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Falukorv posted:Does anyone know a good book about the Byzantine Empire for a lay person like myself? What period? It lasted awhile.
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Jul 23, 2015 21:43
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Guildencrantz posted:Okay, true, I definitely worded that wrong. It's not like they even had a concept of defined sexual orientation anyway. It's another really fascinating thing to realise when you read about historical conceptions of sexuality, that what we conceive of as sexuality is an entirely cultural entity with little basis in either history prior to the 18th century, or biology in general.
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Jul 23, 2015 21:55
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Falukorv posted:Does anyone know a good book about the Byzantine Empire for a lay person like myself? A History of Byzantine State and Society, by Warren Treadgold.  e: Which reminds me, why exactly was Illyria Rome's best recruiting ground? I forget if it was ever addressed. BravestOfTheLamps fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 21:59
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Falukorv posted:Does anyone know a good book about the Byzantine Empire for a lay person like myself? John Julius Norwich's History of Byzantium. If you like your history with more robots, try "Constantinople, the Forgotten Empire" by Isaac Asimov.
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Jul 23, 2015 22:12
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sullat posted:John Julius Norwich's History of Byzantium. I'm reading this right now. Unfortunately I couldn't find the three book version in print so I have the single book. It is a very fast overview but a good place to start if you don't know much (like me!).
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Jul 24, 2015 03:11
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I've always felt that a good way to explain buttsex stuff and attitudes in Roman times (I am a complete amateur at this, I only read Roman stuff for fun) is that it's a pre-identity politics world, which people often forget is a really new concept anyway. It seems to me that sexual stuff is comparable to any other vice among the leading classes, and you can be tolerated having those vices if you compensate in other fields, such as being a really good general. Sulla and Caesar are both pretty good examples here. It might even turn into some sort of point of pride, like with Caesar's own troops being recorded calling him "every woman's husband, every husband's wife" and this pretty clearly is not being said to embarrass him but in respect towards the man.
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Jul 24, 2015 09:56
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What did the ancients use for anal lube? This is important.
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Jul 24, 2015 09:59
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Plebeian tears.
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Jul 24, 2015 10:02
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Exioce posted:What did the ancients use for anal lube? This is important. Probably olive oil.
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Jul 24, 2015 10:52
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mastervj posted:Probably olive oil. Good for the heart AND the rectum? Truly the King of oils.
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Jul 24, 2015 10:54
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Only fools wipe with their own toga.
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Jul 24, 2015 11:11
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Exioce posted:Good for the heart AND the rectum? Truly the King of oils. Rome has no king you monarchist traitor!
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Jul 24, 2015 12:24
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Kemper Boyd posted:I've always felt that a good way to explain buttsex stuff and attitudes in Roman times (I am a complete amateur at this, I only read Roman stuff for fun) is that it's a pre-identity politics world, which people often forget is a really new concept anyway. It's often an example of the kind of cognitive dissonance which always exists in cultural morals as behaviour which might violate one obvious taboo can still embody admirable qualities. Think of really outrageous conmen who get away with hugely over the top crimes or similar (criminal that springs to mind might be Ned Kelly). We would never say that their crimes were good or admirable but they emobody a fearlessness and daring we find admirable. Similarly with Caesar, traditional Roman morality held men should be chaste, sex was for you wife to carry on the family line, being horny and loving everything that moved was a sign of poor self control. At the same time you can't but admire some dude with the personal charm to successfully bed legions of women, often including his enemies' wives and relatives. This isn't some modern phenomenon and it's often easy, when you learn Roman morals from textbooks or academic descriptions, to imagine them as fixed rules everyone believed in and followed. Humans are more fluid and adaptable than that, without even getting into questions of public/private morality for the nobility. Also Romans saw relationships between people in fundamentally hierarchical terms, sex usually gets lumped in there as well and so taking it from your male lover would have been socially equivalent to a patron doing the fetching and carrying for his client. It's just something that obviously the weaker partern in a relationship does so people will make fun of you for it. Of course sex being sex and people being people that doesn't stop high ranking Romans from falling in love and not giving a gently caress what people think, eh Hadrian?
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Jul 24, 2015 12:47
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Makes you think. Would you suck somebody who's dick was potentially in somebody's butt a few hours ago? In the real world it's not exactly as clean as in the movies.
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Jul 24, 2015 13:59
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JaucheCharly posted:Makes you think. Would you suck somebody who's dick was potentially in somebody's butt a few hours ago? In the real world it's not exactly as clean as in the movies. That's why baths exist. 
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Jul 24, 2015 15:59
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if you want to your dick sucked sure, where would you get clean afterwards?
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Jul 24, 2015 16:04
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Agean90 posted:if you want to your dick sucked sure, where would you get clean afterwards? The dick suckers togo.
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Jul 24, 2015 18:02
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Grand Fromage posted:"I'm not gay but my boyfriend is" was originally a Roman saying, in fact. It was basically the ancient's equivalent of a modern saying: "I don't care who gives the blowjob as long as its not me."
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Jul 24, 2015 18:02
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This thread is insane.  Anyway, I was wondering how lesbians were regarded? I know Sappho was kind of popular, but not much else.
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Jul 24, 2015 20:01
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Ghetto Prince posted:This thread is insane. Nobody (in the literate class) gave a poo poo about female sexuality or what women wanted in general. Edit: Later in the empire people got worried that lesbians were going to take over society because women were getting independent, but that version of 'lesbian' was 'fucks men with dildos' as much as 'fucks women' so it's weird. Edit: Okay Ovid cared. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 21:08
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Exioce posted:What did the ancients use for anal lube? This is important. Garum
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Jul 24, 2015 22:22
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Comrade Koba posted:Garum Don't even need to hit up the baths for a BJ afterwards!
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Jul 25, 2015 00:07
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Jul 25, 2015 03:53
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the best part is that it lead to discussions of sexual mores and identity politics in the ancient world, so you cant even say its off topic
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Jul 25, 2015 04:03
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March 14 is bubula and irrumatio day.
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Jul 25, 2015 06:45
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Do you guys ever hear/read about something that happened in the past and just have it affect you in an emotional way? I was watching the Ken Burns ACW documentary and the Sullivan Ballou letter and it felt like a punch in the chest. Similarly this letter from an Egyptian soldier home had a similar effect. I guess just reading about history at a large scale kind of makes me forget that the people being affected by those events were human beings just like you or I are at the core.
Kanine fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Jul 25, 2015 |
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Jul 25, 2015 08:01
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In my opinion that is the single most interesting or important part of history. Everyone is people. People really don't change much. There but for the grace of god go you or I.
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Jul 25, 2015 09:08
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I thing Cyrano4747 needs to weigh in here.
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Jul 25, 2015 10:26
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What happened to Consul Varro after the Battle of Cannae?
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Jul 25, 2015 19:04
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He was a proconsul and I believe he fought a few battles against Hannibal's brother.
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Jul 25, 2015 20:39
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How did he not get seriously dead after that is what I'm trying to understand.
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Jul 25, 2015 21:03
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He had a good horse.
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Jul 25, 2015 23:02
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Getting eighty thousand people killed after doing exactly what you were told not to do is imho a thing that tends to get mobs mighty peeved that you're still alive.
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Jul 25, 2015 23:45
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Friendly Tumour posted:Getting eighty thousand people killed after doing exactly what you were told not to do is imho a thing that tends to get mobs mighty peeved that you're still alive. He was elected specifically on the platform of discontinuing the Fabian strategy (because it's for wimpy losers). The electorate got what they asked for! Besides it's not like he was the first Roman general to preside over a totally embarrassing defeat against Hannibal - Trebia and Lake Trasimene were ridiculous disasters as well.
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Jul 26, 2015 00:25
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The Tribes assembled and decreed as punishment to atone for his incompetence and the loss of a generation of Rome's finest, Varro would have to wear a toga emblazoned with 'I took the legions to Carrhae and all I got was encircled by Hannibal and tens of thousands killed' for the rest of his Consulship. Truly the most barbaric of Roman punishments.
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Jul 26, 2015 05:46
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I was thinking about it and I can't recall any Republican generals who were executed solely for losing a battle. Were there any? That seems like a difference between the Romans and the Athenians, who would practically turn on their generals while the battle was still going on.
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Jul 26, 2015 05:56
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Recall what Polybius wrote about the forms of governance and how Democracy in the form as the Athenians practiced was volatile.
Power Khan fucked around with this message at 10:22 on Jul 26, 2015 |
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Jul 26, 2015 09:43
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Tao Jones posted:I was thinking about it and I can't recall any Republican generals who were executed solely for losing a battle. Were there any? That seems like a difference between the Romans and the Athenians, who would practically turn on their generals while the battle was still going on. This is actually a good question. The democratic Athenians brought the mobs out, sure, but surely in the Imperial era an emperor or two went Vader on a general to appease himself, right?
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Jul 26, 2015 16:29
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Off the top of my head I can't think of any instances of the Romans executing their own generals, even for particularly horrific losses. Typically what would happen is you're basically never holding political office again. Your clients will abandon you for a more respectable patron. Hopefully you were able to loot back all the money you spent to win the consulship before you lost that battle, because you're probably bankrupt. You will always be remembered for the loss, and more importantly your family will be associated with the loss. Generations of men after you (sons, nephews, and grandsons at least) will probably have their reputation damaged by association, and it will be difficult for them to win any public office. They will probably never get the chance to lead legions and win any type of glory or wealth for the family because of your gently caress up. So you're still alive, but you're destitute, a pariah among your peers, and your family name has been damaged irreparably for the foreseeable future. It will probably take generations for your descendants to claw their way back into prominence, if they ever do, and you get to live with the knowledge that it's all your fault.
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Jul 26, 2015 17:14
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Jamwad Hilder posted:Off the top of my head I can't think of any instances of the Romans executing their own generals, even for particularly horrific losses. May as well just kill yourself and family and save everyone the shame.
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Jul 26, 2015 17:26
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