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Monos Bullet posted:I wanted to learn about the formation of the Catholic church and how it operated politically but quick searches lead to a bunch of mostly theological stuff and protestant "THE TRUTH OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH" type stuff. Can anyone recommend any good documentaries or books that aren't encyclopedia sized (I'd probably be willing something up to like 300-500 pages)about early Catholicism? I'm not really sure what I want to read but I find the general hierarchy and structure of the Catholic church interesting. I'll take anything. Millenium by Tom Holland is about Europe around 1000 AD and the formation of many of the institutions and conditions of the medieval period. It doesn't cover the beginning of the church, but it talks a lot about its transformation in that period into a powerful political organisation, and its attempts to secure authority over the various secular powers.
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Jan 4, 2018 12:58
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MikeCrotch posted:I just wanted to chime in that a lot of people are getting nervous about how ostensible liberals are talking up former generals in the form of Kelly and Mattis as the "adults in the room" in comparison to trump. Meanwhile Kelly is I remember on election night when there were Hillary supporters straight up calling for the military to stage a coup rather than allow a Trump presidency. Liberalism is right wing.
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Jan 4, 2018 13:13
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Monos Bullet posted:Can anyone recommend any good documentaries or books that aren't encyclopedia sized (I'd probably be willing something up to like 300-500 pages)about early Catholicism? I'm not really sure what I want to read but I find the general hierarchy and structure of the Catholic church interesting. I'll take anything. Try Shelley's "Church History In Plain Language." It's around 560 pages but as a single volume survey, half of it is from Martin Luther forward. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1401676316/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile ulmont fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Jan 4, 2018 |
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Jan 4, 2018 13:37
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SlothfulCobra posted:The whole business with getting Agrippa to marry Julia and adopting Agrippa as his son, and then later forcing Tiberius to do the same really seems to denote that, to him at least, it really mattered not that Agrippa was his good lifelong buddy who he trusted through thick and thin, there had to be some kind of weird pseudo-paternal relationship there. Tiberius's will where he tries to nominate the two people who he nominally had a patriarchal relationship with as the next rulers denotes a similar principal. He may have delegated a lot of power to Sejanus, but by directly denying him that sort of psuedo-paternal relationship, he was pretty clearly saying that it wouldn't go further than delegation. Your buddy can always stab you in the back. Caesar’s literally did, for example: many of his most trusted allies were among his assassins, men like Trebonius and Decimus Brutus. This might not be a good thing depending on where you stood at the time, and some people considered it a monstrous betrayal of their friendship with Caesar, but it would have been a hundred times worse if his son had been among them. As paterfamilias, you held potestas, legal power, over your son. Your son, under no circumstances, was supposed to act against you — in theory such an act could warrant his death on your say-so. That’s the cultural ground for Roman imperial leaders trying to pass on their power to their sons, they believed they would not have trouble from them the way they would from any other colleague. In practice well, poo poo happens, but I can’t think of too many emperors who got toppled by their actual sons, as bloody as some of the other familial relations got. People didn’t worry so much about whether Emperor 1 willing all his powers to Emperor 2 violated the traditional morals of Rome because directly before Emperor 1 there had been decades of civil war, political disorder, purges, famines, piracy, and general bullshit. Emperor 1 puts a stop to all that and rules for decades in a very generally successful way and is almost universally beloved. Now he dies. Basically no one is still alive who remembers a time before both Emperor 1 and the anarchy that preceded him (and many don’t even remember the anarchy). What sounds better, Emperor 2: The Sequel or more anarchy? I think that’s the best reason I can give for why Roman elite went within a couple of generations from the concept of a Rex being so taboo that just suspecting Caesar was planning to act as one, over his specific disavowals, was grounds for him to be publicly murdered with the tacit or open support of much of the senatorial class — to his legal son, who never called himself Rex, attaining far more complete power over the state than Caesar ever had and wielding it unchecked until he died. What happened politically in between those things was bad enough, and ended one-sidedly enough, that people soured on The Way Things Were and were willing to give what we would now call military dictatorship a try — at first, and hopefully, as long as it was willing to pretend it was really just The Way Things Were, New And Improved, but eventually not even that. An interesting fact might be relevant here: in the Greek east, where there were strong traditions of being ruled by semi-divine monarchs in the various former Hellenistic states, Augustus was always recognized as such and considered “basileus”, king, from the off. They knew what a king was when they saw one. It may have been the same in other provinces — it’s relatively hard to say because 1) who cares what a bunch of illiterate semibarbarous yokels think about The Boss and 2) many of the Latin provinces of the empire had not had particularly strong native traditions of kingship to begin with as far as we know — preconquest, Hispania and Illyricum seem to have been chiefly tribal societies without high level political organization and Gaul seems to have had as many Roman-style magistracy-based polities as kingdoms. Regardless, it sure seems like kingship was specifically taboo to Rome because of their own peculiar (myth-)history. skasion fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Jan 4, 2018 |
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Jan 4, 2018 15:44
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The other thing I forgot to point out in my earlier post is that Rome, especially late Republican and early Imperial Rome, was a patronage society, where you swore loyalty to important people in exchange for protection. And patronage was inheritable. So even putting aside the question of honors given to Augustus by the Senate, when Augustus adopts Tiberius and names him heir, what he's saying is, "When I die, Tiberius gets my money and my property (which in Augustus's case, includes actual Roman provinces.), and he gets my clients (which in Augustus's case, includes foreign leaders)". That's why adoption was so important; not just for the assumption of Augustus's official powers, but for all the wealth, power and prestige that Augustus has in his own right. And don't forget that the same thing happened with Augustus. He was just a kid in a fairly unimportant family, but when Julius Caesar adopted him and made him official heir, , he became one of the most important men in Rome, able to deal equally with Mark Antony, even though Mark Antony was closer to Caesar and had years of political and military experience.
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Jan 4, 2018 17:03
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Monos Bullet posted:I wanted to learn about the formation of the Catholic church and how it operated politically but quick searches lead to a bunch of mostly theological stuff and protestant "THE TRUTH OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH" type stuff. Can anyone recommend any good documentaries or books that aren't encyclopedia sized (I'd probably be willing something up to like 300-500 pages)about early Catholicism? I'm not really sure what I want to read but I find the general hierarchy and structure of the Catholic church interesting. I'll take anything.
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Jan 4, 2018 20:23
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Thanks for the answers. Mike Duncan's podcast is informative, but it really skimps on fleshing out the social nature of everything, especially after the republic falls and there's less politics, most of the history just becomes about the singular emperor, what he does, and what people did in response to him. His last episode about Julius Caesar was got me really confused, since there's all that junk about him angling to become king, the Roman people loving him, but hating the idea of a king (whatever that entails) despite the prophecy, and the senate killing him to prevent a king, but didn't do anything to prevent there being clear heirs, which seems to be the only differentiating characteristic of a king versus dictator for life, other than all the trappings of regalia. So far, the emperors feel less interesting to listen to, since everything comes down to their judgement, what they want to do, what they're trying, and whether or not they're a nut.
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Jan 4, 2018 22:07
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SlothfulCobra posted:His last episode about Julius Caesar was got me really confused, since there's all that junk about him angling to become king, the Roman people loving him, but hating the idea of a king (whatever that entails) despite the prophecy, and the senate killing him to prevent a king, but didn't do anything to prevent there being clear heirs, which seems to be the only differentiating characteristic of a king versus dictator for life, other than all the trappings of regalia. Some historians believe that the aversion to kings was mostly confined to the senatorial class anyway.
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Jan 4, 2018 22:19
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Silver2195 posted:Some historians believe that the aversion to kings was mostly confined to the senatorial class anyway. I mean didn't citizenship extend throughout Italia at that point? I am sure the other Italians were still okay with the idea of Kings/Chieftans/etc.
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Jan 4, 2018 22:46
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Jack2142 posted:I mean didn't citizenship extend throughout Italia at that point? I am sure the other Italians were still okay with the idea of Kings/Chieftans/etc. The Italians weren't citizens before the Social War, but that doesn’t mean there were still kings in Italy. IIRC, the Italian cities had magistrates following the Roman pattern.
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Jan 4, 2018 22:53
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I still don't really "get" what magistrates mean in terms of the ancient world and Rome specifically. I more or less get what they tend to mean in modern countries, but is it really just the same as that?
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Jan 4, 2018 23:27
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fishmech posted:I still don't really "get" what magistrates mean in terms of the ancient world and Rome specifically. I more or less get what they tend to mean in modern countries, but is it really just the same as that? They were in at least some cases provincial governors according to Mike Duncan (The Storm Before the Storm): quote:FOR THE ROMANS a provincae originally meant the general sphere within which a magistrate would wield authority in Rome’s name. It could be a geographic area, or a military assignment, or a legal jurisdiction. But as Rome accepted its permanent imperial responsibilities, the annual provincae of the various magistrates began to take on stable geographic boundaries. By 146, the Senate annually assigned magistrates to the provinces of Sicily, Sardinia, Nearer and Further Spain, Macedonia, and Africa. Though it was not a term used by the Romans, these provincial magistrates can reasonably be called provincial governors. In the early days of Rome’s empire, a governor’s work was primarily focused on military security. Mary Beard in SPQR just describes these as junior positions below the consuls: quote:As well as the two annual consuls, there was a series of junior positions, including praetors and quaestors, beneath them (Romans usually called these officials ‘magistrates’, but their function was not principally legal).
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Jan 5, 2018 00:03
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fishmech posted:I still don't really "get" what magistrates mean in terms of the ancient world and Rome specifically. I more or less get what they tend to mean in modern countries, but is it really just the same as that? In the ancient Roman context, magistrates were elected officials, who had, by virtue of their office, certain state powers. The consuls, praetors, aediles, censors, quaestors, etc, were all magiatrates. Other cities on the Italian peninsula were governed similarly, although not identically. Samnite cities, for instance, instead of having two consuls, elected a single senior magistrate, called the meddix tuticus. We know that in Nola, there was a position called the meddix decentarius, who was similar to a quaestor, and probably had something to do with control of temple funds, but less powerful, and whose decisions could be overridden by the Council, which was similar to the Roman senate. We know that most Samnite cities, like Rome, also had a second tribal assembly, but we don't know much about how the Samnite senates/councils and the tribes interacted.
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Jan 5, 2018 00:19
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If you're curious, btw, these were the Roman magisterial positions in the Middle-Late Republic: 1. Dictator-Special position, named for a 6 month term in a position of crisis, could command troops, could summon the Senate, could imprison citizens, could really do almost anything he wanted. 2. Censor- Oversaw the census that determined who was a Senator, let public contracts, issued decrees about public morality, and could expel senators for immoral actions. 3. Consul-Always 2 at a time, could command troops, could summon the Senate, could summon the assemblies, oversaw elections, could propose legislation, could summon and prosecute citizens for violations of the laws. 4. Praetor-2 main Praetors, the Foreign Praetor, who handled disputes between citizens and non-citizens, and the Urban Praetor, who handled disputes between citizens and oversaw the administration of the city of Rome, and 2 additional praetors, who governed Sicily and Sardinia. 5. The Curule Aediles-Hosted games and festivals, regulated traffic and fire regulations, repaired sewers and temples, regulated weights, oversaw grain distribution, registered prostitutes, oversaw foreign cults, fined gamblers, the violators of sumptuary laws, and offenders against public morals, and maintained the streets 6 Quaestors- Oversaw and audited the treasury, assisted senior magistrates (aka, everybody). Pretty much everybody on the list, along with provincial governors, got a Quaestor to handle their finances and do the scut work. There were also a bunch of public officials that weren't magistrates....the plebeian tribunes, the military tribunes, the plebeian aediles, and the provincial governors (except of Sicily and Sardinia), who were all former consuls or praetors.
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Jan 5, 2018 01:25
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Magistracy wasn’t limited to Italy, either. Carthage was ruled by a pair of annually elected magistrates known as suffetes who oversaw the oligarchical assemblies, and at least some Gaulish tribes in the era immediately before and for some while after the Roman conquest were ruled by an annually elected civil leader called a vergobret. The similarity to Rome seems pretty obvious in the former case particularly. I don’t know that there’s a super clear, antique, cross-cultural definition for magistracy but the key idea seems to be that the magistrate was a elected official of the state as opposed to someone wielding power for their own ends by birthright or by force, like Hellenistic monarchs for example
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Jan 5, 2018 01:29
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I wonder what caused the shift from all of these republican and non-monarchical forms of government in the mediterranean to the Feudal structures of the middle ages.
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Jan 5, 2018 07:14
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Thanks all for the replies. So it sounds like for the most part they were elected executives, often with what we'd have secretary/minister handle in a modern government mixed in to cover specific expertise/duty.
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Jan 5, 2018 07:22
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unwantedplatypus posted:I wonder what caused the shift from all of these republican and non-monarchical forms of government in the mediterranean to the Feudal structures of the middle ages. From what I recall, basically the decline of central power and the increasing dependence on wealthy villas to provide basic social and governmental organization in the provinces. There’s a pretty direct link between villas in late antiquity and early feudal manoralism. Throw in some truly catastrophic political collapses and eventually that local power isn’t on,y de facto in charge, but de jure as well.
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Jan 5, 2018 07:25
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The more interesting one to me is why so much of the Mediterranean around 500ish BCE seems to have kicked out their kings and tyrants and founded various republic/democracy-esque governments. It happens all over the place if we can trust the ancient historians.
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Jan 5, 2018 07:28
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Maybe they talked to each other?
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Jan 5, 2018 07:30
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Grand Fromage posted:The more interesting one to me is why so much of the Mediterranean around 500ish BCE seems to have kicked out their kings and tyrants and founded various republic/democracy-esque governments. It happens all over the place if we can trust the ancient historians. how far/fast did the concept of philosophy spread from Greece?
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Jan 5, 2018 07:32
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Arglebargle III posted:Maybe they talked to each other? "People will want to be in a democracy once they talk to other people in a democracy" is a pretty modern sentiment I think. The default assumption for much of recorded history is that aristocrats are inherently better, and opening up public policy to every (free male citizen landowning) schmuck was at best volatile and at worst basically mob rule. I don't think the Athenian democracy at least did anything to persuade people otherwise. e: I think that Cicero wrote at one point that a Republic is obviously the best form of government because it took the one good idea democracy had (spreading power across many people who were incentivized to make the citizenry happy) and then restricted all the actual decision making to people who were rich as gently caress cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Jan 5, 2018 |
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Jan 5, 2018 07:38
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cheetah7071 posted:"People will want to be in a democracy once they talk to other people in a democracy" is a pretty modern sentiment I think. The default assumption for much of recorded history is that aristocrats are inherently better, and opening up public policy to every (free male citizen landowning) schmuck was at best volatile and at worst basically mob rule. I don't think the Athenian democracy at least did anything to persuade people otherwise. On the other hand history has generally been written by those same Aristocrats that benefit from Aristocracy, so I am curious how accurate their assessment of public sentiment is.
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Jan 5, 2018 07:42
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cheetah7071 posted:"People will want to be in a democracy once they talk to other people in a democracy" is a pretty modern sentiment I think. The default assumption for much of recorded history is that aristocrats are inherently better, and opening up public policy to every (free male citizen landowning) schmuck was at best volatile and at worst basically mob rule. I don't think the Athenian democracy at least did anything to persuade people otherwise. By this logic the 19th century Republican revolutions were weird as hell too. Why did all of Europe suddenly start doing similar things? The idea I'm getting at is that maybe there was sharing of political and intellectual culture across Europe in the BCs, just like the rest of history. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 07:52 on Jan 5, 2018 |
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Jan 5, 2018 07:50
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The wave of revolutions from the American up through 1848 was set off by the same bunch of people going around starting trouble and leaving disciples who started trouble themselves. They're all connected together, you see the same names popping up again and again. If that was going on in the 500s, there's no surviving evidence of it.
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Jan 5, 2018 08:04
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cheetah7071 posted:"People will want to be in a democracy once they talk to other people in a democracy" is a pretty modern sentiment I think. The default assumption for much of recorded history is that aristocrats are inherently better, and opening up public policy to every (free male citizen landowning) schmuck was at best volatile and at worst basically mob rule. I don't think the Athenian democracy at least did anything to persuade people otherwise. Athenian democracy (as the term is usually used in conjunction with mob rule to describe direct democracy) was more in the 400s BCE, 6th c. was still pretty feudal/nobility running the place. They were, however, starting to realize maybe prayer and offerings aren't a great way to boost crop yields or cure illnesses etc. Once you start whittling away at the power of piety the argument for a divinely-favored monarch starts to show some cracks. But that's my guess at it, I've always had an interest on stuff like the enlightenment so it may be some real rosy-lens action going on. E: like the ionians and milesians and all these really early "philosophy" schools in coastal cities spreading their thinking or doctrine or beliefs among trade routes - they weren't even close on explaining natural phenomena, but the difference between "gently caress someone pissed off Hades and Poseidon and now we got an earthquake and tsunami" and "well the ground floats on water which is why every once in a while it shakes a bunch and rolls like it's an unstable piece of flotsam" is what allows people to stop granting power to someone who talks smooth and claims they have the gods on speed dial. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Jan 5, 2018 |
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Jan 5, 2018 08:07
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Well, if the story about Athenian democracy is to be believed, it's because Peisistratos's son is an idiot idiots who can't keep his hands off the wrong boy, and the Roman Republic starts because Tarquin the Proud's son is an idiot who can't keep his hands off the wrong girl. But, the way Peisistratos gets the tyranny is almost more interesting to me, because he mostly does it by appealing to the Athenian underclass (the "hill people"), who, because they don't control food production, lack economic and political power. Because they're the most numerous, though, he's able to mobilize them, and because he's the one person willing to speak for them and their interests, he's able to get their support, and parley that, along with his natural showmanship, into power.
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Jan 5, 2018 12:39
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Couldn't there be a military argument for the spread of republicanism? I'm not informed enough to be sure, but I think around this time forms of military organization based on the citizen militia were being pretty successful, and it might be hard to replicate them under a monarchy. And generally speaking in pre-modern times their influence on military effectiveness was a critical factor in the success of social systems.
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Jan 5, 2018 12:50
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FAUXTON posted:they weren't even close on explaining natural phenomena So, uh, plate tectonics? Minus the magma. 
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Jan 5, 2018 13:55
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I'm reading Politics right now and Aristotle has a few thoughts on this one. He explicitly states that Monarchy is the best system, but because kings can become tyrants if they're not ethically excellent people, that true kingship in which the kings have proper legislative power is pretty rare (he cites examples of Spartan kings, who he considers to be hereditary generals and not political magistrates). He seems to have similar thoughts about Aristocracy, which he discusses relatively little compared to Oligarchy. I get the sense that he's a-ok with a wealth-gated Oligarchy so long as it's the entire upper class ruling and not any kind of dynastic situation. Democracy is not great, but not terrible, except if it becomes radical democracy, which is basically mob rule, which is essentially tyranny. I'm in the middle of the section on revolutions and constitutional changes right now, and he seems to be going toward noting that tyrants get booted when they leave too many grievances unchecked. He also observes that lots of tyrannies became oligarchies in that period, but I don't know if he has given any indication of causation. What I've inferred, though, is that the tyrants fell because a wealthy upper class became sufficiently powerful to form oligarchies.
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Jan 5, 2018 15:10
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Epicurius posted:Well, if the story about Athenian democracy is to be believed, it's because Peisistratos's son is an idiot idiots who can't keep his hands off the wrong boy, and the Roman Republic starts because Tarquin the Proud's son is an idiot who can't keep his hands off the wrong girl. But, the way Peisistratos gets the tyranny is almost more interesting to me, because he mostly does it by appealing to the Athenian underclass (the "hill people"), who, because they don't control food production, lack economic and political power. Because they're the most numerous, though, he's able to mobilize them, and because he's the one person willing to speak for them and their interests, he's able to get their support, and parley that, along with his natural showmanship, into power. I mean, the son being an idiot is a major structural problem in hereditary monarchy. Sounds believable.
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Jan 5, 2018 15:55
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Grand Fromage posted:The wave of revolutions from the American up through 1848 was set off by the same bunch of people going around starting trouble and leaving disciples who started trouble themselves. They're all connected together, you see the same names popping up again and again. If that was going on in the 500s, there's no surviving evidence of it. What about the collapse of Roman authority throughout the western and central Mediterranean following the Crisis of the Third Century and the "collapse" of Roman authority in the West triggering local reassessments of how best to survive? If you really think about it, as a local in central Italy, maybe you've got some land or are a half-way successful merchant, you're looking around and noting Roman forces are far to the East and don't seem to be interested in stopping all the barbarian movements in your area. It's been a century or more since stable Roman authority fell apart. Even longer since any central authority moved substantial numbers of troops in to clear out/defend against barbarian migrations. Rome was sacked and a Goth authority installed. It sure doesn't look like anyone is going to come riding to your local community's rescue. Did the locals really need any more incentive to come together in local communities and create representative bodies (at least where no local landlord/power couldn't fill the political vacuum)?
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Jan 5, 2018 17:09
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Thwomp posted:What about the collapse of Roman authority throughout the western and central Mediterranean following the Crisis of the Third Century and the "collapse" of Roman authority in the West triggering local reassessments of how best to survive? He was talking about the 500s BC.
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Jan 5, 2018 17:16
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Tyranny was very much a transitional government form, and the 6th century BC was very nuch the age of the tyrants. Outside of Syracuse, which was very much a special case, most of the tyrants were popular demogogues who spoke for the poor and the growing merchant class who were left outside of the existing government. I think what you were seeing happen in that period was, largely, the growth of international trade, which was both creating a "middle class", and exacerbating the gap between the rich and poor, because now there were all sorts of foreign luxuries available to the rich, who flaunted their wealth though their possession of foreign goods.
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Jan 5, 2018 17:39
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Thwomp posted:What about the collapse of Roman authority throughout the western and central Mediterranean following the Crisis of the Third Century and the "collapse" of Roman authority in the West triggering local reassessments of how best to survive? You're just retelling the foundation myth of Venice.
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Jan 5, 2018 17:46
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Cyrano4747 posted:He was talking about the 500s BC. Ah poo poo. Reading comprehension.
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Jan 5, 2018 19:07
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I listened to a lecture once that claimed governments that distributed power were so common in Greece because hoplite formations required a citizen base wealthy enough to afford armor, with enough leisure time to train, absolute trust in the man on their right, and enough loyalty to the state to stand and fight when the battle was heated (because even one man fleeing ruins the formation). Absolute monarchies have trouble with that.
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Jan 5, 2018 19:14
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Epicurius posted:Tyranny was very much a transitional government form I was tempted to call this a borderline tautology (what's the difference between a long-lasting tyranny and a monarchy?), but come to think of it, the Roman Empire could be considered a long-term tyranny (in the non-pejorative sense).
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Jan 5, 2018 19:41
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cheetah7071 posted:I listened to a lecture once that claimed governments that distributed power were so common in Greece because hoplite formations required a citizen base wealthy enough to afford armor, with enough leisure time to train, absolute trust in the man on their right, and enough loyalty to the state to stand and fight when the battle was heated (because even one man fleeing ruins the formation). Absolute monarchies have trouble with that. There's an old joke that it's called democracy instead of demarchy because the people use their threat of military force to rule.
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Jan 6, 2018 02:34
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*disgustedly writes φισμεκ on a shard of pottery and tosses it in the pile*
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