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Dalael posted:I just finished the crisis of the 3rd century in the History of Rome podcast and I would say that nearly 6 decades of constant civil wars and roman armies fighting each other while leaving the borders undefended probably did not help. The third century was real bad, but the evidence is strong that the empire completely recovered and the fourth century was, if not the strongest period of the empire's history, second only to the heights of the Pax Romana. The current thinking in the scholarship is the crisis of the third century was a huge deal at the time, but long-term effects don't seem to have been huge. The biggest consequence is probably that the crisis brought about Diocletian's reforms, which brought Constantine, which caused Constantinople, and Constantinople's impregnability to assault for nine hundred years was the only reason the empire survived so long. There were more than a few instances where the empire was overrun and the land walls of Constantinople saved the Roman state.
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Oct 21, 2018 17:56
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Epicurius posted:Actually, it's a Gallicization of the English "Latinization" backended into British English for purposes of ease of spelling. It's off the topic of ancient history, but it's interesting, so, eh... English used to spell words like "organize" and "recognize"...we've got 15th -17th century spellings like that in England. It comes from the Greek "izein" and "izo". English also has a bunch of words that, because of their roots, have always been spelled with an "ise", like "advise", "exercise", "promise", etc. Probably in an attempt at standardization (standardisation) and simplification, in 18th century Britain, "organise", "recognise" and so on also became acceptable spellings, and became more common. That's really interesting, I was under the impression that the -ise spelling was the older one. If I'm not mistaken I actually learned that in school, so thanks for correcting that. I'll keep this in mind next time someone decides to be pedantic about that.
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Oct 21, 2018 18:03
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Grevling posted:That's really interesting, I was under the impression that the -ise spelling was the older one. If I'm not mistaken I actually learned that in school, so thanks for correcting that. I'll keep this in mind next time someone decides to be pedantic about that. A lot of American English differences are actually older than UK ones, much like how the French and Spanish of the Americas have preserved older elements of those languages. In English some of that is because the Victorians were giant Classicsaboos and shoved a bunch of Latin rules into English for no reason to satisfy their kawaiium waifus.
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Oct 21, 2018 18:09
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Grand Fromage posted:There is pushback against it, as with any idea in history. It's not something you can quantify with hard data, you have to use judgment. But is true that the Romans almost never negotiated when they were losing a war, they would keep fighting under any circumstances and would not entertain any sort of peace treaty unless they were winning. The Romans also had absolutely enormous manpower available compared to other Mediterranean states of the era, as mentioned above with the Italian allies, so they were able to keep fighting despite suffering losses that would've crippled other states. No other Mediterranean power could've suffered a loss like Cannae and continued fighting. Even if they wanted to, they wouldn't have been capable of raising another army. So was Italy really densely populated during the Republican period then, compared to places like Greece, North Africa or the Near East?
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Oct 21, 2018 18:33
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khwarezm posted:So was Italy really densely populated during the Republican period then, compared to places like Greece, North Africa or the Near East? Italy was notably dense, but also the Roman alliance system allowed them to levy troops much more efficiently and on a larger scale. They also gradually lowered the property requirements for soldiers which opened up a larger pool of manpower. Originally they were like the Greeks, you had to be fairly wealthy to serve in the army since you had to provide all of your own equipment and there were minimum property requirements and whatnot. As far as I know none of the Greek polities ever dropped that, while eventually the Romans by the time of Gaius Marius allowed literally any able bodied man to sign up.
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Oct 21, 2018 18:48
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Marius' reforms basically invented a lot of the concepts that we take for granted in modern armies, like the state paying for equipment and soldiers signing up for a set period rather than for the duration of the war (after which the entire army, with all its valuable trained troops, would be dispersed).
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Oct 21, 2018 18:52
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What newer books are there about how Rome’s 4th century was actually really good? Does Goldsworthy or Peter Heather go into that in their books on the Fall of the West?
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Oct 21, 2018 19:47
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Grand Fromage posted:Originally they were like the Greeks, you had to be fairly wealthy to serve in the army since you had to provide all of your own equipment and there were minimum property requirements and whatnot. Doesnt that depend which bit of the army you had in mind? If youre one of the psiloi and your equipment is 'a sling' that's not a high bar.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:05
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Did any of the pre-Roman empires have standing armies? It always feels like for most of history when a king wanted to go to war, he raised an army, rather than using one he already had. Was Rome just so much wealthier than any other pre-modern state that they were the only ones who could afford it? e: I know practically nothing about non-western history so maybe someone in China or India was wealthy enough to field a standing army
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Oct 21, 2018 20:08
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cheetah7071 posted:Did any of the pre-Roman empires have standing armies? It always feels like for most of history when a king wanted to go to war, he raised an army, rather than using one he already had. Was Rome just so much wealthier than any other pre-modern state that they were the only ones who could afford it? I think they go back at least to the palace economy Bronze Age?
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Oct 21, 2018 20:14
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feedmegin posted:Doesnt that depend which bit of the army you had in mind? If youre one of the psiloi and your equipment is 'a sling' that's not a high bar. Those sorts of troops are a bit of a question mark since the sources don't care about them much. Real manly men fight hand to hand as hoplites, maybe as cavalry sometimes, but standing back and throwing rocks is for dirty inferiors. Helots were occasionally used as slingers by the Spartans so there's clearly not much of a requirement, but I don't think Greeks would have even considered those guys properly part of the army. The Romans were similar, from reading most of the sources you'd hardly know there were important archer units with the legions.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:15
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cheetah7071 posted:Did any of the pre-Roman empires have standing armies? It always feels like for most of history when a king wanted to go to war, he raised an army, rather than using one he already had. Was Rome just so much wealthier than any other pre-modern state that they were the only ones who could afford it? It depends how you're defining it. The Romans were the first in western history to field a massive, fully state run professional army in the vein of a modern military. That is however somewhat a circular argument because modern militaries were consciously based on the Roman army so of course they'd be similar. There were earlier states that had a mix of a core, mostly professional/permanent force and additional levies as needed. The Assyrians definitely had some form of standing army. The Akkadians and Egyptians may have even earlier. India I know embarrassingly little about. China certainly had professional military units supplemented by peasant levies, though I think those were around the same time as the Romans, not pre-dating them.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:23
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I guess it's easy to forget that America engaged in army-raising as recently as Vietnam, via the draft
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Oct 21, 2018 20:26
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:What newer books are there about how Rome’s 4th century was actually really good? Does Goldsworthy or Peter Heather go into that in their books on the Fall of the West? Goldsworthy basically doesn’t believe that, he sees 4th century government as fundamentally busted with the emperors almost all unable to trust any subordinate with enough power to accomplish anything much if the emperor was not physically present. Not as bad as the crisis but distinctly worse than under the Antonines. Heather does believe that though and his book spends some time on it.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:35
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The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper was the most recent book I read which talks about it, between the exploration of the plagues and climate change.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:38
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cheetah7071 posted:I guess it's easy to forget that America engaged in army-raising as recently as Vietnam, via the draft I mean this is literally any modern full scale war, obviously. 'Small professional core supplemented by levies' is exactly the armies of the American Civil war or the BEF and Kitcheners Army in World War 1.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:55
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The Qin and Han Dynasties of China theoretically required all able bodied men to give 2 years of military service when they turned 23 and remain registered with their local militia for the next several decades in case the state needed to call on reserves. This system apparently emerged during the Warring States period but I know little about that. Obviously no ancient state could actually enforce an universal service requirement, and in the Later Han a lot of men avoided service by paying a fee and the military rolls were often not reflective of the actual number of men the state could be expected to call upon. I don't know as much about India, I don't think there is as much surviving writing about their military arts? The Arthashastra is the only work I know from that period and I haven't read it. I think they mostly relied on an aristocratic warrior class and mercenaries. Not too sure. skasion posted:Goldsworthy basically doesn’t believe that, he sees 4th century government as fundamentally busted with the emperors almost all unable to trust any subordinate with enough power to accomplish anything much if the emperor was not physically present. Not as bad as the crisis but distinctly worse than under the Antonines. I don't know if those two beliefs are necessarily incompatible. The empire can have a completely dysfunctional political leadership but still have a booming economy and coast on a strong military.
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Oct 21, 2018 20:59
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Mantis42 posted:. Well we know that’s possible.
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Oct 21, 2018 21:02
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Well we know that’s possible.
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Oct 21, 2018 21:07
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Mantis42 posted:I don't know if those two beliefs are necessarily incompatible. The empire can have a completely dysfunctional political leadership but still have a booming economy and coast on a strong military. True, but in the specific case of Goldsworthy he thinks the state was weaker overall. He points to the insecurity of political leaders mostly to highlight the biggest point of his book, which is that Romans could not loving quit it with the civil wars from the third century on and that successive attempts to reshape the state to avoid the problems this caused made the state fatally less effective while not actually preventing civil wars. His basic power level comparison from the intro: quote:Studies of Late Antiquity stress the great strength of the fourth-century empire. They are certainly correct to do so, since Rome in this period was overwhelmingly stronger than any other nation or people in the known world. However, it was not as stable as the empire of the second century, nor was it as powerful. How and why this changed is central to understanding why the later empire was as it was. Put simply, the empire was stronger in the year 200 than it was in 300 - although perhaps it had been even weaker in 250. By 400 the empire was weaker again, and by 500 it had vanished in the west and only the rump was left in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean.
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Oct 22, 2018 00:36
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Well we know that’s possible.
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Oct 22, 2018 02:23
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feedmegin posted:Doesnt that depend which bit of the army you had in mind? If youre one of the psiloi and your equipment is 'a sling' that's not a high bar. The Greeks had four castes, if you didn't have anything you got to row boats. Then infantry, cavalry, and on top, commanders.
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Oct 22, 2018 02:31
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Libluini posted:According to my knowledge (gained from reading his books in our school's library), it's Polybios. Quick, go correct Oxford! 
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Oct 22, 2018 02:43
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polybius would have been called polybius for a large chunk of his life - he was roughly 30 when he was sent as a hostage to rome, and for the next 30-40 years resided in rome or with a roman army aside from his stint as de facto governor of greece romans and greeks were pretty loose with the os/us thing - they didn't blink at latinizing or greekifying os/us depending on the language being spoken
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Oct 22, 2018 03:21
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Jazerus posted:polybius would have been called polybius for a large chunk of his life - he was roughly 30 when he was sent as a hostage to rome, and for the next 30-40 years resided in rome or with a roman army aside from his stint as de facto governor of greece Old Latin had the -os ending for the second declension nouns as well, that changed to the more familiar -us in Classical. Also, as far as I remember from my Latin classes, you could take ancient Greek words and plug them into Latin with their native declension system as well.
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Oct 22, 2018 05:14
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The Greek and Latin endings share a common origin after all, although whether anyone at the time commented on the fact that Latin and Greek (and Gaulish) have many things in common while Punic, Aramaic and Etruscan were very different from Latin is something I've wondered about.
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Oct 22, 2018 06:37
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Not sure about explicit commentary, but I don't think it's a coincidence Latin is unrelated to Etruscan and the Romans believed they came from elsewhere and were not native to the Etruscan cultural zone they lived in.
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Oct 22, 2018 06:43
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Grand Fromage posted:Not sure about explicit commentary, but I don't think it's a coincidence Latin is unrelated to Etruscan and the Romans believed they came from elsewhere and were not native to the Etruscan cultural zone they lived in. Well yeah, they came from Anatolia.
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Oct 22, 2018 06:56
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Mindfuck Answer: the Romans were founded from a stranded crew of Carthaginian sailors in Latium.
Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 07:19
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Rome was founded by... ...the lost Roman legion!!!!!
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Oct 22, 2018 07:25
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sullat posted:The Greeks had four castes, if you didn't have anything you got to row boats. Then infantry, cavalry, and on top, commanders. I feel you might be generalising 'the Greeks' a bit here. I mean quite a lot of city states weren't going to have boats; not everywhere is Athens.
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Oct 22, 2018 12:58
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feedmegin posted:I feel you might be generalising 'the Greeks' a bit here. I mean quite a lot of city states weren't going to have boats; not everywhere is Athens. True, I don't know how the Spartans crewed their navy. They paid for it with Persian gold, though....
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Oct 22, 2018 18:33
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sullat posted:True, I don't know how the Spartans crewed their navy. They paid for it with Persian gold, though.... A bunch of the coastal Lakonian perioikoi cities had naval traditions, and the Spartan navy probably was crewed and captained by periokoi.
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Oct 22, 2018 19:17
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Remember the last time a schoolgirl pulled a sword out of a lake? It happened again. And this time it's a real historical artifact, not a discarded movie prop.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:54
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In a somewhat similar vein to my Roman question earlier, what was it about the Assyrians that made such a bunch of asskickers, quite literally the likes of which the world had never seen before? When I was younger I read that their use of Iron was like fighting a guy with cigarette lighter when you have a flamethrower, but I understand that modern historians have mostly written off this idea that it was some sort of revolutionary technology that would win every war.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:00
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Isn't the primary advantage of iron that it's much much more common, not that it's that much better of a metal than bronze?
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Oct 22, 2018 21:01
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doesn't require two different high quality supplies, much better logistics
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Oct 22, 2018 21:18
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cheetah7071 posted:Isn't the primary advantage of iron that it's much much more common, not that it's that much better of a metal than bronze? https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1warvr/eli5how_exactly_does_iron_beat_bronze/ quote:A bronze weapon and a cast iron weapon have about the same utility in terms of strength and holding an edge.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:19
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Dalael posted:https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1warvr/eli5how_exactly_does_iron_beat_bronze/ Goddammit this is the sort of post that makes me want to go back and play dwarf fortress again (it models bronze, iron, and steel relatively correctly)
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Oct 22, 2018 21:29
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Huh, I guess I shouldn't have poo-pooed the importance of that grey gold.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:31
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