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Jack2142 posted:The Roman Empire was actually just a thought experiment to demonstrate the Ship of Theseus. But Troy pre-dates Theseus! Major flaw in the argument there.
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Nov 25, 2018 02:28
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Anybody ever notice just how many Ancient Greek myths involve eating people?
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Nov 27, 2018 18:11
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Anybody ever notice just how many Ancient Greek myths involve eating people?
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Nov 27, 2018 18:18
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Anybody ever notice just how many Ancient Greek myths involve eating people? Human is just poorly packaged protein don’t knock it.
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Nov 27, 2018 18:31
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Was there much cross religious marriage in the medieval world? For example, some Byzantine princess carted off to a Turkish or Arab lord to try and maintain an alliance or truce?
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Nov 30, 2018 02:47
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Not a lot but one I like is the Romans married some princesses off to the Mongols to buy an alliance while the Mongols were busy kicking the poo poo out of the Turks. Though I believe the husband in that case was a Nestorian Christian. I'm not sure whether the Romans would've seen marriages with Nestorians or Latins as being cross religion exactly, though certainly unorthodox. I do like that there was a period where technically the same royal family sat on both the Roman and Chinese thrones. I would bet there were mixed Christian/Jewish or Christian/Muslim marriages going on among commoners now and then. I can't remember if there were any attempts at marriage alliances with Turks. I'm not as up on 1204-1453 as I should be.
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Nov 30, 2018 03:01
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Grand Fromage posted:I can't remember if there were any attempts at marriage alliances with Turks. I'm not as up on 1204-1453 as I should be. At least one case that I can think of: Orhan married Theodora Kantakouzene, daughter of John VI, in exchange for the use of Osmanli troops in his war against John V. After the war (John V won) their son, Halil, was offered John V's daughter Irene Palaiologina in the hopes that this would bind future Osmanli rulers to the Byzantine service. And as we all know that worked absolutely perfectly. Halil/his descendants never became sultan so I don't know where the tradition comes from, but Mehmed the Conqueror and his descendants also claimed to have some convenient Byzantine royal descent from somewhere.
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Nov 30, 2018 03:16
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skasion posted:At least one case that I can think of: Orhan married Theodora Kantakouzene, daughter of John VI, in exchange for the use of Osmanli troops in his war John Komnenos, who was the nephew of John II Komnenos, defected to the Danishmend Turks in 1139. He then converted to Islam and married one of the Sultan's daughters. The Ottomans claimed that John's great grandson was Osman, the founder of the Ottomans. Its almost certainly not true, but Mehmed used that supposed descent to strengthen his claim to Constantinople
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Nov 30, 2018 04:08
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Did the eastern empire have to jump through any hoops to justify having a “basileus” ruling romans, or did easterners just give fewer shits about kings than the original romans did? I can already imagine some has-been patrician bitching about decadent easterns who don’t know the difference between the good and cool principate and a bad, dumb monarchy.
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Nov 30, 2018 19:49
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Easterners never gave any shits about being ruled by kings and the emperors were referred to in the Greek world as basileus from Augustus on down. Essentially all the Greeks who really seriously felt bad about rule by kings got liquidated during the centuries of rule by kings that preceded the Romans
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Nov 30, 2018 20:10
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The facade that Augustus set up was also much less important once life under non-autocratic rule was more than a few centuries out of living memory. And outside of Italy I'm not sure how much different the government even was pre- and post-Augustus.
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Nov 30, 2018 20:15
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The space of time between the abolition of the whole Princeps sham and the official adoption of the title of Basileus is about the same as the gap that separates present-day America from the Salem Witch Trials, or present-day China from the beginning of the Qing dynasty.
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Nov 30, 2018 20:46
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cheetah7071 posted:The facade that Augustus set up was also much less important once life under non-autocratic rule was more than a few centuries out of living memory. And outside of Italy I'm not sure how much different the government even was pre- and post-Augustus. poo poo the Facade that Augustus set up was trampled by Caligula like twenty years after he died.
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Dec 1, 2018 03:26
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Even in Augustan times, there are busts of him made in the East with slots cut into the hair for a kingly metal circlet to be placed.
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Dec 2, 2018 20:45
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I was going to post this in the religion thread, but thought it might be better here: https://twitter.com/CatholicNewsSvc/status/1069381449571319808 The catholic news service (private US newswire, not affiliated with the Vatican) just tried to celebrate chanukah with a picture of the Arch of Titus, which commemorates the sack of Jerusalem.
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Dec 3, 2018 02:20
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lol. Smooth move there.
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Dec 3, 2018 03:03
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Mr Enderby posted:I was going to post this in the religion thread, but thought it might be better here: Nice holiday ya got there. Shame if something happened to it...
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Dec 3, 2018 05:09
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My candles went out in like an hour so its surely a sign of something.
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Dec 3, 2018 05:14
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Something something they are Roman Catholics after all.
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Dec 3, 2018 05:46
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This is a really cool discovery if true:quote:DENVER — A superheated blast from the skies obliterated cities and farming settlements north of the Dead Sea around 3,700 years ago, preliminary findings suggest. I wonder if researchers will find these kind of exploding meteors are more common than we once thought. They probably don't leave a lot of evidence since they explode high in the atmosphere. Kind of creepy to think about. Since I found it hard to picture what this kind of disaster must have looked like here's some first hand descriptions of the Tunguska blast: quote:At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [65 kilometres/40 miles south of the explosion], facing north. […] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest [as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up—expedition note]. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few meters. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the Earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn, a part of the iron lock snapped. quote:We had a hut by the river with my brother Chekaren. We were sleeping. Suddenly we both woke up at the same time. Somebody shoved us. We heard whistling and felt strong wind. Chekaren said, 'Can you hear all those birds flying overhead?' We were both in the hut, couldn't see what was going on outside. Suddenly, I got shoved again, this time so hard I fell into the fire. I got scared. Chekaren got scared too. We started crying out for father, mother, brother, but no one answered. There was noise beyond the hut, we could hear trees falling down. Chekaren and I got out of our sleeping bags and wanted to run out, but then the thunder struck. This was the first thunder. The Earth began to move and rock, the wind hit our hut and knocked it over. My body was pushed down by sticks, but my head was in the clear. Then I saw a wonder: trees were falling, the branches were on fire, it became mighty bright, how can I say this, as if there was a second sun, my eyes were hurting, I even closed them. It was like what the Russians call lightning. And immediately there was a loud thunderclap. This was the second thunder. The morning was sunny, there were no clouds, our Sun was shining brightly as usual, and suddenly there came a second one!
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Dec 4, 2018 20:20
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Uh so, Sodom and Gomorra was real?
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Dec 4, 2018 21:41
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Koramei posted:Uh so, Sodom and Gomorra was real? Probably? In the sense of there being legends based on some sort of real event. See also The Flood.
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Dec 4, 2018 22:44
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Koramei posted:Uh so, Sodom and Gomorra was real? Huh, you know this connection didn't even occur to me. The date they estimate for this is about 1700 BC, how does that relate to the chronology of the old testament? My first thought was how this might relate to the bronze age collapse but this date seems a little early to be related to that.
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Dec 5, 2018 02:12
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Squalid posted:Huh, you know this connection didn't even occur to me. The date they estimate for this is about 1700 BC, how does that relate to the chronology of the old testament? My first thought was how this might relate to the bronze age collapse but this date seems a little early to be related to that. 1700 BC would be a few centuries to maybe a millenium too late for when the events of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are understood to have happened based on traditional bible chronologies, and also referencing between when events are described as happening the bible that we can date versus when they supposedly happen in the Bible. Of course, the passages that involve Sodom and Gomorrah can't be definitively dated to before 1700 BC, so it's not like that's any proof that the much later writers of the Torah didn't have an event around 1700 BC in mind and weren't clear on when it'd really happened.
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Dec 5, 2018 02:45
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Not sure about old testament timelines but it's definitely not related to the bronze age collapse, this would be ~500 years before.
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Dec 5, 2018 02:45
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Dear Roman History thread, I'm still five years behind and can't justify skipping pages since even five year old discussions are still history and just as good for content as newer ones. All the same I have a pressing question- https://twitter.com/bernard_prof/status/1068524699208957952 Does anyone have any idea what that middle headline could possibly be referring to?
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Dec 5, 2018 06:12
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Well I guess when a Legion forms a labor union, it's a coup or a revolt, so that might count? Other than that, maybe it's talking about some of Diocletian's reforms where people and their descendants got locked to whatever land and profession they were stuck in at the time didn't help with how there kept being not enough recruits for the legions, so it was more vulnerable to attack, but at the end of the day that was more because it was laying some of the foundations for feudalism and local land owners (who basically would've owned the people locked to the land) just hiding their workers from recruiters. Or maybe it's equating the goths' sacking of Rome with a labor strike, because if those dumb goths could've just stayed happy starving to death while selling their children into slavery, Rome wouldn't have gotten sacked. Keep the poors in their place! That's the lesson! Or maybe it's even equating the eventual end of the grain dole with being the cause of the fall rather than a symptom, because this horrid act of philanthropy obviously drove the empire to disaster after having been maintained for 600 years. It's really hard to guess at what particular absolute poo poo some idiot would've been talking a hundred years ago to back up their terrible point.
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Dec 5, 2018 06:45
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Some Guy TT posted:Dear Roman History thread, I'm still five years behind and can't justify skipping pages since even five year old discussions are still history and just as good for content as newer ones. All the same I have a pressing question- The NYT has always hated unions, and so blaming them for all sorts of calamities is par for the course.
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Dec 5, 2018 06:50
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The Praetorian Guard was kind of like a policeman's union.
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Dec 5, 2018 07:17
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:The Praetorian Guard was kind of like a policeman's union. Nah Yiddish didn't even exist back then.
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Dec 5, 2018 07:32
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Grand Fromage posted:Nah Yiddish didn't even exist back then. Ha! I meant to say "police union" but I've definitely read that book quite a few times and it seems I slipped. I'm not going to change it.
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Dec 5, 2018 07:58
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Some Guy TT posted:Dear Roman History thread, I'm still five years behind and can't justify skipping pages since even five year old discussions are still history and just as good for content as newer ones. All the same I have a pressing question- I found the article. It's a review of British Egyptologist Flinders Petrie's book "Janus in Modern Life", which seems a pretty Social Darwinistic book to me, about how social programs that help the poor just work to make sure that the unfit breed more, hurting the human race. The article includes,about ancient Rome: quote:There follow several chapters all dealing with English conditions, all very interesting, and then Dr. Petrie attacks the subject of trade unionism in the light of history. He declares that it was trade unionism which wrecked the Roman Empire-not slavery or vice-and he shows how. Here, he says, are certain facts "curiously parallel to the growth of modern unionism." I don't know why you would, but if you want to read "Janus in Modern Life" yourself, you can find it in the link below: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t2697346w;view=1up;seq=7 And having looked at the chapter in the book, it's not the best quote for what Petrie's argument actually is. The article quotes Petrie talking about the grain dole, but the rest of the chapter has Petrie looking at the labor laws under Aurelian and Diocletian that required someone to take up their father's trade and didn't allow for economic or social mobility, as well as the laws regulating wages and prices, which he said led to more economic disruption and panic. He calls the whole thing part of a "socialistic policy" that destroyed the Roman Empire Epicurius fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Dec 5, 2018 |
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Dec 5, 2018 12:14
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hmm, yes, no one grew anything in italy after the gracchi and serfdom is socialism
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Dec 5, 2018 12:32
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Dang, I forgot about how common eugenics was back in those days. I don't doubt that Diocletian was one of the most capable emperors or that he managed to stabilize the empire in hard times, but man, a lot of his reforms sound like they made the empire a worse place to live.
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Dec 5, 2018 15:52
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fishmech posted:1700 BC would be a few centuries to maybe a millenium too late for when the events of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are understood to have happened based on traditional bible chronologies, and also referencing between when events are described as happening the bible that we can date versus when they supposedly happen in the Bible. It reminds me though of how the Trojan War was understood by the Greeks to have happened IIRC in the early 2000's BC, but the actual armour and so on referenced in the Iliad dates to more like 1200 BC. So there is some rough precedent for people taking relatively recent, legend-grade events and believing that they happened much longer ago.
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Dec 5, 2018 16:37
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Strategic Tea posted:It reminds me though of how the Trojan War was understood by the Greeks to have happened IIRC in the early 2000's BC, but the actual armour and so on referenced in the Iliad dates to more like 1200 BC. I don't think that's right. If the Trojan War is based on historical events, then the traditional dates square up well with the Hittite records, to the 1200s BC. What you might be thinking of is that the description of Greek society in the Illiad is clearly from a later period, the 9th or 8th century BC
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Dec 5, 2018 16:52
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It was common to not recognize the changes, look at all the drawings of Roman history in medieval books where the Romans are running around dressed like it's the 13th century. Check out those Roman galleons. After having seen these I was surprised when I found out Roman fortifications actually do more or less look identical to medieval castles.
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Dec 5, 2018 18:13
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Wasn't there some ideological reason history was always depicted with (for the artist) modern clothes, armaments, architecture etc., something to do with "nothing new under the sun"? I think I've heard something like that.
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Dec 5, 2018 18:19
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Nothing I can think of that would apply in that way. There was just the fact that they wouldn't have known, though. Unless you were in Rome itself and took some time examining Trajan's Column to see what Roman armor looked like I don't see how any medieval artist doing book illuminations would have a clue.
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Dec 5, 2018 18:23
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Grevling posted:Wasn't there some ideological reason history was always depicted with (for the artist) modern clothes, armaments, architecture etc., something to do with "nothing new under the sun"? I think I've heard something like that. You could also venture that for religious painting it emphasises the atemporality of Christianity's teachings. But yes, before, idk, the romantic era? historical painting generally makes no attempt to be historical in the sense that it would be accurate, and it's so obvious that it was certainly intended so
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Dec 5, 2018 18:23
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