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Maybe don't use the word tribe or tribal for awhile.
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Mar 30, 2015 21:24
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Say, question. Over in China, they developed the idea of the Mandate of Heaven to justify the rule of the Emperors, as well as to justify any reunification of the empire (military or otherwise) following a period of division. Did the Romans ever develop anything similar, i.e. a consistent philosophical doctrine that justifies the idea that the Emperor is the Emperor and should rule over the whole of the Empire? If that doesn't make any sense, I guess I'm just curious overall how a Roman would respond if you asked him "Why does the Emperor rule, and why should the Emperor rule?" Was there ever a consistent answer that was accepted by all of society beyond "Because he'll stab me if I say otherwise"?
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Mar 30, 2015 22:17
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euphronius posted:Maybe don't use the word tribe or tribal for awhile. But how am I going to talk about the Fallout games if I don't?
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Mar 30, 2015 22:27
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:But how am I going to talk about the Fallout games if I don't? Technologically challenged persons. 
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Mar 30, 2015 22:29
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homullus posted:Yeah, I don't know, man. 2/3 of Iraqis (for example) live in cities. Not in desert yurts or whatever you are imagining? I'm quite aware of the urbanization of Iraq, thank you. I'm also aware that, at least in the time and place I was at, very few gave a poo poo about "Sunni" and "Shi'ite", much less "Iraqi", and far more about "this tribe" or "that tribe", and the political / economic / traditional relationships between them. Edit: I'm not using "tribe" or "tribal" in the technological sense, but in a sociological sense (as much as I hate sociology) and a political sense.
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Mar 30, 2015 22:37
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Tomn posted:Say, question. Well, firstly, you have to understand that the emperor doesn't replace the senate, but rather sits atop it, and derives his legtimacy from it. He is the princeps senatus, and a consul for life. Acclamation became an important addendum for similar reasons. The republic had had periods of temporary monarchy either through dictators or tyrants before, so the addition of a permanent monarch was not necessarily formally problematic. Moreover, legal heirs at Roman law are of greater importance than they are in other cultures - in Roman law you inherit the personality as well as property of the deceased. Therefore, in a certain sense, Augustus is not just Caesar's son by adoption - he is Caesar, which does something for the legitimacy of heirs. As for the legitimacy of monarchs in general - there would have been some awareness of Aristotle and Plato's position on monarchy - Plato, as we know, advocates the 'philosopher king' model, whereas Aristotle favours rule by aristocracy (literally, the best) but concedes that monarchy may be preferable where the virtue of one individual is so great that it sort of overrides the need to share government amongst the most virtuous citizens. An emperor could operate under such a conceit. Thirdly, the emperors became entwined in religion just as the republic already was. All affairs of state in Rome were religious matters and the deification of emperors just hammers this home even more fully. The important thing that comes with Aristotle and is keenly felt in Cicero's work (Cicero being the most lastingly influential writers on politics from Rome) is that the form of government is not so important as its execution. In Aristotle you have 3 basic forms of goverment: by the many, the few and the one. Each of these has two possible manifestations, negative and positive: Democracy - Ochlocracy (rule by the Ochlos, or mob) These are typically regarded as the worst because common people are regarded as virtueless fools in classical intellectual discourse generally. Aristocracy - Oligarchy Rule by the best vs rule by the few, an 'elite' simply in number. Monarchy - Tyranny Monarchy is very simple & stable, but you get tyrants. Tyranny is usually regarded as the worst possible outcome. Aristotle also thinks you can get a mixed constitution, which he thinks is best if you desire stability (otherwise go Aristocracy because harnesses the most virtuous individuals and allows them to achieve self-actualisation). This structure of thinking is repeated in Cicero who doesn't despise monarchy as such (it's not his ideal choice, though) but is very keen to avoid tyranny. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Mar 30, 2015 |
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Mar 30, 2015 23:05
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Patter Song posted:Yes, which raises the question why the two hundred years the Byzantines held Rome doesn't get brought up more often in the "are they Rome" argument. By Phocas' day Rome was as relevant to the empire as it had been in Honorius' day not at all but it was an imperial city nonetheless. Also the fact that Rome hadn't been the capital of the Empire for 200 years before 476. It's still "not Rome without Rome" for a lot of people somehow.
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Mar 31, 2015 01:13
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Tomn posted:Say, question. The Emperors got a whole lot of legitimacy from their role as head of the Roman religion, first pagan and then Christian.
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Mar 31, 2015 01:16
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euphronius posted:Maybe don't use the word tribe or tribal for awhile. Eeeeeeeeeeeh, he's not totally wrong. I think it's more fair to say that there's been a long see-saw between 'nationalistic' overarching forces (be they Ottoman*, pan-Arabic, or the political state-to-nation weirdness of 'Syrian' or 'Iraqi' identities) and some of the older, more local identities (some sectarian/ethnic stuff, but also tribal stuff too). Sometimes this is down to resisting invaders (grr Italians, for instance, worked okay-ish for Libya) but civil wars of course push primary identities to the more immediate levels. Urbanization did a lot to screw this around though. As with Revolutionary France, that's one of the big pressure cookers for a national identity, even if you then lay in other lines over that. (Like, say, Sunni/Shia or Jacobin/Royalist) *It was a thing... briefly.
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Mar 31, 2015 01:29
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Here's a list of transition points in chronological order between Rome, the toga-wearing, senate-having, legionary-defending, Latin-speaking, Carthage-hating Rome, and Rome, the Greek-speaking, Bulgar-slaying, icon-painting, nomismata-spending, Christ-defending, Rome. This is not exhaustive at all. It's from a post I made a while back. 1. Creation of the principate/majority population of "Rome" being non-native speakers of Latin 2. First non-Italian Emperor 3. Extension of citizenship to all inhabitants of the Roman Empire 4. Rome no longer the capital of the Empire 5. Institution of the dominate 6. First official designation of Constantinople as the Roman capital 7. Increasing reliance on foederati 8. Final division of the Empire into "Eastern" and "Western" halves 9. Last Western Emperor 10. Last Latin-speaking Roman Emperor 11. Abolition of Latin as a language of government 12. Institution of the title of Basileus in an official context 13. Institution of the theme system 14. Direct control over the city of Rome lost for the last time 15. Abolition of the Senate 16. Abolition of the title of Consul After which of those are you not happy calling the state "Rome"? Well then that's where the Roman Empire fell for you.
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Mar 31, 2015 01:31
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cheerfullydrab posted:The Emperors got a whole lot of legitimacy from their role as head of the Roman religion, first pagan and then Christian. Also guys with swords, which in a way the Mandate did as well. If someone rebels and win, Heaven declared them winner. If they rebel and lose, Heaven still wins. The man with the pointy sticks remains in charge.
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Mar 31, 2015 01:31
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cheerfullydrab posted:Here's a list of transition points in chronological order between Rome, the toga-wearing, senate-having, legionary-defending, Latin-speaking, Carthage-hating Rome, and Rome, the Greek-speaking, Bulgar-slaying, icon-painting, nomismata-spending, Christ-defending, Rome. This is not exhaustive at all. It's from a post I made a while back. I think you're missing the 4th Crusade and subsequent interregnum/restoration, but that's a pretty good list... ... for the Byzantine Empire. :charlemange:
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Mar 31, 2015 01:34
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the JJ posted:I think you're missing the 4th Crusade and subsequent interregnum/restoration, but that's a pretty good list... That Crusade happens a bit after my list ends. edit: You're joking but a lot of people think Rome ends with Augustus, or even Caesar! I almost respect them. Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 01:43
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cheerfullydrab posted:Here's a list of transition points in chronological order between Rome, the toga-wearing, senate-having, legionary-defending, Latin-speaking, Carthage-hating Rome, and Rome, the Greek-speaking, Bulgar-slaying, icon-painting, nomismata-spending, Christ-defending, Rome. This is not exhaustive at all. It's from a post I made a while back. It was all downhill as soon as they admitted that dirty foreigner Numa Pompilius.
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Mar 31, 2015 02:09
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Tao Jones posted:It was all downhill as soon as they admitted that dirty foreigner Numa Pompilius. Actually it was when the Aqua Appia allowed Celtic subversion and the international Celtic conspiracy to sap and impurify all of the Roman precious bodily fluids.
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Mar 31, 2015 02:26
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Rome ended when that fuckwit Brutus expelled the last Tarquin.
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Mar 31, 2015 03:09
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Ynglaur posted:I'm quite aware of the urbanization of Iraq, thank you. I'm also aware that, at least in the time and place I was at, very few gave a poo poo about "Sunni" and "Shi'ite", much less "Iraqi", and far more about "this tribe" or "that tribe", and the political / economic / traditional relationships between them. You asked two difficult questions! I would say though that it's not necessary to draw a distinction between "My nation forever!," and anti-whatever sentiment, the two are often inextricably linked in the development of a national consciousness, as illustrated by many post-colonial struggles, including in the United States. It's not always possible to distinguish the positive and the negative feelings, but both push a heightened sense of group identity. The answer to your second question I think is a hesitant. In the fifties tribal and clan based identities were seen by western academics as a primitive hold-over from the past, doomed to be replaced by national and political identities. In Marxist and other popular political theories this was viewed as the inevitable tide of history. There was some justification for this sense of tribal irrelevance too, in many rapidly growing colonial cities these old filial ties were steadily declining. This same sentiment was felt in the newly independent Arab states, where intellectuals and aspiring politicians emphasized Arab identity, and nationalists parties took power across the Middle East. Some notable examples would be the Ba'athists in Syria and Iraq, and Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan Arab Republic. An emphasis on Arab identity was deeply inscribed in the philosophy behind and public statements of these governments. However something funny started happening in the Middle East, and other places with strong clan or tribal networks. Despite the eminent prognostications of political philosophers, clan networks weren't disappearing. And it wasn't because the members of clans were primitive, or there was no larger identity, it was just that being in a clan, having a clan, was useful. If you needed a hand your emir could help you out. Politicians didn't need expend the huge effort of organizing political parties, instead they could rely on existing networks of kinship to coordinate political campaigns. In Soviet Central Asia the Politburo found itself conducting regular purges of of the bureaucracy as successive administrators stuffed it with their own familial network. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, whoever was left in change immediately turned to their familiar network to maintain power. In Tajikistan conflict between rival clans and ethnicities led to a brutal civil war. In the Middle East many of the same leaders who came to power buoyed by nationalist sentiments immediately turned to their clans for political support. Leaders like Muammar Gaddafi and Hafez al-Assad immediately began putting family and fellow clansmen into positions of power upon taking power. Today these leaders are derided for their sectarianism, but the exact same pattern played out in many places, both in and outside the middle east. Did nationalism trump tribal lines at any point? Well national messages certainly did, and often continue to trump sectarian ones. Opinion polls in Iraq asking what is the respondents primary identity change dramatically over the years, sometimes towards an Iraqi identity, sometimes away. However identity is extremely contextual, whether a national or tribal identity will trump the other may depend more on circumstance than anything else. For example, someone in the United States probably identifies as an American first, and then as a race and/or blank-american. If you ask them how they identify themselves, they will probably say American first. However if you prime them with racially loaded messages, call them ethnic slurs etc., their answer might change. The identities aren't even necessarily in competition, they can exist parallel. Since this is a severe derail from ancient history, I'll and get things back on topic with another question. Can anyone tell me why the Caliphate seemed to dissolve without a fight? My history classes completely glided over the subject. How do we get from the enormous empire of late antiquity to the scattered emirs faced by the crusaders? How does all that authority fade away?
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Mar 31, 2015 05:16
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Their asabiyyah inevitably decayed, as is the fate of all empires. e: the abbasids did not do a good job of articulating why a governor in morocco or afghanistan should care what some guy in baghdad thinks when they're the ones collecting all the taxes Kellsterik fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 06:17
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Squalid posted:You asked two difficult questions! I would say though that it's not necessary to draw a distinction between "My nation forever!," and anti-whatever sentiment, the two are often inextricably linked in the development of a national consciousness, as illustrated by many post-colonial struggles, including in the United States. It's not always possible to distinguish the positive and the negative feelings, but both push a heightened sense of group identity. The Caliphate didn't disappear overnight but got slowly chipped away over a few centuries. I'm not sure if you're talking about the institution of the Caliph or the Umayyad or Abbasid Caliphates specifically but institutionally it was just something that had gotten so beat down that eventually it lost its real meaning. At its height the Caliph was the supreme head of the Islamic community and nominally the one at large as well. He didn't exercise religious authority per se as that was up to a larger legal bureaucratic apparatus. Rather his was a temporal power on earth to maintain the realm of Islam and justice within the realm. Successively reclusive Caliphs and civil wars fragmented the Abbasid Empire, eroding the position of the Caliph. The Abbasids also relied heavily on Turkish slave soldiers in their later years and encountered a similar problem to the Romans and the Germans. The Turks seized power but did not take the title of Caliph because the institution still had symbolic value, and instead used the term Sultan. The Caliph then began relegated to a more ceremonial role with independent polities declaring 'loyalty' and recognizing the Caliph. The Islamic world fragments more so during the medieval ages, we get the crusades, and it's not the armies of the Caliph that are really beating the Christians back but Salah ad-Din. The Mongols eventually come along and sack Baghdad putting an end to the Caliphate there and the Mamluks of Egypt who had come to power there re-established the Caliphate in Cairo. The institution had grown in irrelevancy and was largely a way of legitimizing ones rule. It was a purely symbolic role with limited powers. When the Ottomans invaded and conquered the Mamluks in the 1500s, they kept the Caliphate alive only for a short while before quietly abolishing it, to little or no consequence. Tl;dr: When the Abbasids started falling apart, real political authority fell to their soldiers and from then on it was downhill as others usurped its role. By the time it called it quits in the 16th century it was just a symbolic position.
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Mar 31, 2015 06:25
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Kellsterik posted:Their asabiyyah inevitably decayed, as is the fate of all empires. lol, I'd like to hear a contemporary arab political scientist describe contemporary politics in these terms.
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Mar 31, 2015 06:34
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Testikles posted:Tl;dr: When the Abbasids started falling apart, real political authority fell to their soldiers and from then on it was downhill as others usurped its role. By the time it called it quits in the 16th century it was just a symbolic position. Technically the Caliphate was abolished in 1924 by the Turkish government under Ataturk after the collapse of the Ottoman empire. The last Caliph died in Paris in 1945.
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Mar 31, 2015 15:27
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Grand Fromage posted:Rome ended when that fuckwit Brutus expelled the last Tarquin. It ended when they corrupted the pure Roman blood with all those Sabine women
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Mar 31, 2015 22:10
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Squalid posted:Excellent post with lots of Thank you for the excellent response. I hadn't considered strongly enough the fact that identity isn't a mutually exclusive thing. Foolish, considering I identify as a
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Mar 31, 2015 22:39
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sullat posted:Technically the Caliphate was abolished in 1924 by the Turkish government under Ataturk after the collapse of the Ottoman empire. The last Caliph died in Paris in 1945. I can't remember but is that because the Ottoman Sultans held on to the title in a long list of titles?
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Apr 1, 2015 01:43
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tt's how the star-and-crescent became a symbol of Islam.
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Apr 1, 2015 05:28
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More Thudycidides. Horse nomads. Horse nomads never change: "the Scythians, with whom indeed no people in Europe can bear comparison, there not being even in Asia any nation singly a match for them if unanimous, though of course they are not on a level with other races in general intelligence and the arts of civilized life. " (This might explain the mention of horse archers elsewhere, but Thucy doesn't say they're Scythian mercenaries) "who came all the quicker from seeing so little vigour displayed by the Lesbians" So apparently I'm literally twelve. The action gets really good when describing something other than "thing happened, then different thing happened, then another thing happened". Suddenly there are stakes and drama. The poor Mitylenian ambassadors. Can you imagine being present when your entire city is sentenced to die... then the judges have a nice hearty dinner, a good nights sleep, and awake ready to reconsider the sentence? Jesus gently caress. The speeches get really good at this point as well. The Palateans got it even worse. I wonder if sparing the captured Thebans would have helped them, or were they completely hosed the moment the siege began? Wait, Lacedaemonians is not just another word for Spartans? That's what the internet tells me, but Thucy often goes "so many Lacedaemonians and so many Spartans" as separate categories. Was Pylos like the the Hamburger Hill of the time? Because I'm not actually sure why either side fought for it, beyond "the enemy is there". Maybe a more successful Dien Bien Phu, if we're kind to Demosthenes. Supposing the Athenians accepted the peace offered - would the war just started again in a few years? Demosthenes and his Palataeans... wait, what? Oh, the few survivors who escaped from the city. Not details given, even though that's the stuff of modern movies. The most daring and ingenious survivors of a destroyed city, who now live only for revenge. Coming to theaters near you this summer - Plataea's first and only.
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Apr 1, 2015 11:05
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Testikles posted:I can't remember but is that because the Ottoman Sultans held on to the title in a long list of titles? After the Ottomans took Egypt, they forced the last of the Abbasid Caliphs to surrender his title to the Sultan, along with Muhammad's sword and several other relics that were taken to Istanbul. But, yeah, the Ottomans never came across a title they didn't like, though oddly they always kept Sultan as their primary title, even while claiming to be Caliph, Caesar, Great Khan and Padishah... The Ottomans did try and make more of a big deal out of their claim to be Caliph towards the end of the empire - trying to use it as a national and religious rallying point as their empire struggled to deal with increasing nationalism. It didn't make much of a difference in the end; it's kind of hard to get people to take you seriously as a supreme religious authority when you've spent the better part of five hundred years largely ignoring that title. There was a proposal after the fall of the Ottoman Empire to maintain the Caliphate as a ceremonial role, but Ataturk didn't have any interest in keeping the Ottomans around in any role, and most Turks didn't care one way or the other.
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Apr 1, 2015 11:59
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Xander77 posted:Wait, Lacedaemonians is not just another word for Spartans? That's what the internet tells me, but Thucy often goes "so many Lacedaemonians and so many Spartans" as separate categories. Lacedaemon (or Laconia) was the region of which Sparta was (roughly) the capital. Thucydides is referring to Lacedaemonians who lived in the region and were free men, but who were not full Spartan citizens.
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Apr 1, 2015 12:07
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Xander77 posted:Was Pylos like the the Hamburger Hill of the time? Because I'm not actually sure why either side fought for it, beyond "the enemy is there". Maybe a more successful Dien Bien Phu, if we're kind to Demosthenes. The Athenians wrecked there on accident if I remember correctly. They ended turning it into a fortified base to attack Sparta from, and it was easy to supply by sea which was an obvious advantage for Athens. That's why there was a lot of fighting over it, but there wasn't any real significance to the place originally if that's what you're asking.
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Apr 1, 2015 13:20
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Angry Salami posted:After the Ottomans took Egypt, they forced the last of the Abbasid Caliphs to surrender his title to the Sultan, along with Muhammad's sword and several other relics that were taken to Istanbul. But, yeah, the Ottomans never came across a title they didn't like, though oddly they always kept Sultan as their primary title, even while claiming to be Caliph, Caesar, Great Khan and Padishah... The bigger problem with the later emphasis on the Caliph title was that by that time the Ottomans were a universal joke on the battlefield. They couldn't support the idea that they were defending the Muslims of the world. In the 1500s, when they were invincible, it would've been totally legitimate, but back then their Islam was... ceremonial, and the majority of the population was Christian, so there was no reason for it.
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Apr 1, 2015 13:48
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Was pretty funny when they tried to declare a jihad during the first world war, though.
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Apr 1, 2015 14:04
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Xander77 posted:Wait, Lacedaemonians is not just another word for Spartans? That's what the internet tells me, but Thucy often goes "so many Lacedaemonians and so many Spartans" as separate categories. I'm not sure what your point about horse archers is. By Spartans he means full citizens, the guys who literally do nothing but train.There's a second class that also gets called up but doesn't own enough land to literally train all day.* They still do pretty well because they pick up a fair bit of that training by osmosis. This is why, for instance, the battle at Pylos is such a big deal. The Athenians captured a bunch of Real Actual Spartans. I mean sure, it's just ~300-400 dudes, but that's ~300-400 of their upper class. Pylos was a base the Athenians were using to raid the Peloponnesian heartland, raids like this were about the only way the Athenians had of striking back, while the Spartans could march each season into the Athenian country side and do their own burning and looting. I wouldn't call it Dien Bien Phu, more, I don't know, 'a well placed strategic base.' Obviously the Spartans wanted to get rid of it because it was a big pain in their rear end. And helots kept escaping to the base. Which peace are you talking about? Because like right after the battle of Pylos they trade the hostages for some cities and there's a peace that lasts six years. * Later in the war, Xenophon tells us, the manpower situation gets so bad that the Spartans decided to ask for helot volunteers to fight. Of course, anyone to quick to volunteer was clearly too independent minded and too eager to be armed, so the first 2000 or so to show up at the recruiters got executed.
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Apr 1, 2015 15:20
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Xander77 posted:More Thudycidides.
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Apr 1, 2015 15:46
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the JJ posted:* Later in the war, Xenophon tells us, the manpower situation gets so bad that the Spartans decided to ask for helot volunteers to fight. Of course, anyone to quick to volunteer was clearly too independent minded and too eager to be armed, so the first 2000 or so to show up at the recruiters got executed. Between poo poo like that and the Athenian habit of executing (or trying to execute) their own leaders, it's a wonder anybody got anything done at all.
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Apr 1, 2015 17:36
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the JJ posted:* Later in the war, Xenophon tells us, the manpower situation gets so bad that the Spartans decided to ask for helot volunteers to fight. Of course, anyone to quick to volunteer was clearly too independent minded and too eager to be armed, so the first 2000 or so to show up at the recruiters got executed. A good candidate for authoritarianism.txt.
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Apr 1, 2015 18:17
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JaucheCharly posted:What do you mean by "Huh. Horse archers"? the JJ posted:I'm not sure what your point about horse archers is. Thucy posted:Pericles also showed them that they had twelve hundred horse including mounted archers, with sixteen hundred archers unmounted, and three hundred galleys fit for service. Such were the resources of Athens in the different departments when the Peloponnesian invasion was impending and hostilities were being commenced. Xander77 posted:3. Huh. Horse archers. Don't think of the ancient Greeks as having a lot of those. Odd. Didn't the thread mention earlier that the whole area isn't exactly horse archer country? ... quote:
quote:Which peace are you talking about? Because like right after the battle of Pylos they trade the hostages for some cities and there's a peace that lasts six years. quote:* Later in the war, Xenophon tells us, the manpower situation gets so bad that the Spartans decided to ask for helot volunteers to fight. Of course, anyone to quick to volunteer was clearly too independent minded and too eager to be armed, so the first 2000 or so to show up at the recruiters got executed. So the commoners want their cities to be on the side of Athens, because democracy rah rah rah. What are the commoners getting out of it? Would that kinda mean that the "majority" (or at least plurality within each) of the Greek cities were actually rooting for Athens? Is there a breakdown of the speeches in the book and how they correlate to the oratory traditions of the time? That is to say, which of the speeches are supposed to be good and convincing, and which are supposed to be terrible? Xander77 fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 18:20
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Xander77 posted:... Still not sure what your point is. That they existed? quote:The one offered in exchange for the guys stuck on Pylos, which the Athenians rejected. I, uh... didn't get to the ceasefire yet. Oops, spoilers. quote:That's still in Thucy. Most of them being the guys who risked their necks to bring food to the guys on Pylos, at that. (Unless they've done it again later on, which I'm not ruling out) I'm like 90% sure it was Xenophon, more in the days when Sparta's manpower was really in the shitter. I'll try to look it up though. But yeah, it's a running theme. quote:So the commoners want their cities to be on the side of Athens, because democracy rah rah rah. What are the commoners getting out of it? Would that kinda mean that the "majority" (or at least plurality within each) of the Greek cities were actually rooting for Athens? It's kinda a commoner thing and kind of not. It's still really about geopolitical poo poo, Athens isn't going around spreading democracy, they're going around making life better for Athenians. Sparta doesn't really give a poo poo about how Athens runs their poo poo but once the Athenians start building their Another thing to keep in mind is that Athenian 'democracy' is democratic only compared to a monarchy. You've still got a huge disenfranchised underclass in Athens, be that slaves, resident aliens (birthright citizenship not being a thing), no land owning Athenians, and of course women so... the JJ fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Apr 1, 2015 |
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Apr 1, 2015 18:32
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sullat posted:Technically the Caliphate was abolished in 1924 by the Turkish government under Ataturk after the collapse of the Ottoman empire. The last Caliph died in Paris in 1945. Typical Eurocentism. The Sokoto caliphate in northern Nigeria has been going strong since 1803 and is still the voice of tens of millions of Muslims today.
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Apr 1, 2015 18:38
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Xander77 posted:Eh? I kinda thought the whole point of Athenian sea mastery is that they were ever capable of striking at any coast? Demosthenes' comrades specifically refer to Pylos as a random spot to establish a base that doesn't offer particular advantages compared to any other island. I can't speak for Pylos in particular, but trimeres require a lot of crew to make up the rowers, and that in turn means they need a shitton of water and food (particularly the water, it's pretty bulky stuff), and if they carried enough to supply all those people for long voyages they'd need even more crew to row the extra weight and so on. Plus, rowing is hard work. The result is that trimeres usually didn't carry too much water, and needed to lay up on shore on a very regular basis (off the top of my head I'm tempted to say "daily" but I'm not sure) to find supplies. Since it'd be a bit sticky if some rotter came up on you while you were sleeping to burn your boat down, it'd be nice to have a fortified, safe spot with guaranteed water to return to when you're done raiding for the day.
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Apr 1, 2015 18:54
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Xander77 posted:... Sorry, I think you edited this in. Anyway, yeah, but having a base to put into and, as mentioned, a place for runaway helots to run to was pretty advantageous. Also, you're right, the whole kill the volunteers was in Thucy, Xenophon has the bit where the Spartans get really desperate and try to call up the helots, and then are confused when they don't seem eager to help.
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Apr 1, 2015 18:55
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