Roman/ancient history: Checkmate, Atenists

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MrNemo: Aug 26, 2010; "I just love beeting off"

Oberleutnant posted:

Working in a castle day-to-day I can confirm that it is loving freezing all winter even with central heating (installed in a Victorian refit and not especially good). Over the winter we have the radiators (3 in our office), 3 plug-in electric heaters (1 at each desk) and we're all wearing 5 or 6 layers and still completely frozen 24/7. Then July comes around and we all die of heat stroke even up on the fifth floor with all the windows and a side door out on a rampart wall open to get a breeze through.

My job is mostly desk-bound, but the brutal cold is the usual topic of conversation even among the staff with active jobs like the maintenance and security guys.

My dad has stories of growing up in the North of Ireland during the 50's. Some people in the country side would basically wear the same long johns for the whole of the winter, at all times. Some people used to use lard (I think) as an extra layer of personal insulation. Bear in mind these were people effectively in the middle of nowhere, living in lovely housing with only a turf fire for warmth. Aside from the quality of the clothing (somewhat) probably not too far off what someone in the early/late modern period would have.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 05:24

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# ? May 11, 2024 19:49

Zopotantor: Feb 24, 2013; ...und ist er drin dann lassen wir ihn niemals wieder raus...

Halloween Jack posted:

Everything I was taught about the 30 Years War implied that it was absolute anarchy and hell on earth for the common person. I mean, it went on for decades so there must have been lulls in the fighting, and there must have been times when some popular support was behind this offensive or that one, if only from outrage and desire for vengeance. But the famine, disease, and widespread looting and rape was just a nightmare to the average laborer and certainly many of higher status as well.

Yeah, just look at this bit from the beginning of Simplicius Simplicissimus:

Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen posted:

Chap. iv. : HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS�S PALACE WAS STORMED, PLUNDERED, AND RUINATED, AND IN WHAT SORRY FASHION THE SOLDIERS KEPT HOUSE THERE
[...]
The first thing these troopers did was, that they stabled their horses: thereafter each fell to his appointed task: which task was neither more nor less than ruin and destruction. For though some began to slaughter and to boil and to roast so that it looked as if there should be a merry banquet forward, yet others there were who did but storm through the house above and below stairs. Others stowed together great parcels of cloth and apparel and all manner of household stuff, as if they would set up a frippery market. All that they had no mind to take with them they cut in pieces. Some thrust their swords through the hay and straw as if they had not enough sheep and swine to slaughter: and some shook the feathers out of the beds and in their stead stuffed in bacon and other dried meat and provisions as if such were better and softer to sleep upon. Others broke the stove and the windows as if they had a never-ending summer to promise. Houseware of copper and tin they beat flat, and packed such vessels, all best and spoiled, in with the rest. Bedsteads, tables, chairs and benches they burned, though there lay many cords of dry wood in the yard. Pots and pipkins must all go to pieces, either because they would eat none but roast flesh, or because their purpose was to make there but a single meal.

Our maid was so handled in the stable that she could not come out; which is a shame to tell of. Our man they laid bound upon the ground, thrust a gag into his mouth, and poured a pailful of filthy water into this body: and by this, which they called a Swedish draught, they forced him to lead a party of them to another place where they captured men and beasts, and brought them back to the farm, in which company were my dad, my mother, and our Ursula.
And now they began: first to take the flints out of their pistols and in place of them to jam the peasants thumbs in and so to torture the poor rogues as if they had been about the burning of witches: for one of them they had taken they thrust into the baking oven and there lit a fire under him, although he had as yet confessed no crime: as for another, they put a cord round his head and so twisted it tight with a piece of wood that the blood gushed from his mouth and nose and ears. In a word, each had his own device to torture the peasants, and each peasant his several torture. But as it seemed to me then, my dad was the luckiest, for he with a laughing face confessed what others out of the midst of pains and miserable lamentations: and such honour without doubt fell to him because he was the householder. For they set him before a fire and bound him fast so that he could neither stir hand nor foot, and smeared the soles of his feet with wet salt, and this made our old goat lick off, and so tickle him that he well nigh burst his sides with laughing. And this seemed to me so merry a thing that I must needs laugh with him for the sake of fellowship, or because I knew no better. In the midst of such laughter he must needs confess all that they would have of him, and indeed revealed to them a secret treasure, which proved far richer in pearls, gold, and trinkets than ant would have looked for among peasants. Of the women, girls, and maidservants whom they took, I have not much to say in particular, for the soldiers would not have me see how they dealt with them. Yet this I did know, that one heard some of them scream most piteously in divers corners of the house; and well I can judge it fared no better with my mother and our Ursel than with the rest. Yet in the midst of all this miserable ruin, I helped to turn the spit, and in the afternoon to give the horses drink, in which employ I encountered our maid in the stable, who seemed to me wondrously tumbled, so that I knew her not, but with a weak voice she called to me, �O lad, run away, or the troopers will have thee away with them. Look to it well that you get hence: thou seest in what plight�� And more she could not say.

Source.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 05:39

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

MrNemo posted:

My dad has stories of growing up in the North of Ireland during the 50's. Some people in the country side would basically wear the same long johns for the whole of the winter, at all times. Some people used to use lard (I think) as an extra layer of personal insulation. Bear in mind these were people effectively in the middle of nowhere, living in lovely housing with only a turf fire for warmth. Aside from the quality of the clothing (somewhat) probably not too far off what someone in the early/late modern period would have.

I just finished reading The Road to Wigan Pier. Miners who didn't bathe for months, even to get the coal dust off, because a bath would mean scrubbing yourself clean practically outdoors, in the one communal bathroom for a whole block of houses, in the winter in North England...

# ? Apr 10, 2015 05:43

Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

Yeah, people in the West generally have no idea how loving horrifying it would be to be poor in an old school industrial environment.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 10:27

Waci: May 30, 2011; A boy and his dog.

If the UK and Ireland aren't Western for you, I'm not sure what is.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 15:05

Disinterested: Jun 29, 2011; You look like you're still raking it in. Still killing 'em?

Waci posted:

If the UK and Ireland aren't Western for you, I'm not sure what is.

What?

Just imagine I said 'In the West today'.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 15:07

Beamed: Nov 26, 2010; Then you have a responsibility that no man has ever faced. You have your fear which could become reality, and you have Godzilla, which is reality.

Spiderfist Island posted:

My Early Middle Ages professor structured his class as a critique of Gibbon's thesis (Rome fell because of Christian moral degradation and barbarism) and later Henri Pirenne's* (Islam's domination of the Mediterranean and trade therein forced western civilization's "center" to move north and develop into autarkic
kingdoms). The study of how history is studied is just as important as history itself.

If anyone's interested I can give a brief undergraduate engineer's summary of how Late Rome couldn't do without client barbarian tribes, and how tax evasion played into it.

*Pirenne, really, is a lot more important to modern Dark Ages Historiography than Gibbon's Enlightenment-fueled Christian-bashing which relies mainly on written/secondhand sources.

I was re-reading the thread and saw this; did you go to UMich by chance? My Early Medieval Era course was structured the same. I find it interesting how he took to task even the notion that Islam was what destroyed the Mediterranean trade routes.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 15:41

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Halloween Jack posted:

Everything I was taught about the 30 Years War implied that it was absolute anarchy and hell on earth for the common person. I mean, it went on for decades so there must have been lulls in the fighting, and there must have been times when some popular support was behind this offensive or that one, if only from outrage and desire for vengeance. But the famine, disease, and widespread looting and rape was just a nightmare to the average laborer and certainly many of higher status as well.

Honestly for me the most :smith:

part of Wedgewood was the letter from an English ambassador late in the war describing how the countryside was entirely destroyed and it was just a miserable place to be and all you can think is "yeah don't get too comfortable back home."

# ? Apr 10, 2015 15:47

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

StashAugustine posted:

Honestly for me the most part of Wedgewood was the letter from an English ambassador late in the war describing how the countryside was entirely destroyed and it was just a miserable place to be and all you can think is "yeah don't get too comfortable back home."

As early 17th century wars go, the ECW is nothing. That guy is very fortunate to be English.

And Halloween Jack, bear in mind that in addition to lulls in the fighting, there are also areas which were untouched by the direct effects of war. They would have suffered from the economic disruption and probably also from illness, but they would have been spared the getting murdered part. The 25-40% figure is an average. (It's also due primarily to illness and financial problems, rather than targeted killings)

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Apr 10, 2015

# ? Apr 10, 2015 17:28

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Goes up to "Everybody's dead, Hans" in places like Magdeburg.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 17:31

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

my dad posted:

Goes up to "Everybody's dead, Hans" in places like Magdeburg.

Killing 25,000 people in a single day, before industrialization, is a feat.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 17:34

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

nvm

my dad fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Apr 10, 2015

# ? Apr 10, 2015 17:38

Ofaloaf: Feb 15, 2013

Beamed posted:

I was re-reading the thread and saw this; did you go to UMich by chance? My Early Medieval Era course was structured the same. I find it interesting how he took to task even the notion that Islam was what destroyed the Mediterranean trade routes.

Was the argument that that Med trade routes were collapsing before Islam, or that there was no actual collapse of trade routes? I knew a Rutgers professor who argued that at least North Africa's sea trade collapsed once the ERE took over after the WRE's collapse, and that the arrival of Islam actually revitalized trade in places like Cyrenaica and Tunis, but I don't know enough about that to know how much merit that has.

# ? Apr 10, 2015 17:54

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

SEXMAN, you might appreciate this: the latter half of the 17th century managed to be classier about contributions, but they were still exacted under threat:

# ? Apr 11, 2015 08:34

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

The ancien regime was a bit of a mess.

# ? Apr 11, 2015 13:37

Alhazred: Feb 16, 2011

HEY GAL posted:

Killing 25,000 people in a single day, before industrialization, is a feat.

Or as the Mongols would call it: Lazy.

# ? Apr 11, 2015 18:19

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Ok I was in class today and a terrible argument came up. It's possible someone has come across the results here.

Did any instances of fights occur between a gorilla and a bear during Ancient Rome?

# ? Apr 16, 2015 18:22

my dad: Oct 17, 2012; this shall be humorous

Depends on your definition of "bear" :v:

# ? Apr 16, 2015 18:24

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Gorillas weren't known in Europe before like the 1800s. So no.

# ? Apr 16, 2015 18:28

Jamwad Hilder: Apr 18, 2007; surfin usa

Gorilla is a Carthaginian word, so they definitely knew about them, although the Carthaginians thought they were basically really hairy people and not a species of ape.

I highly doubt the Romans had any fight in the arena though.

# ? Apr 16, 2015 18:33

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

It is a Carthaginian word but it was basically like sasquatch. People saw them and stories grew up (except gorillas actually existed). They weren't known as a real genuine animal species until the 1800s, and the dude who discovered them decided to use that old Carthaginian word as the name.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 02:04

Teriyaki Hairpiece: Dec 29, 2006; I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

I'll play devil's advocate and say that contacts between the classical Roman Empire and sub-saharan Africa are not well-documented, but the Romans were avaricious facilitators of international trade and big buyers of animals to die for their own amusement. So... maybe?

# ? Apr 17, 2015 05:53

Teriyaki Hairpiece: Dec 29, 2006; I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

I mean if you were a time traveler and you had enough gold and you were on the East African coast in 100 AD, you could probably figure out how to get a live gorilla. And they had direct trade routes to areas of the Roman Empire.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 05:55

Teriyaki Hairpiece: Dec 29, 2006; I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

For all we know there was an eyewitness account of a fight between a bear and a gorilla, the last copy of which was scraped over by an 11th century French monk to make room for his copy of the apocryphal gospel, The Farts of the Apostle Doug.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 05:58

Kellsterik: Mar 30, 2012

If I don't read Latin and wanted to read something like the Iliad or Aeneid with a commentary by a Greek or Roman writer, what would be a good book to start looking for at my bookstore? I'm interested in reading how different commentators interpreted their classics. I'm not looking for like an omnibus, just any particular example people would recommend.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 06:40

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Flipped to Olympus on scifi.

Literally the first thing I see is a mention that a goddess is symbolized by an 'ear of corn'.

I'm not sure what else I was expecting.,

# ? Apr 17, 2015 07:38

Grand Fromage: Jan 30, 2006; L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?

cheerfullydrab posted:

For all we know there was an eyewitness account of a fight between a bear and a gorilla, the last copy of which was scraped over by an 11th century French monk to make room for his copy of the apocryphal gospel, The Farts of the Apostle Doug.

I mean, it's possible but there's no evidence.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 10:13

Slim Jim Pickens: Jan 16, 2012

Grand Fromage posted:

It is a Carthaginian word but it was basically like sasquatch. People saw them and stories grew up (except gorillas actually existed). They weren't known as a real genuine animal species until the 1800s, and the dude who discovered them decided to use that old Carthaginian word as the name.

The Carthaginians claim to have skinned a couple of gorillas during their voyages South, but I'm puzzled by how they describe gorillas as furry, ill-tempered humans.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 10:21

Freudian: Mar 23, 2011

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

The Carthaginians claim to have skinned a couple of gorillas during their voyages South, but I'm puzzled by how they describe gorillas as furry, ill-tempered humans.

They actually took bodysuits off a tribe of ill-tempered furries.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 11:04

Crab Dad: Dec 28, 2002; behold i have tempered and refined thee, but not as silver; as CRAB

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

The Carthaginians claim to have skinned a couple of gorillas during their voyages South, but I'm puzzled by how they describe gorillas as furry, ill-tempered humans.

And you know some idiot tried to have sex with one. Because humans.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 11:18

Mad Hamish: Jun 15, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

Tunicate posted:

Flipped to Olympus on scifi.

Literally the first thing I see is a mention that a goddess is symbolized by an 'ear of corn'.

I'm not sure what else I was expecting.,

Could be they were referring to wheat. In some places 'corn' just refers to grain in general, not just American corn.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 13:32

brocretin: Nov 15, 2012; yo yo yo i loves virgins

Mad Hamish posted:

Could be they were referring to wheat. In some places 'corn' just refers to grain in general, not just American corn.

I don't know of any wheat that has ears, though.

vvv Well, I stand corrected.

brocretin fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Apr 17, 2015

# ? Apr 17, 2015 13:34

forkboy84: Jun 13, 2012; Corgis love bread. And Puro

brocretin posted:

I don't know of any wheat that has ears, though.

The ear is the part of the plant that contains the grain. So yeah, wheat plants have ears.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 13:48

Rockopolis: Dec 21, 2012; I MAKE FUN OF QUEER STORYGAMES BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH MY LIFE THAN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE CRY

I can't understand these kinds of games, and not getting it bugs me almost as much as me being weird

Maybe it was imported from Crete? After all, the Minoans were famous for their maze.

Rockopolis fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Apr 17, 2015

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:02

the JJ: Mar 31, 2011

Rockopolis posted:

Maybe it was imported from Crete? The Minoans were famous for their maze, after all.

No.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:05

SneezeOfTheDecade: Feb 6, 2011; gettin' covid all
over your posts

Rockopolis posted:

Maybe it was imported from Crete? After all, the Minoans were famous for their maze.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:06

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Rockopolis posted:

Maybe it was imported from Crete? After all, the Minoans were famous for their maze.

Yes.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:08

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Kellsterik posted:

If I don't read Latin and wanted to read something like the Iliad or Aeneid with a commentary by a Greek or Roman writer, what would be a good book to start looking for at my bookstore? I'm interested in reading how different commentators interpreted their classics. I'm not looking for like an omnibus, just any particular example people would recommend.

Leaving aside the argument of when "Rome fell", we don't have commentaries on the Iliad by Greek or Roman writers, unless you count the Aeneid as commentary on the Iliad. What we have is stuff like this, much later. The scholia alluded to are mostly untranslated (but digitized, if you want to come back to them once you know Greek) (just kidding don't do that) and mostly kind of sucky, if I recall, though there are some really interesting ones. For the Aeneid, there is Servius, but I am not sure there is a full English translation.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:24

Tomn: Aug 23, 2007; And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

LingcodKilla posted:

And you know some idiot tried to have sex with one. Because humans.

If they actually got far south enough to see gorillas, I imagine that after months at sea anything that looked vaguely human and female would have been remarkably tempting.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:33

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# ? May 11, 2024 19:49

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Tomn posted:

If they actually got far south enough to see gorillas, I imagine that after months at sea anything that looked vaguely human and female would have been remarkably tempting.

You do realise that there's quite a lot of people in Africa? In fact, there's so much people in Africa that it's in every way much simpler to try to have sex with one of them than with a gorilla.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 14:43

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