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Tao Jones posted:Man is the measure of all things. It's not
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Feb 16, 2014 06:42
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Deteriorata posted:Relating this to ancient history, this is why for most of history people living in towns did not have ovens in their own home. It was just too much bother and wasteful of fuel to heat it up just to cook for one family. There was usually a central bakery where the ovens could be continually monitored all day long and do all the baking for everyone. Fun fact: there is actually a communal bakehouse in the village where I live which is still in use.
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Feb 16, 2014 09:49
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I believer the Assyrians measured obedience in imperial Skulls. I would have thought that geometry would have been one of the earlier standard measurements. Ancient mathematics seems to work off roughly similar notions that we have today or is that simply an translation artifact and they in fact used different notations and terms? That's something that would be interesting for a complete layman to know. Also as a small strike against non-metric, I should note that Standard and Imperial Cups, Pints, Tablespoons, etc. are actually slightly different volumes, which can make translating US recipes interesting if not just converting to metric and assuming the same term means the same amount.
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Feb 16, 2014 17:07
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For basic geometry and number theory, they used equivalent terminology to what we do today, other than preferring "indefinite" to "infinite" when talking about line extensions, how many prime numbers there are, asymptotes, etc. The works that survive are collections of proofs, so concrete measurements aren't used. There are a few concepts that we have now that the ancients didn't -- the main one that comes to mind is the unit circle, which comes out of Cartesian coordinate systems and allows us to say things like "a right angle is 90 degrees" and "a straight line is 180 degrees". Euclid, of course, came up with proofs that amount to the same things, like "If a straight line stands on a straight line, then it makes either two right angles or angles whose sum equals two right angles" but doesn't talk about lines and angles in terms of degrees. I'm reasonably sure but can't double-check that ancient descriptions of devices that we have also use ratios to describe things rather than measurements: "given strut A, which is twice as high as given crossbar B is long..."
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Feb 17, 2014 00:45
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MrNemo posted:I would have thought that geometry would have been one of the earlier standard measurements. Ancient mathematics seems to work off roughly similar notions that we have today or is that simply an translation artifact and they in fact used different notations and terms? That's something that would be interesting for a complete layman to know. Here's a translation of Euclid's Elements which might look familiar if you took Geometry in school. The terminology is definitely awkward but the concepts are the same. For example: Postulate 5 posted:And that if a straight-line falling across two (other) straight-lines makes internal angles on the same side (of itself whose sum is) less than two right-angles, then the two (other) straight-lines, being produced to infinity, meet on that side (of the original straight-line) that the (sum of the internal angles) is less than two right-angles (and do not meet on the other side). Today the equivalent definition would be more like: "For any line and for any point which that line does not intersect, there exists exactly one line which intersects that point and does not intersect the first line." Basically you can't draw two distinct lines through the same point and have them both be parallel to some third line. Among other things, this has the nice property that you can replace "exactly one" with "exactly zero" and you get the equivalent postulate for geometry on the surface of a sphere (spherical geometry) instead of a flat plane. You can also replace it with "an infinite number of lines" and get what's called hyperbolic geometry. These are called non-Euclidean geometries because they replace one of Euclid's postulates although they tend to cause dropped courses and switched majors more than they cause madness. Some of the big mathematical problems in the ancient world took until the 19th century to solve because they simply didn't have the concepts necessary to solve the problems. Using a compass and straightedge to draw a square with the same area as a given circle (squaring the circle) in a finite number of steps is a problem that stretches back far before Euclid. Some people still don't accept that it's impossible because the proof doesn't use a compass and straightedge and it is possible to get arbitrarily close to the exact answer. The basic gist of it is that we can start by showing that compass and straightedge constructions on the plane are isomorphic to algebraic operations on numbers. The term isomorphic is probably new to you and illustrates the difference between ancient and modern mathematics pretty well. Two mathematical structures are isomorphic if there's some two-way 'translation' between the two that makes them effectively identical. In simpler terms, every single geometry homework problem could be turned into an equivalent algebra homework problem which you could solve, then turn back into its geometric equivalent and not only would you have the right answer, every single step would match the correct step to take from the original. So where ancient mathematicians looked at the rules that govern the behaviors of these mathematical structures, we might say that modern mathematicians also look at the rules that govern the rules. (and the rules that govern the rules that govern the rules) So for the purposes of this proof, the problem can actually be stated as "Calculate the square root of pi exactly using rational numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, raising to powers and finding the roots of polynomials in a finite number of steps". Any number that can be calculated this way is called an algebraic number (because it's using the operations you learned in algebra) while any that can't is called transcendental. So really the problem boils down to figuring out whether pi is transcendental or not, which took until 1882 to prove that it is in fact transcendental.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:01
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Tao Jones posted:I'm reasonably sure but can't double-check that ancient descriptions of devices that we have also use ratios to describe things rather than measurements: "given strut A, which is twice as high as given crossbar B is long..." Might that be a case of sloppy copying/translating over the centuries, where the original thing may have used some manner of measurements, but someone in charge of recopying it on down the line didn't understand it and only preserved the numbers?
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Feb 17, 2014 01:40
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What's a good book about antiquity to read? I've read Rubicon, Anthony Everitt's Augustus, Life in Ancient Rome by F.R. Cowell. Doesn't have to be about Romans. Persians, Celts, Germans, etc would also be a cool topic to read about. Pretty much anything ancient history. edit: I know somewhere in the thread some book recommendations were posted but I don't know on which page of all 221 pages.
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Feb 17, 2014 07:45
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Mustang posted:What's a good book about antiquity to read? I've read Rubicon, Anthony Everitt's Augustus, Life in Ancient Rome by F.R. Cowell. http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Throne-Death-Alexander-Empire/dp/0307271641 This is pretty awwweeesome
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Feb 17, 2014 15:40
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Was the "black stone" of Jupiter a single stone, like the stone of Elagabalus? And have either of them survived to the present day? If not, is it even known what happened to them? I was watching Rome last night, and I had to explain the concept of collegia to my fiancee. Which raised a question of my own--what was the ostensible purpose of the Aventine collegium? Were they officially something like a labour union that controlled the supply of manual labour to the docks?
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Feb 17, 2014 16:48
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Seemed like half mafia half union to me but that's just going from the show.
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Feb 19, 2014 07:02
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If I recall correctly, the collegia were any associations, formed by at least three people, who had legal personality. There were several types depending on their purpose, for example the funerary ones, which were associations to help raise funds to pay for their members funerary rites. The most important ones were the religious collegia, like the pontifices or augurs. In practice, usually people with the same trade banded together into collegia, which formed the base of what would become the medieval artisan guilds. The Aventinum collegium from Rome seems to me it was a collegia compitalicia, associations destined to organize the cult of the Lares Compitalia (lares gods of certain key crossroads in the city), and they also were responsible of the celebration of the Compitalia festivity. They were a bit odd, as in practice they had some political influence and acted like neighbourhood associations. They were banned during part of the Republic because they were seen as a source of trouble and often turned into criminal activities. Were reinstated by Clodius, with the tacit aproval of Caesar and they became a great tool for violence.
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Feb 19, 2014 09:15
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Like Angry Lobster recommended, read up on the fabulous career of comedy-king Clodius Pulcher for some info on the compitalia and collegia. Rome "HBO'd" it abit, but they were certainly seen as suspicious and shady by the upper classes. They did wield relatively substantial political power in the end-stages of the republic, but not neccesarily in the labour union sense nor in the mafia sense. Rather because they could organize and mobilize the largely unemployed lower classes into private armies for whoever could get them larger grain doles.
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Feb 19, 2014 09:47
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I've always seen that one of the reasons of the fall of the Roman Empire was that the germanic tribes were never truly integrated. Is there an explanation for that? Why was this such an issue with the germanic tribes and not with, for example, the spanish ones or the gauls or greeks?
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Feb 23, 2014 01:27
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radlum posted:I've always seen that one of the reasons of the fall of the Roman Empire was that the germanic tribes were never truly integrated. Is there an explanation for that? Why was this such an issue with the germanic tribes and not with, for example, the spanish ones or the gauls or greeks? A couple of reasons. One was that the German tribes were moving into the Empire instead of being absorbed. Kinda like in the modern USA nutjobs are okay with all these cities named San whoever but gently caress you speak English. Less... analogy-ish, the Gauls/Iberians/whatever weren't competing for space/resouces/whatever with the then accepted Romans, while the German tribes were. Also there's a ton of cultural shifting going on at the time, 'acceptably Roman' going from 'just the city of Rome' to 'gently caress you all the Italians' to 'gently caress it you speak Latin right?' to 'gently caress you you unwashed bastards' to 'you worship God the wrong way, no gently caress you we're the actual Romans.' The Germanic tribes also had their own things going on, like Kings and stuff, that the Romans didn't like. Kings becoming Roman 'Generals' was one way to sort of integrate them but the Romans didn't exactly like having barbarians with a bunch of legitimacy external to their own system running around collecting weapons and soldiers.
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Feb 23, 2014 02:04
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radlum posted:I've always seen that one of the reasons of the fall of the Roman Empire was that the germanic tribes were never truly integrated. Is there an explanation for that? Why was this such an issue with the germanic tribes and not with, for example, the spanish ones or the gauls or greeks? One possible facet of this question is that the Romans dealt with ("integrated", if you like) different people in different ways. In the East, where civilization had been going on for a few thousand years already by the time the Romans showed up, their practice was more to influence or extort the local king. This system of indirect rule worked out there because the local king could comfort himself with the fact that he was still a ruler and the Romans weren't loving his poo poo up, and on the Roman side they'd only have to control one guy rather than an entire country's worth of guys. Sometimes this wouldn't work out, and the Romans made sure to extravagantly punish regions that disobeyed, like Judea. That same approach didn't work on the Germans because their culture wasn't developed in the same was as in the middle east and the Hellenistic world. The Germans weren't settled into large cities, there weren't often polities all under one king, there was a lot of internecine conflict, there wasn't much wealth, and so on. The Germanic tribes posed a security concern for the Romans because the Romans understood that if a bunch of the tribes worked together, they could start wrecking poo poo while the Empire's legions were concerned with some other matter. The system that they devised to try to keep that from happening was to use money and ambassadors to keep the tribes divided and gradually bring influential Germans to a pro-Roman point of view over time, by such things as educating their children in the ways of Rome. (This sometimes backfired, since clever Germans who got long-term exposure to Roman ways but remained hostile could devise strategies to decisively defeat them, as with Arminius.) Why the Romans didn't make a serious attempt to conquer the Germans and forcibly Romanize them is an open question. It might have been because the Romans really liked defensible borders and the Rhine was very good for that. It might be that by the time the Romans got there they already had so much going on elsewhere that if they devoted resources to conquering the Germans, it would have been at the expense of some other frontier. It might be that the Germans weren't rich enough to make the Romans think jacking them for their loot was worth the effort. Or it might be that it never fit in with any emperor's long-term strategic vision, or maybe some other reason entirely.
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Feb 23, 2014 02:48
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I think that the reason the Germans weren't integrated like other conquered civilisations is simply because the Romans looked upon them as inferior. Maybe the whole "pants are barbaric" thing had something to do with it. 
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Feb 23, 2014 05:01
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Noctis Horrendae posted:I think that the reason the Germans weren't integrated like other conquered civilisations is simply because the Romans looked upon them as inferior. I thought it boiled down to mostly that there simply wasn't much there the Romans wanted. Central Europe was heavily forested, leading to a lot of asymmetric warfare the Romans weren't good at, the weather was terrible, there weren't any resources, the population was overall poor and unskilled, and thus conquering it just wasn't worth the bother. Their tactics were based more on minimizing the problems than anything else. Maybe there was more to it.
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Feb 23, 2014 05:09
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Tons of Germanic tribes had already been integrated just fine. It was just towards the end that the integration stopped.
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Feb 23, 2014 05:18
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Install Windows posted:It was just towards the end that the integration stopped. Wasn't that down to the German exodus to escape the Huns? So many showed up and were so desperate to get across the Rhine and into the protection of the Roman Empire that the Romans really had no choice but to just let them all in at once? So the tribal make-up remained intact and they remained loyal to their own distinct groups rather than integrating into the Empire?
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Feb 23, 2014 05:30
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Noctis Horrendae posted:I think that the reason the Germans weren't integrated like other conquered civilisations is simply because the Romans looked upon them as inferior. Well, the Romans always looked on everyone as inferior. Sometimes they had respect mixed in, like with Greeks or especially Egyptians, but while Roman society was relatively open and could incorporate people--you could choose to become Roman--they were still dicks and looked down on everyone else. I fully believe the reason the Germans became a problem was that said openness and integration goes away in late antiquity. Precisely why that happened is an interesting historical question with no satisfying answer. There's no question it happened and the Romans hosed themselves badly because of it, though. It is also certainly a factor that the Germans were entering Rome rather than Rome entering Germany.
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Feb 23, 2014 05:44
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Jerusalem posted:Wasn't that down to the German exodus to escape the Huns? So many showed up and were so desperate to get across the Rhine and into the protection of the Roman Empire that the Romans really had no choice but to just let them all in at once? So the tribal make-up remained intact and they remained loyal to their own distinct groups rather than integrating into the Empire? The Crossing of the Rhine was a big event, but do note that the Goths and Huns entered the empire through the Balkans. In many ways the Romans kept loving up things for themselves by refusing to negotiate with the Goths and by refusing to accept that their armies were essentially superior to the legions. The Goth War started when Romans refused to give them their promised land during a famine, and what led to the sack of Rome in 410 began with a senseless massacre of the families of Germanic feodorati. They had it coming. Ras Het fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Feb 23, 2014 |
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Feb 23, 2014 12:08
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Tao Jones posted:Why the Romans didn't make a serious attempt to conquer the Germans and forcibly Romanize them is an open question. It might have been because the Romans really liked defensible borders and the Rhine was very good for that. It might be that by the time the Romans got there they already had so much going on elsewhere that if they devoted resources to conquering the Germans, it would have been at the expense of some other frontier. It might be that the Germans weren't rich enough to make the Romans think jacking them for their loot was worth the effort. Or it might be that it never fit in with any emperor's long-term strategic vision, or maybe some other reason entirely. The initial thrust by Augustus was because he wanted to secure the Elbe as the border instead of the Rhine. The Rhine obviously worked, but there is a big gap between the Rhine and the Danube, with a much smaller gap between them. We have talked about the conquest of Germany a lot, and I always chime in because "what if the Romans successfully conquered to the Elbe" is my personal favorite "what if" about the Empire. After Teutoburg Forest, the Romans never went into Germany with the intent to conquer, only eliminate threats. Germanicus stomped around defeating every german army he saw, but never intended to stay. Had they not been stupid and trusted Arminius, the conquest may have been completed, and Rome could have owned a large open area in Germany which would have been very handy when the Goths and Vandals show up. Edit: My main point is that the Romans never really wanted the land to profit off it, they wanted it for purely strategic reasons. I feel like the whole "it was too poor they never really wanted the land" seems to minimize that motivation. WoodrowSkillson fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 23, 2014 |
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Feb 23, 2014 19:43
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MrNemo posted:Also as a small strike against non-metric, I should note that Standard and Imperial Cups, Pints, Tablespoons, etc. are actually slightly different volumes, which can make translating US recipes interesting if not just converting to metric and assuming the same term means the same amount. A bit more than 'slightly' in the case of the pint if by Standard you mean Standard American (Imperial is 'Standard' hereabouts you know ;p)
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Feb 23, 2014 21:37
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Ras Het posted:The Crossing of the Rhine was a big event, but do note that the Goths and Huns entered the empire through the Balkans. Do we know what the big differences were between the composition of the Goth armies over the legions or do you mean that they were similar in type but just superior in quality at the time?
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Feb 23, 2014 23:49
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Couldn't they have settled them in Dacia? I thought it was depopulated after the 3rd century. They were trying to do that when diplomacy failed. I don't remember the name, something about a bridge and disarmament and legal passage and settlement, and then the Goths got antsy and rushed the bridge and chaos ensued. And then they were in without disarming or dispersing.
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Feb 24, 2014 00:52
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Arglebargle III posted:Couldn't they have settled them in Dacia? I thought it was depopulated after the 3rd century. They were trying to do that when diplomacy failed. I don't remember the name, something about a bridge and disarmament and legal passage and settlement, and then the Goths got antsy and rushed the bridge and chaos ensued. And then they were in without disarming or dispersing. You're referring to the beginnings of the Gothic War at the end of the 4th century, and that was an extremely important event that represented the culmination of generations of neglect on the part of Roman authorities to properly accommodate the German population into their political and cultural framework. In short, a massive population of Goths were fleeing from the Hunnic invasion, and while some decided to hide in the mountains, others struck out for the Danube and the safety of the Roman fortifications beyond it. Fritigern, a major Gothic chief, began negotiating passage and safe harbor with the Emperor Valens (who had only recently taken control of the West after the death of his brother Valentinian), and as the extended talks continued close to a million Goths of all ages began lining the banks attempting to cross. Valens eventually acceded to a limited amount of immigration, and the Roman army stood aside to allow those who were healthy or wealthy enough to be accepted for eventual resettlement. But the Huns were continuing to close in, and those left on the banks began to fear that they would simply be left to the mercy of the Huns; they took advantage of the confusion of the moment, and began crossing the river en masse. The Romans, who had pulled aside their fleets and stood down their armies, were not in the position to halt the flood of bodies pouring across the Danube, and suddenly there was a massive population of armed and organized barbarians living inside Roman borders. Emperor Valens, who was in far off Constantinople, was extremely angry about it all (and I believe that he slaughtered the next group of Goths that attempted the trick, though that may have been a later emperor), but it was a fait accompli, and he left it to the Roman generals in the area to manage the difficult resettlement. They, however, completely hosed it up by allowing the Germans to remain armed and culturally consolidated, and yet exploiting them terribly. Eventually the Germans, starving and robbed of all but their iron, rose up in anger and began six years of raiding within Roman borders. It was a catastrophe for the Western Roman Empire, and many identify it as the proximal cause of its eventual collapse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_War_(376-382) Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 24, 2014 |
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Feb 24, 2014 01:32
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I'm wrapping up Mike Duncan's excellent History of Rome podcast, and I was wondering how receptive this thread was to the History of Byzantium podcast, since it's by a different person and at least 'looks' different?
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Feb 24, 2014 07:13
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Since we're on the topic of Germans at the moment, does anyone have a good list of sources on the Battle of Teutoburg Forest? I'm headed up to Kalkriese and the Varusschlacht Museum this Saturday as part of a little weekend trip.
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Feb 24, 2014 12:55
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I've downloaded it and never actually started listening, but at least a few people here have and said it was decent.
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Feb 24, 2014 12:58
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The dude making the Byzantium podcast had been doing it for like a year now, and the history Facebook group it's associated with would have torn him a new one 10 times over by now if it sucked. I have listened to about half, and while he is not as good as the Rome guy, the info is presented similarly and it's really interesting.
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Feb 24, 2014 13:37
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Berke Negri posted:Do we know what the big differences were between the composition of the Goth armies over the legions or do you mean that they were similar in type but just superior in quality at the time? I don't know anything about the military history nerd poo poo, I'm just saying that the Romans got their asses handed over to them.
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Feb 24, 2014 13:44
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Troubadour posted:Since we're on the topic of Germans at the moment, does anyone have a good list of sources on the Battle of Teutoburg Forest? I'm headed up to Kalkriese and the Varusschlacht Museum this Saturday as part of a little weekend trip. Heh, I went up to that museum when I was in Uni as well, was good fun and as long as the weather is decent quite a nice little spot. Regarding sources, if you're wanting ancient sources the ones I recall- though I'm sure plenty of folks in this thread have a better idea- are Strabo, Tacitus, and Seutonius (who is the source of the ever-famous quote regarding Varus). There is also relatively recent book by Peter Wells called The Battle That Stopped Rome that I quite enjoyed reading, but if memory serves he argues for a somewhat different interpretation of when and why the battle took place, so mileage may vary. Enjoy your trip! If they have the little table that tries to simulate what the fleeing Roman soldiers looked like with marbles make sure to check it out- was strangely therapeutic.
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Feb 24, 2014 14:06
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Thanks for the tips, I just ordered the last English copy of Wells on amazon.de  If any good photos result, I'll upload them to the thread.
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Feb 24, 2014 17:35
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I saw a book in Barnes & Noble a few years ago called The Mongol Way of War or something similar, but can't remember the exact title, and I can't seem to find it with Google. Can someone help me figure this out? If anyone has read it, is it any good? A cursory glance at the bookstore says "yes", but I'm curious what others think.
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Feb 24, 2014 19:26
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I apologise in advance for the vagueness of this question, but what was the deal with Romans and cabbage, anyway? I seem to recall a slightly surreal discussion a while back about how much they loving loved cabbages and (maybe?) had some government post which had the sole duty of overseeing cabbages or something, if that's correct, could somebody recap it for me? If it's not right I apologise again for inflicting something I probably made up in a dream on this thread. 
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Feb 24, 2014 21:21
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Oberleutnant posted:I apologise in advance for the vagueness of this question, but what was the deal with Romans and cabbage, anyway? I seem to recall a slightly surreal discussion a while back about how much they loving loved cabbages and (maybe?) had some government post which had the sole duty of overseeing cabbages or something, if that's correct, could somebody recap it for me? It is early in the morning and I am probably wrong about this in one or more ways, but I recall one of the Pliny's had a hard-on for cabbage and wrote of its virtues in curing everything ever. I don't remember a government post overseeing cabbages, though.
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Feb 24, 2014 22:07
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Oberleutnant posted:I apologise in advance for the vagueness of this question, but what was the deal with Romans and cabbage, anyway? I seem to recall a slightly surreal discussion a while back about how much they loving loved cabbages and (maybe?) had some government post which had the sole duty of overseeing cabbages or something, if that's correct, could somebody recap it for me?
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Feb 24, 2014 22:32
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Aha! Cato is close enough.
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Feb 24, 2014 22:44
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Beamed posted:I'm wrapping up Mike Duncan's excellent History of Rome podcast, and I was wondering how receptive this thread was to the History of Byzantium podcast, since it's by a different person and at least 'looks' different? It's... okay. The guy does a fine job and the history itself is interesting enough to keep me listening, but it lacks the spark that History of Rome had - Mike Duncan seemed to get the balance just right between presenting the information and being entertaining, whereas this guy feels like he is trying a little too hard to get the same natural feel. It also feels like it is running extremely slowly in comparison to Rome, though that is probably down to me getting to that podcast after it was already over and being able to listen to multiple episodes at a time when I felt like it.
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Feb 24, 2014 23:53
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Jerusalem posted:It's... okay. The guy does a fine job and the history itself is interesting enough to keep me listening, but it lacks the spark that History of Rome had - Mike Duncan seemed to get the balance just right between presenting the information and being entertaining, whereas this guy feels like he is trying a little too hard to get the same natural feel. It also feels like it is running extremely slowly in comparison to Rome, though that is probably down to me getting to that podcast after it was already over and being able to listen to multiple episodes at a time when I felt like it. HofR released once a week with random breaks, HofB updates once every 2 weeks, with breaks around holidays and such. It is moving half as fast so you are not crazy.
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Feb 25, 2014 00:07
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