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Jazerus posted:i don't think i would call roman literacy restricted. not everybody was taught but we wouldn't have all of the "my dong is the biggest, Gaius is a loser" graffiti or the letters from soldier moms telling them they'd sent a care package of socks or w/e if it wasn't reasonably widespread Like everything there's a huge debate, I'm with you on the wide literacy side though. There's absolutely no way to know for sure but I think the circumstantial evidence is strong for at least most urban people to be literate. Literate, in this sense, meaning being able to read and write functionally--I don't think most people were sitting around reading advanced literature. That said, calling it restricted just depends what you're comparing to. 21st century developed countries? Sure. Premodern? Romans probably had one of the highest literacy rates in the world.
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Jan 26, 2023 19:05
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Libluini posted:
Ethnicity is ancient Anatolia was extremely complicated, and its not super well understood today. Anatolia was very diverse though, linguistically and ethnically. However, we do know that "Hittite" and "Hatti" were separate languages. Hittite is an Indo-European language that is closely related to the Luwian language, but there is a separate Hattian language (mostly preserved in Hittite-Hatti bilingual texts), which is not an Indo-European language, and is not genetically related to either Hittite or Luwian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattic_language.
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Jan 26, 2023 19:21
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Jazerus posted:i don't think i would call roman literacy restricted. not everybody was taught but we wouldn't have all of the "my dong is the biggest, Gaius is a loser" graffiti or the letters from soldier moms telling them they'd sent a care package of socks or w/e if it wasn't reasonably widespread This is the conclusion Beard came to after studying Pompeii . Most people could read
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Jan 26, 2023 20:14
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euphronius posted:This is the conclusion Beard came to after studying Pompeii . Most people could read Writing was pretty common in public, right? Like not just monumental inscriptions but advertisements, etc. I would imagine a good chunk of the urban population picked up a little bit of literacy passively over the course of a lifetime. (I've never read the book you're referencing so apologies if this is what was covered)
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Jan 26, 2023 20:21
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Is the transition of literacy from being a technical skill learned by professional scribes, to being a part of a general education (even if only elites got a general education) documented? Do we have any notes from scribes complaining that their profession is losing relevance because the nobles they're serving can read now
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Jan 26, 2023 20:24
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Judgy Fucker posted:Writing was pretty common in public, right? Like not just monumental inscriptions but advertisements, etc. I would imagine a good chunk of the urban population picked up a little bit of literacy passively over the course of a lifetime. (I've never read the book you're referencing so apologies if this is what was covered) Yeah, a big piece of circumstantial evidence we have for high urban literacy is there is a whole lot of surviving writing that was intended for a general audience. It's hard to square the idea of literacy as an elite thing with the outside wall of practically every building being covered with written advertisements and "Gaius hosed your mom" graffiti. We also know promotion in the legions required literacy. That wouldn't have been sustainable if there weren't a decent number of literate soldiers to choose from. Sort of like how the Spartan Gerousia had a minimum age requirement of 60, so clearly it wasn't that rare for people to live longer than that. cheetah7071 posted:Is the transition of literacy from being a technical skill learned by professional scribes, to being a part of a general education (even if only elites got a general education) documented? Do we have any notes from scribes complaining that their profession is losing relevance because the nobles they're serving can read now I don't know of any in the classical world (though there are some Greek? ones complaining kids these days can't remember poo poo because of this newfangled reading) but that's sort of why Korea adopted hangeul, then got rid of it and went back to hanja. It's easy for everyone to read and write now? Even women? gently caress that, begone alphabet. Also commoners were writing things critical of the king, which was the final straw.
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Jan 26, 2023 22:14
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Judgy Fucker posted:Writing was pretty common in public, right? Like not just monumental inscriptions but advertisements, etc. I would imagine a good chunk of the urban population picked up a little bit of literacy passively over the course of a lifetime. (I've never read the book you're referencing so apologies if this is what was covered) Formal Posters on walls with writing on them and also graffiti is all over the city
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Jan 26, 2023 22:20
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Many of the slaves were educated too .
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Jan 26, 2023 22:21
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euphronius posted:Many of the slaves were educated too . That much I knew, the wealthy had to have their mentats hanging around
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Jan 26, 2023 22:23
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euphronius posted:Many of the slaves were educated too . Depends on individual backgrounds and ends. We don't know who "many" are or who the rest of them were that just got ground into dust at their end like the rest of us. History, winners, et cetera.
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Jan 27, 2023 03:48
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Libluini posted:Could be, Wikpedia only mentioned the Hittites' writing system was a sillabary writing system using 30 symbols, and I didn't think to check the book about Luwian history on my shelves. Sorry, I was getting mixed up Hittites = people, and I meant the Hittite language when I said "Hatti". (As you say, that's another people/language). Anyway, I'm pretty sure the Hittite language is considered distinct from Luwian, and the Luwian people were subject to the Hittite Empire for most of its duration? My point is that the hieroglyphic writing was Luwian only, while the Hittites used cuneiform. (Apparently the Luwians also used cuneiform, with basically the same syllabary as the Hittites, so maybe you're thinking of the Luwians as having their own writing system, ditching that for cuneiform, then returning to it for a while?)
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Jan 27, 2023 05:20
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Grand Fromage posted:We also know promotion in the legions required literacy. That wouldn't have been sustainable if there weren't a decent number of literate soldiers to choose from. Sort of like how the Spartan Gerousia had a minimum age requirement of 60, so clearly it wasn't that rare for people to live longer than that. Actually was thinking that the famed Roman legions probably were a big reason why literacy might have spread in Rome if they were instructed or encouraged to learn to read and write. It's also one of those things that makes a massive empire possible.
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Jan 27, 2023 08:57
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Jazerus posted:i don't think i would call roman literacy restricted. not everybody was taught but we wouldn't have all of the "my dong is the biggest, Gaius is a loser" graffiti or the letters from soldier moms telling them they'd sent a care package of socks or w/e if it wasn't reasonably widespread In a culture with words on walls, advertisements, and written language just around and general there will be a smallish percentage who will learn to read without having to be formally taught just by exposure.
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Jan 27, 2023 17:35
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Bar Ran Dun posted:In a culture with words on walls, advertisements, and written language just around and general there will be a smallish percentage who will learn to read without having to be formally taught just by exposure. Wasn't there also some elite markers with the Japanese syllabaries? Like the monks created hiragana from kanji radicals in order to more easily share Buddhism, but they were how, you know, poor people and women wrote, so we better keep up with the Chinese system instead. To be fair, there would be enormous advantages to retaining that skill given who's right next door and publishes a ton of books, historically...
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Jan 27, 2023 18:42
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If you've got an alphabet system where the letters are reasonably related to a specific sound, anyone who knows the spoken language and learns the alphabet should be able to puzzle their way through reading or writing a basic sentence, right? And Latin characters were more precisely linked to specific sounds than English characters, weren't they, given what a mongrel language English is? Granted it's been a very long time since I learned to read so I don't remember the process that well  Even in English yu can rit fonetikly and figur it owt with sum efort. It's not fast, it's not efficient, but it's good enough for scrawling "FVCK YOV CLAVDIVS" on the wall and expecting Claudius to get the message.
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Jan 28, 2023 15:20
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Nessus posted:All Latin letters derive from legionary dick doodles, pass it on this is an insufficient explanation, legionary dick doodles clearly inherit from etruscan dongs and phoenician dongs before them. we have the receipts
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Jan 28, 2023 16:52
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It's a warm thought somewhere some one can look on our modern society and how it is absolutley littered with writing in everywhere and snicker: hehe, they're drawing my dong.
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Jan 28, 2023 20:47
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Kylaer posted:If you've got an alphabet system where the letters are reasonably related to a specific sound, anyone who knows the spoken language and learns the alphabet should be able to puzzle their way through reading or writing a basic sentence, right? And Latin characters were more precisely linked to specific sounds than English characters, weren't they, given what a mongrel language English is? Granted it's been a very long time since I learned to read so I don't remember the process that well I thought most of the proper written latin we have is strict Caesar-era "GALLIA EST OMNIS DIVISA IN PARTES TRES" without a lot of knowledge about how people actually spoke? The literate just got taught proper writing by friends like Gaius, Cato, and Cicero, even if they were speaking some kind of crazy jargon from Thrace or Celtiberia 200 years later. So not a lot of knowledge of how phonetic it was. Main point seems correct though. I learned cyrillic handwriting from scrawled notes and grafitti. You take that in a classroom they teach you pretty letters on graph paper. You read it in existence and it's nuugunuuuuguuuuuu
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Jan 28, 2023 22:59
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https://www.cnn.com/style/article/5000-year-old-tavern-iraq-archaeology-intl-scli-scn/index.html https://web.sas.upenn.edu/lagash/current-excavations/2022-fall-season/ Move over Pompeii, new ancient tavern just dropped.  quote:Taken together, the massive oven, ancient refrigeration system, courtyard with benches, and large quantity of ready-to-eat food in conical beakers and bowls suggest that the building in Trench 3 was a public eatery serving the local neighborhood in the late ED I period.
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Feb 5, 2023 22:46
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I'm little interested in stoicism, where should I start?
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Feb 7, 2023 15:47
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Zen Buddhism. Or do you mean academically ?
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Feb 7, 2023 15:49
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euphronius posted:Zen Buddhism. Stoicism predates zen buddhism by almost a millennia.
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Feb 7, 2023 15:55
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Fish of hemp posted:I'm little interested in stoicism, where should I start? Being interested doesn't sound very stoic, stop that.
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Feb 7, 2023 15:56
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Mr. Nice! posted:Stoicism predates zen buddhism by almost a millennia. Yes but there really isn’t anyone doing it today. Like active schools . Maybe ?
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Feb 7, 2023 15:57
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We do love new visitors in the Buddhism thread. The philosophical outlooks share a lot! I would disagree that Zen and Stoicism are 1:1 too. The underlying concepts are very different.
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Feb 7, 2023 16:00
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Jokes aside, the enchiridion remains an easy and applicable text.
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Feb 7, 2023 16:06
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Fish of hemp posted:I'm little interested in stoicism, where should I start? The Stoic Life by Tad Brennan
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Feb 7, 2023 16:25
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Grand Fromage posted:Being interested doesn't sound very stoic, stop that. I thought about crafting a response but I knew someone would come along and make the joke.
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Feb 7, 2023 17:15
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CrypticFox posted:https://www.cnn.com/style/article/5000-year-old-tavern-iraq-archaeology-intl-scli-scn/index.html This is very cool, and quite pertinent to the discussion of a few pages back.
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Feb 7, 2023 18:10
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euphronius posted:Yes but there really isn’t anyone doing it today. Like active schools . Maybe ? Christianity is extremely post-stoic and one could argue that Christian asceticism and monasticism is a form of stoic practice. Would be a kind of contentious line of argument and I doubt many modern monks/nuns would take it up. Then again idk if Bodhidharma would recognize modern Zen practice either
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Feb 7, 2023 18:19
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skasion posted:Christianity is extremely post-stoic and one could argue that Christian asceticism and monasticism is a form of stoic practice. This is a step further, but is there a tradition of mortification of the flesh in stoicism? Besides Porcia of course.
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Feb 7, 2023 18:32
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skasion posted:Christianity is extremely post-stoic and one could argue that Christian asceticism and monasticism is a form of stoic practice. Would be a kind of contentious line of argument and I doubt many modern monks/nuns would take it up. Then again idk if Bodhidharma would recognize modern Zen practice either For given values of Christianity.
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Feb 7, 2023 19:21
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*Marcus Aurelius voice* it's actually extremely natural for me to genocide German tribes, simply the way of the universe to brutally slaughter them in elaborate traps. Look at these new borders I'm planning. *shows you the most fugly and unnatural borders ever created* I'm one with the universe and that's why I'm gonna indulge my failson because there is no way to improve this.
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Feb 9, 2023 04:24
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Imagine if everyone believe the personality cult surrounding Steve Jobs in the future. Like MA really has start up founder energy.
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Feb 9, 2023 04:28
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What's wrong with slaughtering Germans?
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Feb 9, 2023 04:39
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Gaius Marius posted:What's wrong with slaughtering Germans? oh to have a Varus gimmick account to reply with
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Feb 9, 2023 05:03
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Lawman 0 posted:*Marcus Aurelius voice* it's actually extremely natural for me to genocide German tribes, simply the way of the universe to brutally slaughter them in elaborate traps. Look at these new borders I'm planning. *shows you the most fugly and unnatural borders ever created* I'm one with the universe and that's why I'm gonna indulge my failson because there is no way to improve this. https://www.exurbe.com/stoicisms-appeal-to-the-rich-and-powerful/ quote:Stoicism caught on among Roman elites because it was the one form of philosophical guidance that didn’t urge them to renounce wealth or power.
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Feb 9, 2023 13:49
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I have to read a quick primer on Stoicism for a Greek and Roman tragedy class and one of the points made was something like "Stoics believed that every person is born with the capacity for reason and virtue" and how that becomes "If our slaves were Stoics then they wouldnt care that they were enslaved that's how good Stoicism is" which is pretty out of pocket imo.
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Feb 9, 2023 13:57
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Buschmaki posted:I have to read a quick primer on Stoicism for a Greek and Roman tragedy class and one of the points made was something like "Stoics believed that every person is born with the capacity for reason and virtue" and how that becomes "If our slaves were Stoics then they wouldnt care that they were enslaved that's how good Stoicism is" which is pretty out of pocket imo. That is basically an implication of stoicism. What's wild is that the person who made that argument/implication was a slave.
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Feb 9, 2023 14:00
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That’s not unique to stoicism I don’t think
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Feb 9, 2023 14:01
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