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Deteriorata posted:Best explanation I've seen is that since their epic poetry was largely improvised at each performance based on a set of standard plot points, there was no definitive version to set down in writing and nobody even thought about writing it down at the time. But we have a number of "praise poems" written on behalf of various Sumerian leaders. Dunno if they were written down because they sucked and nobody wanted to repeat them at the poetry slams, or if only "official poems" got written down, but they did write down other stuff than just tax records and business receipts.
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Feb 16, 2015 01:48
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homullus posted:On the other hand, why would you need to (or even think to) write something down that is composed extemporaneously (as many believe Homeric epic was)? Writing down your poetry is not automatically "better." No, but my point is, plenty of other people in the Eastern Mediterranean world were writing down their poetry. Habits like that tend to rub off on other cultures that have a lot of contact with them, especially over the span of multiple centuries.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:06
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Majorian posted:Habits like that tend to rub off on other cultures that have a lot of contact with them, especially over the span of multiple centuries. do they? I don't think that's true at all.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:38
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Koramei posted:do they? I don't think that's true at all. e: disregard, I forgot what I was arguing! But why don't you think that's true?
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Feb 16, 2015 02:40
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Grand Fromage posted:It's just speculation anyway. I have seen people claim that like the Sumerians were robots who had no art because they didn't write down literature in the tax tablets we've found, which is absurd. I figure that writing is an invention for a specific purpose, and the most likely reason you'd want it would be to record poo poo that's hard to remember, like increasingly complex business/legal systems. Well maybe they really were like robots because bicameral mind  I suspect your supposition is probably pretty close to the reality.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:48
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Majorian posted:Habits like that tend to rub off on other cultures that have a lot of contact with them There's a catholic priest joke in there somewhere but no matter how I twist and turn it it just won't come.
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Feb 16, 2015 05:01
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Arglebargle III posted:There's a catholic priest joke in there somewhere but no matter how I twist and turn it it just won't come. I think you just did it, actually.
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Feb 16, 2015 05:26
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Arglebargle III posted:There's a catholic priest joke in there somewhere but no matter how I twist and turn it it just won't come. Ask Emperor Tiberius, he's an expert in fixing that!
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Feb 16, 2015 05:46
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At what point do Javelins go out of fashion in Europe, and why? Around 400 CE, the Romans are still using them quite a bit (if Total War is a relevant authority), but once the millennium rolls around... they sorta disappear from popular culture? The odd Viking may have a throwing axe, but otherwise it's bows and crossbows all around for ranged weapons.
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Feb 22, 2015 14:07
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In Iberia, it seems that javelin-throwing cavalry was around until at least the late 1400s, though it appears to be a consequence of North African influence. Otherwise, it might be that javelins went out of fashions due to most infantry and cavalry having some combination of big shields and armour that javelins could not adequately penetrate.
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Feb 22, 2015 15:10
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Iberia all hosed up, weren't they still using slingers reeeeally late as well? Or was that specifically just on the Balearics?
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Feb 22, 2015 15:13
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Dodgy Irish and Welsh and Scottish types used them as well, I believe.
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Feb 22, 2015 15:31
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Xander77 posted:At what point do Javelins go out of fashion in Europe, and why? Around 400 CE, the Romans are still using them quite a bit (if Total War is a relevant authority), but once the millennium rolls around... they sorta disappear from popular culture? The odd Viking may have a throwing axe, but otherwise it's bows and crossbows all around for ranged weapons. Throwing spears are popular with both the Anglo-Saxons and the Viking (This probably isn't a coincidence). At Hastings, both sides are still using them. Javelins have a fairly short range, they got less popular as armour quality improved and other powerful ranged weapons like crossbows were developed.
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Feb 22, 2015 19:03
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Probably the different fighting techniques. Javelins are nice to give your footsoldiers an extra punch, but generally medieval armies seemed to have dedicated archers. Bows are better weapons, the only real advantage of a javelin is the way the Romans used them, carry a couple for shock and then go in stabbing. Can't do that with a bow. Javelins are easier to make too, I suppose.
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Feb 22, 2015 23:57
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Grand Fromage posted:Probably the different fighting techniques. Javelins are nice to give your footsoldiers an extra punch, but generally medieval armies seemed to have dedicated archers. Bows are better weapons, the only real advantage of a javelin is the way the Romans used them, carry a couple for shock and then go in stabbing. Can't do that with a bow. My understanding was that the Romans used their Pylum as a way to force their opponents to discard their shield. Any truth to that? I can only assume that if the Pylum sticks deep enough in the shield, it probably can't be removed easily and would make the shield unwieldy. Dalael fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 00:03
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Dalael posted:My understanding was that the Romans used their Pylum as a way to force their opponents to discard their shield. Any truth to that? I can only assume that if the Pylum sticks deep enough in the shield, it probably can't be removed easily and would make the shield unwieldy. There are a lot of ideas about what exactly the pilum did, and probably it did them all. It was a shock since you didn't expect footsoldiers to be throwing things, it would kill you if it hit you properly, unarmored opponents would not enjoy it. It would gently caress up your shield if it hit that. If you were real lucky it'd go through the shield and into the guy's body and the tip would bend, basically stapling the shield to the person holding it. 
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Feb 23, 2015 00:07
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Grand Fromage posted:There are a lot of ideas about what exactly the pilum did, and probably it did them all. It was a shock since you didn't expect footsoldiers to be throwing things, it would kill you if it hit you properly, unarmored opponents would not enjoy it. It would gently caress up your shield if it hit that. If you were real lucky it'd go through the shield and into the guy's body and the tip would bend, basically stapling the shield to the person holding it. I've always felt that the "tip designed to bend" thing was more happenstance than actual design, since actually spending effort to engineer something like that wouldn't have been worth it. Most likely it was an outcome resulting from using cheap iron for a throwaway weapon.
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Feb 23, 2015 12:20
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clearly atlantians designed the pilum
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Feb 23, 2015 12:52
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the pilum (and, in fact, all spears and javelins) are actually just derivations of the infamous atlantean war-trident, examples of which have been found perfectly preserved in the frigid air of the andes.
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Feb 23, 2015 12:56
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Kemper Boyd posted:I've always felt that the "tip designed to bend" thing was more happenstance than actual design, since actually spending effort to engineer something like that wouldn't have been worth it. Most likely it was an outcome resulting from using cheap iron for a throwaway weapon. I'm not sure that's the case. Cheap iron is brittle, not flexible. Spending time to engineer a javelin that bends upon impact would have absolutely been worth the time: such a weapon makes an enemy's shield far less usable.
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Feb 23, 2015 14:17
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I can't remember where I read this, Polybius maybe, but I think the tip was designed to bend so that it couldn't be effective if thrown back. Having pilum around is pretty handy if the enemy rides up to you on a horse too because I think they also doubled as a short spear.
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Feb 23, 2015 19:54
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Ithle01 posted:I can't remember where I read this, Polybius maybe, but I think the tip was designed to bend so that it couldn't be effective if thrown back. Having pilum around is pretty handy if the enemy rides up to you on a horse too because I think they also doubled as a short spear. The head is a long thin piece of iron. Its inevitable some of them bent, but the design is also very good at penetrating shields with the intent of wounding the person holding it. The bending may have just been a beneficial side effect of the piercing design. They also used them as straight up spears when the situation necessitated it, most notably when Caesar used them to repel Pompey's cavalry at Pharsalus. If it was easily bent, I'm not sure they would be so multi-purpose.
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Feb 23, 2015 20:18
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Didn't they have 2 or 3 different pilae on the legionary, one strong and heavy and lighter ones? I had a journal article about the metallurgy of some heads of pilae that they excavated, and the tip was definitely hardened, but not the rest. To add to what was said above, if you already have some fit and strong dudes, it's just a small step to train them to throw javelins. Cheap and deadly.
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Feb 23, 2015 20:37
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I only recall 2 types, the heavy and the light
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Feb 24, 2015 10:17
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Feb 25, 2015 00:39
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I concur with the conclusion, but I think some of the steps you took to get there are a little shaky.
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Feb 25, 2015 04:58
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Thanks to this thread, I'm going through Caesars Commentaries . Up next on my reading list is some mix of History of the Decline and Fall, The Peloponnesian War + Hellenica, Tacitus' Histories, Suetonius' Lives of Twelve Caesars, Rome: Empire of Eagles, Plutarch's Parallel Lives (weird bit - I was reminded I should check that out after finding the second volume in the dorms "library". Just the second volume. Printed in Argentina, 1958), Cyropaedia and Agesilaus. I've previously read Anabasis and most things by Pluto. Which order should I read all these in? Chronologically as per historical order, in the order they were written, according to themes... ?
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Feb 25, 2015 15:44
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Xander77 posted:Thanks to this thread, I'm going through Caesars Commentaries . Up next on my reading list is some mix of History of the Decline and Fall, The Peloponnesian War + Hellenica, Tacitus' Histories, Suetonius' Lives of Twelve Caesars, Rome: Empire of Eagles, Plutarch's Parallel Lives (weird bit - I was reminded I should check that out after finding the second volume in the dorms "library". Just the second volume. Printed in Argentina, 1958), Cyropaedia and Agesilaus. I've previously read Anabasis and most things by Pluto. Which order should I read all these in? Chronologically as per historical order, in the order they were written, according to themes... ? About the only sequence I'd recommend is Thucydides before Tacitus, just as one should read Homer before Virgil. Otherwise, read whatever you feel like reading.
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Feb 25, 2015 15:52
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Xander77 posted:Just the second volume. Printed in Argentina, 1958 An Argentinian edition in Israel? Which language?
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Feb 25, 2015 16:38
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Xander77 posted:Thanks to this thread, I'm going through Caesars Commentaries . Up next on my reading list is some mix of History of the Decline and Fall, The Peloponnesian War + Hellenica, Tacitus' Histories, Suetonius' Lives of Twelve Caesars, Rome: Empire of Eagles, Plutarch's Parallel Lives (weird bit - I was reminded I should check that out after finding the second volume in the dorms "library". Just the second volume. Printed in Argentina, 1958), Cyropaedia and Agesilaus. I've previously read Anabasis and most things by Pluto. Which order should I read all these in? Chronologically as per historical order, in the order they were written, according to themes... ? Thucy before Hellenica, Hellenica tries to pick up where Thucy left off when he died. I'd toss  /Cyropedia right on after Hellenica, it's a lot of Xenophon at once but those three are really 'about' each other. Hellenica: the history of , , who was my friend, and Cyropedia, what I think could have/should have been.That's a lot of Xenophon at once, but I think they work better read together. Then again I'm kinda a Xenophon wonk, so w/e. Whatever you're reading try to get your hands on the Landmark version, they do a good job tarting the things up with footnotes and maps, and they've got good, pretty new intros/appendixes written by smart people that add a lot without getting tangled in academic minutia.
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Feb 25, 2015 17:34
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Xander77 posted:Thanks to this thread, I'm going through Caesars Commentaries . Up next on my reading list is some mix of History of the Decline and Fall, The Peloponnesian War + Hellenica, Tacitus' Histories, Suetonius' Lives of Twelve Caesars, Rome: Empire of Eagles, Plutarch's Parallel Lives (weird bit - I was reminded I should check that out after finding the second volume in the dorms "library". Just the second volume. Printed in Argentina, 1958), Cyropaedia and Agesilaus. I've previously read Anabasis and most things by Pluto. Which order should I read all these in? Chronologically as per historical order, in the order they were written, according to themes... ? If you mean you're reading Gibbon, don't, he's wrong about a lot of stuff. No one argues that Rome's national character got weak anymore
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Feb 25, 2015 22:52
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Gibbon is still an interesting read even if his interpretations no longer have any credibility.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:10
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Gibbon also goes over the whole period, and I don't know of a modern author willing to do that. Of course, it makes for a massive book, but slogging through it gives a better picture of events than the modern authors who jump and skip and focus on their specialty. But yea, 250 year old analysis.
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Feb 25, 2015 23:22
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deadking posted:Gibbon is still an interesting read even if his interpretations no longer have any credibility. I might be biased because I had to read the whole thing for a Late Antiquity seminar I was in, and I loving hated all of it Also, post-enlightenment history books without footnotes are terrible
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Feb 25, 2015 23:24
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Yeah, I can see hating Gibbon if I was forced to read it as relevant historiography. Really, the reason he's interesting has much more to do with his contemporary context than his approach to the Roman empire per se.
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Feb 26, 2015 04:00
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deadking posted:Yeah, I can see hating Gibbon if I was forced to read it as relevant historiography. Really, the reason he's interesting has much more to do with his contemporary context than his approach to the Roman empire per se. We read it because the professor said "everyone that has ever written about the Late Roman Empire after Gibbon is in some way reacting to him. He is integral to the study of Late Antiquity."
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Feb 26, 2015 07:03
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To crosspost from a subtopic in the D&D chat thread, the BBC thinks Cleopatra VII's mother was black because an Austrian archeologist thinks she found the tomb of Arsinoe IV, and thinks she has a photograph of Arsinoe's skull (although the skull itself went missing in the 1940's), and thinks that the skull looked like it had partially African features. This is a little bewildering to me, because it's widely accepted that Cleopatra and Arsinoe had different mothers, so... ninja edit: I realize that the BBC story is from 2009, and they may have unfucked their horrible research since then, but good God.
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Feb 26, 2015 07:13
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Smoking Crow posted:We read it because the professor said "everyone that has ever written about the Late Roman Empire after Gibbon is in some way reacting to him. He is integral to the study of Late Antiquity." I also took a course on Late Anqiquity and Gibbon was mentioned but not as someone who is really that important to the study of the period these days so we didn't read him at all.
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Feb 26, 2015 07:35
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BurningStone posted:Gibbon also goes over the whole period, and I don't know of a modern author willing to do that. Of course, it makes for a massive book, but slogging through it gives a better picture of events than the modern authors who jump and skip and focus on their specialty. But yea, 250 year old analysis. " the chastisement of Dacia (that needed a cow-hiding for insolence as much as Afghanistan from us in 1840)"* "His taste was much simpler, chaster, and less inclined to the florid and Asiatic, than that of Cicero" *Hope that poo poo worked out real well for you, brother. And the whole spiel about how women may nominally run a household, but they can never hold true manly authority... which given what little I know about JC's mom, is deliciously ironic. ... Translation questions (I kinda feel as though the Russian translation is using English rather than Latin as a basis, and therefore isn't a good source of corrections): When JC is talking about Gallic Senates, Sovereignty, patronage networks and the like - are those the same terms in the original? Is he using them for the benefit of his audience? To make things more relatable to them / to make the Gaul's seem like less of the feared enemy of old, and more like proper new citizens in the Republic who already have the right customs? A note in the Russian translation (during the bit when the Gauls emphasize that many people back in Rome would be very happy to see Caesar dead) implies that much of the action is actually alluding to or satirical of the political situation back in Rome. I don't actually know enough about how things worked before the first Triumvirate to compare - true/false? Germans fleeing into the forests and deserts. The Russian translation just uses "deep forests" here...? Are there deserts in Germany I'm not aware of? Another note brings up the possibility that JC is outright making up the height differences between the people of Rome and Gaul/Germany. That seems... a bit unlikely? Like, making up poo poo about their customs or their numbers in battle is well and good - a time honoured tradition. But I wouldn't think their average height would be something the educated Roman citizen was unaware of? It seems as though all of Caesar's triumphs are described as strategic and political - maneuvering, dividing and conquering, raising the best and most loyal legions (hoo-ah!). All the tactical triumphs are given to his subordinates. Just sharing the glory? Men of his caliber should be more concerned with strategy than tactics? There's some talking about recruiting / maneuvering / providing for legions proper, but auxiliaries pop in and out of the story on a whim. Apparently Caesar now has thousands of German cavalry, and had been relying on them for info and foraging for the last book or so. That might have been nice to know at some previous juncture. Getting a javelin stuck in each thigh seems to be the prototypical ancient world "grievously wounded" image. Like, no one takes an arrow to the shoulder or whatever - this is the debilitating injury to beat them all.
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Feb 26, 2015 08:00
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Smoking Crow posted:We read it because the professor said "everyone that has ever written about the Late Roman Empire after Gibbon is in some way reacting to him. He is integral to the study of Late Antiquity." There's a sense in which that seems reasonable to me, in that many authors since Gibbon have used classical antiquity as a metaphor to express contemporary political/social views. For instance, one might take Luttwak's Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire as a critique of the doctrine of aspects of US Cold War policy, or a book like Persian Fire as putting forth a neoconservative "western civilization always been threatened by eastern civilization" argument. So from a kind of meta standpoint, a historiographical standpoint, sure, I could see an argument for Gibbon. At the same time it's silly to argue that he's important to studying Late Antiquity insofar as it's Late Antiquity. I think it is a pretty good book for illustrating how history can be used to make indirect commentaries about one's own times. With modern books it can be hard to spot the author's prejudices because we're at less of a remove from them. With foreign books, it's hard to spot the author's prejudices because as readers we need to have some idea of what those prejudices might have been, and a French dude's might be pretty different than a British or American guy's. Gibbon's sufficiently removed from us in time but, assuming we're English speakers, also part of our literary tradition and it doesn't take as much study to recognize what he's on about. Other writers who also make use of Rome for their own purposes like Machiavelli or Montesquieu require, I think, more background knowledge to appreciate because we're not Florentine or French.
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Feb 26, 2015 08:00
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