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Kassad posted: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. What other poo poo did Romans make up about non-Romans?
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Jul 3, 2018 08:39
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My Imaginary GF posted:What other poo poo did Romans make up about non-Romans? contrary to roman propaganda, not all germans are eight foot tall hairy barbarians, some are a mere six or seven feet tall
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Jul 3, 2018 08:42
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And rather than wear trousers, some of them wear nothing at all.
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Jul 3, 2018 08:44
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My Imaginary GF posted:What other poo poo did Romans make up about non-Romans? I was thinking mostly about the usual portrayal of Gauls as Worthy but Ultimately Inferior Barbarians, which is at odds with a lot of archeological finds. That's admittedly less making poo poo up than lying by omission.
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Jul 3, 2018 09:41
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Not an expert, but I often look at the argument of "The Romans/Greeks/Horse People of The Great Finnish Steppe were just making poo poo up about their enemies" with suspicion. It makes sense these days, when you got a printing press and mass media and you can tell your troops about how the Boche bayonet babies, but it's not the context that the Romans were writing in, in most cases. Like Kassad said, omissions are more likely than just making poo poo up.
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Jul 3, 2018 09:54
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Kemper Boyd posted:Not an expert, but I often look at the argument of "The Romans/Greeks/Horse People of The Great Finnish Steppe were just making poo poo up about their enemies" with suspicion. Conversely though your average Roman would never have been to such places or received reliable media from them; it doesn't need intentional malicious propaganda for incorrect things to become 'public knowledge'. Viz: Pliny the Elder on the peoples of India: 'He speaks also of another race of men, who are known as Monocoli, who have only one leg, but are able to leap with surprising agility. The same people are also called Sciapodae, because they are in the habit of lying on their backs, during the time of the extreme heat, and protect themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet.'
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Jul 3, 2018 10:17
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Kassad posted:I was thinking mostly about the usual portrayal of Gauls as Worthy but Ultimately Inferior Barbarians, which is at odds with a lot of archeological finds. "Modern archeology has proven that the Gauls were actually worthless."
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Jul 3, 2018 11:42
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I've always thought the child sacrifice stories were true. While there could be a great deal of embellished info from biased sources it speaks volumes that multiple cultures over hundreds of years assert that Baal worshipers did this. If it was just some desert tribe making poo poo up about their neighbors then the extent would be very limited and the Romans don't tend to accuse everyone of the same brutalities. They do manage some case specific jabs at their enimes. Obviously this isn't proof but when I was getting my anthro degree I was always interested in how these stories could be told by different cultures with different values but still hit on roughly the same points. My educated guess would be that Cathage did sacrifice children, probably poor ones or not their own and it was probably limited to specific ritual interactions. I also think the Romans deserve to be high roaded for their stories. "Oh the Carthagenians kill kids, gee no Roman ever killed a child under Jupiter's approving eye"... 
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Jul 3, 2018 12:01
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Epicurius posted:"Modern archeology has proven that the Gauls were actually worthless." The whole reason for the Gallic Wars was that Gaul got hosed up sniffing glue and chugging like and shat on Rome's couch for a laugh.
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Jul 3, 2018 12:28
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Kassad posted: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. To be fair, they also made poo poo up about each other.
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Jul 3, 2018 14:22
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Gauls reportedly did human sacrifice in some of their druidic rituals. Norse peoples as well. There's a thousand years of separation, but in the new world, Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans are also recorded as having practiced human sacrifice. Either it's a really common lie, or maybe our perspective is skewed from the ancient culture that took over Europe and North Africa being the one that didn't do any direct human sacrifice.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:25
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The Romans probably performed human sacrifice. They didn't by the time of the late republic, but a bunch of Roman rituals involved burning or hanging figures of people, which probably developed out of actual sacrifices, they've found bodies buried with probably ritual and sacred artifacts under the foundations of the Servian Walls, and gladatorial games probably started as funerary games, with the death of gladiators honoring and appeasing the spirit of the dead man.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:55
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Human sacrifice was not that unusual of a thing that I'm suspicious of claims about Carthage or whatever. Sacrificing children as a slander by the Romans, okay, but consider that the Romans themselves had no problem at all with throwing unwanted children literally into garbage heaps where they'd either die or be picked up for enslavement. That's not sacrifice exactly, but it's not all that far off. The Romans were against human sacrifice... except occasionally when things were really bad and they were desperate. And in fact one of those recorded Roman human sacrifices was of a baby, now that I'm thinking about it.
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Jul 3, 2018 17:11
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Isaac Asimov has a really good short story called The Dead Past where a guy tried to use a machine that can see the past to prove that the child sacrifices were Roman propaganda.
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Jul 3, 2018 19:13
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Isaac Asimov has a really good short story Don't believe ya.
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Jul 3, 2018 19:44
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Jazerus posted:
This is something of a misunderstanding. Yahweh is the name of a specific god. Ba'al is a term meaning lord and was used as a generic way to refer any given god, and then later also gained association with a particular god in certain groups. Some of the Semitic cultures, we are told mostly by outsiders, later stopped referring to their own conception of the best god by said god's own name, much as Yahweh was dropped from use, as a sign of respect (and incidentally we don't know that yahweh was the intended vowels to go with the consonants written, that's basically still just a best guess). And so when you went around saying ba'al in the context of a god in those places you were almost certainly using it to mean that god just like if an American says "God" they probably mean the Christian one. Over many centuries there were developments to shy away from use of the term ba'al in this context among what became the Jews as part of setting themselves apart from others, and also likely as a result of the popularity of it as some other god's main title, just as say adonai and other terms you see in the bible became the preferred way to refer to the Jewish god rather than the true name. So it's not that yahweh and ba'al were really interchangeable. You could call all the gods ba'al, and yahweh was one god of many that probably started with a different name, but the various gods later called ba'al in surviving records as their primary epithet were rarely if ever the same as yahweh. They were just also from the same sorts of previous religion.
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Jul 3, 2018 21:25
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Isaac Asimov has a really good short story called The Dead Past where a guy tried to use a machine that can see the past to prove that the child sacrifices were Roman propaganda. poo poo, that reminds me, can anybody remember the name of a short story (might be Asimov?) where they invent a machine that can view the past, but the more people who are trying to look the more it fucks with the timestream and makes it harder to see a specific point in time. So of course the first thing they do when they build it is try to go back and look at Jesus and see if he was REALLY the son of God, but it turns that that's what EVERYBODY who buys one of these things in the future immediately tries to do, so none of them can see a thing 
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Jul 4, 2018 05:28
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Jerusalem posted:poo poo, that reminds me, can anybody remember the name of a short story (might be Asimov?) where they invent a machine that can view the past, but the more people who are trying to look the more it fucks with the timestream and makes it harder to see a specific point in time.
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Jul 4, 2018 07:02
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SlothfulCobra posted:Gauls reportedly did human sacrifice in some of their druidic rituals. Norse peoples as well. There's a thousand years of separation, but in the new world, Incas, Aztecs, and Mayans are also recorded as having practiced human sacrifice. I remember reading that the Inca gave up on human sacrifices and replaced them with animal sacrifice. Just in time for the Europeans to show up and ruin their day.
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Jul 4, 2018 07:09
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Epicurius posted:The Romans probably performed human sacrifice. They didn't by the time of the late republic, but a bunch of Roman rituals involved burning or hanging figures of people, which probably developed out of actual sacrifices, they've found bodies buried with probably ritual and sacred artifacts under the foundations of the Servian Walls, and gladatorial games probably started as funerary games, with the death of gladiators honoring and appeasing the spirit of the dead man. The last time we know of Romans doing official ritual human sacrifice (outside of punishments like throwing people off the Tarpeian rock or burying a Vestal Virgin underground for sexual relations) is 216 BC, when according to Livy they buried a male and female Greek and male and female Gaul to heed off the defeat after Cannae. Plutarch reports the same ritual just a few years before, when they did it in the face of the Gallic invasion. So it's not that far removed from all the reports of babarians doing these things outraging the Roman public. It was also used again and again to accuse political opponents, accusing them of sacrificing enemies and friends to gods for their own ends. Decius fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 08:04
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Yeah, I don't think human sacrifice was that unusual, and I think a lot of it is up to interpretation. From my understanding, a lot of human sacrifice the world over used criminals and captives, so it can sometimes be seen in a similar context to public execution or the killing of prisoners. They're both perfomative violence. I mean, the Romans were fine with mass crucification but one guy gets strangled in a bog and all of a sudden it's barbaric and disgusting.
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Jul 4, 2018 08:28
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FishFood posted:Yeah, I don't think human sacrifice was that unusual, and I think a lot of it is up to interpretation. From my understanding, a lot of human sacrifice the world over used criminals and captives, so it can sometimes be seen in a similar context to public execution or the killing of prisoners. They're both perfomative violence. I mean, the Romans were fine with mass crucification but one guy gets strangled in a bog and all of a sudden it's barbaric and disgusting. So yes and no. It's actually becoming more likely that many sacrifices were voluntary affairs. That shouldn't be too hard to believe either considering the modern suicide bomber, the christian martyrs in China and North Korea and the various Hindu nationalists who have died for their specific causes. As for other people I think that might be more propaganda than anything. How are the gods pleased by the blood of someone who isn't even of your group? Maybe the gods are pleased by victory and the blood of enemies but if that were only the case then Rome wouldn't have had reason to be so lenient of conquered armies. (Obviously not always but enough to show a strong trend which could be contrasted by, say, the Mongols. Or to say it differently; you kill criminals and enemy soldiers to please the state, you kill your own to please the gods and the people killed for the gods are likely on board for the afterlife rewards of being sacrificed. Early Christian's are clear examples of Romans bring pretty okay with death in exchange for the reward of being a martyr and would likely have been part of the extension of pagan ideologies in the church. Others too but that one is the low hanging fruit. Still this issue is pretty big and a central human theme even up till the current day. I don't claim to know it all so I am willing to hear more about the Roman concept of self sacrifice to the gods/state and the narrow line separating the two.
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Jul 4, 2018 14:45
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FishFood posted:Yeah, I don't think human sacrifice was that unusual, and I think a lot of it is up to interpretation. From my understanding, a lot of human sacrifice the world over used criminals and captives, so it can sometimes be seen in a similar context to public execution or the killing of prisoners. They're both perfomative violence. I mean, the Romans were fine with mass crucification but one guy gets strangled in a bog and all of a sudden it's barbaric and disgusting. Do you have an example of criminals being used? Seems a bit rude to give criminals to the god imo.
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Jul 4, 2018 16:56
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Mr Enderby posted:Do you have an example of criminals being used? Modern America.
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Jul 4, 2018 17:02
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Mr Enderby posted:Do you have an example of criminals being used? Seems a bit rude to give criminals to the god imo. Seems like burning people you don't like at the stake might be a good example.
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Jul 4, 2018 17:40
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sullat posted:Seems like burning people you don't like at the stake might be a good example. There's an awful lot of burning at the stake of criminals in history, but it's not usual that's being done as a religious sacrifice. Caesar claims the Gauls used to do that, but that's really all I can think of. Usually execution by burning is strictly punitive.
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Jul 4, 2018 17:50
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Epicurius posted:There's an awful lot of burning at the stake of criminals in history, but it's not usual that's being done as a religious sacrifice. Caesar claims the Gauls used to do that, but that's really all I can think of. Usually execution by burning is strictly punitive. I feel like the distinction between burning someone at the stake because you want to punish them for offending God and burning them at the stake as a human sacrifice is somewhat meaningless, especially to the person being burned.
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Jul 4, 2018 18:20
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sullat posted:I feel like the distinction between burning someone at the stake because you want to punish them for offending God and burning them at the stake as a human sacrifice is somewhat meaningless, especially to the person being burned. the distinction between all kinds of different reasons for being murdered are not super significant to the person being murdered, but the context was this argument: FishFood posted:Yeah, I don't think human sacrifice was that unusual, and I think a lot of it is up to interpretation. From my understanding, a lot of human sacrifice the world over used criminals and captives, so it can sometimes be seen in a similar context to public execution or the killing of prisoners. They're both perfomative violence. I mean, the Romans were fine with mass crucification but one guy gets strangled in a bog and all of a sudden it's barbaric and disgusting. so yes it obviously does matter whether we're talking about actual human sacrifices vs. people executed for religious crimes
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Jul 4, 2018 18:26
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Paulywallywalrus posted:So yes and no. It's actually becoming more likely that many sacrifices were voluntary affairs. That shouldn't be too hard to believe either considering the modern suicide bomber, the christian martyrs in China and North Korea and the various Hindu nationalists who have died for their specific causes. What I've read about the Aztec beliefs is that they believed that this world would only exist as long as their god was still cosmically ascendant--the instant another god took over, it'd be wiped away for another world. Human sacrifice was the most effective way to strengthen him, so they had a spiritual duty to go to war to get prisoners for sacrifice. They at least seemed to think that foreigners sacrificed at least as well as locals.
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Jul 4, 2018 18:53
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Mr Enderby posted:Do you have an example of criminals being used? Seems a bit rude to give criminals to the god imo. The point of sacrificing something is that you're giving up something of value. "We were gonna kill this rear end in a top hat anyway" seems like a lovely justification and I would assume that any deity receiving such a crappy sacrifice would set that society aside for an extra helping of wrath.
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Jul 4, 2018 19:22
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sullat posted:I feel like the distinction between burning someone at the stake because you want to punish them for offending God and burning them at the stake as a human sacrifice is somewhat meaningless, especially to the person being burned. It's a distinction important to the society and culture that's doing it, though, because societies can conceptualize similar actions in different ways. Why people do things matter. If you take the case of, say, one person killing another, you have a bunch of different reasons it could happen: 1. The first person wants revenge against the second person. 2. The first person wants to take the second person's stuff and thinks it'll be easier to get if the second person is dead. 3. The first person acts in a careless manner and through his carelessness accidentally kills the second person 4. The first person does not act in a careless manner, and still accidentally kills the second person. 5. The second person is trying to kill the first person and the first person kills him in self defense. 6. The second person is a figure of authority and the first person kills him as a political statement 7. The second person is a member of a despised underclass or minority and the first person kills him as part of mob hatred 8. The first person is a soldier in a war and the second person is a soldier of an enemy state 9. The first person is a soldier in a war and the second person is a citizen or resident of an enemy state 10 The first person is a state approved executioner and the second person is someone sentenced to death 11. The first person is a priest and the second person is designated a sacrifice to the first person's god etc, etc. All of these are the same basic act....person 1 kills person 2, but they're also 11 different acts, because the society views them differently and views person 1's action's differently based on the context and the scenario. That's why you can never look at somebody's actions independently. You always have to ask what somebody's choices and actions meant in the historical and cultural environment in which they performed them.
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Jul 4, 2018 19:28
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cheetah7071 posted:What I've read about the Aztec beliefs is that they believed that this world would only exist as long as their god was still cosmically ascendant--the instant another god took over, it'd be wiped away for another world. Human sacrifice was the most effective way to strengthen him, so they had a spiritual duty to go to war to get prisoners for sacrifice. They at least seemed to think that foreigners sacrificed at least as well as locals. This makes me wonder what the Aztecs had to believe about the Europeans slaughtering their way through them. Did they interpret this as their god failing and the world ending, or did they assume their god had betrayed them and changed sides to the invaders?
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Jul 4, 2018 20:46
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Libluini posted:This makes me wonder what the Aztecs had to believe about the Europeans slaughtering their way through them. Did they interpret this as their god failing and the world ending, or did they assume their god had betrayed them and changed sides to the invaders? I'm probably wrong but, I'm pretty sure diseases brought by Europeans killed a lot more people than Europeans themselves did. *Edit: This is not to say we didn't massacre them. We absolutely did. We massacred those who were left.
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Jul 4, 2018 20:54
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Libluini posted:This makes me wonder what the Aztecs had to believe about the Europeans slaughtering their way through them. Did they interpret this as their god failing and the world ending, or did they assume their god had betrayed them and changed sides to the invaders? The fact that Cortez had managed to take the capital city with only a few hundred people (and a bunch of rebelling provincial armies but let's not fuss over details) was a not-entirely-unconvincing argument in favor of christianity
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Jul 4, 2018 21:03
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Dalael posted:I'm probably wrong but, I'm pretty sure diseases brought by Europeans killed a lot more people than Europeans themselves did. You're 105% right, but still, your god doesn't really look good if massdeath turns your entire home into a realm of desolation. (In fact, diseases killed so many natives it's mind boggling. The Maya for example suffered approximately 90+% population loss. The losses from attempts to fight the Europeans came in addition to that ) That said, one shouldn't forget it wasn't completely one-sided: Yellow fever regularly killed at least a third of every force of colonists/soldiers/adventurers arriving from Europe. One example: During the Haitian Revolution, the infamour Leclerc Expedition lost an incredible amount of Europeans to the disease, including eventually Leclerc himself.
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Jul 4, 2018 22:03
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Dalael posted:I'm probably wrong but, I'm pretty sure diseases brought by Europeans killed a lot more people than Europeans themselves did. Its only inaccurate to say Europeans decimated American populations because there weren't enough people left to reach 10%
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Jul 4, 2018 22:08
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cheetah7071 posted:What I've read about the Aztec beliefs is that they believed that this world would only exist as long as their god was still cosmically ascendant--the instant another god took over, it'd be wiped away for another world. Human sacrifice was the most effective way to strengthen him, so they had a spiritual duty to go to war to get prisoners for sacrifice. They at least seemed to think that foreigners sacrificed at least as well as locals. There has been some revisions on this. There are graves that show sacrificed warriors from other city States but the graves are treated with a lot of respect. Not something we would expect. It could imply that many were acrificed from allied states as no other foreign graves show up in the record. They still may have been coerced but the graves commonly appear with warriors from the dominant state so there is that. Edit: to bring it back around to the subject. I think the issue of what Romans said or thought about human sacrifice is a bizzare study. They have an incredible ability to be tone deaf to their own propaganda when looking at their own society. So Carthage probably burned babies alive but the Romans emptied several towns and cities of everything and marched out in ankle deep blood and admit to it. This is why I say Carthage probably did sacrifice kids and adults. If the Romans really felt killing children was wrong in whole they would have omitted all their own accounts of this kind of act or would have avoided bringing it up about their enmies. It makes some sense to say their observation is a kind of comparison to say, "look we only kill kids during war but our enemies, those bastards kill kids during peace and they kill their own to boot!". The Romans talk about their own inter-roman politics this way and I draw the line only at how far the source is from the first and second Punic wars. The farther away the romans get the more fantastical the claims against Carthage get save only for Hannibal himself who seems to get pretty good Roman press as far as Rome is concerned. Paulywallywalrus fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 23:39
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Libluini posted:This makes me wonder what the Aztecs had to believe about the Europeans slaughtering their way through them. Did they interpret this as their god failing and the world ending, or did they assume their god had betrayed them and changed sides to the invaders? Here's their own words.
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Jul 5, 2018 22:27
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P-Mack posted:Here's their own words. anyone know of a more comprehensible translation?
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Jul 6, 2018 00:21
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Tunicate posted:anyone know of a more comprehensible translation? Thats pretty comprehensible already though? I do agree the that the line breaks they use are kinda funky but at least to me the message is pretty clear. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Jul 6, 2018 |
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Jul 6, 2018 00:41
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