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Halloween Jack posted:Did I kick this whole thing off by joking that the Spartans weren't good at anything? I'm sorry. I'm also one of those weird people who thinks the gobsmackingly obvious satire in Snyder's films is in fact satire. The Spartans had a few colonies, but Greek colonies were either pure trade outposts or independent cities that weren't directly governed by the mother city. Not like Roman colonies or the settler colonies in North/South America. Aside from the navy, what you listed about the Spartans applies to all of the ancient Greeks. I don't really like Sparta, but I don't really like the implication that any of the other self-aggrandizing, xenophobic, slave societies in Greece were better people or something. Only Athens, Sparta, and Thebes ever projected any power beyond their home province and they all did it the same way, which was threatening their neighbours and warring with, occasionally massacring them and enslaving all the survivors.
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Feb 5, 2020 21:35
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Ras Het posted:talktotransformer problably Thanks, that's it.
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Feb 6, 2020 02:19
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Didn't somebody ask last week about how the battle Of Lechaeum played out? The battle where a bunch of skirmishers armed with slings and javelins wrecked bunch of Spartan hoplites, even though they had some cavalry? I just remembered someone made a video illustrating the course of the battle, so if you don't mind the budget animation it will at least give a general summary of of how this played out, and why the Spartans did so badly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=homE8iFkMPM The narrator, and presumably writer, is not a professional historian, but he is an academic physical anthropologist. So while i wouldn't expect the description to necessarily be groundbreaking research, he does at least cite his sources.
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Feb 6, 2020 03:08
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Squalid posted:Didn't somebody ask last week about how the battle Of Lechaeum played out? The battle where a bunch of skirmishers armed with slings and javelins wrecked bunch of Spartan hoplites, even though they had some cavalry? I just remembered someone made a video illustrating the course of the battle, so if you don't mind the budget animation it will at least give a general summary of of how this played out, and why the Spartans did so badly. That was me, and it was the question that led to the whole Sparta sidetrack. I'll take a look when I get home, thanks e: that video has the battle playing out notably differently than Xenophon had it--and in a way that makes more sense. Wonder if it's historians trying to make sense of a nonsensical battle, or if Diodorus or someone disagrees with Xenophon cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Feb 6, 2020 |
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Feb 6, 2020 03:24
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Only Athens, Sparta, and Thebes ever projected any power beyond their home province and they all did it the same way, which was threatening their neighbours and warring with, occasionally massacring them and enslaving all the survivors. And Macedon ofc... 
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Feb 6, 2020 13:30
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Global Disorder posted:There's a similar case in Christianity, at least Catholicism (probably Orthodoxy as well?): the Virgin Mary. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Fátima, Our Lady of Sorrows and Stella Maris are different aspects of a single being. Or, you know, the Holy Trinity.
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Feb 6, 2020 13:32
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Are there good books out there that deals with Domitian's reign. I have been re-listening to HoR podcast and i'm curious to know more about him. Hopefully something that doesnt try and make him out to be a monster.
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Feb 6, 2020 18:31
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feedmegin posted:And Macedon ofc... Macedon was fundamentally different from the city-states, in that it wasn't a city-state. The state was also fundamentaly different, in that it revolved around a professional army. The infantry was commoners levied (apparently) for life, while the upper-class served as cavalry and military staff. The military of a Greek polis was literally always a temporary levy of the upper-class, even for Sparta. Only Athens was able to raise a standing army, it paid for mercenaries with its great wealth, and also with the tribute Athens extorted/collected from the Delian League
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Feb 7, 2020 19:56
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cool little archaeology story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi_fFGzVuFs this video describes one pretty amazing technique used to pinpoint where two classical Greek bronzes were cast. Using tools they looked inside of the bronze, and determined that it still had the original clay mold around an iron skeleton on the inside, and could actually identify separate where the artist had applied separate rolls of clay. By sampling the composition of the clay, they were able to determine the workshop had been located either in Athens or one specific neighboring island.
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Feb 8, 2020 04:50
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That title has me terrified of what will happen to my YouTube recommendations if I watch it.
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Feb 8, 2020 06:17
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This is Middle Ages history but there's no thread for it, so what exactly was the effective influence of Catholic Canon Law in Europe in the Middle Ages? What jurisdiction did they have? Could they arrest common people and try them for stuff besides like blasphemy? When did this authority end?
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Feb 9, 2020 06:23
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skasion posted:So I ended up buying a copy of this book. Obscure monograph for less than ten bux and sans musty odor? sounds like a score to me! Really late on this, but thanks a lot. Obscure, dense monographs are my thing (my favorite is the one on ceramic sourcing at Late Pueblo IV sites in the Grasshopper Region of east-central Arizona)
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Feb 9, 2020 10:55
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Dalael posted:Are there good books out there that deals with Domitian's reign. "The Emperor Domitian" by Brian W Jones.
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Feb 10, 2020 03:50
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icantfindaname posted:This is Middle Ages history but there's no thread for it, so what exactly was the effective influence of Catholic Canon Law in Europe in the Middle Ages? What jurisdiction did they have? Could they arrest common people and try them for stuff besides like blasphemy? When did this authority end? Milhist thread might have something on that - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3896814 Not particularly pertinent but lots of history posters.
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Feb 10, 2020 03:54
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i would ask that question in the religion thread, i bet system metternich can answer. He knows a lot about catholic history
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Feb 10, 2020 08:00
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I just got this ad on the forum.  From the title I was wondering why someone made an  tabletop RPG, but the more I read of the PDF the more confused I get...
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Feb 11, 2020 08:08
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I did exactly the same thing. I'm not sure why someone really wants me to read a PDF compilation of posts from a forum I'd never heard of.
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Feb 11, 2020 21:36
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What’s a good, reasonably current book on the early history of Rome, for a lay reader who’s interested in going into more depth? Cultural, political, linguistic, military, any of those areas would be interesting to me. Or a good book on the Etruscans. My dream book would be a Chris Wickham-ish survey of Italian history from, say, 1000BC through the First Punic War, but I recognize that that book probably doesn’t exist.
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Feb 12, 2020 09:07
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Steely Dad posted:What’s a good, reasonably current book on the early history of Rome, for a lay reader who’s interested in going into more depth? Cultural, political, linguistic, military, any of those areas would be interesting to me. Or a good book on the Etruscans. My dream book would be a Chris Wickham-ish survey of Italian history from, say, 1000BC through the First Punic War, but I recognize that that book probably doesn’t exist. I liked The Beginnings of Rome by T.J. Cornell. The author bucks the academic orthodox in one or two places, but always admits when he does so (and he's not some crackpot; just a history professor with his own research and opinions). It's a thorough look at Rome's devlopment from the earliest archaeology up to it gaining full dominance over Italy.
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Feb 12, 2020 09:26
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One thing to remember, which you may perhaps already know, is that there aren't nearly as many sources for early Rome as there are for the late Republic and Empire. That's part of the reason why general surveys of Rome tend to focus on those later eras. The Romans of the late republican era themselves acknowledged that they had lost many of their own sources for their early history, much of which had already become essentially legendary in their time. That being said, in addition to the Cornell survey that cheetah7071 mentioned, I would suggest reading Livy's History of Rome. It was written during the Augustan era, and it is best read as more about what Augustan Romans thought about early Rome than it is what actually happened in early Rome. However, it is by far the most prominent textual source of information for the time period, so starting with an understanding of what Livy thought will at least give you a basis for understanding what modern historians and archaeologists are reacting to.
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Feb 12, 2020 15:55
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Lewd Mangabey posted:One thing to remember, which you may perhaps already know, is that there aren't nearly as many sources for early Rome as there are for the late Republic and Empire. That's part of the reason why general surveys of Rome tend to focus on those later eras. The Romans of the late republican era themselves acknowledged that they had lost many of their own sources for their early history, much of which had already become essentially legendary in their time. Mike Duncan in the History of Rome podcast also makes the good point that understanding the myths and legends is important to understanding the motivations and actions of later Romans that we know a ton about.
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Feb 12, 2020 16:28
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Lewd Mangabey posted:One thing to remember, which you may perhaps already know, is that there aren't nearly as many sources for early Rome as there are for the late Republic and Empire. That's part of the reason why general surveys of Rome tend to focus on those later eras. The Romans of the late republican era themselves acknowledged that they had lost many of their own sources for their early history, much of which had already become essentially legendary in their time. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that the period was always legendary? There was no real attempt at an official state history until the Second Punic War. Then, to commemorate the defeat of Hannibal, the Romans looked to the well-established Greek example to develop their own historiograpical tradition and create a narrative of that war. Up to that point, I believe the closest thing that existed were private family lore books, which were necessarily limited in scope and access to sources, not authored by professionals devoted to the subject, and I assume mainly focused on dynastic family trees and petty squabbles/vendettas with other clans. No one attempted an overarching, Roman-wide survey of any historical period until centuries into the Republic; they just weren't interested in the idea yet as a society.
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Feb 12, 2020 17:08
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There were also archaic lists of magistrates and priests that supplied material for the Punic War-era annalists iirc e: here we go, Cicero has Antonius Orator talk about it in De oratore II quote:”...the Greeks themselves too wrote at first just like our Cato, and Pictor, and Piso. [52] For history was nothing else but a compilation of annals; and accordingly, for the sake of preserving the memory of public events, the pontifex maximus used to commit to writing the occurrences of every year, from the earliest period of Roman affairs to the time of the pontifex Publius Mucius, and had them engrossed on white tablets, which he set forth as a register in his own house, so that all the people had liberty to inspect it; and these records are yet called the Great Annals. [53] This mode of writing many have adopted, and, without any ornaments of style, have left behind them simple chronicles of times, persons, places, and events. Such, therefore, as were Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Acusilas, and many others among the Greeks, are Cato, and Pictor, and Piso with us, who neither understand how composition is to be adorned (for ornaments of style have been but recently introduced among us), and, provided what they related can be understood, think brevity of expression the only merit. [54] Antipater, an excellent man, the friend of Crassus, raised himself a little, and gave history a higher tone; the others were not embellishers of facts, but mere narrators.” skasion fucked around with this message at 21:03 on Feb 12, 2020 |
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Feb 12, 2020 17:35
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cheetah7071 posted:I liked The Beginnings of Rome by T.J. Cornell. The author bucks the academic orthodox in one or two places, but always admits when he does so (and he's not some crackpot; just a history professor with his own research and opinions). It's a thorough look at Rome's devlopment from the earliest archaeology up to it gaining full dominance over Italy. Bought! Looks like just about exactly what I was seeking. I also picked up the B. O. Foster translation of Livy for two bucks on Kindle. I'm aware that sources are limited, and of at least of some of the reasons for that, so I'm not expecting the kind of detail that we get for later periods. I'm just getting bored with Late Antiquity, and that's been the hot topic in recent years. I'm also rereading J. E. Lendon's Soldiers and Ghosts, and I'm going to post about it when I'm done and see if I can drum up any interest or responses. I asked about it in this thread a while back, but didn't get much response, and I think it's one of the more interesting books I've read recently, and I'd love to get thoughts on it from some of the knowledgeable folks in here.
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Feb 12, 2020 18:35
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Whatever Sparta's talent as a military power, I'm astonished by their ability to get a seemingly endless series of Persian dignitaries to willingly throw blank checks into the money pit which was Greek proxy wars. Maybe Xenophon's bias means he just doesn't mention it as often when they support other poleis (he does mention Athens getting Persian support once, and the Persians funding anti-Spartan politicians while a Spartan army was literally invading Persia, but that's it) At the point where I'm at (shortly after Messenia was liberated) supporting Sparta hasn't seemed to benefit the Persians in any way for years and years and they're still going at it. e: of course I make this post about ten minutes before reading about Persia starting to favor Thebes cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 03:27
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Paying the neighboring barbarians to gently caress with each other so you can take advantage of the chaos is like, Empire 101
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Feb 13, 2020 03:57
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Yeah, it bought the Persians a century of Greeks-not-taking-revenge-for-our-invasion. It's also important to note that a lot of the money wasn't from the Shahanshah directly, it was from western satraps with a real interest in keeping the Greeks killing each other instead of trying to liberate(conquer) the very profitable Ionia.
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Feb 13, 2020 04:26
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cheetah7071 posted:Whatever Sparta's talent as a military power, I'm astonished by their ability to get a seemingly endless series of Persian dignitaries to willingly throw blank checks into the money pit which was Greek proxy wars. Maybe Xenophon's bias means he just doesn't mention it as often when they support other poleis (he does mention Athens getting Persian support once, and the Persians funding anti-Spartan politicians while a Spartan army was literally invading Persia, but that's it) At the point where I'm at (shortly after Messenia was liberated) supporting Sparta hasn't seemed to benefit the Persians in any way for years and years and they're still going at it.
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Feb 13, 2020 04:40
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Nessus posted:Was Greece Persia's Middle Eastern hell-hole? Greece was one of those peripheral areas beyond the border that every once in a while contributed to political unrest in the Greek states in Anatolia that recognized Persian sovereignty, but since it was so unstable and all the Greek cities there hated each other, Persia could usually buy them off and play them against each other.
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Feb 13, 2020 05:32
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How were the Greek states under Alexander able to defeat the Persian Empire so thoroughly? I know Alexander is regarded as one of the greatest generals ever, but a collection of squabbling city-states crushing a decentralised but nevertheless much much larger and I assume more resourceful Empire seems like it would require more than just generalship. Is this something the Greeks could have done at an earlier point if they'd banded together (so to speak, I know it wasn't exactly harmonious) sooner, or were there other conditions that lined up with the rise of Macedonia?
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Feb 13, 2020 06:27
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Wafflecopper posted:How were the Greek states under Alexander able to defeat the Persian Empire so thoroughly? I know Alexander is regarded as one of the greatest generals ever, but a collection of squabbling city-states crushing a decentralised but nevertheless much much larger and I assume more resourceful Empire seems like it would require more than just generalship. Is this something the Greeks could have done at an earlier point if they'd banded together (so to speak, I know it wasn't exactly harmonious) sooner, or were there other conditions that lined up with the rise of Macedonia? The Macedonian phalanx had significant advantages over the standard greek phalanx -- chiefly the 20 ft. sarissa instead of the 7 foot standard greek spear. Alexander (or rather his father Philip) was essentially inventing the pike formation a couple thousand years early ( I said that to troll medievalists). Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 06:58
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with Alexander's conquest of Persia, you really shouldn't compare it to something like the conquest of the Roman empire. Instead it was a more comparable event to the Persian usurpation of the Median empire, or Caesar's victory in the civil war. Alexander wasn't building an empire from the ground up, instead he took the existing Persian Empire and just put himself on top. Instead of having to crush every little bit of the empire, vast swaths of territory basically just defected to Alexander. Because if you're an Egyptian, it probably doesn't make much difference to you if you are ruled by Greeks or Persians. Unfortunately, after Alexander's death the Persian system of satraps didn't hold together very well. If I were living in the near East I think i'd have much preferred to live in the Achaemenid empire than in one of the hellenistic successor kingdoms. While the Persians certainly did have plenty of civil wars, those usually avoided the kind of long and destructive campaigns the Greek Kings would wage against one another.
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Feb 13, 2020 07:29
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Yeah the other conquest I compare it to is the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The whole key to the thing was that they used military force to remove the top authority, then put themselves in that spot.
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Feb 13, 2020 07:40
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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It's not clear to me that a politically unified Greece wouldn't have been able to do the same thing even without the new Macedonian military techniques. As far as I can tell, Greek armies had no trouble liberating the cities in Ionia repeatedly. They'd just go home to settle internal squabbles (often fueled by Persian gold) rather than sticking around long enough to make their successes permanent. A Greek crusade against Persia was a long-held desire of many Greeks too, it seems--it was just never practical until the situation at home got more stable (via Macedonian force).
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Feb 13, 2020 07:57
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Wafflecopper posted:How were the Greek states under Alexander able to defeat the Persian Empire so thoroughly? I know Alexander is regarded as one of the greatest generals ever, but a collection of squabbling city-states crushing a decentralised but nevertheless much much larger and I assume more resourceful Empire seems like it would require more than just generalship. Is this something the Greeks could have done at an earlier point if they'd banded together (so to speak, I know it wasn't exactly harmonious) sooner, or were there other conditions that lined up with the rise of Macedonia? Macedon was not a city-state, it was a more decentralized aristocracy that was good at assimilating its neighbours, or at least integrating them into a functional government. By neighbours, I mean all the various non-greek and Greek-ish people living in the border-regions of Hellas, like Epirotes and Thracians or Thessalians. Macedonians themselves were Greek-ish people that were considered wild yokels by the Greeks in the South. Alexander's army was built up by his father, Philip II. He funded the creation of the army with gold mines, but seems to have paid the soldiers in battle and campaign loot. Unlike the Greek city-states, Macedonian infantry were farmers levied for life and trained extensively, so basically a professional army. The Greek city-states had militias composed of the richest strata of society, extremely limited manpower and chaotic political fallout in case of a defeat. Alexander's army was not based around these Greek militias, they collected a relatively small force of hoplites from the Macedonian-sponsored League of Corinth and some loose mercenaries, but they weren't that important in the army. The Macedonian army was comparable to the Roman army after the Marian reforms. It was a force loyal to its leaders, but as the biggest leader was the King of Macedon, things worked out fine. The whole state was politically stabilized by the army for 50 years that Philip and Alexander reigned, its powerful conquered subjects gained from service in the army, and there was a lot of land and loot to be gained from conquering all its neighbours. Of course, when Alexander died with an infant heir, the army and his empire shattered instantly and everybody started scrambled for the scraps while somebody iced Alexander Jr. So this success was still pretty ephemeral, even if lasted longer than the Greek hegemonies.
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Feb 13, 2020 08:02
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cheetah7071 posted:It's not clear to me that a politically unified Greece wouldn't have been able to do the same thing even without the new Macedonian military techniques. As far as I can tell, Greek armies had no trouble liberating the cities in Ionia repeatedly. They'd just go home to settle internal squabbles (often fueled by Persian gold) rather than sticking around long enough to make their successes permanent. A Greek crusade against Persia was a long-held desire of many Greeks too, it seems--it was just never practical until the situation at home got more stable (via Macedonian force). Repeatedly? afaik they just destroyed the Achaemenid navy twice, once in the Second Greco-Persian War, then later at Eurydemon before the Persians could actually launch an expedition, and the Persians just called it quits about Asia Minor for a long while after that. As for an invasion the Athenians landed a big force in Egypt to help support a native Egyptian rebellion against the Achaemenids. This was during the Peloponnesian War of all things, and they somehow hosed it all up and lost the entire army when the Achaemenid army responded. That's probably how a land invasion of Persia goes for a unified Greece as well.
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Feb 13, 2020 08:20
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Agesilaos was leading a successful crusade during the Spartan hegemony before things destabilized back home, and I thought the Delian league was also temporarily successful in liberating the Ionian cities. Xenophon's takeaway from his time in Persia seemed to be that the Persian military had trouble with Greek hoplites. Add on Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea and the Greeks seem to have a reasonably good record against the Persians when there isn't trouble at home (but trouble at home was never more than year away at most). Those were the examples I was thinking of at least, maybe I'm forgetting a bunch of losses like in Egypt as you mentioned
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Feb 13, 2020 08:26
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The Delian League/Athens was just plain successful, but they didn't do repeated landings on Ephesus or wherever. At least, it's not recorded. It seems that whenever they destroyed the Persian navy like at Salamis/Mycale and Eurydemon the Ionian cities would just stop paying Persian taxes and there was nothing the Persians would do about it. I guess because they were all coastal cities that could get supplies through their ports? During the initial Ionian Revolt, their land invasion of Lydia was badly mauled by the Persians though. Xenophon has a bit of a limited perspective and he really never faced the Persian Army at all. The Ten Thousand chase after a feigned retreat all day in Cunaxa and then took a long trip through the mountain passes near Armenia, which wasn't where Persians lived.
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Feb 13, 2020 08:53
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Wafflecopper posted:How were the Greek states under Alexander able to defeat the Persian Empire so thoroughly? I know Alexander is regarded as one of the greatest generals ever, but a collection of squabbling city-states crushing a decentralised but nevertheless much much larger and I assume more resourceful Empire seems like it would require more than just generalship. Is this something the Greeks could have done at an earlier point if they'd banded together (so to speak, I know it wasn't exactly harmonious) sooner, or were there other conditions that lined up with the rise of Macedonia? By the time of the invasion, the collection of squabbling city-states had mostly already been put down by Philip. During the whole time Alexander was away, Antipater made sure they didn't rise again. (Note that my knowledge about this period is mainly from the Life of Alexander podcast, which I just finished listening to.)
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Feb 13, 2020 09:37
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In addition to what's already been posted, my take on the whole Alexander thing was that it's a combination of amazing factors which all contribute to making the conquest possible. Philip II laid the groundwork for the Macedonian state and military; Olympias kept things relatively stable at the royal court level (at least as far as Alexander was concerned); the Persians were comfortable in their proxy war routine with the Greeks; Alexander was surrounded by top-level generals; as a tactical battlefield leader Alexander was both stupidly brave and incredibly lucky not to be killed in the first few battles with the Persians; and strategically the invasion happened so fast that the Persians were defeated early, then the Macedonians stayed for a decade to mop up instead of going back home. With all of those factors lining up, my impression is that it wouldn't have happened if any one of the factors was different.
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Feb 13, 2020 17:25
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