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I've heard the "people fighting for their farms fight better" argument before and it's crap. People fight well if they're trained and motivated. If they're motivated by thoughts of home and hearth, fine, but that's not an innately better reason to fight than, say, a bunch of money.
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Mar 29, 2020 21:16
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I've heard the "people fighting for their farms fight better" argument before and it's crap. People fight well if they're trained and motivated. If they're motivated by thoughts of home and hearth, fine, but that's not an innately better reason to fight than, say, a bunch of money.
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Mar 29, 2020 21:25
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The conscripted army of small farm owners was disastrous for the Roman middle class. Farm owners would go off on campaign for years at a time, come home to a farm in extreme disrepair, and be basically forced to sell it to make ends meet
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Mar 29, 2020 21:35
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NikkolasKing posted:I've never understood why everything is compared to Rome. And I really do like history and culture and tradition and think all of these things are important for how we proceed. There's nothing wrong with looking back at Rome for some inspiration or ideas, like the modern Republicanism movement. (not US Republicans, Republicanism) You know how the PRC claims literal, state-to-state descent all the way back to mythological emperors? "Western civilization" isn't all that different. Comparisons to Rome aren't a modern thing. Europe (yes even the parts that were not a part of the Roman Empire on the map, and let's be real Estonia is culturally more roman than they are 1000 BCE tribesmen), the Mediterranean, and by consequence the Americas and the other scattered settler states have been slapfighting over who is the real Rome since long before the OG Rome fell for good, and thrusting christianity into the mix made the idea of "Rome" even stronger. It's a fundamental part of our collective history and mythology and people won't stop comparing every society to Rome and making Rome allusions about the current political landscape for the foreseeable future. In 2200 the scattered survivors of our dead civilization will almost certainly know who Caesar was or at least know the name and associate it with a glorious/hedonistic/holy/pagan/something empire long past. Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Mar 29, 2020 |
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Mar 29, 2020 21:45
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I was surprised recently by how cheaply you can acquire ancient coins. You can buy a coin struck right after the death of Constantine and bearing his visage for $30.
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Mar 29, 2020 21:50
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cheetah7071 posted:The conscripted army of small farm owners was disastrous for the Roman middle class. Farm owners would go off on campaign for years at a time, come home to a farm in extreme disrepair, and be basically forced to sell it to make ends meet If you know a better way to scoop up a bunch of farms on the cheap the ruling class would be all ears.
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Mar 29, 2020 21:50
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Kevin DuBrow posted:I was surprised recently by how cheaply you can acquire ancient coins. You can buy a coin struck right after the death of Constantine and bearing his visage for $30. It's a great hobby. The coins are undervalued. The small copper imperial roman coins are so inexpensive that they aren't worth the time and effort to forge, so you can feel comfortable that they're the real deal. Romans would bury their hoard of coins, go off to war and get killed, and the coins stayed in the ground, and when metal detectors came around, many hoards were discovered, and the supply outweighs the demand. That will change eventually.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:12
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I've heard the "people fighting for their farms fight better" argument before and it's crap. People fight well if they're trained and motivated. If they're motivated by thoughts of home and hearth, fine, but that's not an innately better reason to fight than, say, a bunch of money.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:29
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cheetah7071 posted:The conscripted army of small farm owners was disastrous for the Roman middle class. Farm owners would go off on campaign for years at a time, come home to a farm in extreme disrepair, and be basically forced to sell it to make ends meet I'm no expert on this stuff so correct me if I'm wrong, but conscripted farmers going off on campaign for years sounds like an offensive thing where they aren't actually fighting to defend their own land any more (except maybe in an abstract sense of "if we don't conquer these guys they're gonna keep coming at us"). I always understood the "fighting for hearth and home" thing to imply being on the defensive where if you don't win you face the immediate threat of your family being slaughtered or sold into slavery and your farm being razed to the ground. Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Mar 29, 2020 |
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Mar 29, 2020 22:33
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Wafflecopper posted:I'm no expert on this stuff so correct me if I'm wrong, but conscripted farmers going off on campaign for years sounds like an offensive thing where they aren't actually fighting to defend their own land any more (except maybe in an abstract sense of "if we don't conquer these guys they're gonna keep coming at us"). I always understood the "fighting for hearth and home" thing to imply being on the defensive where if you don't win you face the immediate threat of your family being slaughtered or sold into slavery and your farm being razed to the ground. This was in fact a major complaint. The system stayed in place from the period where what you describe makes sense, all the way up until it became completely infeasible. There was a long period in between where it was merely mostly infeasible.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:49
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Wafflecopper posted:I'm no expert on this stuff so correct me if I'm wrong, but conscripted farmers going off on campaign for years sounds like an offensive thing where they aren't actually fighting to defend their own land any more (except maybe in an abstract sense of "if we don't conquer these guys they're gonna keep coming at us"). I always understood the "fighting for hearth and home" thing to imply being on the defensive where if you don't win you face the immediate threat of your family being slaughtered or sold into slavery and your farm being razed to the ground.
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Mar 29, 2020 22:54
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The entire point of being consul was so you could lead legions and conquer nearby peoples, winning you glory and making you incredibly wealthy. I mean, sure, it didn't start that way, but that's what it evolved into.
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Mar 29, 2020 23:34
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Kevin DuBrow posted:I was surprised recently by how cheaply you can acquire ancient coins. You can buy a coin struck right after the death of Constantine and bearing his visage for $30. Yep. There are literal billions of them and they're not worth anything after they're used for dating sites. Just make sure you do due diligence and are buying them reputably, like from a museum. People go out and dig up coin hoards and destroy archaeological sites, you don't want to support that. But ones that were excavated properly are then often sold to fund more archaeology, and in that situation they're perfectly fine to buy because the information's been recorded.
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Mar 29, 2020 23:53
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Wafflecopper posted:I'm no expert on this stuff so correct me if I'm wrong, but conscripted farmers going off on campaign for years sounds like an offensive thing where they aren't actually fighting to defend their own land any more (except maybe in an abstract sense of "if we don't conquer these guys they're gonna keep coming at us"). I always understood the "fighting for hearth and home" thing to imply being on the defensive where if you don't win you face the immediate threat of your family being slaughtered or sold into slavery and your farm being razed to the ground. Remember, too, in the days of the Kingdom/early Republic, when this thing started, the Romans were fighting their immediate neighbors. So, for instance, when the Romans and the rest of the Latin League send an army to Arisia to defend it against Clusium, Arisia is 16 miles away from Rome. The big battle in the first war between the Latin League and Rome was settled at the battle of Lake Regulus, which is about 12 miles away. And, remember, even in a lot of the long wars in the early Republic, the armies weren't in the field all the time. The armies would be gathered after planting was done, go out and fight in the summer, and then disband and go back home for the harvest. So they could get away with that, especially because if you were rich enough to have your own equipment and farm, you probably had at least a few slaves or servants to tend to the farm when you weren't there.
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Mar 30, 2020 00:33
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I realize concepts of The West and Western History are vague but I'm right in that at least some people say the fall of Rome was the end of the Roman Empire while others say Byzantium continuing to exist means the Roman Empire continued to exist, right? I'm just curious because, while I mainly study philosophy and intellectual history, we tend to trace our origins back to the Greeks. Athens and democracy and Socrates and all that good stuff. Then comes the Roman Empire until it goes away. But we don't count Byzantium who were also Greek. So we include and fixate on one bit of Greek history while another is sort of...not neglected but categorized differently. Is that wrong? I've always heard it phrased as the Latin West and the Greek East. But we were okay with the Greeks in Alexander's time and before and they're part of "the West" so...I don't get it.
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Mar 30, 2020 00:38
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The Byzantine Empire was the Roman Empire. If you called them Greek, you'd get tossed out on your rear end. The term Byzantine was just applied to them by a German historian forever ago.
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Mar 30, 2020 00:41
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Ancient jewelry is pretty darn cheap too. I mean, it's jewelry, sure, but it just costs about as much as midrange modern jewelry does.
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Mar 30, 2020 00:48
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“Byzantine” is a pretty modern term. “Greek Empire” is older and was used of the empire while it still existed, but never by the Byzantines themselves; it was a Latin (ie western European) thing that drew a contrast to their own (Holy) Roman Empire. You don’t get too many historians these days who uncritically talk about “the fall of the Roman Empire” in the 5th century without pointing out that half (or more, depending on how tendentious and edgy they want their book to be) of the empire didn’t fall at that time. It’s a fairly dated thing to ignore Byzantium.
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Mar 30, 2020 00:54
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NikkolasKing posted:Is that wrong? I've always heard it phrased as the Latin West and the Greek East. But we were okay with the Greeks in Alexander's time and before and they're part of "the West" so...I don't get it. You will get different answers from different people. I am on the far end of saying the east was "Greek" until the Romans came, and after a fairly long period of Roman rule the idea of Greek identity went away. They still spoke Greek but everyone in the eastern empire identified as Romans. Being Roman was not tied to actually being from Rome for many centuries during the period of the united empire. The vast majority of Romans would never have seen Italy let alone Rome, they were a massive multi-ethnic empire with a range of languages and local cultures that still existed within the category of Romans. People living in the east who spoke Greek called their country Romania until 1453, and themselves Rhomaioi until into the early 20th century in some communities. They were also called Romans by their Ottoman rulers. So, in my opinion, Greek is a term that gets applied to two entirely different cultures that share a linguistic and cultural history. The pre-Roman Greeks and the modern Greeks are certainly related, it's not like Greece was ever purged and resettled or anything (though Anatolia was), but other than living in the same location and speaking a similar language they're different people. It's like modern Egyptians versus ancient ones.
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Mar 30, 2020 00:55
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Grand Fromage posted:You will get different answers from different people. I am on the far end of saying the east was "Greek" until the Romans came, and after a fairly long period of Roman rule the idea of Greek identity went away. They still spoke Greek but everyone in the eastern empire identified as Romans. Being Roman was not tied to actually being from Rome for many centuries during the period of the united empire. The vast majority of Romans would never have seen Italy let alone Rome, they were a massive multi-ethnic empire with a range of languages and local cultures that still existed within the category of Romans. People living in the east who spoke Greek called their country Romania until 1453, and themselves Rhomaioi until into the early 20th century in some communities. They were also called Romans by their Ottoman rulers. Greece (except the Peloponnesus) was sort of resettled during the 6th and 7th centuries, they got a lot of Sclavenian influx while the empire was distracted by the Arabs. Mostly they ended up Hellenizing rather than the other way around, though.
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Mar 30, 2020 01:07
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NikkolasKing posted:I realize concepts of The West and Western History are vague but I'm right in that at least some people say the fall of Rome was the end of the Roman Empire while others say Byzantium continuing to exist means the Roman Empire continued to exist, right? well "western history" is indeed so vague it's hard to really say much about why some societies in some time periods are included or excluded. it's a very after-the-fact way of looking at things, taking the cultural and political divisions of the 20th century and projecting them backward to put historical peoples and states into neat categories. ultimately the reason the eastern roman empire after the fall of the western empire is considered "not west" is the great schism. orthodox nations are not part of "the west" because, if they were, russia would be an inheritor of "western culture" the same as western europe. also, the ERE fell to the turks and largely became part of "the east". it's all just basically bullshit tho. nobody on earth is the inheritor of a solely "western" tradition of thought, at every point throughout "western" history there was influence on that thought from "non-western" sources
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Mar 30, 2020 01:11
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Grand Fromage posted:(though Anatolia was) Wait, what happened with Anatolia? e: I mean obviously there were the Turks but I always thought they were a pretty small minority
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Mar 30, 2020 01:11
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There's a certain element of the ship of Theseus paradox when trying to determine whether a state is the same as it was previously after everyone previously alive is dead. States where all power and identifying characteristics derive from an inherently transient individual seem even more prone to wildly changing to the point of making you question the continuity of identity. I feel like Roman to Byzantine empire is like you started with the ship of Theseus and wound up with a bus. From an external perspective, just about everything inherent has changed, and if those are the same identity, it's questionable what even qualifies as identity in the first place.
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Mar 30, 2020 01:12
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I feel like this posted once a quarter or so but Xenopus is legit and I've spent a couple hundred on him. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3884740
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Mar 30, 2020 01:37
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Wafflecopper posted:I'm no expert on this stuff so correct me if I'm wrong, but conscripted farmers going off on campaign for years sounds like an offensive thing where they aren't actually fighting to defend their own land any more (except maybe in an abstract sense of "if we don't conquer these guys they're gonna keep coming at us"). I always understood the "fighting for hearth and home" thing to imply being on the defensive where if you don't win you face the immediate threat of your family being slaughtered or sold into slavery and your farm being razed to the ground. At least for the Romans, offensive and defensive wars are hard to distinguish. They're usually marching out in response to something or as a reprisal, but keeping war away from the city and its surroundings was very important. For instance, one could say the response to Hannibal's invasion was defensive (the Romans certainly defined it as such) but most of the fighting was far away from the city in other parts of Italy. They assembled "defensive" armies, and then marched out. Later in the Republican era, a lot of Rome's initial conquests are at least nominally responses to outside threats. Cisalpine Gaul was conquered to stop raiding, Illyria was conquered to stop piracy, Macedon to defend allies, Hispania and Africa in response to Carthage, etc. Whether or not these were the actual reasons for war is beside the point in terms of motivation: the Romans perceived them to be defensive wars and acted accordingly.
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Mar 30, 2020 01:43
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skasion posted:Greece (except the Peloponnesus) was sort of resettled during the 6th and 7th centuries, they got a lot of Sclavenian influx while the empire was distracted by the Arabs. Mostly they ended up Hellenizing rather than the other way around, though. Yeah there were migrations, but the native population didn't really go anywhere. There's also the fact that for ancient Greek culture, Anatolia and Italy were in some respects more important and what we think of as Greece was kind of a backwater outside of a couple of major cities. Athens was a big deal, but we also pay far more attention to it than it probably deserves since our Greek sources are so heavily Athens-based. Koramei posted:Wait, what happened with Anatolia? When the Turks took over there was a massive refugee migration out of central Anatolia to the coasts where there was still Roman control. Over time many of those people continued leaving and moving into Roman territory. From 1914-1922 there was an organized genocide of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire/Turkey, and tons of Greeks fled who weren't killed. Then in 1923 there was the population exchange where most of the remaining Greeks in Turkish territory were forcibly expelled. There are still people in Turkey who are of the original Greek ethnicity, but the people who identified as Greek/were Orthodox Christians were removed.
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Mar 30, 2020 01:46
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All roman wars of expansion were defensive in nature, change my mind. 
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Mar 30, 2020 01:47
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If you live backwards in time, helpless populations being subjugated are actually barbarian hordes dissassembling everything you've ever known.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:04
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SlothfulCobra posted:There's a certain element of the ship of Theseus paradox when trying to determine whether a state is the same as it was previously after everyone previously alive is dead. States where all power and identifying characteristics derive from an inherently transient individual seem even more prone to wildly changing to the point of making you question the continuity of identity. Romulus, Gaius Julius Caesar, Trajan, Romulus Augustulus, the Habsburgs, the Komnenoi, and the Ottomans were all roman. Justin Trudeau is roman. Erdogan is roman. Trump is roman. Yu the Great was as chinese as Liu Xuande and Kublai Khan and Deng Xiaoping. Noticing and caring about the legalistic bullshit regarding who technically inherited what ancient empire is practically a guarantee that you're part of it. That anyone notices or cares about it proves that it is still relevant. Like if you're reading Caesar and your government somehow still has a frighteningly familiar eagle or two in its various logos, in 2CE or 200 or 500 or 1500 or 2020, congrats, you're a goddam roman.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:09
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Romulus, Gaius Julius Caesar, Trajan, Romulus Augustulus, the Habsburgs, the Komnenoi, and the Ottomans were all roman. Justin Trudeau is roman. Erdogan is roman. Trump is roman...Like if you're reading Caesar and your government somehow still has a frighteningly familiar eagle or two in its various logos, in 2CE or 200 or 500 or 1500 or 2020, congrats, you're a goddam roman.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:12
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Tunicate posted:Ancient jewelry is pretty darn cheap too. I mean, it's jewelry, sure, but it just costs about as much as midrange modern jewelry does. From where? I know some people that'd make an amazing gift for.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:25
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Like if you're reading Caesar and your government somehow still has a frighteningly familiar eagle or two in its various logos, in 2CE or 200 or 500 or 1500 or 2020, congrats, you're a goddam roman. Might as well slide in 700 BC Kingdom of Rome in there while you're at it. It's not particularly wrong to look at the Roman identity as chemically dissolving, particles of romanism getting distributed far and wide until there's not much difference in Rome content between societies and yet being heavily diluted at the same time. Not particularly worth anything for nationalism or absolute takes on cultural identity either.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:33
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Ancient jewelery is more sketchy. Probably a lot more fakes. A lot of the stuff is one of a kind. With coins you can weigh them, measure them, analyze the strike, the mint marks, the edges, because these things are standardized. But with the jewelry, you're pretty much relying on the seller. One thing to look for are "negs". Things a faker wouldn't do. I have a barbarian crucifix pendant. It's so hosed up and lovely looking that I can't imagine it being a fake, as it's not desirable. I found them at coin conventions. 90% of the vendors only sell modern currency. Out of the 10% that sell ancient coins, three or so also have ancient trinkets and jewlery. Other than that its ebay, and online dealers.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:40
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Does anyone know the original name of the city that became Rome?
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Mar 30, 2020 02:51
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Mr. Nice! posted:Does anyone know the original name of the city that became Rome? If you mean the legendary version of Rome's founding it's Alba Longa. Historically it might be Ruma, which is basically the Etruscan word for Rome. Nobody actually knows. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Mar 30, 2020 |
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Mar 30, 2020 02:59
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:If you mean the legendary version of Rome's founding it's Alba Longa. Gotcha. I just recall somewhere earlier in this thread discussion of how ancient cities were typically named after their patron deity or whatever, and the early Romans just kidnapped everyone's god and stashed it in Rome to bring them into the fold without pissing them off or necessarily destroying their culture. All the while the real name and patron of Rome was kept secret. Rome was the people, not the city. I'm probably misremembering that.
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Mar 30, 2020 03:12
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Mr. Nice! posted:Does anyone know the original name of the city that became Rome? 
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Mar 30, 2020 03:12
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Rockopolis posted:Troy? Nah, that's where Romans came from. I'm more interested in Latins they merged with to start the kingdom.
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Mar 30, 2020 03:20
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Mr. Nice! posted:Does anyone know the original name of the city that became Rome? Reme, didn't last long tho.
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Mar 30, 2020 03:21
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Grand Fromage posted:Yep. There are literal billions of them and they're not worth anything after they're used for dating sites. Just make sure you do due diligence and are buying them reputably, like from a museum. People go out and dig up coin hoards and destroy archaeological sites, you don't want to support that. But ones that were excavated properly are then often sold to fund more archaeology, and in that situation they're perfectly fine to buy because the information's been recorded. Is there actually any...I dunno, certificate like an aoc for historical stuff like that you can check?
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Mar 30, 2020 03:24
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