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London at its peak in Roman times was 60,000 people and like 330 acres in the walls. While that was huge for England all the way up til like the middle ages, it wasn't that big for Europe in general.
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Apr 20, 2014 02:08
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Install Windows posted:Many small cities and towns in the United States have downtown areas that are elevated over the natural ground level, usually due to a now covered stream or other body of water that originally drew people to settle there. Hell, even big cities like Seattle have places like that. Most of what we know about Roman Londinium comes from excavations done during post-WW2 rebuilding in the late 40s and early 50s. A lot of partly/mostly-destroyed buildings had to torn down and in the process the demolition/construction crews found themselves working at what had been ground level during Roman times. Thankfully this was after people like Schliemann and Howard Carter had made archaeological excavations A Big Deal so the construction companies delayed their work so the academics could come in and document everything.
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Apr 20, 2014 07:06
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There was a pretty good article on vox.eu I cant pull up because I'm posting this on my phone from a club like a true goon instead of socializing, but it said something that English cities adapted better as the Middle Ages went on as they sprung up to meet the demands of the era while French ones struggled as they were still largely centered where it made sense with Roman infrastructure in place, which it wasnt obviously.
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Apr 20, 2014 07:08
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This might not be quite the thread for this question, but seeing as the one about ancient islam is dead it's the closest fit: I've been reading up on social classes in ol' Rome and between that and all the TV-stuff out there I got a pretty good idea how it worked, but how did this look in the early caliphate(s)? Wiki is only giving me the "Muslim Arab / Mulsim Non-Arab / People of the book / others" social order (at least for the early Caliphates, i.e Rashidun and Umayyad), but there must have been more to it than that, right? For example, (according to wiki) the judges were picked from wealthy educated (as in islam) men, who were *not* allowed to Trade (i.e, be merchants on the side), and recieved a fixed (high) salary to counter corruption. Which reminded me a little of how Confuscian China looked down on the merchant class, but I can't really discern those "class" viewpoints/structures for the Caliphate(s) from the little I can find written on the subject.
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Apr 20, 2014 11:18
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Pimpmust posted:This might not be quite the thread for this question, but seeing as the one about ancient islam is dead it's the closest fit: Well, merchants weren't looked down on in Islam, for one. Muhammad himself was a merchant for years and years. I think part of what you see is the fact that in Early Islam you're basically looking at a semi-nomadic tribal society that only recently got into the whole Empire ruling business. Communities of non-believers (and there were very many, conversion didn't happen over night) maintained their internal hierarchies but to the rulers they were generally lumped together. There were plenty of distinctions in the Arabic sections of the society, but a lot of it was tribal based. More... vertical slices than horizontal ones. Big M, for instance, had a pretty hardscrabble early life, but his uncle was a big man in the tribe, and between that, a good marriage, and his own hard work he was able to be comfortably 'upper middle class merchant' with enough time to pursue religion and meditation. This tribal thing is how you get the Umayyad doing their stuff. The Arab/non-Arab Muslim split was also a pretty huge deal. So, in summation: Politically defined hierarchy: "Muslim Arab / Mulsim Non-Arab / People of the book / others" Religious hierarchy: "Muslim Arab / People of the book / others" Social hierarchy: Varied based on what group you were in before the conquest, but among Arabic circles, based on tribal affiliation. Economic hierarchy: Sorta by definition, based on class. All these identities, and others, could interact and interplay, what was more important at what times could vary. One pretty big split that shows up as time goes on is the split between 'urbanized' Arabs, like the Umayyads (esp. if you look at Shia propaganda) and more pastoral Arabs. Rhetorically, everyone wanted to be the cool Arabs, materially, living it up in the cities was actually kind of nice. So that's a tension that persists today even. Not sure about the judges specifically, but educated men probably were pulled from the urban merchant classes a fair bit. I think that's less an injunction on say the work they did before or their family background, more a sort of 'so long as you're the judge, you can't do x, y, and z.' If you had a trading business you'd probably just pass it off to a cousin or something.
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Apr 20, 2014 17:48
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Any difference then in the later Caliphates, when I figure they might have gotten a little more complex about vertical social structures? Wasn't there some good book recommendations on this awhile back? Can't recall the name though. Guess I should read up on the Seljuks too, but I get the feeling they are another deal entirely.
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Apr 21, 2014 07:47
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Pimpmust posted:Any difference then in the later Caliphates, when I figure they might have gotten a little more complex about vertical social structures? A huge mess of conquered and conquering cultures plus natural cultural events and changes over vast geographic distances. poo poo gets real complex real fast. There's a lot of Roman and Persian influences, eventually Turkish/Mongolian and Indian. Things like the Ottoman Millets lasted until the 19th Century, as did more 'tribal' systems (I can C&P and effort post on Libya I made in the Middle East thread if you want), and poo poo like this is still an issue. 'Vertical' hierarchy is, as ever, an issue tied to education, wealth, land ownership, social and religious status, and access to political power. Peoples brought in for military service, either as slaves or mercenaries, could often become political big shots, the Ottoman's even made them part of the state bureaucracy in a big way. Religious leaders had a lot of social power through their positions as legal authorities, and religious (well, charitable, but mosques, madrassas, Sufi lodges all count) donations are one of Islam's five pillars, and are hard to tax, so that's a class of sorts. Sufi lodges could accrue a lot of cache.
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Apr 21, 2014 08:01
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It's a pretty fascinating place, because it's quite different from feudal(ish) Europe. Stuff like the Mameluks and Janissaries being sort of proto military industrial complexes / professional militaries more or less running the show at times is really interesting to read about. Can't get quite the bead on how exactly nobility worked under the various muslim systems, obviously there were Sultans, Emirs, Beys and all that, yet how... inheritance based was it? As you say, some mercenary/slave-soldier dude could come in and become a big shot so in a way I get the appearance of there being quite some mobility compared to the stuffier European system (although still on based on power, but that is sort of a given). Not a easy question to answer considering the geography and time scale I guess. I'd like to read up on something that's not wiki and get a deeper understanding, especially of the system be Seljuks and especially the Mongols. Of course wealth and education played a part, but the devil's in the details (especially when comparing/looking at the different "systems").
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Apr 21, 2014 08:42
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Well many regional rulers were appointed from the center, but in the periphery these positions tended towards hereditary. That's a vast overgeneralization but... yeah. It's basically the Roman governor/Persian satraps redux, and when the center was in turmoil and the peripheries able to strike out you got the same dux->dukes sort of transition you can find e.g. in Western Europe. More mid-level land ownership sometimes devolved to hereditary military classes. When you get to cases like the Seljuks and to a lesser extent the Ottomans and the Manchus in China where a nomadic group rolls in and sort of stays a permanent semi-nomadic military class (as opposed to the Arabic fashion of sorta doing whatever) you get the phenomenon of the 'iron rice bowls'* of salaried professional soldier that are somehow different than the slaves and levies. The Ottomans ultimately found the Janissaries more reliable and loyal... until they weren't. *Manchu-China term, sorry.
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Apr 21, 2014 09:57
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As a low-level clerk living in a city, what's an appropriate votive sacrifice for Parilia today? I'm fresh out of both sheep and bonfires.
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Apr 21, 2014 11:58
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grassy gnoll posted:As a low-level clerk living in a city, what's an appropriate votive sacrifice for Parilia today? I'm fresh out of both sheep and bonfires. I hear Jupiter likes HBO.
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Apr 21, 2014 15:12
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Captain Postal posted:What I don't get is how an entire city gets abandoned short of a major natural disaster. Surely when the population drops someone must think "there's a shitload of houses/buildings/mills/silos/infrastructure that no-one wants and I can squat and take" In modern times, you can look at a city like Detroit. There wasn't any natural disaster, but a complex combination of social, political, and economic factors combined to make living and working in Detroit unattractive, and so there was a steep decline in the population of Detroit. There wasn't a Detroit genocide, but Detroit lost a million people who moved away over the past sixty years for better prospects. Yeah, you could try to roll in and squat in a building, but you're still in Detroit, so good luck finding people willing to buy what you're selling. thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 02:22
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grassy gnoll posted:As a low-level clerk living in a city, what's an appropriate votive sacrifice for Parilia today? I'm fresh out of both sheep and bonfires. You're going to need a fetal calf and the horse that won the Kentucky Derby or, if you're not from the US, your nation's equivalent important horse race.
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Apr 22, 2014 02:41
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thrakkorzog posted:In modern times, you can look at a city like Detroit. There wasn't any natural disaster, but a complex combination of social, political, and economic factors combined to make living and working in Detroit unattractive, and so there was a steep decline in the population of Detroit. There wasn't a Detroit genocide, but Detroit lost a million people who moved away over the past sixty years for better prospects. The biggest problem is food production. Cities require extensive trade networks to bring food in and manufactured goods out. When the food stops, people start heading out for a place to grow their own. Hence cities depopulate when civilizations collapse.
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Apr 22, 2014 02:45
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the JJ posted:More mid-level land ownership sometimes devolved to hereditary military classes. When you get to cases like the Seljuks and to a lesser extent the Ottomans and the Manchus in China where a nomadic group rolls in and sort of stays a permanent semi-nomadic military class (as opposed to the Arabic fashion of sorta doing whatever) you get the phenomenon of the 'iron rice bowls'* of salaried professional soldier that are somehow different than the slaves and levies. The Ottomans ultimately found the Janissaries more reliable and loyal... until they weren't. The Ottoman system is quite interesting, because it is designed to counterbalance the Sipahi's (landholder's) power. This is done in 2 ways, first, all land is state-owned. Landholders cannot inherit or own land. It is given to you for a fixed period of time, then you rotate out and take over another Timar. In return you have to train and support a given number of men (and farm taxes ofc), this is done in relation to the size of your Timar. The system is merit based. You do well, you get bigger and better Timars. This system worked really well for a long time, but the obvious downside is, that projects in the provinces that span over multiple lord's office terms of are hard to do. Second, the Jannissaries. I will only sketch them. As you probably read, those originated from a sufi order which was evolved into a standing army. Proto-military complex is actually a good way to describe the corps, as it's duties extended into civil services, maintenance and construction of public works, bureaucracy, policing, firefighting etc.; It's complicated to grasp, as there is no modern seperation of powers. Know that the Janissaries were also heavily present in key positions in the bureaucracy. The men were state owned slaves, but that's a bit misleading if you imagine them as slaves in a derogatory sense. They're part of the Sultan's household, royal slaves, more like property of the state, but also embodyment of the state itself, with all it's authority. Traditionally the men trained for war, but also everyone needed to learn a second trade. So when you read about gardeners performing marvelous feats of strenght like carrying a mule on their shoulders or what have you, those are actually also trained for war from young age. The young men that showed most intellectual promise were educated at the Enderun Collej, which produced some excellent officers and officials. So these men were stationed in forts in the provinces, forming garrisons. Not only acting as police in the area, but also to remind the landholders what will happen if they refuse to obey redeployment to another Timar. What sent the whole system over the cliff was not the fact that the landholders were suddenly eligible to stay on their land and inherit it to their offspring, but the other way around. It was the Janissaries who were granted the right move out of the barracks and to participate in the economy (with their tradeskills, while also being payed by the state), to marry and inherit their Janissary status to their children. What followed was a growing corps that had to be payed (and violently demanded raises and more privilieges), excercised political power (by constantly killing the grand viziers or any other person that they didn't approve of) while their ability to fight consitently diminished. With that, the quality of the garrisons and counterweight to the Sipahis also declined, land went without police and the Sipahi were free to do as they pleased and even ignore the sultan's redeployment orders. Anatolia is a source of problems throughout the centuries, hard to control. The eastern provinces like Damascus, etc. are a world apart, as the system there shares only the names of office of the western provinces, but works mostly in it's own way as it did before the Ottomans came along. The Janissaries there are only Janissaries in name and never saw any formal training in Istanbul or the barracks. Local thugs would be a more accurate description. Granted, that wasn't the sole cause for the great decline of the empire, but the general economic crisis of the 1600s played a huge role and acted as a multiplicator. By then, you also constantly see large riots where impoverished workers play a huge role. The Kadis and the religious caste take the role as rabble-rousers, but mostly as a vehicle to hinder european style military, science and educational reforms. The Janissaries often jump aboard, as these reforms endanger their position in the state. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 09:06
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JaucheCharly posted:Lots of interesting words
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Apr 22, 2014 17:49
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Ynglaur posted:Now you've gotten me interested in the Ottoman Empire. Do you have any recommended reading for a good overview of its history? There's Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire.
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Apr 22, 2014 18:37
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Not really. I just started reading about the corps, because I'm interested in Ottoman archery and bowmaking, but there is pretty big book on general history in german (see below). Others might be available, but the good things that go into detail are usually turkish. Memoirs of a Janissary are a good read I heard, it's next on my list when I find time. Goodwin, Godfrey (1994): The Janissaries Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill (2000): Das Osmanische Reich 1300–1922. Die Geschichte einer Großmacht. Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg There's a number of Sultans that are interesting, so maybe biographies of Bayezid I., Mehmed the Conqueror and Suleyman the Magnificient might be worth your time. And ofc the Sultans that were batshit insane.
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Apr 22, 2014 21:03
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Ynglaur posted:Now you've gotten me interested in the Ottoman Empire. Do you have any recommended reading for a good overview of its history? I enjoyed The Ottoman Centuries by Lord Kinross for a general survey of the OE. Osman's Dream is also good, and a little more recent.
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Apr 22, 2014 22:29
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The Ottoman Turks by Justin McCarthy does a pretty good job too. Full disclosure, he's been criticized for his revisionist approach towards the Armenian genocide, which he concludes was a civil war rather than a massacre. He's good everywhere else but you might want to be careful once you get into World War I. Has anybody seen any good reconstructions of the palace at Ctesiphon? I've only ever seen the remains of the gate and drawings of what that alone would have looked like in its prime. I can't imagine what the whole thing would have looked like.
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Apr 23, 2014 08:36
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Since this is the de facto ancient world thread, I'll start posting here too because 90 percent of my free time is studying the earliest fragments of history and it's pretty much the coolest poo poo. I was reading today that there are an estimated 1 to 2 million cuneiform tablets currently in private and public hands, but only 100,000 of these are translated. I'm sure most of it is 10 bushels of barley and 5 oxen slaughtered type stuff, but we've actually discovered and deciphered religion hymns that were sung what, 5000 years ago? It's facts like that which give me so much excitement for history, I just wish that when I was younger I hadn't listened to my teachers who told me everything had already been discovered and there was no point in being an archaeologist.
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Apr 23, 2014 10:11
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oops, wrong thread
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Apr 23, 2014 10:37
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The Walking Dad posted:
You've gotta be kidding? Those people have no right to be teachers.
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Apr 23, 2014 10:47
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Octy posted:You've gotta be kidding? Those people have no right to be teachers. I loving wish dude, I internalized that bit of wisdom and it stopped me from doing probably the one thing on this earth I'd be happy to do as a career. I'm 30 now so it's a bit late for a career change, but I have been thinking about trying to learn some ancient languages just for fun.
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Apr 23, 2014 11:22
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Octy posted:You've gotta be kidding? Those people have no right to be teachers. Dumb as it is, it's a remarkably common belief. gently caress, we're still finding new things all the time in the middle of Rome, let alone somewhere completely unexplored like the Dacian frontierlands. Archaeology, as opposed to looting, is barely a couple centuries old. We've only scratched the surface.
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Apr 23, 2014 11:27
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The Walking Dad posted:I loving wish dude, I internalized that bit of wisdom and it stopped me from doing probably the one thing on this earth I'd be happy to do as a career. I'm 30 now so it's a bit late for a career change, but I have been thinking about trying to learn some ancient languages just for fun. 30 is not really late for a career change.
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Apr 23, 2014 11:48
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Grand Fromage posted:Dumb as it is, it's a remarkably common belief. gently caress, we're still finding new things all the time in the middle of Rome, let alone somewhere completely unexplored like the Dacian frontierlands. Archaeology, as opposed to looting, is barely a couple centuries old. We've only scratched the surface. Not to mention the large swaths of the world that have been embroiled in turf wars making them inaccessible. Even large portions of the Middle east that used to be far more open to archaeologists but are now for obvious reasons closed to study. Then there is the backlog of artifacts already recovered hidden away in storage and the vast quantities of information contained in texts that haven't been translated. It's all very boggling to think about the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. A new area of study that is completely awesome is the use of haplogroups to track populations. We can actually source immigration patterns of humans from 10,000 years ago and discover for instance that the ethnic Finnish populations arrived from east Asia after all, not with the Mongols as was once thought and then obviously discredited, but 15-20 thousand years ago. As genetics become more precise and we discover more subclades the picture will fill in rapidly and our vision of the world pre-written language will change drastically. The Walking Dad fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 11:50
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Tbf, when you're a teacher you do risk management with these ideas that kids get, and if you're not acutely aware of the goings of classical historiography and other such massively important stuff, you'll probably want to tell the kid that they can't be Indiana Jones any more than they can be a bear.
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Apr 23, 2014 11:52
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Cyrano4747 posted:I'm looking for a few good recommendations on general texts on the areas east of the Rhine and north of the Danube during the classical era and early medieval period. Basically think Germania from about the first century BC through the 7th century or so. Roughly Caesar => Charlemagne. Self quoting because it's been a while and I'm still looking for a good book or two. I'm about 2/3rds through The Early Germans and while it's not bad it's also not quite what I was hoping for. More cultural history, I guess, less in-depth discussion about individual archeological sites? Eh, I know this is vague and not helpful. Imagine the sort of book you could throw at a college freshman and reasonably expect they'd read at least a chapter or two. I fully recognize this is a pretty thin field, so if "what you're looking for just doesn't exist" is the answer I'm cool with that as well.
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Apr 23, 2014 23:49
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Arglebargle III posted:30 is not really late for a career change. Yeah, it's not like people find Their Job and stick with it for life now; turnover in employment is the norm. You can volunteer to help out on some digs, I know; that might be worth looking into, The Walking Dad. Plenty of dirt that has stuff in it still!
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Apr 24, 2014 06:45
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Is there any information on Roman agriculture contributing to the desertification of North Africa? I know I heard something about Roman environmental degradation being responsible for the mediterranean's rocky and arid character.
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Apr 24, 2014 11:17
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Arglebargle III posted:Is there any information on Roman agriculture contributing to the desertification of North Africa? I know I heard something about Roman environmental degradation being responsible for the mediterranean's rocky and arid character. It's not, from anything I've read. The Sahara is a new desert and still expanding. The climate was more wet at the time. The only possible contribution Romans made is they had a tendency to cut down forests. They did drive a lot of North African animals to extinction, though. At least in North Africa. A fair number of sub-Saharan animals used to exist in North Africa before Rome rolled in. The only entire species I know of that they wiped out were the North African elephants. But things like lions used to also live up there.
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Apr 24, 2014 11:29
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Arglebargle III posted:Is there any information on Roman agriculture contributing to the desertification of North Africa? I know I heard something about Roman environmental degradation being responsible for the mediterranean's rocky and arid character. I have an interest in this type of area as well - specifically relating to Greece. Was the climate much the same in classical Greece? Was the biome very much Mediterranean scrub like it is now? Note I'm talking southern Greece/islands, rather than the north. Also it's never too late to change. I'm 30 and have just qualified as a teacher - the first step on the road to a doctorate for me.
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Apr 24, 2014 14:35
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I'm just about done with HoR podcast covering the second punic war and decided to read along with it some livy. It seriously surprises me how easy to read but detailed he was at explaining everything surrounding the republics existence, I mean this is 2000 year old text i'm reading. Now i'm not surprised that he was so influential.
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Apr 24, 2014 20:52
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Did serfs exist in the western roman empire? How prevalent was agricultural slavery in the western european parts of the empire? What was the transition from a slave based agriculture to a feudal one like?
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Apr 25, 2014 03:28
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rock rock posted:Did serfs exist in the western roman empire? It depends on when exactly you're talking about, but the answer to the first question is probably 'yes', but depends on your definition of serf. I believe that as the Western Empire started to implode, people started fleeing the urban centres for the countryside where many of them apparently fell into a very serf-like relationship with the existing landowners. I imagine that's where the concept of feudal bonded labour developed from, but I don't know. Wasn't slavery on the decline in general in the later Empire?
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Apr 25, 2014 03:40
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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rock rock posted:Did serfs exist in the western roman empire? Yes but in the late empire. Search the thread for Diocletian.
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Apr 25, 2014 05:14
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Arglebargle III posted:Yes but in the late empire. Search the thread for Diocletian. Yep. Short version: labor was becoming short in the late empire, so Diocletian decided everyone gets to keep their jobs permanently. And their descendents. So if you're a farmer, congratulations! You and all your family get to live on this bit of land and farm it forever. Welcome to serfdom. Most major social things you can think of that define medieval Europe begin in late antiquity. Serfs, the beginning of feudal relations, local lords, knights, all that.
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Apr 25, 2014 13:10
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A bit out of the time peroid but, from a popular history standpoint, Tom Holland's book millenium covers the evolution into the middle ages. I have no idea of the veracity of it though.
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Apr 25, 2014 14:10
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So I just finished the 6 Volumes of Gibbon and other than doing my thing with the ancient coins this was sort of my introduction to the roman empire. As it begins right after the "Antonines", outside of this thread and some online reading I know very little about about say Augustus to Lucius Verus. What is recommended to fill this gap? I've seen it mentioned that the Twelve Caesars is basically the equivalent of those "batboy" newspapers you see in the grocery store, that said I still want to read it but what else? Al Harrington fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 17:26
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