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Even paleolithic people could travel extensively.
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Jun 27, 2022 01:09
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Haven’t they found remains of Japanese people dating to Rome in Italy?
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Jun 27, 2022 02:59
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There's some question about how effectively you can pinpoint, but yes, there's a body discovered at an imperial estate in Vagnari who seems to be Japanese or at least have matrilineal Japanese descent. https://www.researchgate.net/public...ari_South_Italy is the paper if you can access it. I found it in the wild once ages ago but don't have it anymore. For sure East Asian, there have been more than a few people from East Asia identified in Roman graves.
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Jun 27, 2022 03:07
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People love traveling it’s not really mind blowing
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Jun 27, 2022 03:08
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Jazerus posted:late antiquity saw a serious rise in bigotry which was very unusual in the context of earlier roman attitudes. the only major figure i can think of that faced stilicho-like scorn for "barbarian origins" before that era is maximinus thrax - the historia augusta goes into great detail about what a huge, brutish, awful thracian he was - but that kind of strikes me as throwing every bit of scorn possible onto the guy who precipitated the Crisis, just one more excuse to think of him as one of the shittiest emperors ever by indulging in the greek stereotype of thracians. I've known of the growing xenophobia of late antiquity, but I've never read even an attempt at an explanation for it. Is there much written on the topic? Grand Fromage posted:It was reasonably common. The military of course was a way a lot of people did a lot of travel (not just men but their families/camp followers too), lots and lots of long distance trade, and there was a robust tourist infrastructure in many areas. Depending on what you're considering long distance of course. We know the major arena circuits in Italy scheduled games so they wouldn't conflict with each other because lots of people would see gladiator matches in Rome, then head down to Pompeii to watch games there too, then off to somewhere else. And then there was plenty of internal migration which is being confirmed by things like analyzing tooth enamel. It was at all unusual for someone to be born in Spain, move to Africa as an adult, move again to Illyria or wherever. Related to my above question, perhaps the breakdown of the internal trade network plays a role? People began interacting with "others" less and less, hence becoming more fearful of them? euphronius posted:People love traveling it’s not really mind blowing An East Asian person being buried in ancient Apulia is pretty fascinating, actually.
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Jun 27, 2022 03:58
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Grand Fromage posted:There's some question about how effectively you can pinpoint, but yes, there's a body discovered at an imperial estate in Vagnari who seems to be Japanese or at least have matrilineal Japanese descent. https://www.researchgate.net/public...ari_South_Italy is the paper if you can access it. I found it in the wild once ages ago but don't have it anymore. For sure East Asian, there have been more than a few people from East Asia identified in Roman graves. I find that interesting because as far as I’m aware, Roman geographers weren’t even aware of the existence of Japan; even their knowledge of China was vague enough that the exact referents of “Serica” and “the Sinae” are still a matter of some dispute.
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Jun 27, 2022 04:16
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TipTow posted:I've known of the growing xenophobia of late antiquity, but I've never read even an attempt at an explanation for it. Is there much written on the topic? I don't know of any good explanations, it surely is multi factor. I know breakdown of the trade network isn't one though, that doesn't really happen until the 500s and the late antique xenophobia started centuries before. Not to go full Gibbon but I think Christianity is one of the factors--the change in religious outlook from an expansive, inclusive set of beliefs to a single, exclusive doctrine would naturally have had ripple effects through the culture. I don't think it's a complete explanation though.
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Jun 27, 2022 04:30
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't know of any good explanations, it surely is multi factor. I know breakdown of the trade network isn't one though, that doesn't really happen until the 500s and the late antique xenophobia started centuries before. I was under the impression that internal trade began to decrease dramatically beginning with the 3rd century fun times, perhaps "break down" was too strong a term? Or am I mistaken totally?
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Jun 27, 2022 04:35
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christianity certainly plays a role because there is a distinctly ethnic component to certain divisions within imperial christianity which eventually became full-blown schisms between orthodox christians and heretical varieties. germans, for example, were quite likely to be arians because arian missionaries went to germania mediterranean trade definitely never quite recovered from the crisis, but breakdown is maybe a strong term, yeah.
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Jun 27, 2022 04:51
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There's also been a lot of more recent work suggesting the 300s were a much stronger time than used to be thought. I don't have a reference offhand but anything written about late antiquity in the past ten years will probably talk about it.
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Jun 27, 2022 05:35
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The 300 were the strongest.
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Jun 27, 2022 05:41
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Arglebargle III posted:The 300 were the strongest. not to be a boeotian about it, but, no
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Jun 27, 2022 06:34
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301 is stronger
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Jun 27, 2022 06:36
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301 Dalmatians
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Jun 27, 2022 07:19
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Parmenides posted:You are funny, but be serious. When I walk the Elysian fields, Spartans will eagerly flock to my side.
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Jun 27, 2022 08:19
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Magis sicut Vetus Non Dolor
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Jun 27, 2022 14:23
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Silver2195 posted:I find that interesting because as far as I’m aware, Roman geographers weren’t even aware of the existence of Japan; even their knowledge of China was vague enough that the exact referents of “Serica” and “the Sinae” are still a matter of some dispute. I don't think this fact stands in opposition to the idea of a few people traveling from there and ending up in Rome. Imagine trying to describe the journey from Japan, or even eastern China, to Rome without a single map to refer to. You're ultimately a stranger from a place very, very far away, much too far to practically trade with or establish relations, and trying to tease out more detail than that might not be considered worth the effort except to Herodotus.
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Jun 27, 2022 14:51
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't know of any good explanations, it surely is multi factor. I know breakdown of the trade network isn't one though, that doesn't really happen until the 500s and the late antique xenophobia started centuries before. It’s the collapse of the senatorial order as an “international” elite within the empire imo. The Antonine age governments are dominated by these intermarried senatorial families who hail from all over the empire geographically, but who share a common elite culture and common interests, and who all know each other by repute if not personally. Certainly this system had its drawbacks. But it represented a centralizing force that drew imperial government together. Severus puts the clamps on the senate because, as he well knew having usurped the throne through military contest, senators with armies are dangerous. He inaugurates an age where provincial equestrian officers are put in high positions. Then a generation after his dynasty collapses, the central authority weakens with the disaster of Valerian’s defeat by Shapur, and the military frontiers of the empire suddenly spin apart from the center into regionalized power blocs that don’t acknowledge direct imperial control. That can’t be a coincidence. Control of the military and the government devolved increasingly from a few hundreds of hyper-rich, hyper-aristocratic guys who shared a corporate identity and all married each other’s sisters, to many thousands of less rich, less aristocratic guys who considered themselves to be playing for what they themselves could get. There’s a later branch of more specifically anti-northern-barbarian xenophobia which does have something to do with Arianism, but I think it runs the other way. The xenophobia came first and THEN the schismatism became an issue. The Arian Goths, for example, were converted at a time when Arian doctrine was closer to the Constantinopolitan party line. it was only subsequent development within imperial religious politics which left Arians out in the cold. Ammianus’ account of the lead-up to the Adrianople campaign suggests that Christianity was seen as a mediating force between Romans and barbarians in the 4th century. But the direct experience of the Gothic wars, and the progressive alienation of territory to more or less Romanized barbarian leaders in the 5th century, must have hardened a lot of attitudes. Past a certain point, Roman leaders were forced to confront the fact that they couldn’t establish the kind of imperial dominance over barbarians that they felt was their right. Zosimus tells us that the guy who complained that Stilicho paying off Alaric to go away was not peace, but rather servitude, was compelled to seek sanctuary (in a church) because Stilicho would have taken it out on him otherwise. While from our distance we can look back and say that Stilicho was as Roman as any of them, to the snobbish Italian nobility of the time this situation must have seemed awfully like one barbarian general using his control of the imperial family to buy favors from other barbarian generals.
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Jun 27, 2022 15:01
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Grand Fromage posted:There's some question about how effectively you can pinpoint, but yes, there's a body discovered at an imperial estate in Vagnari who seems to be Japanese or at least have matrilineal Japanese descent. https://www.researchgate.net/public...ari_South_Italy is the paper if you can access it. I found it in the wild once ages ago but don't have it anymore. For sure East Asian, there have been more than a few people from East Asia identified in Roman graves. There's probably a really decent chunk of individuals with similar stories, that kind of testing doesnt get done too often, especially if the burial is realtively inconspicuous.
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Jun 27, 2022 15:52
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Kylaer posted:I don't think this fact stands in opposition to the idea of a few people traveling from there and ending up in Rome. Imagine trying to describe the journey from Japan, or even eastern China, to Rome without a single map to refer to. You're ultimately a stranger from a place very, very far away, much too far to practically trade with or establish relations, and trying to tease out more detail than that might not be considered worth the effort except to Herodotus. Yeah, and even if this Japanese traveler did describe their journeys, it wouldn't necessarily be transcribed by the Roman historians that we have access to. It would be a pretty niche topic, despite how interesting it is to us now. Roman trade networks reached to eastern India and some were aware of regions like the Gulf of Thailand, but the people who would know most about it (Roman merchant captains) weren't the ones chatting with famous writers. Kaal fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Jun 27, 2022 |
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Jun 27, 2022 16:58
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Roman glass made it to Japan, as well. The ancient world was very interconnected due to maritime trade much as we are today.
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Jun 27, 2022 17:12
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When I was younger I thought the most interesting part of history was how different and "exotic" other cultures were in the past. I think as I've gotten older the more interesting it is how much human beings haven't changed at all.
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Jun 27, 2022 17:25
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I find the half scientific belief systems that half work are very fascinating. Like Egyptians and Babylonians knowing that Taurus in the sky meant spring was coming, because life is linked to sacred cows. Or people thinking shellfish are cursed. It's like society collectively used its intuitions before it could collectively understand what was up.
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Jun 27, 2022 17:32
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you could more or less piece together what the travel was like from japan to rome by looking at ancient east asian sources talking about the journey from, say, eastern china to india. the rest of the journey was likely done on a merchant ship straight from india to egypt and travel from there would have been essentially the same as any other roman traveling around the empire not to say it wouldn't be a fascinating story, because it would be; and indeed there is an account in chinese historical records of an envoy sent to "Da Qin", i.e. rome, via a similar route that went up the persian gulf instead and ultimately ended with the envoy talking to the governor of syria
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Jun 27, 2022 17:53
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You could piece it together the entire way, there’s a Chinese account of the journey from Korea to Japan too! As for nobody in the Roman world having written a record of the land these foreigners came from, aside from just the usual passage of time, it’s worth emphasizing that Japan was really a non-entity in this period. People thinking of premodern Japan as any kind of peer to premodern China is one of my bugbears in general, but during classical antiquity that’s truer by an order of magnitude. It would not have been notable.
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Jun 27, 2022 18:38
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Koramei posted:You could piece it together the entire way, there’s a Chinese account of the journey from Korea to Japan too!
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Jun 27, 2022 19:02
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https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1540980347847974912 Cool.
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Jun 27, 2022 19:07
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Nessus posted:Yeah, this is like... pre-Heian. I'm not sure they would have even had Chinese writing at the time. Probably only on material goods and stuff they got directly from China. Certainly Chinese chars were not being actively widely used to render Japanese language. The closest thing we have to Japanese history we have contemporaneous to the Roman principate are asides in Chinese histories about how some lady called Himiko became witch-queen of the shortass eastern barbarians
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Jun 27, 2022 20:44
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wanna hear about himiko
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Jun 27, 2022 20:47
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cheetah7071 posted:wanna hear about himiko She became witch-queen of the shortass eastern barbarians and…apparently did a pretty good job. Records of the Three Kingdoms posted:The country [of Wa] formerly had a man as ruler. For some seventy or eighty years after that there were disturbances and warfare. Thereupon the people agreed upon a woman for their ruler. Her name was Himiko. She occupied herself with magic and sorcery, bewitching the people. Though mature in age, she remained unmarried. She had a younger brother who assisted her in ruling the country. After she became the ruler, there were few who saw her. She had one thousand women as attendants, but only one man. He served her food and drink and acted as a medium of communication. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades, with armed guards in a state of constant vigilance.
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Jun 27, 2022 20:58
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Cool.
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Jun 27, 2022 21:13
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Witch kings and queens are always getting a bad rap, glad to see someone set the record straight
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Jun 27, 2022 21:16
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Nessus posted:Yeah, this is like... pre-Heian. I'm not sure they would have even had Chinese writing at the time. Nope. There's no evidence for writing in Japan until the Kofun period, which is roughly the same time as late antiquity. Legend is it came from Korea along with Confucianism, and what we have from archaeological and written sources pretty much supports that.
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Jun 27, 2022 23:09
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Maybe it's time we give witch-queenocracy a chance.
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Jun 27, 2022 23:25
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Nessus posted:Maybe it's time we give witch-queenocracy a chance. Hillary gave it a shot but couldn’t bewitch enough people to take power
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Jun 28, 2022 00:18
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Wafflecopper posted:Hillary gave it a shot but couldn’t bewitch enough people to take power Also she was not officially named a friend of Cao Wei. Big miss on her part
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Jun 28, 2022 00:37
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The real witch Queens keep it secret so as to influence their people subtly
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Jun 28, 2022 00:39
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It's not witch-queens, but I'll take a stab at the passage on the "Five Kings of Wa" from the Book of Liu-Song:quote:倭國在高驪東南大海中，世修貢職。高祖永初二年，詔曰：「倭讚萬里修貢，遠誠宜甄，可賜除授。」太祖元嘉二年，讚又遣司馬曹達奉表獻方物。讚死，弟珍立，遣使貢獻。自稱使持節、都督倭百濟新羅任那秦韓慕韓六國諸軍事、安東大將軍、倭國王。表求除正，詔除安東將軍、倭國王。珍又求除正倭隋等十三人平西、征虜、冠軍、輔國將軍號，詔並聽。二十年，倭國王濟遣使奉獻，復以為安東將軍、倭國王。二十八年，加使持節、都督倭新羅任那加羅秦韓慕韓六國諸軍事，安東將軍如故。并除所上二十三人軍、郡。濟死，世子興遣使貢獻。世祖大明六年，詔曰：「倭王世子興，奕世載忠，作藩外海，稟化寧境，恭修貢職。新嗣邊業，宜授爵號，可安東將軍、倭國王。」興死，弟武立，自稱使持節、都督倭百濟新羅任那加羅秦韓慕韓七國諸軍事、安東大將軍、倭國王。順帝昇明二年，遣使上表曰：「封國偏遠，作藩于外，自昔祖禰，躬擐甲冑，跋涉山川，不遑寧處。東征毛人五十五國，西服眾夷六十六國，渡平海北九十五國，王道融泰，廓土遐畿，累葉朝宗，不愆于歲。臣雖下愚，忝胤先緒，驅率所統，歸崇天極，道逕百濟，裝治船舫，而句驪無道，圖欲見吞，掠抄邊隸，虔劉不已，每致稽滯，以失良風。雖曰進路，或通或不。臣亡考濟實忿寇讎，壅塞天路，控弦百萬，義聲感激，方欲大舉，奄喪父兄，使垂成之功，不獲一簣。居在諒闇，不動兵甲，是以偃息未捷。至今欲練甲治兵，申父兄之志，義士虎賁，文武效功，白刃交前，亦所不顧。若以帝德覆載，摧此強敵，克靖方難，無替前功。竊自假開府儀同三司，其餘咸各假授，以勸忠節。」詔除武使持節、都督倭新羅任那加羅秦韓慕韓六國諸軍事、安東大將軍、倭王。
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Jun 28, 2022 05:04
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Context was how the Predators (of Predator [1987] fame) use a segmented LCD numeral/alphabet system where each digit/letter is a vertical pair of asterisks:flavor.flv posted:That makes me realize that if cuneiform had survived to the present era, it would have been really easy to make led text displays FFT posted:Maybe with deliberate and major adaptation, but acute triangles where directionality matters would have been way more difficult to adapt than our line-based system FFT posted:Yeah, here we go, phonemes. (Copied out of this article that references actual authorities on cuneiform)
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Jun 28, 2022 08:41
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cowboy
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skasion posted:She became witch-queen of the shortass eastern barbarians and…apparently did a pretty good job. Seems to me that they kept her locked up and killed everyone that knew after her death.
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Jun 28, 2022 10:50
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