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Lily Ross Taylor, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar might be what you're looking for. If you want an overview of the institutions of the Republic, you can read A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions for free on google books. It's old (1901) and dry, but a good study of the bits and pieces.
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Feb 11, 2014 22:52
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Arglebargle III posted:Real talk time: isn't Greece the successor state of the Byzantine Empire? wikipedia posted:its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire (Ancient Greek: Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων, tr. Basileia Rhōmaiōn; Latin: Imperium Romanum),[1] and Romania (Ῥωμανία).[2] I rest my case 
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Feb 11, 2014 23:21
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In the back of Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series of books, there's usually a good overview of the Roman republican political system. I haven't compared to primary sources (and have read few enough of those, and none in Latin), but I found her overviews easy to follow and well-written. The pronunciation guide and other fun stuff in the appendices is nice as well, if you're into that kind of detail.
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Feb 12, 2014 01:06
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Hey, do you guys have any idea what "UC M RO" stands for? I /think/ it's a Latin phrase but I'm not 100% sure. This would make sense contextually since I found this in a piece of 40k lore (in which Latin is one of the main languages).
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Feb 12, 2014 01:08
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Romans used contractions a lot.
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Feb 12, 2014 01:11
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Apparently this has something to do with proxenoi, which Google tells me is a consul. Maybe this is a mistranslated acronym related to praising the Emperor/Imperator? v0v
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Feb 12, 2014 01:25
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It doesn't ring a bell. Games Workshop and its writers put all sorts of jokes and nods into their writing, I'd expect that it was something along those lines (i.e. A ship named "You see 'em row"). Or it could be something that they just ginned up out of the layers and layers of lore material, like "Ultramarines Chapter of 1000, Primarch Roboute Guilliman". Can you link a copy of the source or explain the reference a bit more?
Kaal fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 01:32
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Kaal posted:It doesn't ring a bell. Games Workshop and its writers put all sorts of jokes and nods into their writing, I'd expect that it was something along those lines (i.e. A ship named "You see 'em row"). Or it could be something that they just ginned up out of the layers and layers of lore material, like "Ultramarines Chapter of 1000, Primarch Roboute Guilliman". Can you link a copy of the source or explain the reference a bit more? I found it on a company command standard specifically. Some Imperial Guard banner - it definitely has something to do with the Emperor. Knowing GW's common mistranslations/goofy Latin to make things sound cooler (Adeptus Astartes) it's probably something like that.
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Feb 12, 2014 01:39
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Noctis Horrendae posted:Apparently this has something to do with proxenoi, which Google tells me is a consul. Maybe this is a mistranslated acronym related to praising the Emperor/Imperator? v0v Well, because the word consul in this context might be confusing, proxenoi were something like modern diplomatic consuls, not consuls in the sense of the chief magistrates of the Roman republic. They were officials in Greek city states who agreed to host the delegations of some other city-state in their homes (since there weren't permanent embassies) and to informally represent that city-state by speaking for their citizens who might have needed legal assistance or by advocating for trade, friendship, and so on with that city-state. (From what I know of Warhammer 40k that doesn't seem like a concept that would exist in that universe.)
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Feb 12, 2014 02:04
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Tao Jones posted:Well, because the word consul in this context might be confusing, proxenoi were something like modern diplomatic consuls, not consuls in the sense of the chief magistrates of the Roman republic. They were officials in Greek city states who agreed to host the delegations of some other city-state in their homes (since there weren't permanent embassies) and to informally represent that city-state by speaking for their citizens who might have needed legal assistance or by advocating for trade, friendship, and so on with that city-state. Oh, well poo poo. I'm completely out of ideas, then. Back to researching this.
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Feb 12, 2014 02:07
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Noctis Horrendae posted:Oh, well poo poo. I'm completely out of ideas, then. Back to researching this. I'd suggest looking up the regimental motto of the company, and gathering whatever information you can about what the image is supposed to be depicting. The artist pulled it from somewhere, after all. The WH40k thread would probably be more useful than this one though. I can't imagine how proxenoi are involved though, since they aren't something that exists in the WH40k universe as far as I know. I can't think of any Greek-influence in the game at all actually, outside of mythological unit names like the "Basilisk" Mobile Artillery or the "Chimera" APC. That seems so exceptional that it must be key to understanding the acronym. Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 02:16
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What were different metals used for in Rome? I have been reading about the properties and histories of bronze, iron, and steel on wikipedia and I can't really make sense out of how expensive they would be relative to one another, what kind of uses you would prefer one over the other, and if Roman steel was crap or not. The articles are unclear about some stuff and of course, very little of it is aimed specifically at ancient Rome.
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Feb 12, 2014 02:46
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Tao Jones posted:Lily Ross Taylor, Party Politics in the Age of Caesar might be what you're looking for. Cicero's brother wrote a guide to candidates in Roman elections that has survived, and was recommended earlier in this thread. It is a good read. With regards to Lucretius, there was an article recently about its history; it was lost for a 800 years or so, was rediscovered by a rare book collector in the 1200s, which made a big splash. Until the church decided it was too athiest-pagan and tried to suppress it. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on who you ask), they didn't succeed.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:07
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Stealth Tiger posted:What were different metals used for in Rome? I have been reading about the properties and histories of bronze, iron, and steel on wikipedia and I can't really make sense out of how expensive they would be relative to one another, what kind of uses you would prefer one over the other, and if Roman steel was crap or not. The articles are unclear about some stuff and of course, very little of it is aimed specifically at ancient Rome. Roman iron was usually mined in what is today Austria, Spain, Romania, Britain. The quality as far as we can tell from swords, spears and other iron/steel items was pretty good, although on average not as good as later medieval stuff (although there might of course be a find bias there, since we have far more items from a longer period), mostly because making steel was still more trial and error than in later centuries, when smiths and early factories were able to produce a more consistent product. Bronze was used for a lot of tools, household tools and trade tools both. Silver and gold in high quality and very finely produced for jewellery. A lot of metal work was also imported from Germany, Gaul and the Eastern provinces and beyond (especially jewellery). As with all things the quality of the metalworks depended a lot on what you were willing to pay. Making value judgements centuries or millennia after the fact is always a bit difficult, but generally the values wouldn't have been so much different from ours - gold would have been very expensive, followed by silver, steel to bronze, copper, iron, tin and so on. But saying "you got 4 cows for 1/10 ounce of pure gold" isn't really possible of course, especially not over the centuries and wide areas the Roman republic and empire has encompassed. Decius fucked around with this message at 11:40 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 11:32
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Speaking of book recommendations, it's been brought up before in the thread about detecting lead in ice has led us to realize that pollution in the Roman Empire was at levels unseen until the Industrial Revolution. So that being said are there any good books on the Empire and its effects on the environment at the time? Edit: I remember earlier someone asked about emperors who seemed to genuinely have the welfare of the people in mind beyond platitudes and Antoninus Pius coming up. Reading up, he and Faustina seemed like really cool/good people and the fact that when she died he decided to continue her work by setting up a charity to help orphaned Roman girls is  as hell.
Suben fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 23:26
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This thread is incredible and I don't know why I only started reading it recently. I'm through about 60 pages but skipped ahead to post. I work at Chedworth Roman Villa and have done for 7 years now. drat I'm old. It's the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the villa this year, which is all very exciting for us. And we're in between big building/excavation/conservation projects at the moment; we had one big cover building open for the first time in 2012 and we're in the planning/funding stage for the next one. All in all, it's a cool place to be, and I've learned a lot in my time there (not least from reading all the books in the shop). If anyone has any questions specifically about Chedworth, I'll do my best to answer them. And if you're UK-based, you should definitely come and look round.
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Feb 13, 2014 04:37
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Has anyone seen The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1964 movie? I just came across it for the first time and noticed it looked pretty cool. The sets and costumes seem pretty impressive for 1964. Makes me wonder what other good old movies about the Romans are out there.
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Feb 13, 2014 06:09
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Haha, that's something. You can't be much more than half an hour from me when I'm at home. Will pop in some time during vac. Or of a weekend maybe: should make like my friends and go back home to help dig out flood defences anyway. How's the rain treating the site?
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Feb 13, 2014 06:13
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Mustang posted:Has anyone seen The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1964 movie? I just came across it for the first time and noticed it looked pretty cool. The sets and costumes seem pretty impressive for 1964. Makes me wonder what other good old movies about the Romans are out there. Well I caught the ending of it once and it doesn't actually contain the Fall of the Roman Empire so that's pretty bullshit.
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Feb 13, 2014 06:53
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sebzilla posted:
Thats cool as gently caress. I'd also ask, isn't it now underwater? Or is it just coastal? Also when I looked at the map to find out where it was, I realised how much the national trust really doesn't give a gently caress north of Oxford  . Either that or no one ever did anything significant up here.
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Feb 13, 2014 09:21
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I've been told that the biggest roman numeral is M, which would mean that the biggest number you could write in roman numerals is MMMCMXCIX, or 3999. So how did the romans deal with large numbers? Would they just write them out?
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Feb 13, 2014 18:17
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In medieval times you could put a bar above a letter to denote x1,000 and vertical bars either side to denote x100 (combining both for x100,000). Not sure how the Romans did it though (I've also wondered)
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Feb 13, 2014 19:02
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They had to have a system, people like Crassus had a decent idea of how much money they had, and I do not think he wrote 4,000 out 150 times or whatever.
WoodrowSkillson fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 19:08
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Can you recommend any good resources on small castra forts? Preferably ones with small permanent garrisons (under a cohort, possibly even as little as a centurae) or even examples of milecastles and their layouts or floorplans? Milecastle, boom/chain tower, anything of that nature. Thanks in advance.
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Feb 13, 2014 19:38
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WoodrowSkillson posted:They had to have a system, people like Crassus had a decent idea of how much money they had, and I do not like he wrote 4,000 out 150 times or whatever. I suspect he just wrote it out as a product of two numbers, e.g. 2500 by 4. I looked up the table of different ways of writing numbers in Trithemius's "Polygraphia", since I remembered he had a variety of styles listed; some of them seem to rely on multiplication to read the full numbers, combined with the bar notation mentioned above. My favorite system he lists writes "100,000" as "CM", "200,000" as "CCM", etc. Elegant little trick of the notation. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbc3&fileName=rbc0001_2009fabyan12345page.db&recNum=485 the relevant pages start here. Fun trivia: Polygraphia also has the first recorded viginere tables. Suenteus Po fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 19:50
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Mustang posted:Has anyone seen The Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1964 movie? I just came across it for the first time and noticed it looked pretty cool. The sets and costumes seem pretty impressive for 1964. Makes me wonder what other good old movies about the Romans are out there. In the History of Rome podcast, Mike Duncan recommended this one as being particularly realistic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvfLyx9TUbI Looks a bit fishy to me, though.
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Feb 13, 2014 19:59
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Sleep of Bronze posted:Haha, that's something. You can't be much more than half an hour from me when I'm at home. Will pop in some time during vac. Or of a weekend maybe: should make like my friends and go back home to help dig out flood defences anyway. How's the rain treating the site? We're surviving, not expecting a huge amount of visitors for the start of season this weekend which is a shame. Honestly just getting here in bad weather is more of an issue than taking care of the site. The road along the Coln valley (from either side) isn't far from flooding, but it should hold up. Never seen the water in the fields this high though. We had snow today for about an hour but it didn't settle, so access is still alright. We're high enough up the valley that the site itself isn't likely to flood, although a few years back one of the old buildings did spring a leak and we ended up with significant water in one of the baths for the first time in ~1600 years. Nothing that drastic so far this winter. But yeah, everything that would be damaged much by rain is covered up. We've got the new building over the West Range (Dining Room mosaic, West Bath house, corridor mosaic, hypocausts) and the old Victorian sheds over the key bits of the North Wing do enough to keep the weather out, as much as you'd expect for buildings nearing their 150th birthday. The hypocaust pillae in the North Wing have their winter socks on, as usual. Everything else is sturdy enough to not worry about too much. External walls are all capped, and a lot of exciting stuff is safely underground (until we get more money to make permanent excavation feasible). Cast_No_Shadow posted:Thats cool as gently caress. I'd also ask, isn't it now underwater? Or is it just coastal? There are some amazing properties in the North, but they are definitely more spread out than the South-West and South-East. I guess the region has always been less densely populated, so it sort of makes sense. I was up at Quarry Bank in Cheshire recently for some training, and it's probably now in my top 5 favourite Trust places I've been to. The standard "old country house" thing doesn't really do it for me, so anything the Trust does that's a bit different is a winner for me. Chedworth is at least 1000 years older than any other stately home we look after, so it definitely fits the bill. e: I've just read a question ages back about clothing in cold weather. Check out this dude:  He's the figure of Winter from our "Four Seasons" Dining Room mosaic, holding a hare and a bare branch. He's also wearing a nifty hooded cloak, or birrus britannicus. Mmm, snug! sebzilla fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 20:26
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Patrick Spens posted:I've been told that the biggest roman numeral is M, which would mean that the biggest number you could write in roman numerals is MMMCMXCIX, or 3999. So how did the romans deal with large numbers? Would they just write them out? I imagine you could just write more than 4 Ms as well. Might not be the most correct, but I'm sure people would see what you were going for.
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Feb 13, 2014 21:25
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:I imagine you could just write more than 4 Ms as well. Might not be the most correct, but I'm sure people would see what you were going for. Fun fact: Four of a Roman numeral is pretty well-attested in Roman times. You could see IIII and VIIII, et cetera. It's a modern convention to stick to the subtractive method at all times.
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Feb 13, 2014 21:28
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For one of the most advanced civilisations in all of ancient history, the Romans kind of overlooked the whole math thing, didn't they?
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Feb 13, 2014 22:08
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Noctis Horrendae posted:For one of the most advanced civilisations in all of ancient history, the Romans kind of overlooked the whole math thing, didn't they? Seriously, God bless the Arabs (or whoever created those numerals, I'm tired and the wikipedia page is making my head spin) for coming up with an actual good system for writing numbers.
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Feb 13, 2014 22:29
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Ainsley McTree posted:Seriously, God bless the Arabs (or whoever created those numerals, I'm tired and the wikipedia page is making my head spin) for coming up with an actual good system for writing numbers. Imagine having to write out ~100 characters just to denote a million.
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Feb 13, 2014 22:45
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Noctis Horrendae posted:For one of the most advanced civilisations in all of ancient history, the Romans kind of overlooked the whole math thing, didn't they? Given how good they were at bureaucracy and engineering, I really doubt it.
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Feb 13, 2014 23:05
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PittTheElder posted:Given how good they were at bureaucracy and engineering, I really doubt it. I was more pointing towards the written numbers discussion.
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Feb 13, 2014 23:06
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The Roman numbering system is more clunky but they managed. The Greeks had a very similar numbering system and look at how much mathematical progress they made.
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Feb 13, 2014 23:47
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They used abacuses and pebble boards. Calc means pebble.
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Feb 14, 2014 02:00
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Thought I might quote an extract from an edited speech by Momigliano about when the Roman Empire fell, in a book I'm reading at the moment. I'm sometimes facetious when I suggest 1806 as an end point, but I didn't think there were historians who seriously argued it.quote:I may perhaps begin with a piece of good news. In this year 1959 it can still be considered an historical truth that the Roman empire decline and fell. Nobody as yet is prepared to deny that the Roman empire has disappeared. But here the historians begin to disagree. When we ask them to tell us when the Roman empire disappeared, we collect an embarrassing variety of answers. The more so because there is a tendency to identify the beginnings of the Middle Ages with the end of the Roman empire: a tendency which would have given no little surprise to medieval men who firmly believed in the continuity of the Roman empire. There are, of course, historians who see the Middle Ages making their appearance and the Roman empire sinking into oblivion with the conversion of Constantine in 312 or with the inauguration of Constantinople in 330. And there are historians who would delay the end of the Roman empire to that year 1806... Between these two extreme dates there are plenty of intermediate choices. There are still traditionalists ready to support the once famous date of September 476, when Romulus Augustulus lost his throne; and there are more sophisitcated researchers who would prefer the death of Justinian in 565 or the coronation of Charlemagne in 800... Another favourite date is the fall of Constantinople in 1453 as the end of the new Rome... Professor Toynbee maintains that the crisis of Roman civilization started in the year 431 B.C. when the Athenians and the Spartans came to grief in the Peloponnesian War. The question, of course, comes up every twenty pages or so in this thread. I vote that we just quote this.
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Feb 14, 2014 02:19
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WoodrowSkillson posted:They had to have a system, people like Crassus had a decent idea of how much money they had Crassus knew EXACTLY how much money he had. All of it. Simultaneously, he also knew that he didn't have enough of it.
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Feb 14, 2014 02:46
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Ainsley McTree posted:Seriously, God bless the Arabs (or whoever created those numerals, I'm tired and the wikipedia page is making my head spin) for coming up with an actual good system for writing numbers. Arabic numerals were actually invented in what's now India, though I forget which part of it and I'm feeling too lazy to look it up right now. They're called Arabic numerals because the Arabs were the one who introduced them to Europe.
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Feb 14, 2014 03:18
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Was 1806 when Nappy dissolved the Hre?
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Feb 14, 2014 04:52
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