as conventionally beautiful but exceptionally charismatic.
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Oct 31, 2013 13:34
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Also, inbreeding tends to create tons of problems at first with recessive mutations popping up. But once a particular line has been inbred long enough, the worst recessive mutations get bred out of the line (because those guys don't survive to have kids) and you end up with a line that's not particularly vigorous but not totally awful. Happens all the time with animal breeding for stock or in zoos, and there are many examples of animals with sexual reproduction that inbreed primarily or obligately. I don't how many generations the Ptolemies had been strict about inbreeding, but it's possible they'd gotten over the biggest hump.
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Oct 31, 2013 13:48
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veekie posted:Well, Cleopatra was a famous beauty right? Presumably no visible deformities in the lineage. Maybe they somehow lucked out and had no negative recessives. 
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Oct 31, 2013 13:58
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Yeah Caesar had an affair with her for as much political reasons than his loins. And the same is true for her no doubt. Though, to argue against myself, Caesar had to know of the possibility of a bastard Caesar ruling Egypt eventually. Maybe he thought a bastard would have no political legitimacy in Rome. Or maybe he figured a Queen of Egypt with his child would be loyal. Or maybe it was both! euphronius fucked around with this message at 14:04 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 14:02
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It also usually takes a lot of inbreeding to cause issues. The Ptolemies weren't around all that long.
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Oct 31, 2013 14:16
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Also, wouldn't a bastard like every other generation introduce enough variation to avoid the worst of the inbreeding's harms? Depends on the specific genes involved really. Grand Fromage posted:It also usually takes a lot of inbreeding to cause issues. The Ptolemies weren't around all that long. They were in power for 10 generations. That would have been plenty of time if they were truly inbreeding all the way through.
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Oct 31, 2013 14:24
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For true inbreeding, look to the House of Habsburg.
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Oct 31, 2013 14:30
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Yes, I don't think any historical monarch we know of was more inbred than Charles II of Spain. His ancestry contained so many first-cousin and uncle/niece marriages that he was more inbred than if his parents had been brother and sister or father and daughter. He was sickly, mentally retarded, impotent, and had the "Habsburg jaw," a protruding lower jaw that caused him to constantly drool.Install Windows posted:To be fair, they were objectively inbred degenerates. All the scandalous intrigue and murder we associate with the Roman Empire was preceded by the Ptolemies. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Oct 31, 2013 |
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Oct 31, 2013 14:50
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veekie posted:Well, Cleopatra was a famous beauty right? Presumably no visible deformities in the lineage. Maybe they somehow lucked out and had no negative recessives. Also, her father skipped out on the whole "marry your sister" thing. As I recall, he was exiled to Cyprus and married a Greek noble there; then had Pompey install him in Egypt.
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Oct 31, 2013 15:31
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Well, I was going by the family tree on Wikipedia, which may not be the best of sources.
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Oct 31, 2013 15:54
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Halloween Jack posted:Yes, I don't think any historical monarch we know of was more inbred than Charles II of Spain. His ancestry contained so many first-cousin and uncle/niece marriages that he was more inbred than if his parents had been brother and sister or father and daughter. He was sickly, mentally retarded, impotent, and had the "Habsburg jaw," a protruding lower jaw that caused him to constantly drool. Poor guy. He sounds like the result of a horrible lab experiment like in The Fly. Someone should have just put him down.
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Oct 31, 2013 21:58
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bobthedinosaur posted:I'd like to learn more about Roman fashion/clothing. There was a discussion about clothing earlier in the thread, so if you hunt you might find more details. Tunics and various types of robes were pretty much the standard, from Greek-style scummy philosopher robes (doubles as a blanket for sleeping rough) to the toga, which was a bit like a business suit in terms of formality. The Romans did have underclothes, mostly in the form of loincloths.
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Oct 31, 2013 22:50
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Women didn't actually wear pants, right? Pants were unmanly, but not actually femminine?
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Oct 31, 2013 23:03
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Rockopolis posted:Women didn't actually wear pants, right? Yeah, the way I understand it is that pants to Romans are like traditional middle-eastern\Muslim dress to your average white American. "It looks a bit like a dress doesn't it, I wouldn't wear it and I'd mock my friends for wearing it but you go right ahead". It isn't like an actual hatred of pants, just not their thing until they took over places that actually got cold, then they sorta saw the point of them.
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Oct 31, 2013 23:38
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Pants were barbarian things, since the Celts and various Eastern peoples liked to wear them. Roman attitudes towards them differed, so depending on what you looked like, you would be looked on as a gross uncultured boor, or a slimy shady rat. Speaking of which, if anybody is late on a Halloween costume, gel up your hair, take off your shirt, toss random jewelry on your torso, put on some brown laceless boots and a set of pajama bottoms. Now you're a Celt!
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Nov 1, 2013 01:09
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I've been cosplaying a celt for years now then.
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Nov 1, 2013 01:28
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Still better looking than Carlos II. Speaking (vaguely) of women, did many statues of actual women survive through the ages? We've got busts of all the emperors that I know of, and I know that we have a famous statue of Venus, but did any statues survive of what the royal/senatorial women looked like, or were they considered too low on the social totem pole to bother making depictions of anywhere other than money?
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Nov 1, 2013 06:38
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Don Gato posted:Still better looking than Carlos II. Plenty. Not so much senatorial as far as I know, but the wives and daughters of emperors are as prominent in statuery as the emperors themselves. Just look up the Wikipedia pages for Livia, Messalina and so on. Octy fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Nov 1, 2013 |
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Nov 1, 2013 08:43
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Don Gato posted:
You may want to look at (and/or GIS for a lot more) Faiyum Mummy Portraits also. Really a cool "slice of life" survey of what people looked like back then. Hundreds and hundreds survive (portraits, not people).
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Nov 1, 2013 16:30
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This is related to nothing, but I went to Segovia in Spain today, where we saw the roman aqueduct and goddamn those guys knew how to build. The thing was massive (both in terms of height and length), held together with nothing but physics, so the feat of building it in the first place is impressive, but the fact that it's still standing in near-perfect condition after two thousand-ish years just blows my goddamned mind. Makes me want to go on a worldwide roman ruins tour, but who has the time or money for that.
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Nov 1, 2013 17:10
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Ainsley McTree posted:This is related to nothing, but I went to Segovia in Spain today, where we saw the roman aqueduct and goddamn those guys knew how to build. The thing was massive (both in terms of height and length), held together with nothing but physics, so the feat of building it in the first place is impressive, but the fact that it's still standing in near-perfect condition after two thousand-ish years just blows my goddamned mind. Makes me want to go on a worldwide roman ruins tour, but who has the time or money for that. Also, most Roman ruins are just foundations, so you're not missing as much. The best stuff is almost all in Italy.
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Nov 1, 2013 17:58
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