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The Romans and Greeks didn't even know Gorilla's and Chimpanzees existed. The West didn't learn of them until relatively recently, only in the past few hundred years. A living Gorilla wasn't even seen by a Westerner until the mid 1800's. Until the scramble for Africa Europeans didn't really venture far inland from the coasts.
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Nov 19, 2014 07:33
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IIRC the Carthaginians made an expedition around the west african coast and ended up stumbling upon a group of "very rude and hairy people", who they skinned and brought back to Carthage. e: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanno_the_Navigator Morzhovyye fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 08:08
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Halloween Jack posted:Was any Roman emperor ever dumb enough to urge citizens to help repel the barbarians by spending all their money? I don't know if it's what you had in mind but Heraclius (IIRC) certainly got citizens (and the Church) to donate gold and silver they owned in order to pay for the Legions to fight the Persians.
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Nov 19, 2014 12:19
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MrNemo posted:I don't know if it's what you had in mind but Heraclius (IIRC) certainly got citizens (and the Church) to donate gold and silver they owned in order to pay for the Legions to fight the Persians. Too bad about the Arabs right around the corner, though.
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Nov 19, 2014 14:52
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Have any of you had garum? If so, how does it taste?
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Nov 19, 2014 15:14
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Garum is basically fish sauce, still commonly used today. It is awesome, though it's not the sort of thing you just have by itself. I've never had actual properly made Roman style garum or oenogarum. The Roman food I've made has all been pretty good, but if you want to make some beware it is salty as gently caress. Cut the salt at least in half and add more if you want but start with way less than the recipe calls for.
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Nov 19, 2014 15:39
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To add to the fishsauce talk, there's a wide variety of, how to say....note of taste and smell. Ranging from not bad to ripe trashcan in summer. The trashcan-taste subsides, once you chew.
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Nov 19, 2014 16:03
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I was more wondering if you guys had had the traditional fish guts fermented in a hole in the south Mediterranean instead of the boiled whole fish juice.
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Nov 19, 2014 17:06
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Fish sauce is usually anchovies fermented in a barrel.
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Nov 19, 2014 17:25
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karl fungus posted:I'm curious as to how early civilizations viewed great apes, especially without the modern understanding of humans being primates and the great apes being our relatives. They also look a lot more distinct than other animals and would probably have stuck out when encountered in the wild. Sura 2 of the Qu'ran claims that apes are the descendants of Jews who did not keep the Sabbath. I'm not sure if early Islam is ancient enough for you.
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Nov 19, 2014 17:47
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I've got a really dumb question for dorky reasons, but how is triarii supposed to be pronounced? Closer to Rome Total War's pronunciation (A long e sound followed by a long i sound) or Rome 2's pronunciation (Two long e sounds)? To add onto the food talk, there was someone in this thread who was recreating Roman food. It was a while back and none of it involved garum but it's interesting to look at.
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Nov 19, 2014 17:52
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treAAree
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Nov 19, 2014 17:57
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Europa Barbarorum's pronunciation.
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Nov 19, 2014 18:15
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Don Gato posted:I've got a really dumb question for dorky reasons, but how is triarii supposed to be pronounced? Closer to Rome Total War's pronunciation (A long e sound followed by a long i sound) or Rome 2's pronunciation (Two long e sounds)? Tri as in trinity but with a rolled R, ah, ree. As in, the first I is short, but "short" and "long" mean different things in Latin than in English. IIRC RTW's pronuncation was totally hosed.
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Nov 19, 2014 19:37
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Don Gato posted:I've got a really dumb question for dorky reasons, but how is triarii supposed to be pronounced? Closer to Rome Total War's pronunciation (A long e sound followed by a long i sound) or Rome 2's pronunciation (Two long e sounds)? On this note, I've heard that "v"s in latin were pronounced like "w"s, making "veni, vidi, vici" sound like an Elmer Fudd gag. Is this true?
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Nov 19, 2014 20:30
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veni vidi vici will be written by a lot of/most modern editors as ueni uidi uici, if that helps. But it's pronounced as the Latin consonantal u, yes.
Sleep of Bronze fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 20:36
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:On this note, I've heard that "v"s in latin were pronounced like "w"s, making "veni, vidi, vici" sound like an Elmer Fudd gag. Is this true? Also there is no "soft C" in classical Latin. All Cs are Ks.
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Nov 19, 2014 20:53
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:On this note, I've heard that "v"s in latin were pronounced like "w"s, making "veni, vidi, vici" sound like an Elmer Fudd gag. Is this true? Yep! Well, sort of. For the classical Latin that Caesar would have actually spoken (being an aristocrat), the popular pronunciation is totally wrong. It's "weni widi wiki." Ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation, on the other hand, has shifted to match Italian and many of the divergences between written Latin and (Italian) vulgar Latin may have already taken place by Caesar's time...so it's possible that a common person in Rome would have actually said "veni, vidi, vichi" if he was quoting the line in casual conversation, or anything in between that and the "proper" pronunciation.
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Nov 19, 2014 22:18
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Grand Fromage posted:Garum is basically fish sauce, still commonly used today. It is awesome, though it's not the sort of thing you just have by itself. Would I be right to assume that they used that much salt due to the taste of food pre-refrigeration? or something along those lines?
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Nov 20, 2014 00:44
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Salt is also a preservative.
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Nov 20, 2014 00:46
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:Salt is also a preservative. And the main readily available spice. So people developed a taste for saltiness because most meats were preserved in it and for everything else it was salt or nothing.
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Nov 20, 2014 00:53
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Deteriorata posted:And the main readily available spice. So people developed a taste for saltiness because most meats were preserved in it and for everything else it was salt or nothing. So you just assume that things like coriander, cumin, fennel, thyme, oregano etc. ad infinitum weren't used?
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Nov 20, 2014 01:20
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Ras Het posted:So you just assume that things like coriander, cumin, fennel, thyme, oregano etc. ad infinitum weren't used? I'm saying there's a reason that the spice trade drove worldwide exploration and colonization post-Columbus.
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Nov 20, 2014 03:54
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Ras Het posted:So you just assume that things like coriander, cumin, fennel, thyme, oregano etc. ad infinitum weren't used? If i recall there was an herb the Romans liked so much that they over-harvested it to extinction. They even put it on coins in North Africa. Cant remember what its called though. Regardless, Spices can be pricey even now and days. Imagine how your average roman pleb is going to afford those in any meaningful amount.
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Nov 20, 2014 04:04
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Agean90 posted:If i recall there was an herb the Romans liked so much that they over-harvested it to extinction. They even put it on coins in North Africa. Cant remember what its called though. That's Silphium. Nero ate the last piece  Also, iirc, there was a contraceptive herb the Romans used to extinction
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Nov 20, 2014 04:07
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Smoking Crow posted:Also, iirc, there was a contraceptive herb the Romans used to extinction Truly a golden age we can never hope to recover 
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Nov 20, 2014 04:08
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I looked it up and Silphium was also the contraceptive. Spice and contraceptive gone forever because of some hungry sheep.
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Nov 20, 2014 04:13
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You guys are thinking of laser which is supposed to be like fennel.
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Nov 20, 2014 05:03
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Half of my posts in this thread are on this subject, but I was thinking of it again today. I still and will always be upset about the fact that people think that the "Byzantine" Empire is not Roman. The mint at Constantinople started striking a new gold coin, the solidus, during the reign of Constantine the Great in the 4th century. This new coin was made official currency of the entire Empire, including the area that would later be the Western Empire. This mint continued to produce solidii for over six hundred years, same weight, same composition, same purity, same name, under the unbroken authority of the same state that Constantine lead. However, at some point, those solidii are considered to be Byzantine coins, not Roman ones. There was never any conquest of Constantinople by another state, there was never any renaming of the state by the people who lived there or the people who ruled it, but at some point those coins aren't considered Roman just because people get stupid about putting Augustus and Heraclius on the same level.
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Nov 20, 2014 05:58
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cheerfullydrab posted:Half of my posts in this thread are on this subject, but I was thinking of it again today. I still and will always be upset about the fact that people think that the "Byzantine" Empire is not Roman. The mint at Constantinople started striking a new gold coin, the solidus, during the reign of Constantine the Great in the 4th century. This new coin was made official currency of the entire Empire, including the area that would later be the Western Empire. This mint continued to produce solidii for over six hundred years, same weight, same composition, same purity, same name, under the unbroken authority of the same state that Constantine lead. However, at some point, those solidii are considered to be Byzantine coins, not Roman ones. There was never any conquest of Constantinople by another state, there was never any renaming of the state by the people who lived there or the people who ruled it, but at some point those coins aren't considered Roman just because people get stupid about putting Augustus and Heraclius on the same level. Leo the Syrian, Latin interregnum, spoke loving Greek while all those awful 'barbarians' took up Latin, different dudes put different faces and text on those coins, the USA left the gold standard so by your logic we're not really Americans anymore, they called it the Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων while other dudes were calling their empire the Imperium Romanum. No one is saying that those dudes weren't Roman (not that, outside of accuracy we should loving care at all) but when you've got Roman's at the behest of the religious head at Rome (who was responding to requests from the Roman Emperor, no, not that one, the other one) on their way to reconquer Rome stop off at Rome and set up a new Rome and then one of the Roman Kings overthrew that Rome but in a few centuries the Kingdom of Rome set up, then they had a revolt and that dynasty took over Rome (no, the actual city. No, not that one the new one) and declared himself the Caesar in Rome. Only he didn't do the religion right so like two other dudes went for that Caesar name only they were never Roman (well, unless you count them as Roman... which they did. What, the guy in Rome crowned them and everything! Of course then that dude went to Rome and got crowned Emperor and then he outlawed the empire.) So sometimes we say Byzantine (as it centered on the old city of Byzantium) the HRE, Napoleon, the Sultanate of Rum, Tzar, Kaiser, Catholic, Latin, all this loving nonsense and yeah, language matters and what we call 'Rome' and 'not Rome' shapes how we think (and thus, massively, the historiography of the thing itself) but labeling one of those thing the 'true Rome' is not at all loving helpful and does nothing to fix the problem. Coinage is like a tiny part of continuity which is a super fascinating, multi-faceted thing and not loving binary so if you're getting hung up on some small detail because it make your narrative 'right' you're probably either a nationalist shitlord or a wannabee nationalist shitlord in the grand Byzaboo tradition, which is objectively worse.
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Nov 20, 2014 06:33
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Testikles posted:You guys are thinking of laser which is supposed to be like fennel. Laserpicium. It's the resin of Silphium.
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Nov 20, 2014 06:35
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I'm pretty sure 80% of the human population doesn't even know the Byzantine polity ever even existed. Far more definitely know about the Roman Empire at its height, so when they are told "The Byzantines were Roman" they're skeptical. There's also the fact that by 1000 AD the Byzantines would have been pretty unrecognizable by Octavian outside of the words, laws, and titles they retained. In a broad sense, it's Rome all the way down, but the progression Latin Tribe->Roman Kingdom->Roman Republic->Roman Empire->TWO Roman Empires muddies the waters a little bit along the way, especially from 476-1453. Charlemagne didn't help much by having himself crowned Holy Roman Emperor either, most people who know the general but not specific outline of medieval Europe see a whole lotta successor states and not a whole lot of real continuity. Jaramin fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 06:49
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Octavian probably wouldn't have recognized the Rome of 300BC either.
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Nov 20, 2014 06:56
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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In 300BC They were Latins who spoke Latin who lived in and ruled from Rome at least, that's quite a bit more to work with. Not a great example, but the point is that it's easier to comprehend the span of Roman history if you compartmentalize it into broad chunks of reasonable similarity.
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Nov 20, 2014 07:09
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True, but I don't think it's ask that helpful to break it up into just two big periods either. The transition from what we imagine add classical Rome into the Byzantine period was so absurdly gradual, I'd say it's harder to nail down then the exact moment that "Rome fell", to use the popular lingo. Seems like a crappy compartmentalisation to me. Also, 'compartmentalisation' has got to be the longest word I have ever typed on my phone. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 07:51
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the JJ posted:Leo the Syrian, Latin interregnum, spoke loving Greek while all those awful 'barbarians' took up Latin, different dudes put different faces and text on those coins, the USA left the gold standard so by your logic we're not really Americans anymore, they called it the Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων while other dudes were calling their empire the Imperium Romanum. No one is saying that those dudes weren't Roman (not that, outside of accuracy we should loving care at all) but when you've got Roman's at the behest of the religious head at Rome (who was responding to requests from the Roman Emperor, no, not that one, the other one) on their way to reconquer Rome stop off at Rome and set up a new Rome and then one of the Roman Kings overthrew that Rome but in a few centuries the Kingdom of Rome set up, then they had a revolt and that dynasty took over Rome (no, the actual city. No, not that one the new one) and declared himself the Caesar in Rome. Only he didn't do the religion right so like two other dudes went for that Caesar name only they were never Roman (well, unless you count them as Roman... which they did. What, the guy in Rome crowned them and everything! Of course then that dude went to Rome and got crowned Emperor and then he outlawed the empire.) They were Romans by virtue of being of the Roman State, which did not, by that point, actually include Rome. The creation of the idea of a "Byzantine" successor empire is a relatively modern establishment that deserves push back because it isn't an accurate depiction. Losing Rome and much of the West definitely categorizes post-West Rome as a rump state but by all accounts of the time everyone was like "yeah that's still 'Rome'" Edit: also the division of "roman" and "byzantine" is lovely because there's no real clean breaks. The actual "fall of the west" isn't a singular moment of history but a long span of time preceding the "fall" of Rome the city and a hazy conclusion with uh what, the end of the Arab conquests? Berke Negri fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Nov 20, 2014 |
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Nov 20, 2014 07:57
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You got strangely hung up on my descriptions of the coins. The coins themselves don't matter, I was using them as an example of the unbroken continuity of Rome and Roman institutions.
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Nov 20, 2014 13:03
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One of the more interesting spices Romans used a lot was long pepper, which is mostly unknown in the west today. It tastes a lot like a citrusy black pepper and is still in common use in South/Southeast Asia. When Romans talk about pepper they're usually referring to long pepper.
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Nov 20, 2014 13:13
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cheerfullydrab posted:You got strangely hung up on my descriptions of the coins. The coins themselves don't matter, I was using them as an example of the unbroken continuity of Rome and Roman institutions. Okay, it was being held up like it was the final truth that would let us all see the light. I wrote a few sentences on how stupid it was because it was stupid. Berke Negri posted:They were Romans by virtue of being of the Roman State, which did not, by that point, actually include Rome. Sure, but history doesn't always give you clean breaks. Ask three different early modern historians to tell you the begining (or end, for that matter) of their era and you'll get 5 responses. Doesn't mean that there isn't an important distinction to be made. You say all accounts of the time consider it 'still Rome' which is true, but then the HRE considered itself a legitimate successor, the Pope in Rome had a claim to continuity in the state, places like Romania still use that terminology, and it is, despite the decline and fall of the 'Byzantine Empire,' still the term the Arab/Turkish people use to describe the area. When do all these Dukes and Counts speaking Latin led by an Emperor crowned in Rome become not-Roman while the Byzantines remain (solely) Roman? What makes the time between the fall of the west and Charlemagne's restoration any different than the fall of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade and it's eventual restoration? Or, for that matter, why shouldn't the arrival of a bunch of Romantic speakers from Italy arriving and promoting their Count (from the Latin rank) to restore the Imperia Romania count as an interregnum while the Greek guy coming in and restoring the Basilea is the legitimate one? Why does Leo the Syrian showing up with a big army saying "I am the Emperor now" not represent a break in continuity but when Mehmet does it that's the real break? Like I don't give two shits about 'actual' legitimacy or 'continuity' or whatever. That's nationalistic dickwaving. And regardless of whether the people at the time were 'right' or 'wrong' it's what they believed, why they believed, and how that affected them that matters. Βασιλεία Doukas thinks he's the true heir to Rome? Cool. Emperor Charles thinks he's the true heir to Rome? Cool. Mehmet adopts the title Kaiser-i-Rum? Cool. But it's not your job as a historian to go out there, say 'well, I have defined legitimate continuity by the maintenance of a particular standard of coining, so this is the True Rome and no others.' It's bad loving history. To say that the Byzantine Empire isn't a continuation of Roman rule is nonsensical I agree, but that continuity continued, in various ways, far beyond the borders of that polity, and far beyond the time when what we would recognize as that polity ceased to be. So it's really loving dumb to call that polity the One True Rome just in the same way that it is dumb to go to the start of that polity and declare only the things that came before it One True Rome.
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Nov 20, 2014 14:56
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One of my favorite things is the Kingdom of Soissons, which essentially was a Roman rump state in Northern Gaul that hanged on until 486 when it was conquered by the Franks.
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