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If you took a DVD of Microsoft excel back to Roman times you could amaze them by having a diffraction grating. You'd advance the science of optics by hundreds of years overnight. These modern cloud copies are useless by comparison, at least in the context of traveling back in time to ancient Rome to demonstrate modern optical devices.
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 15:52 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:45 |
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they would call it “microsoft forty”
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 15:54 |
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Squizzle posted:they would call it “microsoft forty” lmao
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 16:00 |
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Squizzle posted:they would call it “microsoft forty”
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 16:01 |
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:The Shipwrecked Sailor! I posted about that one in here this summer, while people were indulging me sharing a bunch of Egyptian literature You can click through for my full post, but here is what I have thought the point to be -- This is also incredibly satisfying. I would imagine you're right, it makes sense to me, a whole lot more sense than anything I had thought up which, being honest, was basically nothing. But it's not obvious at all, right? And that's what earns it an exploration of what it could possibly mean. On the surface you get a story of a guy saying "look, don't worry because magic snake in a completely different scenario" that if taken as is seems pointless but is clearly written in a way where the point should be there. And maybe that point is obvious to an ancient audience even if not to us? When I first read Gilgamesh way back in college that's what really interested me in it. So many of the choices were treated as if they were obvious but to me made no sense. Maybe I've changed (probably, I've gotten more used to reading ancient texts) or maybe translations have gotten better because I reread it as a part of this "read everything from the ancient world, especially their religions" and it didn't seem as bizarre to me, but it's still there. Just more and more evidence of how they weren't dumber than us but they were very different. And that's also led to the opposite feeling when reading Latin texts. They feel weirdly modern, and so you can kinda see that divide between culturally alien and directly culturally connected. Is there an equivalent to the Context of Scripture or Before the Muses for Roman texts? Maybe it would be too much for one book. Something that's sorta just the collection of everything that wouldn't otherwise get its own book all in one place?
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 16:05 |
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Squizzle posted:they would call it “microsoft forty”
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 16:21 |
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Squizzle posted:they would call it “microsoft forty” The current thread title owns and it's too soon to change it, but that's a strong candidate.
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 16:26 |
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Arglebargle III posted:If you took a DVD of Microsoft excel back to Roman times you could amaze them by having a diffraction grating. You'd advance the science of optics by hundreds of years overnight. These modern cloud copies are useless by comparison, at least in the context of traveling back in time to ancient Rome to demonstrate modern optical devices. "OK, so you got a weird polished slice of a geode somewhere. Yes I see it's shiny, very pretty, looks like a circle, so what" ___/
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 16:50 |
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What if the Roman Legions had powerpoint. What if Cicero had powerpoint
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 17:51 |
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Cato would've had something else to delenda est
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 17:52 |
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Mighty Eris posted:What if the Roman Legions had powerpoint. just google "the biggest logistics powerpoint presentation"
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 17:59 |
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Mighty Eris posted:What if the Roman Legions had powerpoint. what if augustus had youtube
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 18:20 |
FAUXTON posted:what if augustus had youtube Publius Quinctilius Varus Did WHAT With My Legions!?!? (part 54) 1,546,921 views
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 19:24 |
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BrainDance posted:
As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History is the best place to look for Roman documents recording daily life, but it doesn't contain much literature. The subject of Roman literature is huge, and there are hundreds of places to look for that, but if you want to dip your toe into the water and get a good sampling of a lot of different authors, the Oxford Anthology of Roman Literature would be a good place to start. CrypticFox fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Dec 8, 2023 |
# ? Dec 8, 2023 19:27 |
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FAUXTON posted:what if augustus had youtube I HAVE IRRUMATED VBER CHARIOTEER??
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 19:28 |
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Teutoborg Forest HIDDEN EASTER EGGS
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 19:29 |
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Restore the Republic with this one weird trick. Would-be kings hate it!
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 19:36 |
It is not like an aqueduct, Secundus, carried from place to place within an enclosed space; but rather as if there were many ships bearing grain to your slave, each bid according to protocol.
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 19:55 |
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BrainDance posted:This is also incredibly satisfying. I would imagine you're right, it makes sense to me, a whole lot more sense than anything I had thought up which, being honest, was basically nothing. Yeah! I totally get that! My relationship to Egyptian religion and literature started as a kid who just thought it was all really cool, and then the more I read and became capable of understanding the more it all began appealing to me on a deep personal level for a multitude of interrelated reasons. The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor is a great example, when I read it as a teenager I was like "okay, cool snake " and then I re-read it last year, with twenty years of trying to develop a modern relationship with this ancient religion and its perception of the world under my belt, and was just like "oh it's about good speech, of course." Having a much deeper understanding both of the Egyptian ontology and a bit more abstractly, the sorts of things they found important enough to write wisdom literature about, made it just make immediate sense to me in exactly the way it did not when I tried reading it without having spent so much time practicing an ability to access the appropriate perspective. You might enjoy a bunch of my post history in here, I am not an Egyptologist but as I say I have developed a very personal relationship with the religion and its literature, and my desire to experience the/my religion in ways that could be considered authentic or at least, "not hideously misguided" has led me down some very interesting paths, recently especially. Let me find a couple posts on magical rhetoric I made in another thread and reproduce them here, I don't think these two threads have a huge amount of reader overlap; the paper I discuss in them supports the way we can interpret the sailor's story as a parable on the power of effective speech, and I am pretty sure it will be interesting to more people than just you and me.
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 19:59 |
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I am just going to copy/paste this whole-rear end post (and its sequel post) in here without revising my commentary because I am just not that ambitious today I mentioned this paper in here this summer but never ended up getting into it so... here we are! Please forgive the tone of my commentary having more emphasis on modern metaphysics than ancient history, the topic of this paper blurs those lines quite effectively, don't judge me too hard.quote:well my big problem is they are both paywalled and I don’t have pdfs to share right now (maybe later, when my partner who is the one possessed of a JSTOR login returns home). But I am talking about Edward Karshner’s paper Thought, Utterance, Power: Toward a Rhetoric of Magic and Vincent Tobin’s paper Mytho-Theology in Ancient Egypt (this one is particularly interesting if you pair it with some of the thoughts theologians of modern religions have put out about the importance of myth and symbol in personal life and faith; I am thinking of the corresponding chapter in Paul Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, particularly. “For there is no substitute for the use of symbols and myths: they are the language of faith.”). While I don’t have pdfs I have some very lovely printouts that I made, on colorful paper so they’re harder for me to lose I don't think I have quite enough room to stitch the second post in here without running afoul of the character limit, so... it is forthcoming.
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 20:12 |
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quote:Okay I’m back. I did also talk about that Mytho-Theology paper for a little bit in one additional post, but maybe I won't vomit out three giant reposted effortposts in a row so that I can share interesting things on another day too anyway there is my gamble of a rather than being coy and asking first if people here would like to read it, since I have yet to hear "no, absolutely loving not, why would you even ask that, you idiot" in reply when I do ask if I should post things like this LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Dec 8, 2023 |
# ? Dec 8, 2023 20:15 |
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Yeah! I totally get that! My relationship to Egyptian religion and literature started as a kid who just thought it was all really cool, and then the more I read and became capable of understanding the more it all began appealing to me on a deep personal level for a multitude of interrelated reasons. The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor is a great example, when I read it as a teenager I was like "okay, cool snake " and then I re-read it last year, with twenty years of trying to develop a modern relationship with this ancient religion and its perception of the world under my belt, and was just like "oh it's about good speech, of course." This is similar to how I feel about Jane Austen. When I first tried to read her I found her unutterably inane and boring. After I had watched enough regency films and took a few college courses, though, once I actually understood the social context and knew the difference between a dog cart and a barouche-landau, I realized she was one of the great writers of the world.
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 20:33 |
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Jazerus posted:Publius Quinctilius Varus Did WHAT With My Legions!?!? (part 54) The thumbnail is Augustus making a “soy face” with the text “GIVE THEM BACK!” written diagonally in giant block letters.
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 20:40 |
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AUGUSTUBE #38 Kids These Days (again!) UPDATE: sent my daughter into exile
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 22:01 |
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Augustus posted:At the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and with a small loan of a million talents from my father, I raised an army by means of which I restored liberty to the republic, which had been oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which service the Senate, with complimentary resolutions, enrolled me in its order, in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, giving me at the same time consular precedence in voting; it also gave me the imperium. As propraetor it ordered me, along with the consuls, "to see that the republic suffered no harm." In the same year, moreover, as both consuls had fallen in war, the people elected me consul and a triumvir for settling the constitution (1/35) .
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# ? Dec 8, 2023 22:11 |
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LITERALLY A BIRD posted:I am just going to copy/paste this whole-rear end post (and its sequel post) in here without revising my commentary because I am just not that ambitious today A Good Post. We could start referring to ai-generated "art" as The Great Babbler
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# ? Dec 9, 2023 00:25 |
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I realized that although My Favorite Paper illustrates well the perceived relationship between skillful rhetoric and magical effect, it does not explicitly discuss or confirm the thing I was actually trying to provide evidence for, the part where people would invoke ma'at to navigate fraught social situations. I am sure papers have been written on this specifically but I don't have any to hand, I guess. I really would like to emphasize why the sailor's story can be understood the way we are understanding it though, so I will use two opposite extremes to support me. Wikipedia, on "ma'at as a rhetorical concept": quote:James Herrick states that the major objective of rhetoric is for a rhetor to persuade (to alter) an audience's view to that of the rhetor; for example, an attorney uses rhetoric to persuade a jury that his/her client is innocent of a crime.[58] Maat in letters written to subordinates to persuade allegiance to them and the pharaoh; subordinates would evoke Maat to illustrate a desire to please.[59] To directly disagree with a superior was considered highly inappropriate; instead, inferior citizens would indirectly evoke Maat to assuage a superior's ego to achieve the desired outcome.[59] And a primary source, an excerpt from the wisdom text "The Maxims of Ptahhotep" (Literature of Ancient Egypt, 3rd Ed): quote:State your business without concealing (anything), The Maxims/Instructions/Teachings of Ptahhotep were largely a collection of etiquette texts, offering guidelines for correct speech and conduct in various potentially difficult situations. Compassion, fair-mindedness, and knowing when and how to speak and when to hold your silence are themes throughout the text. quote:Be painstaking all the time that you are speaking, I was not quite painstaking enough before making those previous posts in here. Alas.
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# ? Dec 9, 2023 00:52 |
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Tree Bucket posted:A Good Post. Aah! Bless you lol, thank you, I started beating myself up over posting something less relevant than intended just before you posted this I think. I am glad it was not a total mistake also I love your avatar.
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# ? Dec 9, 2023 00:54 |
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The idea of truth and sincerity in word and deed is quite important to a lot of ancient culture, philosophy and religion. There's a lot said on the story of the shipwrecked sailor who makes friends with a snake, but it seems like a point of the ending is basically the captain assuring him that if he speaks the truth with confidence and conviction, then he'll believe him no matter how crazy it is. Probably makes a lot of sense considering the ancient world- there's a lot of weird poo poo out there that people don't necessarily understand, both dangerous and wonderful.
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# ? Dec 10, 2023 15:16 |
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The idea of truth and sincerity in word and deed is quite important to a lot of ancient culture, philosophy and religion. There's a lot said on the story of the shipwrecked sailor who makes friends with a snake, but it seems like a point of the ending is basically the captain assuring him that if he speaks the truth with confidence and conviction, then he'll believe him no matter how crazy it is. You know, you're right, obviously I have a particular area of focus but ancient Persian religion (for example) also believed in Truth as an ultimate force, didn't it? That's so interesting. The emphasis on the protective, justifying power of Telling The Truth was a huge part of why modern day teenage me started feeling such a yearning toward this very un-modern religion. We shouldn't have forgotten about Truth imo
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# ? Dec 10, 2023 18:30 |
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Slightly late to the discussion re: public baths, but parts of the US actually did have a revival in public baths around the turn of the century, often with neoclassical elements. This is what passes for surviving ancient history around here, and I used to walk by one that is now a residence. They were only ever really stopgap measures for the urban poor and disappeared as indoor plumbing became legally required/widely accessible in residences. Appropriately, one of the baths pictured here is just a few buildings down from a literal poo poo fountain. http://forgottenchicago.com/articles/public-bath-houses/
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# ? Dec 12, 2023 07:17 |
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Can I ask for some help and recommendations. I'm looking for some history books to read that people can buy me for Xmas. Definitely on the lighter side, so pop history but ideally not awful from a history standpoint. Not super fussed on period or coverage, more interested in reading interesting stuff about history. This extends all the way to the now times, I just don't wanna post in mil hist thread cause I'm way behind on reading it. Main requirements, interesting light reading, not historically awful. Edit- for reference I quite liked Tom Holland's Rubicon Thank you! Cast_No_Shadow fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Dec 13, 2023 |
# ? Dec 13, 2023 18:44 |
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Can I ask for some help and recommendations. https://www.amazon.com/SPQR-History-Ancient-Mary-Beard/dp/1631492225 Mary Beard is great and approachable Roman history and she always highlights regular people as much as she can.
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# ? Dec 13, 2023 18:51 |
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Caution, she is explicitly anti communist and Stalin Also her Pompeii book is really good
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# ? Dec 13, 2023 18:52 |
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Can I ask for some help and recommendations. If you liked Rubicon, I'd definitely recommend Duncan's Storm Before the Storm as a compliment to that, it's all about the dysfunction of the previous generation.
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# ? Dec 13, 2023 19:05 |
Cast_No_Shadow posted:it. Any "landmark edition" of the classics but especially Xenophons Anabasis _Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_ Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie
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# ? Dec 13, 2023 19:05 |
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A popular blogger/professor's book rec list: https://acoup.blog/book-recommendation-list/
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# ? Dec 13, 2023 19:26 |
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:Can I ask for some help and recommendations.
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# ? Dec 13, 2023 19:31 |
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euphronius posted:Caution, she is explicitly anti communist and Stalin Stalin moonlighted as a roman historian?
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# ? Dec 13, 2023 19:39 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:45 |
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Oh, 1491 and 1493 by Charles C. Mann are both excellent pop history books as well (not to be confused with Menzies' travesty 1421). Looking East from Indian Country is also great (or if you happen to be Canadian, Clearing the Plains). E: old but still great: Rhodes' Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun. Also in that vein is cold war thread favorite Command and Control.
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# ? Dec 13, 2023 19:40 |