|
I'm not talking about bare-footed people walking on rocks, I know that soles can get hard enough to deal with most stuff (although there are some plants specifically designed to gently caress with feet hard). I'm talking about people in sandals without pants wading through taller foliage without any real protection. The tops of your feet and the skin of your legs doesn't harden the same way. Shoes and pants can make a world of difference, but Romans went without those. They weren't barefoot, they just chose to only protect their soles rather than anything else. I got caught up in thinking about it because in the ancient era there's some real odds on having to work your way across some totally uncultivated patch of land where nobody's ever really been before, but I guess since most of the Roman conquests were where plenty of people already lived, the Legions didn't exactly need to do trailblazing. They even famously set up all those roads so they wouldn't have to march through wilderness didn't they. aphid_licker posted:e: ^^^^^ it's from that neural net thing that you seed with a prompt and it generates a sorta coherent paragraph of text It's a very fancy lorem ipsum. There's no point to reading any of it because there's no information in there, just a bunch of random bits composed of partially digested essays. Through the magic of computers, totally unintelligible essays get created out of actually intelligible essays. I don't know if it's that everybody else somehow isn't jaded to stuff like chatbots or if I'm just not good enough at reading poorly written or archaic language. Edit: poo poo what is with my timing that I keep page sniping.
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 18:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 09:31 |
|
|
Somebody recommend me books about the 400 hundred years after the fall of the western Roman empire and also about the migration period please! Preferably focused on western and central Europe. Last history book I read was SPQR and I liked that one a lot.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 18:59
|
|
|
uguu posted:Somebody recommend me books about the 400 hundred years after the fall of the western Roman empire and also about the migration period please! Peter Heather’s “Empires and Barbarians” (very readable) Chris Wickham’s “The Inheritance of Rome” (broader focus, he spends a lot of time discussing nonroman Europe and the Islamic world too) Guy Halsall’s “Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West” (bit drier/more academic than popular history, but still a very interesting read)
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 19:18
|
|
|
Seconding "Empires and Barbarians", I just finished it and it's pretty great. It's really long, but the picture of the birth of medieval Europe (and what the migrations of the migration period might have actually looked like) is incredibly comprehensive.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 19:30
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:I'm not talking about bare-footed people walking on rocks, I know that soles can get hard enough to deal with most stuff (although there are some plants specifically designed to gently caress with feet hard). I'm talking about people in sandals without pants wading through taller foliage without any real protection. The tops of your feet and the skin of your legs doesn't harden the same way. Shoes and pants can make a world of difference, but Romans went without those. They weren't barefoot, they just chose to only protect their soles rather than anything else. I think you'd be surprised how much any part of skin can harden and callous, anecdotally I've heard people say that their skin harden simply due to exposure to really bad mosquitoes. Regardless, we know from the modern world that people without pants don't seem to have much trouble dealing with dense or thorny vegetation, it apparently just isn't a significant impediment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpdpffv9dH8 I gaurantee those guys hunting monkeys deal with nasty insects and thorny plants way worse than anything in Europe. Of course Romans in the Republic and Empire did often use leg wraps even when they still wouldn't wear pants, but as far as I know that was all about cold. Squalid fucked around with this message at 04:58 on May 17, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 19:37
|
|
|
skasion posted:Guy Halsall’s “Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West” (bit drier/more academic than popular history, but still a very interesting read) Yeah Barbarian Migrations is an amazing piece of work, but I had to work to understand it. I was keeping notes on the various personas since I couldn't keep them straight in my head.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 19:43
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
Thanks guys!
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 20:56
|
|
|
Should we make another thread for the neural net thing? People seem cool with it but I guess someone could make an op if you all want Edit: looks like there’s a gbs thread already guns for tits fucked around with this message at 21:49 on May 16, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 21:44
|
|
|
guns for tits posted:Should we make another thread for the neural net thing? People seem cool with it but I guess someone could make an op if you all want I do think we've had enough of it for now.
|
|
#
?
May 16, 2019 23:11
|
|
|
Inheritance of Rome is pretty dry too, and it being more broad in scope means it jumps subject matter a lot. It's very informative however, I'll give it that.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 01:45
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:It's a very fancy lorem ipsum. There's no point to reading any of it because there's no information in there, just a bunch of random bits composed of partially digested essays. Through the magic of computers, totally unintelligible essays get created out of actually intelligible essays. It's funny, you goon.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 01:48
|
|
|
Chris Wickham is a very good historian but he is not the most engaging writer, it's true.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 01:48
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Chris Wickham is a very good historian but he is not the most engaging writer, it's true.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 01:51
|
|
|
I'm not throwing shade, just saying. Some history books are more readable than others. I like Wickham's books but it is good to go into it knowing it's not going to grab you the way like, Stephen Platt does. And gently caress all the editors/writers/etc who think that Proper Historians do not write Engaging Books that can be Read and Enjoyed by the General Public. Hardly anyone does more damage to history as a discipline than those assholes.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 01:54
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:And gently caress all the editors/writers/etc who think that Proper Historians do not write Engaging Books that can be Read and Enjoyed by the General Public. Hardly anyone does more damage to history as a discipline than those assholes.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 01:57
|
|
|
HEY GUNS posted:go ahead. keep screaming "Shut The gently caress Up " at me. it only makes my writing Worse hey guns I am here reading your manuscript and I'm finding it very enjoyable to read, could you please stop that????
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 02:01
|
|
|
Speaking of good writers, Caesar was not very considerate of his two thousand year later readers when swapping between different ways of naming fellow Romans. I read the bit on the siege of Corfinium and wondered at why Domitius Ahenobarbus' fate wasn't mentioned, and only on the third reread of that paragraph realized that it was, he was just called Lucius Domitius that time
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 02:14
|
|
|
Squalid posted:
Using a monkey's tail to to tie it into a nice monkey bag around the head seems very inventive.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 02:24
|
|
|
Squalid posted:I think you'd be surprised how much any part of skin can harden and callous, anecdotally I've heard people say that their skin harden simply due t exposure to really bad mosquitoes. Regardless, we know from the modern world that people without pants don't seem to have much trouble dealing with dense or thorny vegetation, it apparently just isn't a significant impediment. Part of it is you get very very good at unconsciously avoiding lovely things too, and hunting trails get cleared of some of the shittier plants and such.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 04:49
|
|
|
Another book I liked at least was Tom Holland's Forge of Christendom.
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 07:11
|
|
|
Do history journals use editorialmanager/manuscriptcentral? Every time I open up one of those I wearily eye the instructions for authors link and fuckin die a bit more inside. MUST BE X POINT DINGDONG FONT LINES NUMBERED IN MULTIPLES OF PI STARTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MANUSCRIPT AND PROCEEDING OUTWARDS, EXCEPT FOR PAGE 12, WHERE IT'S THE OTHER WAY ROUND. MOTHERS' BIRTHDATES AND MAIDEN NAMES OF ALL AUTHORS ON THE TITLE PAGE AND IN THE COVER LETTER
|
|
#
?
May 17, 2019 09:59
|
|
|
quote:Of course, the Romans would not have been able to think in terms of our numeric values. They could only manipulate the symbols directly. As an example, they would not have known that VV is an X because 5 + 5 = 10. They would have needed to memorize and use a grouping equivalence table: http://turner.faculty.swau.edu/mathematics/materialslibrary/roman/ wut
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 09:53
|
|
|
I think it's just poorly worded? We typically understand that two Vs make an X because we convert the Vs to 5s, do the arithmetic, and then convert back. The Romans didn't do any conversion. I think the emphasis is on 'because' in the quote.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 15:22
|
|
|
They're just saying that if you want to do arithmetic roman style you have to forget all the arithmetical tricks and tables based around the Arabic numeral system. So they know VV is X but they know it because of direct knowledge, rather than converting to Arabic numerals, adding, and checking. It's just poorly worded
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 17:35
|
|
|
I heard that the 'subtractive' bit of Roman numerals was a later (possibly Victorian?) invention, and that real Romans would have used IIII instead of IV. Is that true?
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 18:48
|
|
|
cheetah7071 posted:They're just saying that if you want to do arithmetic roman style you have to forget all the arithmetical tricks and tables based around the Arabic numeral system. So they know VV is X but they know it because of direct knowledge, rather than converting to Arabic numerals, adding, and checking. It's just poorly worded Yeah, that makes sense - if you're doing arithmetic nowadays (for a pair of numbers you don't have memorised) you're almost certainly using the place value representation of the number, implicitly or explicitly.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 18:51
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:I heard that the 'subtractive' bit of Roman numerals was a later (possibly Victorian?) invention, and that real Romans would have used IIII instead of IV. No, Romans used both.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 19:03
|
|
|
Wouldn't a lot of the Romans wind up using the Greek system of numerals for their math? Which does have an ordinal system, although more confusing than what we are used to in the modern day. Although maybe they wouldn't think of numbers in numeral terms even? It wouldn't surprise me if some people just thought of numbers in only word-terms, especially if they never learned to read. The real weird option that I've only vaguely heard about would be if they thought in abacus-terms.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 20:59
|
|
|
Did a bit of digging, looks like subtractive notation was rarer than additive notation in Rome proper, though people would mix and match even within the same document. I was probably thinking how Europeans started considering subtractive notation to be the exclusively correct way of doing things in the 13th century. Also, weirdly, turns out 'M' was never used by the Romans for 1000, and just got added by some English folks later on. Anyway, as far as Greek numbers go, Archimedes' Sand Reckoner is a pro read, because he goes through and just invents the rules of exponentiation and place values just to dunk on a king. Tunicate fucked around with this message at 21:52 on May 19, 2019 |
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 21:45
|
|
|
I've read the claim that Aristotle independently invented a form of base-whatever numbering as a kind of mathematical convenience for solving some specific problem. it just didn't overthrow the normal system, which worked just fine for everything else. it seems plausible? efb, the post above is it
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 21:46
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:Wouldn't a lot of the Romans wind up using the Greek system of numerals for their math? Which does have an ordinal system, although more confusing than what we are used to in the modern day. For small quantities at least they could count on their fingers, too. So perhaps nonliterate people would have thought of numbers in terms of hand gestures. Sort of like the body-part counting systems used in New Guinea: http://www.culturecognition.com/video/oksapmin-27-body-part-counting-system
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 21:53
|
|
|
oystertoadfish posted:I've read the claim that Aristotle independently invented a form of base-whatever numbering as a kind of mathematical convenience for solving some specific problem. it just didn't overthrow the normal system, which worked just fine for everything else. it seems plausible? Also, (according to some historians, at least), the Sand Reckoner is the oldest intact academic paper. In the process, Archmedes also estimates the universe is two lightyears across, and ends with "it is not inappropriate for you, too, to contemplate these things."
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 22:11
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:Did a bit of digging, looks like subtractive notation was rarer than additive notation in Rome proper, though people would mix and match even within the same document. I was thinking of inscriptions in stone where both forms are used but the abbreviated form is more common, for obvious reason. Anyway the point is both forms were known and considered proper at the time.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 22:15
|
|
|
SerialKilldeer posted:For small quantities at least they could count on their fingers, too. So perhaps nonliterate people would have thought of numbers in terms of hand gestures. Sort of like the body-part counting systems used in New Guinea: http://www.culturecognition.com/video/oksapmin-27-body-part-counting-system It gets a lot weirder than that. If you count by the bones in your fingers, you can get up to 15 on each hand, and in the Arab world there was some kind of system of number hand gestures that I don't really understand, but I do know that the gesture for 93 was a closed fist, so people would use 93 as a euphemism for calling somebody cheap. The language, etymology, and development of numbers is a weird field, because math is poison to a lot of social science nerds, but squishy, subjective social science is poison to a lot of math nerds.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 22:52
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:Wouldn't a lot of the Romans wind up using the Greek system of numerals for their math? Which does have an ordinal system, although more confusing than what we are used to in the modern day. most romans who did complex calculations of any kind would have used an abacus, yeah the hand abacus was a pretty common tool for folks to carry around from what i understand
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2019 23:00
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:It gets a lot weirder than that. If you count by the bones in your fingers, you can get up to 15 on each hand, and in the Arab world there was some kind of system of number hand gestures that I don't really understand, but I do know that the gesture for 93 was a closed fist, so people would use 93 as a euphemism for calling somebody cheap. become an economist and be toxic to everybody 
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2019 06:52
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:"it is not inappropriate for you, too, to contemplate these things." Oh, I... I don't know, better safe than sorry. I'll just focus on the temporal, thanks. Wouldn't want to ruffle any feathers!
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2019 14:28
|
|
|
How close was the show Spartacus to actual Roman times/culture?
|
|
#
?
May 21, 2019 17:46
|
|
|
It is 100% accurate in even the most minute detail.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2019 02:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 09:31 |
|
|
ragedx posted:How close was the show Spartacus to actual Roman times/culture? lol Less flippantly, not great. I only watched the first season when it came out, but it was definitely more preoccupied with titillation than any kind of accuracy. The treatment of slaves is rightish, this is just before a revolt after all, but it does go overboard from time to time. You probably would not kill your expensive as hell gladiators offhand, for instance. Roman men absolutely did sexually abuse their female (and male) slaves, but probably not right in front of their nude, bathing wife. The people in Spartacus very much have kind of "modern" mentalities, as opposed to the people in HBO's Rome who by and large behave in a very Roman fashion. I'm thinking of the great scene where a mob is trying to bash in the door to Atia's villa in, and she and her family are working out the logistics of their suicides. Julia is pouting that she's old enough to stab herself and doesn't need any help, mom, i'm an adult and it's great. They behave maybe a little flippantly, but it gets across the point that yes, these are people and we can see a lot of ourselves in them but their priorities are different. Honor is paramount, and not in the cartoony way it's portrayed in shows like Spartacus, where honor is tied to pretty modern ideas of right and wrong. Like, you could drop the character Spartacus into modern society and he'd adapt pretty quickly. He thinks killing is bad in the abstract, he loved his wife as a mostly-equal partner, etc. Lucius Vorenus would be lost and probably put into prison very quickly: he thinks of his wife as property, not in an abstract sense, but as honest to god His Property. His ticket to middle-class prosperity is the slaves he captured, and that's normal and cool and the real tragedy is that he was cheated and they're mostly dead or useless. Pullo and Octavian decide that extrajudicially torturing and killing Vorenus' brother in law is just and good, the proper response to his infidelity, and they never really second guess if that action was wrong. They rightly deduce that Vorenus would probably kill his wife if he found out, and that would be HIS RIGHT. But they like her, and know that her death would make Vorenus sad and so take it into their own hands. The indiscretion they worry about isn't killing the dude, it's not telling Vorenus about his wife's infidelity. In Spartacus, those are the kinds of things our villains would do, but in Rome, these are the actions of our sympathetic protagonists. Spartacus would never kidnap a dude and murder him in a sewer to protect the honor of his friend.
|
|
#
?
May 22, 2019 02:47
|
|
