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WoodrowSkillson posted:By today's use of the word racist that would not really count. The Goths and Vandals were of similar ethnicity to tons of Roman citizens, had the same religion, the same color skin as the majority, and were culturally familiar with them due to serving in the legions. I was thinking more Julius Caesar with the latter bit. And I'm sorry, but your definition of racism is utterly laughable, and you don't seem to realise how ridiculous it is use KKK and Hitler as benchmarks for racism. I'm assuming you define racism on the basis of hatred and malice, and other such personal motivations. This of course is the boneheaded notion that racism is solely prejudice; i.e., just motivation, and not action. You might as well argue that the British Empire wasn't racist because it was motivated by profit instead of hatred and malice. The Romans killed and exploited people for not being born Roman or acceptably Roman. If treating others inhumanly because they're from a different ethnic group is not racist "by today's use of the word", what is?
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Oct 20, 2014 15:23
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was "Roman" an ethnic group...? I thought it simply meant "a citizen of the Empire" the way it's being used here? edit: is hatred of an ethnic group "racism"...? I really don't think race the way we understand race existed at all in the Classical world hence why people are claiming "racism" didn't exist then. Would you consider inter-ethnic hatreds among European people "racism"? I don't think it really qualifies. It's a cultural discrimination, not a "genetic" one. shallowj fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 15:35
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It was very important for aristocrats and politicians to be from Rome or direct descendants of colonists from Rome. There are some counter examples obviously. The roman world was as socially complex and multicultural as ours. There aren't really black letter answers to these questions. I mean how would a historian make sense of Obama 2000 from now.
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Oct 20, 2014 15:46
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shallowj posted:was "Roman" an ethnic group...? I thought it simply meant "a citizen of the Empire" the way it's being used here? This is my point, if you were a black man whose parents were from Ethiopia but was born in Egypt you were just as Roman as a white man born to Pict parents in Britain. The only way for racism to come into it is to use the most liberal definition of the word race to mean any group with shared history or heritage, which when you talk about racism in the western world in 2014, is normally not how it is used. People think of racism as discrimination by white people against other colored people first, and then against other religious groups next, and normally only nonwhite members of those religions. So when you say "The Romans were racist" is creates an incorrect assumption of how the Romans acted. By the most broad definition of racism, yes, Roman aggression and atrocities committed against Gaul count, but Gauls were in the Senate within the decade and never left. Gauls who sided with the Romans were completely spared harm. It is not a direct analogy to colonialism and how the British treated the Indians for example. The British never once gave any indication of seeing Indians, Afghanis, Africans, Native Americans, or any other subject people as being equal to them, let alone even human in many cases. Once the Gauls were conquered, they were assimilated into Roman society in a way the British never allowed their subject peoples to do.
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Oct 20, 2014 15:55
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sullat posted:Although, during the Gothic war, they did massacre friendly Goths, just to be on the safe side. Which seems like they did have a conception that Gothic-Roman was not the same as "true Roman". Those friendly Goths were not Roman at all. BravestOfTheLamps posted:The Romans killed and exploited people for not being born Roman or acceptably Roman. If treating others inhumanly because they're from a different ethnic group is not racist "by today's use of the word", what is? Romans weren't an ethnic group, they were a culture and an empire. Call them imperialists sure, but they weren't racist by any meaningful use of the term. Kaal fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 15:59
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euphronius posted:It was very important for aristocrats and politicians to be from Rome or direct descendants of colonists from Rome. There are some counter examples obviously. "Noted Second Republic historian Glenn Back posits that the president known to the public as "Obama" was actually an infiltrator from the Communist barbarians to weaken the First Republic from within. How else to explain the once-vaunted American military's spectacular collapse in the face of the joint North-Korean-Cuban-Iranian invasion in 2017? Unfortunately, records from that era were are fragmentary, as the burning of the legendary library of Congress in 2024 by a "flash mob" led by rampaging redditors destroyed much of the contemporary accounts. If only the works of the legendary 21st century historian William O'Reily had survived, we might know more of that turbulent time of history. Alas, the only one of his works to survive is 'The lives of famous pinheads'."
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Oct 20, 2014 16:03
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It should be pointed out that "the Romans weren't racist" and "the Romans were terrible people" are not contradictory facts.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:05
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Well my point was there was Roman as in Roman citizen and then Roman as in "family from Rome". It's NUANCED.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:05
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StashAugustine posted:It should be pointed out that "the Romans weren't racist" and "the Romans were terrible people" are not contradictory facts. Yeah, calling Caesar this great man of history glosses over the fact he caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, because he did not want to get embarrassed back home in Rome. However on the other hand judging historical people by today's values is not very productive either, since you are then expecting Caesar to be making moral revelations that no one else did for almost 2000 years after him. It should never ignored though, and too often is. Especially with Caesar and Alexander. People are more willing to see Augustus as a schemer and bad person for some reason.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:11
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shallowj posted:was "Roman" an ethnic group...? I thought it simply meant "a citizen of the Empire" the way it's being used here? Race as we understand it doesn't actually exist today either. And "hatred" isn't really the definition of racism either. Also, there were no "Europeans" back then. There was Europe, and people living in Europe, but there was no pan-European culture or polity like today. WoodrowSkillson posted:This is my point, if you were a black man whose parents were from Ethiopia but was born in Egypt you were just as Roman as a white man born to Pict parents in Britain. The only way for racism to come into it is to use the most liberal definition of the word race to mean any group with shared history or heritage, which when you talk about racism in the western world in 2014, is normally not how it is used. People think of racism as discrimination by white people against other colored people first, and then against other religious groups next, and normally only nonwhite members of those religions. So when you say "The Romans were racist" is creates an incorrect assumption of how the Romans acted. I don't know, couldn't you draw similarities between ancient Romans and modern Americans? That there are Black citizens in USA doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. And as for those Gaul senators, weren't they roundly hated by the native Romans, and Julius Caesar's yes men? At least that's the impression I got from Twelve Caesars. And I know that Romans could assimilate peoples, but there was a limit: just look at Roman Jews.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:19
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:I don't know, couldn't you draw similarities between ancient Romans and modern Americans? That there are Black citizens in USA doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. And as for those Gaul senators, weren't they roundly hated by the native Romans, and Julius Caesar's yes men? At least that's the impression I got from Twelve Caesars. Sure, but those native Romans had felt the same way about allowing Senators from anywhere but the city of Rome itself. The sentiment about Roman-Gauls really being barbarians was no different from the sentiment about Roman-Italians really being barbarians. quote:And I know that Romans could assimilate peoples, but there was a limit: just look at Roman Jews. Rome had no specific problem assimilating Roman Jews, and indeed plenty of them were fully assimilated into Roman society. The issue was that the Jews wanted to throw off Roman rule, and were willing to slaughter other Romans (and each other, for that matter) to do it. Rome had no problem with Jews - it had a problem with disorder and violent rioting.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:27
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Race as we understand it doesn't actually exist today either. And "hatred" isn't really the definition of racism either. The US is perfect example of how modern day racism is different then it was in 100BC. People in America are systematically discriminated against for no reason other then the color of their skin. No matter where they go in society or how rich they become, they cannot escape prejudice and discrimination. Yes everyone hated the senators Caesar put in, but the point is he did it. That would have been like the Governor General of India packing the House of Commons with Indian nationals to gain political power, and immediately after the conquest, not 100 or 200 years later. I make the distinction not to defend the Romans, but to highlight just how much more vile, pervasive, and harmful modern day racism is. The Romans ain't got poo poo on white people post 1500.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:34
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Kaal posted:Rome had no specific problem assimilating Roman Jews, and indeed plenty of them were fully assimilated into Roman society. The issue was that the Jews wanted to throw off Roman rule, and were willing to slaughter other Romans (and each other, for that matter) to do it. Rome had no problem with Jews - it had a problem with disorder and violent rioting. Well there were the various demands to honour the imperial cult on the Temple Mount, which was basically the same thing the Selucids had failed to force previously. Rome was deeply unsettled by monotheism as a whole, coming as they did from a society where religious co-option and syncretism were things and the idea of literally only one god was not exactly widespread. It's not like the Jews were the only people to violently resist Rome, you know. Especially given that the most of the uprising was during the total collapse of Roman power that was the Year of the Five Emperors where the Jews were hardly the only group giving it a go. This is especially rich given your avatar.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:34
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Kaal posted:Rome had no specific problem assimilating Roman Jews, and indeed plenty of them were fully assimilated into Roman society. The issue was that the Jews wanted to throw off Roman rule, and were willing to slaughter other Romans (and each other, for that matter) to do it. Kaal posted:Rome had no specific problem assimilating Roman Jews, and indeed plenty of them were fully assimilated into Roman society. The issue was that the Jews wanted to throw off Roman rule, and were willing to slaughter other Romans (and each other, for that matter) to do it. Rome had no problem with Jews - it had a problem with disorder and violent rioting. I can see why you edited that, but ignoring the ethnocultural conflict that led to that disorder and violent rioting is rather disingenuous. But I don't want the impression that I'm condeming Romans as particular, or that I just want to rag on racism. I'm pretty sure all empires in world history have been racist, whether they're Babylonian, Roman, Spanish, American, etc, since they naturally pursue the superiority over one ethnocultural contimuum over others. But I am condemning the Romans. e: WoodrowSkillson posted:The US is perfect example of how modern day racism is different then it was in 100BC. People in America are systematically discriminated against for no reason other then the color of their skin. No matter where they go in society or how rich they become, they cannot escape prejudice and discrimination. Yes everyone hated the senators Caesar put in, but the point is he did it. That would have been like the Governor General of India packing the House of Commons with Indian nationals to gain political power, and immediately after the conquest, not 100 or 200 years later. Again, the history of Jews would say otherwise, this time it'd be the Middle Ages. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 16:44
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Is our new thread title figuratively just "I'm gay"??? :histduck:
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Oct 20, 2014 17:54
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Arglebargle III posted:Is our new thread title figuratively just "I'm gay"??? :histduck: It's the greatest archeological discovery of all time, you should be shocked that it took so long.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:58
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euphronius posted:It was very important for aristocrats and politicians to be from Rome or direct descendants of colonists from Rome. There are some counter examples obviously. Was this through the entirety of the Republic & Empire or just until a certain point..? I assume Roman [re: from Rome] would be of very little significance after, say, the Social Wars & Sulla's proscriptions. If anything, it seems like this would be limited to a minority of aristocrats and socialites.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:05
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Grand Fromage posted:On May 24, I made thread
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Oct 20, 2014 18:12
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Was this through the entirety of the Republic & Empire or just until a certain point..? I assume Roman [re: from Rome] would be of very little significance after, say, the Social Wars & Sulla's proscriptions. If anything, it seems like this would be limited to a minority of aristocrats and socialites. Partly true that it's a minority, but remember that what matters is who, physically, is in Rome the city where all the decisions get made. On top of this you have subtle discriminations. Cicero's a good example: he was routinely mocked as a bumpkin for being from Arpinium, 100km away from Rome. He might have been a Roman citizen but to many people in power he was basically a foreigner. Like most 'isms it was something you could potentially get around by being significantly better than everyone else, with luck. Cicero made his name through a number of high-profile law cases.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:12
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Was this through the entirety of the Republic & Empire or just until a certain point..? I assume Roman [re: from Rome] would be of very little significance after, say, the Social Wars & Sulla's proscriptions. If anything, it seems like this would be limited to a minority of aristocrats and socialites. For one, the Germanic generals had to rule behind the scenes because a Germanic emperor was out of the question. Romulus Augustulus was apparently Roman enough for a puppet ruler. I just checked Wikipedia and apparently Romulus Augustulus is now an usurper who ruled the Western Roman Empire instead of an Emperor. I wonder what kind of edit war led to that.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:13
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Probably because he was installed as emperor by his father Orestes after the latter had toppled the previous emperor Julius Nepos.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:15
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Was this through the entirety of the Republic & Empire or just until a certain point..? I assume Roman [re: from Rome] would be of very little significance after, say, the Social Wars & Sulla's proscriptions. If anything, it seems like this would be limited to a minority of aristocrats and socialites. I would say most of the west's history. Being from Rome was important well into the Emperors. For example Hadrian was probably born in Spain, but the story was he was born in Rome. Also a minority of aristocrats and socialites ran the empire, so they are pretty important.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:17
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On the other hand Aurelian and Diocletian never visited Rome.
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Oct 21, 2014 01:34
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edit: Okay, I think my question was answered, so I'll rework it: How exactly did land ownership work in the Empire? Were the landowners mostly the same as before those regions were integrated into the Empire, or were they replaced by Romans? Did the local aristocrats assimilate into the general Roman aristocracy? Did this vary by region?
icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 02:54
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Arglebargle III posted:On the other hand Aurelian and Diocletian never visited Rome. Diocletian visited Rome at least once in year 303 for the tenth anniversary of the tetrarcht. Predictably, he despised the city and left as soon as he possibly could.
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Oct 21, 2014 12:50
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I've been going through China History podcast by Laszlo Montgomery and so far I'm loving it. I have a hard time remembering names, or even associating stuff spoken by a fluent Mandarin speaker with Pinyin transcription. Is there a similar podcast, but for the rest of Asia? I'd love to know more about Korea, Vietnam, India, etc.
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Oct 21, 2014 14:57
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None as extensive, but for Korea there's Topics in Korean History, and Japan has Short History of Japan. I don't know of any other Asian ones offhand.
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Oct 21, 2014 15:08
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The most bitter 'racial' conflict in Roman history that I know of was the Social War, a war of long-disenfranchised Italian tribal groups like the Samnites vs Rome and Roman-favored Italian tribes. The end result was the effective granting of full Roman citizenship to all Italians, although the class-based stratification of power remained completely entrenched. Ancient Rome was very much racist but not in a way that we'd necessarily recognize. They cared far more about where you were born, who your parents were, and what language you spoke than anything as mundane as skin tone. Being a Roman aristocrat usually meant a family tree full of Romans going back a few centuries, or just being rich enough that you could buy Roman-ness with bribes or through marriage. Gaius Marius wasn't born in Rome to Roman parents but his family was rich as heck and he got even richer in Spain, but he had to buy his way to the very top through the very Roman but very poor Julius Caesars, who provided him with a wife while he provided them with the funds necessary for a political career. Skin-color based racism really only became a thing after a few centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. While it probably existed in some form in Rome it was more like 'Oh this guy probably was not born around here,' or 'He's only a citizen because he served in the army,' rather than 'his skin is a different color than mine, therefore he is inferior.' Trying to conflate the two forms of racism or believing that Romans widely practiced skin-color racism is just ignorant.
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Oct 21, 2014 15:49
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VanSandman posted:
I find the bolded part quite fascinating. The catalyst for the entrenched scientific racism that we're more familiar with wasn't slavery, it was the dogma of the Enlightenment and the idea of equality of all men.  "Hmmm... Maybe we shouldn't do this poo poo to people" "But our personal prosperity and the prosperity of our empire is predicated on this system of cruelty." "poo poo, man, but you can't do that poo poo to people." "..." "..." "... what if they're not people?"
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Oct 21, 2014 16:27
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the JJ posted:The catalyst for the entrenched scientific racism that we're more familiar with wasn't slavery, it was the dogma of the Enlightenment and the idea of equality of all men. Nonsense. When the Spaniards ransacked America, Bartolomé de las Casas stood out for not believing that the Indians were subhumans, the enslaving of which was good and meritorious for white Christians. And besides, the argument that some men are not men and are only fit for slavery goes back to Aristotle, from whom it was picked up by the Arabs and Spaniards, among others, so, uhh...?
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Oct 21, 2014 16:43
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Yes it is true, Romans did not have a specific type of racism that was not invented until 400 or so years after the Empire fell apart.
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Oct 21, 2014 16:45
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icantfindaname posted:edit: Okay, I think my question was answered, so I'll rework it: How exactly did land ownership work in the Empire? Were the landowners mostly the same as before those regions were integrated into the Empire, or were they replaced by Romans? Did the local aristocrats assimilate into the general Roman aristocracy? Did this vary by region? In Gaul there was a lot of land seizure during the first invasion/assimilation. Hillforts like Entremont were sacked, and by the time refugees made their way back they found a Roman town had been founded next door. You also get a lot of straight up kicking tribes off their land to give to veteran colonists. Once the empire set in though, the main things it brought to the table were formal laws on the sale of land etc. These let Romanising local aristocrats sell off their ancestral land and move in down the road from their new best friend, the Roman governor. The buyers were often wealthy Romans buying up new land to farm, who set up systems more like Italian villas and ran things in absentia. In turn, the client-farmers on the land lost their personal connection to its owner, who'd been replaced with an absentee landlord, making them kind-of-proto-peasants-but-not-really 
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Oct 21, 2014 16:52
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The only thing I have to say is I think some people missed a word, that the subject was modern racism. Modern racism is about ethnic groups/skin colors/physical features. The Romans had plenty of ways to be discriminatory dicks, which you could potentially call racism. But it was not what we moderns consider racism. The closest parallel you could draw is that Romans who had an actual long lineage to the original inhabitants of Rome considered themselves something different/better. Keep in mind that the Romans' own conception of those original inhabitants was a conglomeration of numerous ethnic groups, though. There was no idea of some pure, autochthonous Roman ethnicity. They saw themselves as an amalgamation of peoples from the very beginning. E: The reason I don't ever use racism to describe Roman beliefs is because the word has such a specific meaning and baggage for us that just doesn't reflect what the Romans did accurately. It's why I almost wish there was a different word for Roman slavery vs the American type chattel slavery. There are similarities but they're just not the same thing. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 16:56
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They were bigoted assholes, just in a different way.
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Oct 21, 2014 17:14
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Can someone give me the original Latin of that titular quote? I know I saw it here, but can't find it anywhere. The rest of the famous Pompeii graffiti would be great as well.
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Oct 21, 2014 17:15
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Ras Het posted:Nonsense. When the Spaniards ransacked America, Bartolomé de las Casas stood out for not believing that the Indians were subhumans, the enslaving of which was good and meritorious for white Christians. And besides, the argument that some men are not men and are only fit for slavery goes back to Aristotle, from whom it was picked up by the Arabs and Spaniards, among others, so, uhh...? Sure, but you don't get polygenism until the line 17th century. The conquistadors weren't being dicks to the natives because they had a different skin tone, they were being dicks to the natives because the natives couldn't defend themselves.
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Oct 21, 2014 17:44
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Grand Fromage posted:The only thing I have to say is I think some people missed a word, that the subject was modern racism. Modern racism is about ethnic groups/skin colors/physical features. The Romans had plenty of ways to be discriminatory dicks, which you could potentially call racism. But it was not what we moderns consider racism. The closest parallel you could draw is that Romans who had an actual long lineage to the original inhabitants of Rome considered themselves something different/better. I think some of use, at least I am, saying that racism today means more than skin-color determinism such as you mentioned was practiced in new world slavery. So we are arguing over the definition of words!
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Oct 21, 2014 17:47
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the JJ posted:Sure, but you don't get polygenism until the line 17th century. The conquistadors weren't being dicks to the natives because they had a different skin tone, they were being dicks to the natives because the natives couldn't defend themselves. Sure, but they justified it with the different skin tone, and pretty openly, hence racism. Not the only cause of the beahvior, but definitely an idea involved in it. The Romans didn't do that at all. Not that they were terribly empathetic people, it's just that they skipped the justification part. "We're dicks to people because they can't defend themselves, what's the problem here again?"
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Oct 21, 2014 17:51
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euphronius posted:I think some of use, at least I am, saying that racism today means more than skin-color determinism such as you mentioned was practiced in new world slavery. Words have specific meanings and those meanings are used to convey very specific ideas. The differences between those ideas matter, both intrinsically and to how you use those ideas when discussing or analyzing any number of things. For a field as analysis and argument heavy as history the meaning of words holds profound importance. So, yes, people are arguing over the definition of words. Saying that they are doesn't wash away contested issues nearly as much as people seem to believe or wish. edit: this is also why translation inherently sucks and any scholar who hopes to study a foreign culture in any serious way has to learn its language. Some concepts just don't translate well between languages and you get to spend a paragraph trying to describe the meaning of a term rather than just finding a 1:1 equivalent in your own language. edit x2: for example, I strongly suspect that the words "servus" and "dominus" don't directly translate to "slave" and "master" as a 20th century American English speaker understands the concepts. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 18:15
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Guildencrantz posted:Can someone give me the original Latin of that titular quote? I know I saw it here, but can't find it anywhere. The rest of the famous Pompeii graffiti would be great as well. It's only a fragment. CIL IV 3932 ... dolete puellae paedicat ... cunne superbe vale. My last Latin lesson was more than 30 years ago, but I think the comment for this entry says, "discovered in 1873 and very badly legible; now totally disappeared."  e: "femininity" is not what that word means 
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Oct 21, 2014 18:49
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