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What I always read about is how more and more power was concentrated into the hands of local wealthy landowners, with most potential soldiers locked down as laborers under people who would rather keep their personal operations going than rush to the defense of some jerk in a fancy cape. On paper, defense of the empire sounds like an important thing, but it's also the emperor's job, and if you're not vying for imperial brownie points, you probably stand more to gain from keeping your head down. There was also a paper someone over in the milhist thread wrote on the US military and how most army recruits came from the vicinity of US military bases, I wouldn't be surprised if a similar effect was happening here. Nobody wants to sign up to go to some border backwater to do some job they've never seen.
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Feb 26, 2019 06:32
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justinian wasn't the first guy to try to pull off the 'empire strikes back' thing. emperor zeno tried to reconquer africa from the vandals in the 5th century; he just sent a historically gigantic fuckup named Basiliscus, who also almost made my list of candidates for worst emperor because he managed to gently caress up succeeding at a coup; zeno just came back and murdered Basiliscus' whole family. he did last for twenty (20) months though which i guess is pretty good by lovely byzantine usurper standards
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Feb 26, 2019 06:57
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SlothfulCobra posted:What I always read about is how more and more power was concentrated into the hands of local wealthy landowners, with most potential soldiers locked down as laborers under people who would rather keep their personal operations going than rush to the defense of some jerk in a fancy cape. On paper, defense of the empire sounds like an important thing, but it's also the emperor's job, and if you're not vying for imperial brownie points, you probably stand more to gain from keeping your head down. I definitely remember reading that that was totally the case, with lots of people in particular recruited along the Rhine frontier and the Illyrian Danube. Grand Fromage posted:It's a big question that nobody has come up with a satisfactory answer for. One of the major questions of late antiquity studies. It some ways its sort of weird an surprising that any empire should fall at all. I mean if like we were just to compare Rome with its enemies in the fifth century, in terms of GDP, population, military doctrine, it blows all the barbarians put together out of the park. Big empires like Rome or China or the Mughals should have everything they need to defeat all of their enemies. When it comes down to it there really weren't THAT many Goths roaming around the west mucking everything up for Rome, it shouldn't have been an insoluble problem. For these empires to fall something has to change where they can't utilize their resources anymore. There's a kind of path dependence at play, whereby past decisions trap actors into continuing policies that in retrospect are obviously self-destructive.
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Feb 26, 2019 07:47
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With how many administrative structures and influences remained intact once definitively non-Roman overlords finally took over and retained their power, it's not so much that the empire fell as it dissolved, and the barbarian tide over Europe was made saline with Roman salt. There just stopped being a head honcho that everyone listened to. Well, except for the guy with a big hat in Rome that people listened to for the next couple hundred years. But there wasn't an emperor. Except for those weirdoes who started going around calling themselves emperor with the backing of the guy with the hat. Either way, the people not directly involved with the imperial court would probably have seen less difference, especially since the changes practically happened over centuries. In the end, a state like the Roman Empire's head administration is only really justified by its ability to protect itself. The culture lived on past the state, and even overpowered a lot of the new foreign rulers. The religion had long since spread past the empire and cloistered itself away from trouble. Commerce slowed and scholarship stagnated, but it wasn't the passing of the emperor that decided that. Which kind of puts a bad taste in my mouth at the idea of the immortal city of Constantinople where the imperial apparatus can ever retreat to and wait out assaults. Must've really sucked to be in an outlying territory where the invaders stomp all over you until they get tired and your itinerant masters come back to take a hold of you.
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Feb 26, 2019 08:43
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oystertoadfish posted:justinian wasn't the first guy to try to pull off the 'empire strikes back' thing. emperor zeno tried to reconquer africa from the vandals in the 5th century; he just sent a historically gigantic fuckup named Basiliscus, who also almost made my list of candidates for worst emperor because he managed to gently caress up succeeding at a coup; zeno just came back and murdered Basiliscus' whole family. he did last for twenty (20) months though which i guess is pretty good by lovely byzantine usurper standards This is slander against Zeno! The Africa fuckup was launched by his predecessor Leo. Basilicus was his (Leo's) brother in law which explains why he was put in charge and not executed. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 09:46 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 09:42
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Cyrano4747 posted:I don’t even want to know their reasoning on this; do I? The official definition is the country needs to be relatively compact (i can't remember why exactly) and close to ethnically homogeneous as possible. Like, Malaysia wouldn't count as one not just because it has several large ethnic groups but also because it is fragmented geographically. Looking online I see some examples saying the countries need to be small but nothing about prorupted states or fragmented states.
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Feb 26, 2019 12:09
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GoutPatrol posted:
No credit for using the U.S. as an example of a nation‐state? That’s harsh. Sure, they should have used “Japan” as an example no one is going to argue against, but still. The U.S. isn’t clearly not a nation state.
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Feb 26, 2019 12:33
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As a AP Human Geography teacher, you would get no credit if you use the US as an example. I think there is a direct reference to that in past short-answer examples on their website.
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GoutPatrol posted:The official definition is the country needs to be relatively compact (i can't remember why exactly) and close to ethnically homogeneous as possible. Like, Malaysia wouldn't count as one not just because it has several large ethnic groups but also because it is fragmented geographically. Looking online I see some examples saying the countries need to be small but nothing about prorupted states or fragmented states. Oh my bad, I read what you said as them not giving credit for the US as a non-nation state. Like, the AP was insisting the US is a nation-state for some reason.
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Feb 26, 2019 12:37
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Platystemon posted:No credit for using the U.S. as an example of a nation‐state? The US isn’t a nation state.
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Feb 26, 2019 12:38
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I wonder, of the 193 UN member states, how many would be credited as “nation‐states”? How many of those aren’t either in Europe or on small islands? Platystemon fucked around with this message at 12:56 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 12:40
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Cyrano4747 posted:The US isn’t a nation state. It was before communist agents suppressed the Pledge of Allegiance.
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Feb 26, 2019 12:45
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Platystemon posted:I wonder, of the 193 UN member states, how many would be credited as “nation‐states”? It should be noted that the entire concept of the nation-state basically comes from a specific moment in specifically European history when people were really hung up on the idea of historically immutable “nations” of people having their own natural homelands. This is something that Europeans of previous eras would have thought was not immediately obvious in the same way. Even among 19th C Europeans what, precisely, the ethnic “nation” was was a huge, contentious issue. Lots of people in Munich ca 1870 would have objected to the notion that they were the same nation of people as the assholes in Berlin. The post-1792 French government went to a LOT of effort to surprise alternative, local identities. This also plays directly into why they chose to divide up their colonial holdings as they do, because spreading ethnic and cultural groups across administrative boundaries is some awesome old school “divide and conquer.”d Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 12:52
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Maybe it’s a fair question in the context of the curriculum. It would be a gotcha question on a general history exam. With leadership like this, it could go either way: quote:A few years ago, the leaders of the College Board, the folks who administer the SAT college entrance exam, asked themselves a radical question: Of all the skills and knowledge that we test young people for that we know are correlated with success in college and in life, which is the most important? Their answer: the ability to master “two codes” — computer science and the U.S. Constitution.
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Feb 26, 2019 13:02
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Justinian wanted Italy and he wrecked it and he got it. Direct Roman authority over Rome lasted till the end of the Exarchate of Ravenna almost two centuries after his death. What part of the Empire would he have had to "reconquer" for you personally to consider it reassembled? All of it.
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Feb 26, 2019 13:23
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SlothfulCobra posted:With how many administrative structures and influences remained intact once definitively non-Roman overlords finally took over and retained their power, it's not so much that the empire fell as it dissolved, and the barbarian tide over Europe was made saline with Roman salt. There just stopped being a head honcho that everyone listened to. Well, except for the guy with a big hat in Rome that people listened to for the next couple hundred years. But there wasn't an emperor. Except for those weirdoes who started going around calling themselves emperor with the backing of the guy with the hat. drat well put
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Feb 26, 2019 15:21
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https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n03/james-davidson/at-the-ashmolean Kinda interesting article about Hadrian's crush (possibly). Apparently this dude Antinous was part of Hadrian's retinue and died when he was like 18. After that he got deified, had statues and coins made of him all through the roman empire that all look pretty much the same, had a city in Egypt named after him and got a temple built in his honour in Greece. After Hadrian died this all stopped. Not very subtle if you ask me.
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Feb 26, 2019 17:27
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you guys know greek and latin, right? I'm writing a sci-fi story and i need scientific names for some post-human mutants. They're all going to be Homo sapiens, but i need their sub species name. I need one for fallout style ghouls, one for an aquatic or amphibious species, one for a chud species, one for a super mutant like species, and one for a degenerate species.
Mycroft Holmes fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 18:32
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Syncopated posted:https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n03/james-davidson/at-the-ashmolean
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Feb 26, 2019 18:44
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https://twitter.com/jfruh/status/1100278823172530177
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Feb 26, 2019 19:03
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Mycroft Holmes posted:you guys know greek and latin, right? I'm writing a sci-fi story and i need scientific names for some post-human mutants. They're all going to be Homo sapiens, but i need their sub species name. I need one for fallout style ghouls, one for an aquatic or amphibious species, one for a chud species, one for a super mutant like species, and one for a degenerate species. pick what the names will name first and then ask us (or the religionthread) you can find people talking about actual scientific names in posts like this on Twitter https://twitter.com/lindsaycgaskins/status/1100015806941941761 HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Feb 26, 2019 |
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Feb 26, 2019 19:09
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Huh just going from wiktionary.org squalus might be related to "whale". That's kinda cool.
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Feb 26, 2019 19:25
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It’s pretty accurate they got spines like gently caress. Owe.
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Feb 26, 2019 19:28
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ok 1. the ghoul should be named after roentgen, the measurement of radiation exposure 2. the aquatic humanoid should be named after Creature from the Black Lagoon 3. the underground species should be named "subterrainious" 4. the super-mutant should be named something to due with steroids or hgh 5. Is "necrophagi" proper latin/greek?
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Feb 26, 2019 19:29
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Mycroft Holmes posted:ok You can use Google Translate to get about 95% of the way there, unless you intend to market the story to a Classics audience. Homo sapien radialem Homo sapien lacuna Homo sapien subterraneis Homo sapien moleculas Homo sapien necrophage
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Feb 26, 2019 19:50
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necrophagi is good latinized Greek, singular would be necrophagus.
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Feb 26, 2019 19:52
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Ed Sheeran is the reincarnation of Nero.
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Feb 26, 2019 19:56
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HEY GUNS posted:you can find people talking about actual scientific names in posts like this on Twitter I want to know why they called it spiny. They're so smooth.
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Feb 26, 2019 21:45
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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HEY GUNS posted:or like how weird court-french got, like our legal terms might be french but they're a weird inbred little incomprehensible french 'Court French' is a little ambiguous in this context  The fact that Law French derived from Norman French rather than Parisian probably doesnt help, mind you.
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Feb 26, 2019 21:56
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feedmegin posted:'Court French' is a little ambiguous in this context
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Feb 26, 2019 22:04
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PittTheElder posted:I want to know why they called it spiny. They're so smooth. If you look at the front of each fin there’s a wicked sharp spine on them.
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Feb 26, 2019 22:17
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Anyone who wants to watch an historical mystery/drama/black comedy about the idiosyncrasies of French law and language in the 1400's check out a fun obscure movie from 1993 called The Hour of the Pig.
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Feb 26, 2019 22:26
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Anyone who wants to watch an historical mystery/drama/black comedy about the idiosyncrasies of French law and language in the 1400's check out a fun obscure movie from 1993 called The Hour of the Pig. As it happens, Law French has nothing to do with French law 
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Feb 26, 2019 23:21
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feedmegin posted:As it happens, Law French has nothing to do with French law True! But I'm always glad to be reminded that movie exists and always looking for the slightest excuse to recommend it.
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Feb 27, 2019 00:05
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From a few pages back, butCessna posted:Most of my 17th c. military history knowledge comes from the English Civil War - yeah, I know, bad cavalry island - but even though I'm not a 30 Years' War type I get the fact that things didn't work like, say, the Napoleonic Wars. Wait, I haven't heard this before. Why was English cavalry bad? Bad horse source? Lack of training riders from birth ala nomadic tribes like the Mongols/Huns?
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Feb 27, 2019 08:09
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"Bad Cav Island" is a milhist thread meme referring to england just being really bad at cavalry. The horses were really good, apparently, but everything about using them was miles behind the rest of western europe mostly due to having a whole lot less practice at actually doing it compared to their continental peers.
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Feb 27, 2019 09:02
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Horses, like most animals, are inherently repelled and frightened by the mere presence of the insidious Anglo.
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Feb 27, 2019 09:19
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FreudianSlippers posted:Horses, like most animals, are inherently repelled and frightened by the mere presence of the insidious Anglo. Ours was still better than the Scots', mind.
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Feb 27, 2019 09:52
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Mycroft Holmes posted:you guys know greek and latin, right? I'm writing a sci-fi story and i need scientific names for some post-human mutants. They're all going to be Homo sapiens, but i need their sub species name. I need one for fallout style ghouls, one for an aquatic or amphibious species, one for a chud species, one for a super mutant like species, and one for a degenerate species. Weave in a space battle station named Catullus 16
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Feb 27, 2019 11:26
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Mycroft Holmes posted:you guys know greek and latin, right? I'm writing a sci-fi story and i need scientific names for some post-human mutants. They're all going to be Homo sapiens, but i need their sub species name. I need one for fallout style ghouls, one for an aquatic or amphibious species, one for a chud species, one for a super mutant like species, and one for a degenerate species. Once you're down to the subspecies level you're probably going to want something that's descriptive of their habitat - Eremus (wasteland/wilderness) for the ghouls Littoria (swamp/estuary) for the aquatic ones Cloaca (sewer/cesspit) for the chuds ???? for the super mutant one - are they just big strong brutes, are they mutant genuises? Basically Kryptonians? Congeria (disorganized, thrown-together piles of junk) for the degenerate species (i.e. they live in shantytowns that look like scrapheaps).
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Feb 27, 2019 12:14
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feedmegin posted:Ours was still better than the Scots', mind. Riding a horse in a kilt pulverizes the old bawbag.
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Feb 27, 2019 14:17
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