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Grand Fromage posted:There's a lot of debate over Caracalla's actions, though I've never seen anyone argue they were good for the empire. I have never actually heard of this honestiores/humiliores thing before so I can't address it, though the fact that it's never come up in the absurd amount of time I've spent studying this stuff makes me suspect it isn't considered that important. honestiore/humiliore is obscure but not wholly unimportant - honestiores is the broader category that the 'senatorial' and 'equite' classes fall into, and so probably for a while military service continued to be attractive because that really is quite the jump in status for a farmer's son. the quality of the roman armies was still high for a while after caracalla, after all. but once the veterans outnumbered the actual senatorial/equites, and the crisis screwed up the whole social fabric, it seems to have shaken out such that nobody particularly gave a drat about the distinction any longer.
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Jun 26, 2018 04:41
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I think part of why Caracalla is still debated so much is the Crisis comes along so soon after that it's hard to say how his reforms would've shaken out without the part where the empire falls to pieces for decades.
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Jun 26, 2018 04:44
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Jazerus posted:the wealthy essentially abandoned their civic duties - military, infrastructure, etc. - during the crisis of the third century in favor of building their self-sufficient proto-manors because the economy was mega-screwed at the time, and nobody ever managed to convince them to pick those duties back up Yeah and I remember from the History of Rome, the reason the rich had originally assumed all those civic duties - and the associated expenses - is that that was how you advanced your political career. As the army and Imperial bureaucracy gradually took more and more of political functions away from the old aristocratic classes, they lost their incentive to participate in the civic life of the empire.
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Jun 26, 2018 04:52
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Also not to pick on Christians, they also are a factor here too, the church assumed a lot of duties formerly filled by rich bastards wanting to look good to the people. Then they also gobbled up lots of land too in essentially the medieval version of rich bastards today setting up "charity" foundations that are essentially just tax shelters with little charity done. Except in this time you turn your manor into a monastery, put your cousin Ioannes in charge as abbott and bam now the Emperor can't tax your farm.
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Jun 26, 2018 05:29
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I think the Roman tendency to integrate people and hand out citizenship is overblown, at least during the Republic. The Social War was started by cities that had been under Roman control for centuries and they still didn't have citizenship. That would be like if Iowa still didn't have statehood and its residents weren't US citizens. Later on they do get more free with it obviously.
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Jun 26, 2018 13:57
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When people talk about the Roman ideology of integration, they are referring to a specific ideology which entirely postdated the social war and was probably largely inspired by its outcome. When Caesar brought men from modern Lombardy into the senate, the senators sneered at them as a bunch of pants-wearing scum. Within 150 years a man from Spain held absolute rule over the whole Roman world and was declared “the best ruler” by decree of the senate. That’s what people are talking about.
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Jun 26, 2018 14:18
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OctaviusBeaver posted:I think the Roman tendency to integrate people and hand out citizenship is overblown, at least during the Republic. The Social War was started by cities that had been under Roman control for centuries and they still didn't have citizenship. That would be like if Iowa still didn't have statehood and its residents weren't US citizens. Later on they do get more free with it obviously. I mean, this is a problem for almost any aspect of discussing Roman society... any generalized statements only apply to a small portion of the history. Hence why Rome has a reputation for being both unstable (because people are thinking of the crisis years, or the civil wars around the end of the Republic) and very stable (because people are thinking of the centuries in between). Likewise, the famed Roman integration was fairly lacking in the Republic, as you note, but is definitely a key aspect of the later empire.
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Jun 26, 2018 14:24
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skasion posted:Within 150 years a man from Spain held absolute rule over the whole Roman world and was declared “the best ruler” by decree of the senate. That’s what people are talking about. It's true, but the Trajan thing also can be overstated. Trajan was from Hispania, but he was also from an Italian family. He was the descendant of soldiers in Scipio's army, born in a colony set up for Scipio's Italian auxiliaries.
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Jun 26, 2018 14:52
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Jack2142 posted:Another thing is how relatively inclusive they were from the outset on bringing people into the fold by expanding citizenship or offering it in exchange for service etc. Also establishing colonies that maintained loyalty to Rome whereas the old Greek and Phoenician ones broke away and formed their own identities. *edit: comment already answered Dalael fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 14:59
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Dalael posted:
To be fair the Romans did seem to extend Pre-Social War varying degrees of citizenship to client states. Which while not maybe the most inclusive, at least did bring them into the "Roman" system. Also as mentioned when a group of Roman Soldiers like Trajan's ancestors established a colony in Spain, they stayed Roman citizens and still held ties to and saw themselves as Romans. You don't really see that happening for Greek or Phoenician colonies maintaining that degree of continuity with their founding city. They generally tended to go off their own direction...
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Jun 27, 2018 07:51
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I feel really dumb for asking this but, does the Sphynx trully have a tail? Saw this on imgur today and it had never occured to me that it does. I have never ever seen a picture of the sphynx from behind before. Is this a troll? 
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Jun 28, 2018 00:47
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Dalael posted:I feel really dumb for asking this but, does the Sphynx trully have a tail? Saw this on imgur today and it had never occured to me that it does. I have never ever seen a picture of the sphynx from behind before. Is this a troll? I played Assassins creed origins and i can tell you that it does. It also has a small hole under the tail that takes you to the first civilization bunker.
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Jun 28, 2018 01:39
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Did the legionaries becoming honestiore start with Caracalla? It seems like it would be destabilizing. I presume ones children would retain the rank. How many legionaries would make it to retirement?
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Jun 28, 2018 10:38
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Yeah I was wondering about legionary retirement earlier- did you reasonably expect to survive your 20 years (iirc?) service?
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Jun 28, 2018 19:55
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Yeah I was wondering about legionary retirement earlier- did you reasonably expect to survive your 20 years (iirc?) service? 25 years in the high empire. Most legionaries did survive their term, or settling veterans wouldn’t have been such a persistent issue in the late republic. Legionary colony towns can be found virtually all over Roman Europe anyhow. It was the military, so people did get killed and sometimes very many got killed at a time, but most legionaries weren’t going off to war for most of their term. You were hardly as safe as modern citizen of a first world country, but the same could be said of any Roman subject.
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Jun 28, 2018 20:09
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carthago delenda est http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-23-ancient-carthaginians-really-did-sacrifice-their-children
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Jun 28, 2018 21:28
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Pontius Pilate posted:carthago delenda est Is it just me, or does this article make a ton of presumptions about Punic society and history that are unwarranted? Cool fact tho
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Jun 28, 2018 21:53
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Amgard posted:Is it just me, or does this article make a ton of presumptions about Punic society and history that are unwarranted?
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Jun 28, 2018 22:11
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Pontius Pilate posted:carthago delenda est I always knew Cabiria was a documentary.
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Jun 28, 2018 22:14
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Crosspostin’
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Jun 29, 2018 00:15
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"Some artifacts purchased by Hobby Lobby and returned to Iraq come from an ancient Sumerian city — and indicate life there was "pretty good," an expert says.": https://www.npr.org/2018/06/28/6235...ontent=20180628
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Jun 29, 2018 00:40
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Yeah I was wondering about legionary retirement earlier- did you reasonably expect to survive your 20 years (iirc?) service? Yep. There's a certain amount of guesswork for obvious reasons but it seems like a solid majority of legionaries made it to retirement. You weren't in battle all that often, and a victorious ancient battle meant fairly minimal deaths on your side. Even losing usually means the majority of your army survives. Legionaries had the best available medical care of the era, so your chance of surviving injury was the best you could hope for. From skeletal remains legionaries appeared to be pretty healthy, well-fed and not particularly prone to disease--the Roman appreciation of sanitation played a role here, I presume. There are also a lot of documented periods when providing discharge bonuses for veterans was a serious problem for the state, which is further evidence plenty of soldiers were making it to the end of their service. Other circumstantial evidence comes from the fact that the auxilia do not seem to have had problems recruiting, which suggests the men signing up believed they would make it to retirement. I don't think there would've been a rush to sign up if you thought there was a good chance you'd end up dead.
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Jun 29, 2018 03:06
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skasion posted:Crosspostin’ I know what they're going for but isn't ripae 'of the river bank' (or dative, or plural) here?  Edit: I note it's what Google Translate suggests for bank though. Don't trust Google Translate kids! feedmegin fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 30, 2018 |
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Jun 30, 2018 19:15
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Mutuavit is also not a used form of mutuari I think. If it weren't a deponent verb it could be 3. person perfect indicative but there's already a finite verb there. I did enjoy it a lot. I tried to make a Greek version but my artistic skills aren't up to the task of making it good.
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Jun 30, 2018 21:53
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feedmegin posted:I know what they're going for but isn't ripae 'of the river bank' (or dative, or plural) here?
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Jun 30, 2018 21:56
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Grevling fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Jul 3, 2018 |
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Jun 30, 2018 22:28
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are those loss
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Jun 30, 2018 22:31
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Why are those flutes strapped to the guy's head?
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Jul 1, 2018 21:44
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Power Khan posted:Why are those flutes strapped to the guy's head? the greek double flute was hard to play and some of them were strapped to the head to reduce strain on the musician https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aulos
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Jul 1, 2018 21:51
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Pontius Pilate posted:carthago delenda est I'll never understand why people were so skeptical at the idea that the Carthaginians did horrible things. History shows that humans have the capacity to do horrible things. We can believe that a Transylvanian lord impaled people but we can't imagine that Carthaginian society sacrificed children?
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Jul 3, 2018 07:03
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It's because almost every ancient piece of writing about Carthage is from the perspective of the Romans. They made poo poo up about foreigners constantly.
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Jul 3, 2018 07:14
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CountFosco posted:I'll never understand why people were so skeptical at the idea that the Carthaginians did horrible things. History shows that humans have the capacity to do horrible things. We can believe that a Transylvanian lord impaled people but we can't imagine that Carthaginian society sacrificed children? Imagine if all we had to reconstruct WWII-era Japan was American propaganda from the 40's. They obviously would have been some kind of bad dudes, but I would forgive people for being a little skeptical that they were all buck toothed, glasses wearing saboteurs who bumble around and eat babies. It's obviously not 100% accurate but all our sources on Carthage are from Rome and they're not exactly going to be charitable to their mortal enemies.
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Jul 3, 2018 07:27
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the phoenician religion was pretty closely tied to ancient judaism yahweh and baal are semi-interchangeable during the really early days, and only as the two cultures differentiated did they solidify as two distinctly separate deities. anybody thinking about the plausibility of phoenician (and thus carthaginian) child sacrifice should probably consider things like the near-sacrifice of isaac, which is a very incongruent story for the modern abrahamic religions but could hold a very different meaning in the face of a neighboring culture that does regularly sacrifice children. maybe abraham even goes through with it in a lost phoenician version of the story? anyway while the romans loved a good slander i'm hesitant to write it off entirely
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Jul 3, 2018 07:34
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It's argued (convincingly, to my eyes) in Carthage Must Be Destroyed that they probably stuck to sacrificing stillborn or otherwise dead children as an everyday sort of thing but resorted to live sacrifices in times of crisis because you wanted to make extra sure the gods were pleased
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Jul 3, 2018 07:37
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Don Gato posted:Imagine if all we had to reconstruct WWII-era Japan was American propaganda from the 40's. They obviously would have been some kind of bad dudes, but I would forgive people for being a little skeptical that they were all buck toothed, glasses wearing saboteurs who bumble around and eat babies. To continue the analogy, archaeologists then dug up a bunch of WWII era japanese graveyards and found they were full of spectacles, buck-toothed skulls, and copies of To Serve Man, but people still argued it was just a coincidence peer posted:It's argued (convincingly, to my eyes) in Carthage Must Be Destroyed that they probably stuck to sacrificing stillborn or otherwise dead children as an everyday sort of thing but resorted to live sacrifices in times of crisis because you wanted to make extra sure the gods were pleased You can read the paper directly here: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2016.270 They refute that theory pretty convincingly - Smith's arguments are basically wishful thinking. Tunicate fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jul 3, 2018 |
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Jul 3, 2018 07:52
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Tunicate posted:To continue the analogy, archaeologists then dug up a bunch of WWII era japanese graveyards and found they were full of spectacles, buck-toothed skulls, and copies of To Serve Man, but people still argued it was just a coincidence That link doesn’t work, doesn’t even show the article name.
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Jul 3, 2018 08:00
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I remember one of the texts in my Near Eastern religion class argued that the various old testament reports of neighboring peoples (and apostate Israelites) sacrificing children must be untrue, and went on to basically suggest that them having written this in the old testament was directly equivalent to later blood libel against the Jews in Europe and elsewhere. It was really a bit of a weird read; it felt like they were maybe just a bit overeager to suggest that the Jews deserved ill treatment. There has certainly been a traditional association between Carthaginian child sacrifice and the Moloch sacrifices described in the old testament; that said, I don't know that that's a very modern idea. Scarodactyl fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jul 3, 2018 |
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Jul 3, 2018 08:00
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9-Volt Assault posted:That link doesn’t work, doesn’t even show the article name. edited with DOI link. Friggin' google scholar this might go direct unless it fucks up again https://www.cambridge.org/core/serv...t_sacrifice.pdf
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Jul 3, 2018 08:04
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Scarodactyl posted:I remember one of the texts in my Near Eastern religion class argued that the various old testament reports of neighboring peoples (and apostate Israelites) sacrificing children must be untrue, and went on to basically suggest that them having written this in the old testament was directly equivalent to later blood libel against the Jews in Europe and elsewhere. It was really a bit of a weird read; it felt like they were maybe just a bit overeager to suggest that the Jews deserved ill treatment.
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Jul 3, 2018 08:06
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That's me. Don't ask where my slight tremor came from or why everything I own is made of leather.
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Jul 3, 2018 08:17
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