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The Lone Badger posted:Except Sea People. By the Cea People I presume you meant the Celts
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Aug 16, 2018 21:22
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FreudianSlippers posted:If Sea People evolved from Sea Monkeys how come there are still Sea Monkeys? Sea People evolved from Aquatic Apes, duh!
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Aug 16, 2018 21:33
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Grape posted:
My point was more that there are Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages all over the place in the east making them decidedly not "isolates".
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Aug 16, 2018 22:02
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Acting like Turkish is some kind of mysterious independently developed language from its surroundings is silly anyways, since its origins in that area are pretty obvious and well-documented, and it has some cousins over to the immediate east anyways. Might as well call English an isolate to Britain.
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Aug 16, 2018 22:27
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Phokas? More like Fuckass.
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Aug 19, 2018 07:18
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How come you often see gods mentioned with different names? Like, say Athena Nike and Athena Parthenos. I've seen a lot of different jupiters around too for instance.
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Aug 19, 2018 12:29
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jupiter optimus maximus is the best and greatest of those
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Aug 19, 2018 12:37
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underage at the vape shop posted:How come you often see gods mentioned with different names? Like, say Athena Nike and Athena Parthenos. I've seen a lot of different jupiters around too for instance. The gods were believed to be physically extant--or at least manifest--in multiple physical locations.
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Aug 19, 2018 13:02
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underage at the vape shop posted:How come you often see gods mentioned with different names? Like, say Athena Nike and Athena Parthenos. I've seen a lot of different jupiters around too for instance. Different aspects. "In this temple, we sacrifice to Athena in her aspect as the goddess who gave us Victory at Plataea. In that temple, we sacrifice to Athena in her aspect as a Divine Virgin."
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Aug 19, 2018 13:09
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Different aspects. "In this temple, we sacrifice to Athena in her aspect as the goddess who gave us Victory at Plataea. In that temple, we sacrifice to Athena in her aspect as a Divine Virgin." also they were probably different gods to begin with but the more mainstream/bookish/high-level greek culture hoovered these local gods up into the mainstream by assimilating them to the mainstream deities. the same thing happens in india today, google "sanskritization"
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Aug 19, 2018 13:33
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Epithets of a god can: 1) delineate function. Jupiter Tonans (the thundering) should not be considered the same character/concept as Jupiter Nundinarius (of the weeks: the guardian of the calendar). 2) delineate location. Jupiter Capitolinus on the Capitoline hill, Jupiter Viminalis on the Viminal, Jupiter Appeninus was an oracular Jupiter in a mountain pass...most epithets were like this and referred to the god of a specific cult center, who was a different object or presence than the same god might be at a different cult center. 3) reflect syncretism. The cult of Jupiter Serapis can be considered a merging of the Ptolemaic-supported cult of Serapis (amusingly, he was himself a portmanteau of Osiris and Apis) into the Roman world where cults of Jupiter were more prosocial. 4) just talk the god up. “Jupiter Optimus Maximus” most often means the god who inhabited the Capitoline temple, but enormous number of his other epithets just tacked an Opt. Max. onto the end anyway.
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Aug 19, 2018 13:34
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This is all really interesting. So even though they are different concepts and should be considred seperate, are they both "Jupiter"? Like would romans consider Jupiter Capitolinus and Jupiter Tonans to both be Jupiter acting in different ways, or is it more like a guild of many Jupiters who together make up the central idea of Jupiter the god?
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Aug 19, 2018 14:05
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Hard to be precise about any of this since pre-Christian Romans didn’t really write theological texts and their organized cults and philosophical writers were not generally concerned with these sorts of questions, as far as we know. Religions like these seem to have been more focused on the ritual aspect than on answering exactly what the nature of the god was. The major philosophical schools of the Roman era tended to disregard traditional religious explanations of the world and skipped right to materialism (Epicureans) or pantheism (Stoics). So it is hard to find any clear, contemporary explanation of what exactly anyone believed about the natures of the gods. In the end we have to go by the common sense evidence, which suggests that your former interpretation is more correct: a god’s aspects were different enough to be given different bynames but not different enough to be given different names altogether. A god was a vaguely defined entity with a number of epithets or characters, not a college of entities.
skasion fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Aug 19, 2018 |
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Aug 19, 2018 14:28
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underage at the vape shop posted:This is all really interesting. So even though they are different concepts and should be considred seperate, are they both "Jupiter"? Like would romans consider Jupiter Capitolinus and Jupiter Tonans to both be Jupiter acting in different ways, or is it more like a guild of many Jupiters who together make up the central idea of Jupiter the god? From my experience as a member of a religion that believes in saints, I'd say the first. This is a statue of Our Lady of Fatima. In the early 20th century Mary supposedly appeared to three Portugese children dressed in this exact way at a certain place. She made certain prophecies. People who venerate Our Lady of Fatima are recalling this event, which took place at that place. But this statue is not Our Lady of Fatima itself, that's the apparition, which was spiritual.  This is Our Lady of the Gate Of Dawn. Unlike the Our Lady of Fatima example, this particular painting, this object is that thing, all other pictures of this are a copy of it. The painting was done in the early 17th century, and hung above a gate in Vilnius. In 1702 the city was captured by the Swedish army, and the gate associated with this picture fell down and crushed some Swedish soldiers. Then the people of the city started venerating this painting. She's also associated with a group of representations of Mary called "Black Madonnas," who are venerated as a group for certain reasons--all of which happened long after any of the Black Madonnas were created.  This is the Kursk Root Icon of the Mother of God. Unlike the Fatima example but like Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, the story is about a physical object: one day in 1259 a hunter lifted a root in the woods and found this. Obviously a supernatural act. This icon has been associated with numerous miracles. It's so potent that certain famous copies of it also supposedly work miracles.  These are all representations of the same human being. But two out of three of them are also sacred objects. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 15:45 on Aug 19, 2018 |
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Aug 19, 2018 14:35
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Reading Tom Holland's Dynasty and the naming situation is a goddamn clusterfuck. It's apparently Julias and Drusus's all the way down.
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Aug 19, 2018 18:47
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aphid_licker posted:Reading Tom Holland's Dynasty and the naming situation is a goddamn clusterfuck. It's apparently Julias and Drusus's all the way down. Every republican noble family was more or less like this, same names generation after generation. It’s easy to forget that the guy we now think of almost entirely as Octavian or Augustus originally rose to power under the name of Gaius Julius Caesar.
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Aug 19, 2018 19:20
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That's why the cool nicknames.
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Aug 20, 2018 03:27
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Yeah noble families are annoying as hell to follow through history. Just a sample from the Julii Caesares:code:
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Aug 20, 2018 03:35
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When did people get the idea to finally number the rulers with the same name instead of playing fast and loose with middle names, honorifics, and nicknames?
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Aug 20, 2018 03:37
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Hahaha just the Wikipedia article of "Gaius Julius Caesar" is ridiculous. code:I didn't know that Caligula had the name though, that's interesting. edit-- Apparently Gaius Iulius Gai(i) filius Gai(i) nepos Caesar was rarely used, that would at least be easier to understand. I guess I need to read all about praenomina/nomina/cognomina.
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Aug 20, 2018 03:47
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Augustus would be pissed that Octavianus was in his wikipedia title
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Aug 20, 2018 03:48
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The thing about Roman names, especially high class Roman names is that there were a few rules that make figuring out who's who. 1. In the late Republic, there were only like 18 praenomen for men. 2. Most families only used a few. So, to take the Julii, they were four praenomen they used. Pretty much every Julius who was actually a member of the family was Gaius, Lucius, Sextus, or Vopiscus, and Vopiscus was only used by the Julii Iuli. 3. Women didn't get praenomen for the most part in the late Republic..
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Aug 20, 2018 04:05
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SlothfulCobra posted:When did people get the idea to finally number the rulers with the same name instead of playing fast and loose with middle names, honorifics, and nicknames? A really long time later, in the late Middle Ages I believe. Even though later Roman emperors (Constantine’s family for example) are often referred to with regnal numbers for convenience, this is anachronistic and ancient historians just called them by their names and assumed you could figure out who was being discussed from context.
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Aug 20, 2018 04:07
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Epicurius posted:The thing about Roman names, especially high class Roman names is that there were a few rules that make figuring out who's who. Traditionally in the early republic they just named daughters with the female form of the nomen gentile and a Major/Minor to distinguish sisters. Or if there were more than two daughters, you’d get Julia Prima, Julia Secunda, Julia Tertia... By the early empire convention seems to have shifted on this point though, if it ever really was that way.
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Aug 20, 2018 04:12
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As far as we know, the first ruler to take a regnal number was Pope John XXI in the 13th century, and we know he did it because he counted wrong. He should have been Pope John XX, but in a list of popes, John XIV, who was pope, and then deposed and then became pope again, was listed twice, so, when John XXI was trying to figure out what number he should be, he counted him twice. But he's the first ruler to actually use a regnal number. If you look at English coins, for instance, the first king who put a regnal number on the coin appears to be Henry VIII.
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Aug 20, 2018 04:20
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SlothfulCobra posted:When did people get the idea to finally number the rulers with the same name instead of playing fast and loose with middle names, honorifics, and nicknames? I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, yes, it, makes record-keeping and history much clearer. On the other hand, we lose out on funny names like Arnulf the Bad and Erik the Short-Changer. E: apparently there was a dude called Eystein the Fart Elyv fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Aug 20, 2018 |
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Aug 20, 2018 05:18
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COOL CORN posted:
This looks like a IUPAC nomenclature system for emperors.
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Aug 20, 2018 06:06
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Archeology question: Is there a methodology that uses river sediments to estimate population levels, or at least irregation and diversion rates? If you knew a population lived along a river, and had no idea the population size, what methods would you use to estimate population size?
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Aug 20, 2018 08:58
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cheetah7071 posted:Augustus would be pissed that Octavianus was in his wikipedia title Potential thread title spotted.
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Aug 20, 2018 11:41
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this is still a thing in some cultures, my father's family uses only two names for men
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Aug 20, 2018 12:59
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Last night as I was going to sleep, I turned on Netflix's "The Roman Empire", which is this combination dramatic reenactment/historian talking head thing, and the first season was about Commodus. I don't really remember much of it...like I said, I was falling asleep, but the one thing I do remember is how the guy they got to play Marcus Aurelius looked nothing like Marcus Aurelius. I mean, this guy was thin to almost gauntness, balding, and cleanshaven. I'm also always amazed at the whole, "Why would Marcus Aurelius make his Commodus Emperor when he was so ill suited for it?" debate. I mean, guy had one son who survived him. He's the obvious choice.
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Aug 20, 2018 13:49
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Epicurius posted:Last night as I was going to sleep, I turned on Netflix's "The Roman Empire", which is this combination dramatic reenactment/historian talking head thing, and the first season was about Commodus. I don't really remember much of it...like I said, I was falling asleep, but the one thing I do remember is how the guy they got to play Marcus Aurelius looked nothing like Marcus Aurelius. I mean, this guy was thin to almost gauntness, balding, and cleanshaven. The first season of that show was pretty good, even though very inaccurate as far as I know. It did kinda show Commodus in a better light than what he's usually shown. Season 2 seemed to start well at first, but then it shows Ceasar being an actual prisoner in Egypt and I thought that was pretty weird and stopped right there.
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Aug 20, 2018 14:05
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Dio says that Marcus had once been fit but in middle age was extremely frail, and we know that his health was poor, especially near the end of his life. So nothing wrong with that imo. The hair is an unforgivable sin though. The more surprising thing about Commodus is not that Marcus chose him — he had no other obvious choice — but that it took so long for everyone else to reject him.
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Aug 20, 2018 14:06
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skasion posted:.The more surprising thing about Commodus is not that Marcus chose him — he had no other obvious choice — but that it took so long for everyone else to reject him. By everyone else, you mean the Senate, riggt? Because, as far as I know, the general public and the army (except for that jerk Russell Crowe) liked him well enough throughout his reign.
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Aug 20, 2018 14:17
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The surprising thing is the army. Every Roman ruler from like, Marius on down was most threatened by the possibility that a successful general would decide to exploit the loyalty of his troops to wrest control of the state from him. The best way to avoid this was to be a successful general yourself, but Commodus wasn’t: he never led troops under his father, being too young, and once he ruled by himself he never went on campaign again. It’s not that there was a shortage of ambitious generals in the empire at the time either, since as soon as he was dead we get a war between five of them about who gets to be emperor now. I guess he just paid them all well enough that things kept ticking over.
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Aug 20, 2018 14:41
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Sometimes I wonder how bad of an emperor Commodus was and how much of it is him being smeared by guys that didn't like him later on. Like, sure, he might have been young for an emperor, allegedly a bit of a dick, and he never seemed that interested in running the government, but almost all accounts concede that he was very popular with the army and common people. He taxed the rich to throw games and while Rome was in a near-constant state of war under his predecessors, under Commodus the empire was at peace. He had some bad advisers, wasn't particularly smart, and the rich hated him, which makes me think some of the stories about him are exaggerations of the truth, but I also don't think you rule the Roman Empire for over a decade by accident.
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Aug 20, 2018 16:25
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You all know this already ofc but as a guy relatively unread in ancient history my mind was seriously blown about how many little personal details are included, anecdotes etc. The book reads not that much differently than a book on like 19th century european history in terms of the level of detail. I suppose in that period Rome was probably unusually dense in people who wrote a lot of stuff down compared to the rest of europe.
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Aug 20, 2018 16:39
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I think it is possible that Commodus has a bad reputation both because he offended the history-writing segment of society, and because he was in fact not very good at ruling Rome. Similar revisionism can be practiced about Nero or (far more convincingly to my mind) Domitian: sure he might have been a bit eccentric or out of step with the times, but was he really that bad to everyone or did he just trouble the senate disproportionately? I think the hardest evidence against both of these figures is what happened once they got dead. Either by ignorance, negligence, or fear of a rival, they made insufficient provision for the succession of military authority, which directly precipitated major civil war the moment they were out of the picture. Whether or not the general population really liked the guy doesn’t seem to me to be terribly relevant. These guys were not democratically elected after all, they were hardly responsible to a constituency — and even in democratic states pleasing your voters doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing anything of actual worth to the state. Reigns like these, to me, reflect a sort of tension about what the purpose of the Roman monarchy was. Because it had no real constitutional grounding and was such an ad hoc collection of powers and offices, it’s hard to provide any meaningful judgement of an individual ruler’s performance. Should he be a pure military leader who enriches the soldiery, conducts foreign wars successfully and leaves the rest to run itself? Septimius Severus apparently thought so, and it worked okay for him, but within decades one son had killed the other, gotten assassinated himself, and then been replaced by a bizarre circus orchestrated by his female relatives in which a Syrian teenager of absolutely no accomplishments and confused sexual identity was presented to the Senate as the ruler of the world. Basically we can hardly form an opinion on any of these guys without relying heavily on what (a very specific demographic of) their contemporaries thought. Sometimes it’s possible to spot the bias, sometimes not. But if we accuse them of confabulation we have hardly anything at all to guide us. Modern scholars have made careers around trying to figure out what is truthful about the Historia Augusta, which is as big a book of nonsense as was ever written.
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Aug 20, 2018 16:55
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If you read Martial's epigrams you'd see just how mundane the details of everyday life that are included in writing can get. Plus you get a good picture of what life was life in principate-era Rome for the common man.
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Aug 20, 2018 17:15
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I’d stay emperor’s constitutional powers were actually well defined and their constituency was also well defined.
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Aug 20, 2018 17:19
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