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BurningStone posted:But why should changing the date matter? Because borders are ill-defined before modern cartography. An ancient Roman didn't have the means to say where exactly point X on a straight line stretching from Y to Z on the ground was.
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May 28, 2016 01:30
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BurningStone posted:But why should changing the date matter? A person living in 200 AD doesn't have the same perception of the world as we do. Two states has a series of forts along the Rhine, 2nd century Rome, and 20th century France. The Rhine is what gets drawn on a 21st century historian's maps as borders. Let's say both states send representatives across the Rhine, where they have local allies that submit to their authority even though they're not marching armies through. They are able to sway opinions on the other side of the Rhine to some degree. Everybody in the 20th century would see France meddling in the affairs of the country of Germany. Everybody in the 2nd Century sees the Romans extending influence into "that place beyond the Rhine" When we draw a map, we are attempting to convey information. A map of the 20th century accounts for 20th century perceptions of a state. Iraq is not the US in 1991, for example. A map of the 2nd century has to do the same. Rome sends troops into hispania, builds forts everywhere, fights local armies occasionally, but Hispania is Roman, not occupied Lusotania.
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May 28, 2016 01:39
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Ynglaur posted:Considering the city of Rome literally had a line of rocks around it outside of which one could hold imperium and inside of which one could not, I'd say they understood borders just fine. No one thinks they had perfectly-sight-lined GPS-staked rocks in the middle of the Rhineland, but the concept of "over here, you follow our laws and are protected by them" and "over there, do whatever" goes back quite a ways. How many times did various wars end up with one side or the other gaining or giving up territorial rights? But that seems more akin to individuals holding a type of power rather than the borders of a nation state. For instance, in may parliamentary systems today a representative is able to make statements and accusations within the chamber when in session that, if stated outside of the chamber, could lead to libel suits. A lot of these early "borders" seem to have more to do with the authority of individuals and individual property rights more than anything that we would consider the limits of a nation state.
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May 28, 2016 01:44
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I'm looking for recommendations for some Greek or Roman books. I'm working my way through Plutarch's "Lives" right now and I'm surprised that it's actually pretty enjoyable. I prefer something where there isn't a whole lot of background knowledge to understand what's going on. I gave Caesar's De Bello Gallico a shot, but can't get through it. Do I just have a bad translation or is it actually that dense? It's hard to work through a book with sentences like: http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.1.1.html posted:He, when Marcus Messala and Marcus Piso were consuls, incited by lust of sovereignty, formed a conspiracy among the nobility, and persuaded the people to go forth from their territories with all their possessions, [saying] that it would be very easy, since they excelled all in valor, to acquire the supremacy of the whole of Gaul. I just cannot focus on that. I realize that it's probably sticking very closely to the Latin word order, but this is just terrible English.
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May 28, 2016 04:45
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That's a very literal translation from, as far as I can tell, the 1860s. Most free translations you'll find online are from the 1800s or early 1900s and written by the professors of the time for the purposes of instruction. You'll probably find the latest Penguin or Oxford World's Classics translation to be more readable -- or at least if it's lovely language it's at least lovely language from the last 50 years. In my opinion, Plutarch's the easiest to approach. The historians are also readable without much context -- Herodotus and Thucydides for the Greeks, Livy and Tacitus for the Romans. For H and T, the Landmark editions are my favorites because they have lots of maps and margin notes to help the reader keep track of all the names and places. The Greek playwrights are also approachable. Sophocles is the most so, in my opinion, though Aeschylus and Euripides are also great. Plato's Republic is a harder book, but well worth reading if ancient stuff doesn't bore you.
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May 28, 2016 05:29
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OctaviusBeaver posted:I'm looking for recommendations for some Greek or Roman books. I'm working my way through Plutarch's "Lives" right now and I'm surprised that it's actually pretty enjoyable. I prefer something where there isn't a whole lot of background knowledge to understand what's going on. It's a horrid translation. Any half-decent second year Latin student could probably write one with more life and a better choice of words, as well as a word order that more closely translates how you read Latin into an equivalent experience in English. "Acquire the supremacy of" should surely be "seize control of" even to the stuffiest Victorian professor - it's closer to the original Latin in both meaning and brevity. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 06:01 on May 28, 2016 |
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May 28, 2016 05:57
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Jazerus posted:It's a horrid translation. Any half-decent second year Latin student could probably write one with more life and a better choice of words, as well as a word order that more closely translates how you read Latin into an equivalent experience in English. "Acquire the supremacy of" should surely be "seize control of" even to the stuffiest Victorian professor - it's closer to the original Latin in both meaning and brevity. No. More complicated phrasing with a higher number of words is superior. Philistine. 
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May 28, 2016 08:37
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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OctaviusBeaver posted:I'm looking for recommendations for some Greek or Roman books. I'm working my way through Plutarch's "Lives" right now and I'm surprised that it's actually pretty enjoyable. I prefer something where there isn't a whole lot of background knowledge to understand what's going on. This is the English text of the Loeb edition, which is still kinda old-fashioned as it's from 1917, but I (as a non-native English speaker) find them quite readable. It translates the sentence you posted as an example as quote:In the consulship of Marcus Messalla and Marcus Piso, his desire for the kingship led him to form a conspiracy of the nobility, and he persuaded the community to march out of their territory in full force, urging that as they excelled all in valour it was easy enough to secure the sovereignty of all Gaul. which is still a way too long sentence but at least its readable.
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May 28, 2016 11:43
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blowfish posted:No. More complicated phrasing with a higher number of words is superior. Philistine. Caesar actually (and intentionally) wrote very clear and easy Latin. De Bello Gallico was meant as propaganda, to be spread widely and to the broadest possible audience.
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May 28, 2016 11:52
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OctaviusBeaver posted:I'm looking for recommendations for some Greek or Roman books. I'm working my way through Plutarch's "Lives" right now and I'm surprised that it's actually pretty enjoyable. I prefer something where there isn't a whole lot of background knowledge to understand what's going on. Herodotus' Histories is simply a fantastic book, not just a piece of history. Zopotantor posted:Caesar actually (and intentionally) wrote very clear and easy Latin. De Bello Gallico was meant as propaganda, to be spread widely and to the broadest possible audience. It's also the typical introduction to Latin writing. Caesar speaks in the third person in Asterix because that's a funny joke to people who studied Latin. Ras Het fucked around with this message at 13:24 on May 28, 2016 |
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May 28, 2016 13:21
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Zopotantor posted:De Bello Gallico was meant as propaganda. People say this often. I think it's a misleading and dubious assumption of intent. It was meant as an eyewitness account, and favors Caesar. Ancient history was stereotypically unconcerned with things like "verifying facts," but Caesar wasn't the only one with a stylus in a camp of tens of thousands of men, including his talented and not-ultimately-sympathetic lieutenant Titus Labienus. The extent of his "propaganda" is greatly exaggerated; are we to believe that Cicero would just let Caesar tell whatever story he wanted and ultimately praise Caesar's "propaganda"? The "easiness" of Caesar's Latin is also overstated, but less so.
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May 28, 2016 15:17
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OctaviusBeaver posted:I'm looking for recommendations for some Greek or Roman books. I'm working my way through Plutarch's "Lives" right now and I'm surprised that it's actually pretty enjoyable. I prefer something where there isn't a whole lot of background knowledge to understand what's going on. I enjoyed Xenophon's Anabasis once I got past the beginning.
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May 28, 2016 16:34
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Ras Het posted:Because borders are ill-defined before modern cartography. An ancient Roman didn't have the means to say where exactly point X on a straight line stretching from Y to Z on the ground was. I disagree, at least if the statement is meant as a near-absolute. We're talking about a civilization that dug a tunnel several hundred yards through a mountain from both sides simultaneously and only had an offset of a few inches. No think they knew how to measure quite well. I fully understand that most borders did not have such rigor applied, but they certainly understood boundaries and the different implications and conventions they could have.
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May 28, 2016 17:41
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Ynglaur posted:I disagree, at least if the statement is meant as a near-absolute. We're talking about a civilization that dug a tunnel several hundred yards through a mountain from both sides simultaneously and only had an offset of a few inches. No think they knew how to measure quite well. I think Hadrian's Wall counts as a fairly distinct border, anyway. Borders certainly existed as a concept, even if they were often difficult to define and enforce.
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May 28, 2016 18:06
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:A person living in 200 AD doesn't have the same perception of the world as we do. I'm not sure I follow your argument. You think the two cases are different because, in your example, everybody knows France isn't going to go any further, while Rome may very well decide to?
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May 29, 2016 04:50
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BurningStone posted:I'm not sure I follow your argument. You think the two cases are different because, in your example, everybody knows France isn't going to go any further, while Rome may very well decide to? No. In modern times, borders represent the limits of one government's jurisdiction. We live in a time where the entire world is covered in independent governments that have the final say over what happens within their borders. For the Romans, political authority does not end at the limes. There is no independent country outside the limes that the world formally recognizes as an independent country. The Germans living outside the limes regularly negotiate with the Roman to come across to trade or just settle down and "become" Romans. The border between France and Germany exists where it exists because the two countries agree to say: "This is France here, this is Germany there". The limes exist where it exists because it is defensible. It's silly to imagine somebody walking up to the gate and saying "This is Rome here, this is Not-Rome there". The prime Roman authority (soldiers) are within two steps of you. There are Germanic people living on both sides within kilometers of you, both under the protection of Rome. So when we draw a map of the Roman empire and we put the borders of the empire where the limes are, we are simplifying things. There is more than one way to draw a map.
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May 29, 2016 21:09
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Borders really only started getting their present form and meaning after the Peace of Westphalia.
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May 29, 2016 21:24
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I think that perhaps the comparison between antiquity and the modern world is rather confusing the point. Roman borders were far more similar to the types of nominal and unilateral borders defined by other expansionist empires throughout history. It isn't France and Germany of 2016, it's more like the colonial U.S. and various American Indian tribes and treaty nations. The borders exist, but aren't mutually agreed upon and are often permeated, violated, and changed. Rome had much more well-defined borders with other significant empires, like the Sassanids.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:29 on May 29, 2016 |
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May 29, 2016 21:26
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:No. I don't think we're ever going to agree. I see both today and the past as far more complicated than you. How would you draw the border between Russia and Ukraine today? Russia clearly doesn't recognize that they have to stop at that line and leave things to the Ukraine. Neither does Iran hesitate at the border of Iraq. Would you draw borders to show a Palestinian state, or is it all Israel? There are all sorts of modern examples where one country disputes borders, sometimes even the existence of entire countries, such as Taiwan, Tibet, and a number of less famous ones. When Caesar declared war on the Germans (I'm afraid I can't remember the name of the exact king), one of the justifications he gave was that they had crossed the Rhine and were now outside their territory. He clearly wasn't indifferent to it as a border.
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May 29, 2016 21:44
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One thing Rome didn't have but we do is this. There was no sweeping ideology that states shouldn't interfere across each others' borders. As a result, states didn't even try to hide it. The only thing to hold them back was that it was also fair game for the other side to come butcher your cities if you pissed them off enough. It also didn't help that most border regions were filled with granular, semi nomadic tribal groups who could often switch sides or be forced to switch sides quite freely, because they had no real representation or bureaucracy to bind them to whichever empire. And we can already see the old system reassert itself. A granular ethnic group in Ukraine (allegedly) calls for help, and is answered with a full on annexation. Meanwhile Syria is a non-country whose borders only have meaning because their neighbours have lined them with razor wire, and in its place you have a mess of semi nomadic bands of soldiers being manipulated just as Roman and Sassanid proxies were in the same region.
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May 29, 2016 21:47
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BurningStone posted:I don't think we're ever going to agree. I see both today and the past as far more complicated than you. Can you explain your actual argument instead of throwing examples of modern border disputes at me? For reference, this is start of this "argument" cheerfullydrab posted:That is precisely what I was trying to say. Moderns like to think of a group of steely-eyed Romans in lorica segmentata and red cloaks peering out from the top of a stone-walled border fort while ragged, bearded, German tribesmen skulk amongst the trees opposite, waiting for the proper moment to attack. In reality the limes were more customs barriers than anything else. Especially by the later imperial period, civilization on both sides of a Roman border looked very similar wherever you were. More accurate maps of the Roman Empire during, say, the reign of Marcus Aurelius, would contain way more of Western and Central Europe, the island of Britain, North Africa, the whole area around the Black Sea, the Red Sea coast, more of Arabia, etc. etc. etc. These would require a lot of caveats and explanations about the nature of borders in the 2nd century vs the 21st, however. It's a lot easier just to fart out Trajan_117.jpg or Justinian_565.png. BurningStone posted:Not sure I buy that. The modern US has considerable political, cultural, and economic influence outside its official borders, and regularly conducts military operations outside of them as well. But nobody would draw a map that made, say, Canada part of it. The US has propped up and torn down a long list of foreign governments, but nobody says Panama is actually part of the US. Of course any large, powerful country influences its neighbors (And they influence it right back, which is conveniently forgotten)
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May 29, 2016 22:46
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I'm also not exactly sure what we're arguing here. I've never said that Rome didn't believe or understand borders. Part of the problem is, also, as I've stated, we're talking about a wide range of years here. I'm more of an Imperial guy than a Republic one. Who brought up Hadrian's Wall as a distinct barrier? It was anything but. People were constantly moving back and forth through that wall. It was a way to efficiently collect taxes and a political statement. Also, Roman control extended past Hadrian's Wall, with specific annexations twice after its creation. In the 2nd/3rd century there was probably very little difference, culturally, between the people who lived on one side of Hadrian's Wall and the other, even when it was the northern border. And they both followed the Emperor. Hadrian's Wall is emblematic of the innacurate thinking that I was speaking about : quote:Moderns like to think of a group of steely-eyed Romans in lorica segmentata and red cloaks peering out from the top of a stone-walled border fort while ragged, bearded, German tribesmen skulk amongst the trees opposite, waiting for the proper moment to attack. I've never once argued that borders didn't exist, only that they were much more dynamic than that. I've only argued that people's conceptions of the borders were wrong, not that they didn't exist. Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 29, 2016 |
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May 29, 2016 23:07
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Also, today is the 563rd anniversary of the saddest day in the history of the Roman Empire.
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May 29, 2016 23:17
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Another interesting use of the limes, at least along the Rhine, was more as military bases than guard posts. There were intermittent rebellions for a hundred years after Gaul was conquered, so at least in the initial period of the Rhine border's foundation the troops were basically keeping watch in both directions. It was also useful to basically warehouse legions in a central European location with just enough local resentment to keep them busy, away from Italy and out of politics. The river kept communications open and most of Europe in good striking distance.
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May 29, 2016 23:22
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Strategic Tea posted:Another interesting use of the limes, at least along the Rhine, was more as military bases than guard posts. There were intermittent rebellions for a hundred years after Gaul was conquered, so at least in the initial period of the Rhine border's foundation the troops were basically keeping watch in both directions. It was also useful to basically warehouse legions in a central European location with just enough local resentment to keep them busy, away from Italy and out of politics. The river kept communications open and most of Europe in good striking distance. This is what I'm trying to say! The borders were more dynamic than a hard line protecting a Roman inside from a barbarian outside. They weren't the turtle's shell, they were more like a cell membrane.
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May 29, 2016 23:33
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Can you explain your actual argument instead of throwing examples of modern border disputes at me? For reference, this is start of this "argument" I'm arguing that ancient and modern conceptions of borders are virtually identical. The largest difference is a greater willingness to be openly predatory about influence across them. It's absurd to say "things were different, trade and people moved across borders back then." Of course they did, they always did and still do. I think this is clearly off base: cheerfullydrab posted:Again, I've been arguing for a map of the Roman Empire that would show it to be a lot larger than it is traditionally depicted. I do think that Romans understood boundaries, they had a pretty reasonable sense of what they considered to be theirs and what wasn't, but it was a different one than ours. As I keep saying, I'd absolutely put most of modern-day Germany in the "Roman Empire" of the late 2nd century. The Romans only had a vague idea of where the Oder was; they in no way controlled all the territory up to it. All the reasons given for calling it Roman controlled have modern parallels where we would never say that. You'd have to call all of Western Europe part of the US, because of the combination of NATO, political influence, and trade.
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May 30, 2016 01:18
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BurningStone posted:I'm arguing that ancient and modern conceptions of borders are virtually identical. The largest difference is a greater willingness to be openly predatory about influence across them. It's absurd to say "things were different, trade and people moved across borders back then." Of course they did, they always did and still do. I think this is clearly off base: You listed a bunch of modern border disputes. It doesn't follow that those examples say something about how Romans and Germanic peoples would see borders.
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May 30, 2016 01:51
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:You listed a bunch of modern border disputes. It doesn't follow that those examples say something about how Romans and Germanic peoples would see borders. I'm pointing out that pushing borders, either with hard or soft power, is not only an ancient thing.
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May 30, 2016 02:13
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I imagine this sort of thing was more common in the days when borders where looser: That's parts of Pakistan within parts of India within parts of Pakistan. Unrelated: When did Greek start becoming the dominant language of the Roman upper class?
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May 30, 2016 02:56
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BurningStone posted:The Romans only had a vague idea of where the Oder was; they in no way controlled all the territory up to it. All the reasons given for calling it Roman controlled have modern parallels where we would never say that. You'd have to call all of Western Europe part of the US, because of the combination of NATO, political influence, and trade. Don't try to tar other people who were telling you you were wrong with the brush of my fringe views. No one agreed with me on this specific point, so don't pretend that's what the argument was about.
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May 30, 2016 11:59
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I love this thread's propensity to claim that ancient people were nothing like us. 
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May 30, 2016 12:27
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I got like two credits worth of studies in antiquity done and I still feel that it's a rather noncontroversial opinion that no incarnation of the Roman state operated like a post-Westfalen state.
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May 30, 2016 12:40
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I think I'd prefer Atlantischat at this point. So, hey, let's talk about age in the Roman Republic! Were there any notable age restrictions on the public offices, whether excluding those too young or too old? Is there any point where a senator might be usually expected to retire on account of being too old to fulfill whatever duties he might have? When was it thought best for a Roman man to marry? How about a Roman woman? What was the age of the Roman equivalent of a college graduate (i.e. someone who's completed his education and is theoretically prepared to earned his living), if any? At what age would a Roman first start seriously participating in politics, generally?
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May 30, 2016 12:41
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The consulship theoretically had an age restriction barring those under 41. Two caveats: A: The 41 age restriction was part of Sulla's reforms in 82 BC and it's unclear if it predated him. B. No one took it seriously. Pompey became consul at 35 a mere decade after the rule was put into place, further reinforcing the idea that law = suggestion.
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May 30, 2016 15:41
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Buttstuff would be more interesting.
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May 30, 2016 16:00
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Dalael posted:I love this thread's propensity to claim that ancient people were nothing like us. No one says they're nothing like us, but yes, they had some fundamentally different social and cultural contexts for understanding the world around them and that led to some fundamentally different ideas about it compared to us.
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May 30, 2016 16:11
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cheerfullydrab posted:Don't try to tar other people who were telling you you were wrong with the brush of my fringe views. No one agreed with me on this specific point, so don't pretend that's what the argument was about. I wasn't aware I was arguing with anybody but you (and over anything but those fringe views). Slim Jim Picken's point, if I correctly understand it, was that Rome could put the border where they liked. I agree, though there were obviously some limits, as the move from Hadrian's wall, to the Antonine wall, then back to Hadrian's wall shows. Tomn posted:I think I'd prefer Atlantischat at this point. Point taken. I'll shut up. Tomn posted:So, hey, let's talk about age in the Roman Republic! Were there any notable age restrictions on the public offices, whether excluding those too young or too old? Is there any point where a senator might be usually expected to retire on account of being too old to fulfill whatever duties he might have? When was it thought best for a Roman man to marry? How about a Roman woman? What was the age of the Roman equivalent of a college graduate (i.e. someone who's completed his education and is theoretically prepared to earned his living), if any? At what age would a Roman first start seriously participating in politics, generally? This changed, of course, and we really only know about the upper classes. In the late Republic/early Empire, I believe a young aristocrat would start his career at around 18, moving between civil and military jobs. He usually got started not in an elected office, but by helping out an older relative or family friend who had been elected to something, building reputation and experience. Men were supposed to be in a position to provide for a family before they got married, while a woman just had to be old enough to start having children. So men tended to get married in their middle or late 20s, while girls could be as young as their early teens. If you lived, you probably had multiple marriages, since the chance of your spouse also living were pretty slim. In those days, "Unto death do us part" was something that may not have felt all that far away.
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May 30, 2016 17:03
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Kemper Boyd posted:I got like two credits worth of studies in antiquity done and I still feel that it's a rather noncontroversial opinion that no incarnation of the Roman state operated like a post-Westfalen state. But what about the Roman states that existed post-Westphalia? Just in case you thought this debate couldn't get any sillier.
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May 30, 2016 18:06
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BurningStone posted:
The Roman's for sure knew where the Oder was, they just didn't care where it came out.
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May 30, 2016 18:13
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"The past is a foreign country". People in the past were still just as human as we are but the culture they lived in, even in cases where we live in the same state as they did, is so drastically different that their ideas about anything from borders to love to violence might be very alien to us. A lot of things we think are self explanatory and common sense are fairly recent concepts.
FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 21:07 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 21:02
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