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HEY GAL posted:here is the deets. I'm about 100% certain he hasn't heard of the Swiss. Like what the gently caress would they do if pikes can't attack?
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Aug 25, 2016 21:21
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as an ethnicity? moneylaundering, i think
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Aug 25, 2016 21:25
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HEY GAL posted:as an ethnicity? moneylaundering, i think
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Aug 25, 2016 23:14
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HEY GAL posted:as an ethnicity? moneylaundering, i think 
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Aug 25, 2016 23:52
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HEY GAL posted:here is the deets. So, like actual 17th century brits?
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Aug 26, 2016 00:16
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nothing to seehere posted:So, like actual 17th century brits? thank god there's enough czechs and germans around to school them repeatedly
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Aug 26, 2016 00:26
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HEY GAL posted:there's a lot of them, they keep coming here, they have no idea what's going on but they're full of themselves anyway I assume "schooled by Czechs" means being "accidentally" hit in the face with a "blunted" pike?
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Aug 26, 2016 00:36
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HEY GAL posted:there's a lot of them, they keep coming here, they have no idea what's going on but they're full of themselves anyway Do they actually do the thing where they lift their pikes skywards and then try to push you over?
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Aug 26, 2016 01:57
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Do they actually do the thing where they lift their pikes skywards and then try to push you over?
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Aug 26, 2016 02:01
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sarmhan posted:Cato also believed in cabbage as the cure for a wide variety of ailments. I'm frankly suspicious that he secretly owned half of the cabbage plantations in the Roman Republic.
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Aug 26, 2016 03:18
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As for the decline of Alexander's combined arms, I was under the assumption that the Hellenistic era armies were more diverse, rather than less. The successors, at least in the East, had massive cavalry forces and used elephants, chariots, and shock elements extensively. Trogus doesn't even mention infantry in the encounter/war between the Seleucids and the first Bactrian king(s), if I remember correctly. Native troops made up larger parts of successor armies as time went on and the size of their native Macedonian elites dwindled. I'm pretty sure the Romans really won on the strategic scale, fighting against depleted powers with heavy allied support. The maniple may have been more flexible than the heavy hellenic phalanx, but they suffered heavy losses against them nonetheless.
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Aug 26, 2016 04:30
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euphronius posted:Does anyone have a good rec for a social history book of classical times. Like "how women and children lived" and what normal people did. I enjoyed Courtesans and FIshcakes. Its not really about normal people, but rather about the high life in ancient Athens.
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Aug 26, 2016 10:10
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I'm frankly suspicious that he secretly owned half of the cabbage plantations in the Roman Republic. Maybe he did. What if cabbage really is the secret to a long life? What if he still does?
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Aug 26, 2016 13:18
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Cabbage is tasty, healthy, very inexpensive and simple to prepare. It would do you all good to eat more cabbage.
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Aug 26, 2016 13:48
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Ras Het posted:Cabbage is tasty, healthy, very inexpensive and simple to prepare. It would do you all good to eat more cabbage. counterpoint: 
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Aug 26, 2016 13:54
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Ah yes, I, an actual adult, refuse to improve my quality of life and extend my lifespan, because I'm afraid of farting. This is normal and sensible
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Aug 26, 2016 14:08
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There are degrees of farting, and anything in excess can be dangerous. Maybe cabbage is also the reason for spontaneous combustion?
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Aug 26, 2016 14:12
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Ras Het posted:Ah yes, I, an actual adult, refuse to improve my quality of life and extend my lifespan, because I'm afraid of farting. This is normal and sensible i'm glad you're so understanding
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Aug 26, 2016 14:17
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Cabbage are reet grand, lads. Sad it's so hard to get Savoy cabbage where I am atm though. Way better
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Aug 26, 2016 23:03
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Nub Roman questions 1. So were the Praetorian Guard actually soldiers? Were they good soldiers? Did they fight in the field? I get that the Emperor might want an army loyal to him alone (and that the Praetorians conversely needed an emperor to justify themselves) but I'm a little sketchy as to their actual functions. 2. Similarly, what was the function of the Urban cohorts? I thought they might be a police force, but the Romans already sorta had those guys in the form of vigiles(sp?) This is Rome Total War screwing me up here, since Praetorians and Urbans where the nearly top and top level infantry respectively. So the Venn diagram for Urbans is very confusing to me, since it contains [AWESOME SOLDIERS CAN BEAT ARMORED ELEPHANTS/ Police / Like the Praetorian guard but also not?] 3. Why did the Romans bother with Emperors? It seems to me that the "emperor" title is probably more trouble than it is worth - I'm reading "A Brief History of the Roman Empire" and have just gotten to the second flavian Emperor, Titus, and the amount of bad Emperors might already outnumber the good ones. Were the Romans just really into tradition, and once a new one started, they just couldn't stop? 4. I'm also a little sketchy as to what being "deified" got an ex-Emperor. Like it sounds sorta like if a emperor was deified, it was kinda like a saint being canonized, kind of the greatest rubber stamp you could ever hope for attracted to your Roman Virtue. Did people actually, without irony, worship deified Roman Emperors? The investiture into being deified sounds very bling-y, like Kim Kardashian will be deified someday as a pop culture icon, that last bit literally
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Aug 27, 2016 00:13
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Nebakenezzer posted:3. Why did the Romans bother with Emperors? It seems to me that the "emperor" title is probably more trouble than it is worth - I'm reading "A Brief History of the Roman Empire" and have just gotten to the second flavian Emperor, Titus, and the amount of bad Emperors might already outnumber the good ones. Were the Romans just really into tradition, and once a new one started, they just couldn't stop? Because the Emperor is the dude who commands the army. Originally the Principate came into being because it finally brought an end to like fifty years of pretty much constant civil wars. But once the army and the head of state get tied together like that, changing the system is... non-trivial. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 00:20
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Nebakenezzer posted:
Yeah, it's kind of like asking "why do countries bother with dictators?"
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Aug 27, 2016 00:29
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Nebakenezzer posted:
Er, what do you expect them to do instead? I think you're also overestimating the power the emperor directly wielded, even though he in theory had all of it. The various provincial governors and various magistrates had a ton of power too.
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Aug 27, 2016 00:33
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Why did Romans bother with emperors, why did kingdoms bother with kings, why does America bother with presidents, why does Lowtax bother with mods? So long as there is power to be wielded, there are going to be people who want to be the one wielding the power. The title was a lot of trouble, but most of that trouble derived from the title being part of the power structure rather than the title itself. If they decided the leader of the army was the grand Floobagoop, and he was chosen by balancing a bucket of water on top of his head, you'd have an awful lot of drenched togas around the forum. After Julius Caesar basically seized power from the senate, that genie couldn't really go back in the bottle. It was waaay easier to choose a dog to back when the time for a new emperor came around than it was to ever wrangle the senate into anything. As for the deification of the previous emperor, it's a sly way of increasing respect for the office of emperor without directly praising yourself like a jackass. Augustus started the trend by praising the hell out of Julius, and it kept going from there.
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Aug 27, 2016 00:36
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The republic was horrible for average and lower class people and the empire* made life a lot better for 99% of the people. *technically the Princeps system starting with Caesar and coming into fruition with octavianus .
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Aug 27, 2016 00:36
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Nebakenezzer posted:Nub Roman questions Short answers because tbh there are whole books on this poo poo. 1. They oscillate between full soldiers and dudes that just hang out outside Rome and cause trouble. When the Emperor himself is on campaign, the Guard came with and fought as regular soldiers. They consisted of picked veterans, so they could be considered elite in that they were more experienced than other legions. However during some of the periods where they are spending more time messing with who is Emperor and not actually guarding him, they get soft and end up being nothing special compared to other legions. When they went along with Augustus, Drusus, and Trajan, they were definitely considered elite troops. 2. Urban Cohorts were essentially riot police. The Vigiles handled day to day guard duties, while the urban cohorts were the ones called in during riots or other disturbances, like when gangs were warring in the decade before Caesar was assassinated. They fought in a few battles but were never considered to be real soldiers in the same way a legionary. Rome Total War did not accurately represent them. 3. They were just Kings by a different name. Once they were hard wired into that system, it was not going to go away short of a tremendous revolution. The original Republic is a pretty unique system, and its crazy it lasted as long into the Empire as it did. The way you gained power was to control or become the Emperor, so basically anyone making a run at being in charge would have aimed for that instead of trying to resurrect the Republic and up heave everything. 4. You have it about right. The deified Emperors were indeed worshiped, and that practice is very important in the history of Judaism and Christianity, as it caused a lot of conflicts with the Roman state.
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Aug 27, 2016 01:01
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Nebakenezzer posted:Nub Roman questions The answer to this will change a lot over the centuries as the unit's power and influence waxes and wanes, but yes, they were actual soldiers. At one point the "elite" soldiers from each legion would even be sent to serve as a Praetorian as a reward, and because you don't send the emperor your worst men. Of course the system became incredibly corrupt, because who wouldn't want to drink and whore in Rome instead of on the Danube?
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Aug 27, 2016 01:20
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Nebakenezzer posted:3. Why did the Romans bother with Emperors? It seems to me that the "emperor" title is probably more trouble than it is worth - I'm reading "A Brief History of the Roman Empire" and have just gotten to the second flavian Emperor, Titus, and the amount of bad Emperors might already outnumber the good ones. Were the Romans just really into tradition, and once a new one started, they just couldn't stop? Part of it is that the forces that led to the creation of the empire, that after a certain point you really need to win or you will die trying don't go away. Getting the power to become Emperor and walking away would have been supremely dangerous.
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Aug 27, 2016 01:50
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I think someone trying to abolish emperors might have some trouble not being executed or assassinated by the emperor.
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Aug 27, 2016 01:57
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The Senate wields a lot of power for centuries after Augustus. For instance, half of the troubles in the 200's were the Senate fighting against barracks emperors.
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Aug 27, 2016 04:02
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I think another issue might be that from the time of Marius until the reign of Augustus, there was tons of internal strife. Then at the end of the Caesarian dynasty, you had the year of the four emperors to remind everyone of how lovely civil wars are. Then you had a reasonably competent series of emperors to keep everything in order before it all went to hell.
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Aug 27, 2016 04:38
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cheerfullydrab posted:The Senate wields a lot of power for centuries after Augustus. For instance, half of the troubles in the 200's were the Senate fighting against barracks emperors. Yeah, at no point does the Senate really go away, nor would you expect it to; it's the mouthpiece of the landed gentry class. Even during the fifth century, the aristocrats in Italy are routinely stirring up trouble, trying to win control of power back from the Gallic aristocracy (who are generally better represented as the emperor will be physically closer to them).
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Aug 27, 2016 17:11
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WoodrowSkillson posted:4. You have it about right. The deified Emperors were indeed worshiped, and that practice is very important in the history of Judaism and Christianity, as it caused a lot of conflicts with the Roman state. I thought this was one of those "haha aren't our ancestors so stupid" stories that aren't really true for most part. A lot of the problems between Christians and Romans can be boiled down to the Emperors saying "The emperor is at the top of the social pyramid" and the Christians saying "no, our God (one amongst hundreds in the Empire at that time fyi) is" and the Emperors executing these traitors.
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Aug 27, 2016 22:04
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Deltasquid posted:I thought this was one of those "haha aren't our ancestors so stupid" stories that aren't really true for most part. A lot of the problems between Christians and Romans can be boiled down to the Emperors saying "The emperor is at the top of the social pyramid" and the Christians saying "no, our God (one amongst hundreds in the Empire at that time fyi) is" and the Emperors executing these traitors. I mean this reading is kind of true, but under Augustus and his successors, again under the Flavians, and in various degrees of power all the way up to Christianization there was a very strong imperial cult institution dedicated to the literal worship of various imperial figures in temples constructed for that very purpose, some of which still exist. People worshiped the emperor because that was a way of showing their participation in the Roman society and acclaiming the legitimacy of Roman rule. Cities competed for the privilege of building temples to dead emperors. Even after Christian emperors became the norm, the emperor was still seen as God's right-hand man on earth. Subsequently people in western civilization have become a decent amount more skeptical about claims to divinity, but the kind of participation in public life that the imperial cult implied still exists, it's just not put in the context of religion since most societies that exist today don't think it's proper to explicitly say that their leadership is derived from God and should be associated with worship.
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Aug 27, 2016 22:40
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Deltasquid posted:I thought this was one of those "haha aren't our ancestors so stupid" stories that aren't really true for most part. A lot of the problems between Christians and Romans can be boiled down to the Emperors saying "The emperor is at the top of the social pyramid" and the Christians saying "no, our God (one amongst hundreds in the Empire at that time fyi) is" and the Emperors executing these traitors. It's impossible to really know the true level of devotion people had to the imperial cult, in particular. It's not like it was universally just a cynical thing you did only because the government expected it, but for some people it was. Rome ruled so many diverse peoples that speaking in generalities is impossible. Certainly the Jews and the Christians had issues with doing it, but you're abstracting it too much to try to make the ancients sound more modern. The conflict between monotheists and the Roman state boiled down to the fact that the Romans believed every citizen needed to do their part on a religious level to keep the empire going, and monotheists were a problem because they won't do that - because it would be a betrayal of their god to recognize the divinity of any other. Eventually a compromise was worked out with the Jewish people that they would instead pray for the emperor's good health and success through God, and had Christianity not become dominant something like that might have happened with the Christians, too. Sometimes people in antiquity really were acting on mystical motives. Their actions just don't make any sense unless you recognize that their religion is often (but not always) sincere. This doesn't mean they are dumb, it's just a different worldview that takes effort to get your head around sometimes. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 23:23
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Jazerus posted:Christianity not become dominant something like that might have happened with the Christians, too. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Aug 27, 2016 |
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Aug 27, 2016 23:25
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Deltasquid posted:I thought this was one of those "haha aren't our ancestors so stupid" stories that aren't really true for most part. A lot of the problems between Christians and Romans can be boiled down to the Emperors saying "The emperor is at the top of the social pyramid" and the Christians saying "no, our God (one amongst hundreds in the Empire at that time fyi) is" and the Emperors executing these traitors. You can also look at it in the context of the people of Israel being resentful of Roman rule, or the fact that after the death of Christ, worshipping a man who had been executed by the Romans seems like a pretty anti-authoritarian thing in the Roman empire, and disrespecting the previous emperors' god status goes pretty hand in hand with that. It's not like that by itself was the death sentence for the early Christians, either. The persecution was started off when the y became the scapegoat for a giant fire. Religion is full of these nonsensical seeming things. Most of the the early heresies sound like they're for arbitrary reasons, although maybe there are further extenuating circumstances? Religion also invokes people to make decisions that don't fit into standardly expected motivations, like wealth, life, food, or sex. It's just weird like that.
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Aug 27, 2016 23:48
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HEY GAL posted:eastern orthodoxy prays for the head of state at their liturgy. it's the president in this country, but it was the sultan in the Ottoman empire 
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Aug 27, 2016 23:55
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Not My Saint
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Aug 27, 2016 23:56
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How did Arianism differ from Catholicism, why was it so popular and what led to its end?
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Aug 28, 2016 00:03
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