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Sleep of Bronze posted:Even then ... Still, the facts that he 1) tried it at all, 2) matched a legionnaire, and 3) had the support of his commander suggest he was trained for it and was expected to do it.
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Jul 9, 2014 20:40
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Kaal posted:I've always understood that triremes were the fastest classical ships, since they were the perfect balance between weight and rowing power. And their sustained speed was six knots, with a burst of up to about 10. Is there some material that I could read about these super-fast biremes and couriers? No source that I know of other than 1,000 years of people with lots of time and money wondering if something could go faster than a trireme. The idea that during this period there was never a middle ground between a 200-crew trireme and little post-Phoenician trading dinghies does have a certain colloquial charm, I guess. Maybe pirates only put to sea using one or the other? A mystery for the ages.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:20
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Winning a corona muralis usually meant also winning a big cash bonus or lifetime stipend, if that helps explain a solder's enthusiasm. There are a couple funny stories about Roman legionaries ALMOST winning a muralis, I'll see if I can dig one up.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:27
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Caesar won the Civic Crown when he was a soldier, and took every single opportunity possible to wear the crown and infuriate his enemies by making them have to stand and clap for him.
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Jul 9, 2014 21:34
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JaucheCharly posted:I think the bottomline of that whole conversation is, that if you manage to stay on a trail of an animal, you can chase it to death. You just stalk it until it drops from exhaustion. Works with deers et al. so I heard. Its called endurance hunting, and its still practiced today https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o
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Jul 9, 2014 22:15
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Caesar won the Civic Crown when he was a soldier, and took every single opportunity possible to wear the crown and infuriate his enemies by making them have to stand and clap for him. Caesar was a dick. How did Roman agriculture, in antiquity, vary from what would be practiced in other eras up to the Columbian exchange? In another thread, someone talked about how destructive their farms were, and how it's largely responsible for soil fertility loss and desertification in North Africa, but what all did they do that left the land in such ruin? Hedera Helix fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Jul 9, 2014 |
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Jul 9, 2014 22:24
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Nintendo Kid posted:No, horses became bred to be a lot stronger and in some cases faster over the millenia. And with improved roads, and better routing (eg take a more direct route that might not have existed 500 years previously; which was created by finally draining some swampland to allow for a reliable path). Interesting... Can you share your sources for travel time in 1500? I'm always curious about questions of human geography, how interconnected different eras were. Do you know of any maps showing how road routing improved, or accounts of travel times indicating horses were traveling farther with larger loads? I know horses have increased a lot in size, just curious how we've measured it! JaucheCharly posted:I think the bottomline of that whole conversation is, that if you manage to stay on a trail of an animal, you can chase it to death. You just stalk it until it drops from exhaustion. Works with deers et al. so I heard. It works for white-tailed deer in the United States. Had an archeology TA who tried it with Pronghorn antelope one time, project ended with nothing but a video of him dry heaving in a New Mexico arroyo while the antelope eyed him cautiously across two miles of scrub dessert.
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Jul 9, 2014 22:46
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physeter posted:That's a good estimated sustained speed for a trireme, but a trireme was a warship, basically their version of a modern destroyer. There were smaller craft. 10 knots is a pretty good estimate for a bireme carrying no cargo, burst speed probably around 12. There were even smaller craft with only one or half bank of oars, probably used for carrying urgent mail and VIP passengers, these would go faster. Weather and wind cooperating, figure about 17 knots across the Middle Sea if you could afford it and were really in a hurry. Did you mean 9 knots (17km/h)? Captain Postal posted:Liburnians and Hemiolia were the fast corvettes of the era and were used where speed was more important than ramming weight (eg scouting, transporting VIP's) Internet sources are bit conflicting, and I don't have my books with me at the moment, but most sources I have read say that the classical triremes were the fastest rowed warships. You are correct in that we don't have any hard evidence, but triremes had two things going for them compared to liburnians: longer waterline length and therefore greater hull speed, and two to three times as many rowers. But of course doubling the amount of rowers doesnt make the trireme go twice as fast, because the amount of drag increases even more. Trireme's maximum speed was probably a knot or two greater than liburnian's. And believe me, if I had the money I would have a fleet of replica warships.
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Jul 9, 2014 23:04
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JaucheCharly posted:I think the bottomline of that whole conversation is, that if you manage to stay on a trail of an animal, you can chase it to death. You just stalk it until it drops from exhaustion. Works with deers et al. so I heard. There was a Russian family that lived for 40 years in Siberia without contact to other people. They hunted deer with this method.
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Jul 9, 2014 23:09
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What was going on in Italy between the 'fall' of Rome and the Byzantine invasion?
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Jul 9, 2014 23:39
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Squalid posted:Interesting... Can you share your sources for travel time in 1500? I'm always curious about questions of human geography, how interconnected different eras were. Do you know of any maps showing how road routing improved, or accounts of travel times indicating horses were traveling farther with larger loads? I know horses have increased a lot in size, just curious how we've measured it! The funny part is that a deer could kick the poo poo out of a person if it felt like it. Was he armed?
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Jul 10, 2014 00:07
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Caesar won the Civic Crown when he was a soldier, and took every single opportunity possible to wear the crown and infuriate his enemies by making them have to stand and clap for him. Can you explain exactly what the Civic Crown does for the wearer, exactly how one obtains it, etc...? I understand that it's won through valor, gave you lots of money and apparently made recognition of your badassery law
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Jul 10, 2014 00:26
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StashAugustine posted:What was going on in Italy between the 'fall' of Rome and the Byzantine invasion? Basically, the Goths kept the Roman administrative apparatus in place and ruled as nominal subjects of the Eastern emperor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoacer#King_of_Italy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogothic_Kingdom
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Jul 10, 2014 01:05
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homullus posted:itaque quamquam omnibus omnia deberet, praecipuum muralis coronae decus eius esse qui primus murum adscendisset; profiteretur qui se dignum eo duceret dono. duo professi sunt, Q. Trebellius, centurio legionis quartae, et Sex. Digitius, socius naualis quote:And so, although he owed everything, the chief glory of his nostrils are they who are first mounted the wall mural of the crown; to make a declaration who said he was deserving of that gift. the two made a profession of forward, Q. Tiberilius, a centurion of the fourth legion, and Sextus. Digitius, marines homullus posted:Still, the facts that he 1) tried it at all, 2) matched a legionnaire, and 3) had the support of his commander suggest he was trained for it and was expected to do it. this is what im saying, but I find that alone interesting. Either roman centurions are over rated or there were some equally bad rear end mothers out there. It's impossible to say but any idea how they could have survived that? They obviously didn't retreat and join the 2nd wave, besides, that's retarded as you have to climb a wall, so they were clearly inside and either hiding and pissing themselves, defending some sort of position, doing a running stab massacre like chinese terrorists in a train station OR just battling like in the movies. I dont know which I choose to believe Would love any accounts and stories of this like the other goon is trying to dig up.
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Jul 10, 2014 01:47
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OctaviusBeaver posted:The funny part is that a deer could kick the poo poo out of a person if it felt like it. Was he armed? I don't remember. Here's an interview from the nytimes with some guy who did it, but after running down a deer nearly to the point of death, patted it on the head and called it a day. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/tracking-down-the-deer-runner/
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Jul 10, 2014 02:11
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:I understand that it's won through valor, gave you lots of money and apparently made recognition of your badassery law That would be great. Hey guys it is literally the law that I am awesome. How would you not go around wearing that all the time to piss people off?
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Jul 10, 2014 02:57
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Drunk & Ugly posted:
There's nothing stopping you from learning Latin (or Greek, or Akkadian, or whatever, on top of the German, French, and Italian you'd need for some of the modern works) on your own and reading all the same books that they read in school. You wouldn't be a professional historian, but you don't need to be to enjoy history every day for the rest of your life. You don't even have to do anything other than English -- it's just more enjoyable if you can look at some primary sources and read them sometimes. But yeah, the citation was for Livy, the Roman historian. Book 26, paragraph 48. Livy's history of Rome from its foundation to his present day was 142 books; we have about 25% of them in more than fragmentary form, along with summaries of some more and outlines of the rest. I would trade piles of Cicero for more Livy. They do find more of his work every once in a while, so there's hope.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:26
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homullus posted:You wouldn't be a professional historian, but you don't need to be to enjoy history every day for the rest of your life. Yep. I went to school for it but I'd say the majority of my knowledge is just obsessively reading history my entire life. School gives you opportunities for field experience, for talking to experts in the subject, and formally learning things like languages and the methods/theories of history. But I would never disparage just reading a whole lot of poo poo about what you're interested in. There are plenty of amateur historians who are very knowledgeable, and some who are well respected by the whole field. Barbara Tuchman's probably the most famous, she had no formal training in history at all but no one would hesitate to recommend her works as some of the best ever written in her field.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:31
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One of the things that excites me most is developing technology that can read the charred books that are still buried in Pompeii. When was the last time we discovered either a book we thought was lost or had never heard about before? edit: found this on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_work drat that is a ton of stuff we know about that either no longer exists or is lost/buried somewhere. Mustang fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 03:34
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Drunk & Ugly posted:This is cool (and I realize im quoting page 2 or W/E, but sorry, want to share this story), I was googling and found the attached image below This isn't just an ancient thing. Posting large rewards for the most difficult battlefield jobs isn't unusual. In the 17th-19th centuries soldiers would sometimes come to blows over being part of the "lost hope" a catch-all term for the most dangerous position on the battlefield in which survival was unlikely. Despite the danger soldiers could get something like a one-time bonus of 1-2x yearly pay for doing it, and officers who survived a lost hope assignment would often end up on the fast track to promotion. It's not like these policies are that expensive for the army anyway.
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Jul 10, 2014 03:56
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There's still hazard pay too. Some people will want to be deployed somewhere dangerous just for the money.Mustang posted:One of the things that excites me most is developing technology that can read the charred books that are still buried in Pompeii. When was the last time we discovered either a book we thought was lost or had never heard about before? Last time this came up I think someone tracked it down and it was shockingly recent. Like 2006? It doesn't happen all that often but it does happen, and if/when we can read everything in the libraries of the Villa of the Papyri there'll probably be something new. I certainly hope so, it would suck to go through all that and find out the dude was a hoarder who had 90 copies of Livy or whatever.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:00
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Hogge Wild posted:Internet sources are bit conflicting, and I don't have my books with me at the moment, but most sources I have read say that the classical triremes were the fastest rowed warships. You are correct in that we don't have any hard evidence, but triremes had two things going for them compared to liburnians: longer waterline length and therefore greater hull speed, and two to three times as many rowers. But of course doubling the amount of rowers doesnt make the trireme go twice as fast, because the amount of drag increases even more. Trireme's maximum speed was probably a knot or two greater than liburnian's. Yeah, that's one of the unintuitive things about a lot of ships is that bigger often means faster (not more maneuverable mind you, but faster) either because more rowers or more canvas ups the speed faster than the extra weight and surface area costs. There are limits of course, but IIRC the trireme's wasn't so much structural as personnel wise, since adding another bank of rowers complicated logistics (storing food and water esp?) not citations I might be wrong ti was a while ago. The trireme was king for a good long while. P. sure the Athenian state courier ships, the bestest and fastest things they could possibly put in the water, were triremes.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:11
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Squalid posted:I don't remember. Here's an interview from the nytimes with some guy who did it, but after running down a deer nearly to the point of death, patted it on the head and called it a day. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/tracking-down-the-deer-runner/ Eeesh. That sorta borders on animal cruelty doesn't it.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:20
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Hardly worse than what happens to most deer when people chase them. Which incidentally is probably why someone that's unarmed could tail one without getting attacked.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:30
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It would've been better if he killed it?
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Jul 10, 2014 04:32
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:Can you explain exactly what the Civic Crown does for the wearer, exactly how one obtains it, etc...? The Civic Crown was a prize for saving a Roman citizen's life by slaying an enemy at the precise point at which the enemy forces did not advance beyond that day. Part of the requirement was that the citizen so saved had to swear witness to the deed - no one else could testify on the matter. As for what it did, Pliny tells us that whenever a recipient of the Civic Crown attended the games or public festivals, everyone had to stand up and applaud him, he had the right to sit next to the senators (presumably in the good seats), and he, his father, and his grandfather were exempt from taxes.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:34
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Arglebargle III posted:It would've been better if he killed it? I dunno. Imagine some guy in a hockey mask and a chainsaw chases you around for a whole day, runs you down until you literally can't move your legs anymore and then goes 'lol, JK.' I mean, at least if you kill it and eat the drat thing you've engaged with the whole circle of life and put some purpose behind the event. *shrug* Maybe that's just my meat eater take on it. If you're going to do a thing like that just eat it.
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Jul 10, 2014 04:59
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the JJ posted:I dunno. Imagine some guy in a hockey mask and a chainsaw chases you around for a whole day, runs you down until you literally can't move your legs anymore and then goes 'lol, JK.' As someone who doesn't want to die, I would prefer the latter option. Running for your life is good exercise, anyways.
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Jul 10, 2014 13:10
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the JJ posted:I dunno. Imagine some guy in a hockey mask and a chainsaw chases you around for a whole day, runs you down until you literally can't move your legs anymore and then goes 'lol, JK.' Again... would it be better if he killed you?
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Jul 10, 2014 13:25
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Tao Jones posted:The Civic Crown was a prize for saving a Roman citizen's life by slaying an enemy at the precise point at which the enemy forces did not advance beyond that day. Part of the requirement was that the citizen so saved had to swear witness to the deed - no one else could testify on the matter. Is that just worded oddly or..? What does the precise point matter? It's not like you can claim you fended off the entire enemy army alone
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Jul 10, 2014 16:46
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Arglebargle III posted:Again... would it be better if he killed you? In a way? It's a shame to shoot a deer, but if you do you should eat it. Like I get the circle of life thing, I don't get the psychological torture 'for the lulz.' I mean, I know the dude wasn't doing it for no reason, but the deer doesn't know that. Not saying this guy is literally Hitler or anything, just that if I were in that position I'd probably finish it. Although I guess I'd be miles and miles and miles away from any sort of transport and butchery sort of set up, so it is a bit of a commit to sit down and dress the thing on the spot and probably process it there too.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:57
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Grand Fromage posted:if/when we can read everything in the libraries of the Villa of the Papyri there'll probably be something new. I certainly hope so, it would suck to go through all that and find out the dude was a hoarder who had 90 copies of Livy or whatever. Isn't it mostly philosophical stuff from some dude named Philodemus? Or are they thinking there's other stuff in there quote:This philosophy taught that man is mortal, that the cosmos is the result of accident, that there is no providential god, and that the criterion of a good life is pleasure and temperance  No but really that dude sounds pretty chillIn the wikipedia entry they mention possible mafia involvement having something to do with why they can't excavate the rest along with politics? Wtf
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Jul 10, 2014 17:01
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:Running for your life is good exercise, anyways. How is this not a thing yet? Be right back, got to put a business plan together.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:03
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Drunk & Ugly posted:Is that just worded oddly or..? What does the precise point matter? It's not like you can claim you fended off the entire enemy army alone You had to save people's lives by killing the enemy on ground they no longer held at the end of the day. Essentially it had to be a Roman victory, or at the very least a draw. They did not want people stopping during retreats to attempt and win a civic crown.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:14
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Drunk & Ugly posted:Isn't it mostly philosophical stuff from some dude named Philodemus? Or are they thinking there's other stuff in there Most of it hasn't been read, and there's likely an entire library in the villa that hasn't been found yet. Most villas had two libraries, one Greek, one Latin. Only one was discovered.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:20
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Zopotantor posted:
Very Hitch-Hiker's Guide. "It’s a crisis inducer. Set it to ‘Mark Nine’ and … Hurry! They’re after us!" "Who?" "No one!"
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Jul 10, 2014 17:35
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Zopotantor posted:How is this not a thing yet? Be right back, got to put a business plan together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yuFy_qjolU
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Jul 10, 2014 22:01
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Drunk & Ugly posted:Is that just worded oddly or..? What does the precise point matter? It's not like you can claim you fended off the entire enemy army alone Maybe a better way to put it is "maintained the ground on which the action was performed". So if you saved someone while defending a position but had to give it up later in the battle, you were ineligible. e: also 90 copies of Livy would own if some of them were the many books of his history that we've lost 
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Jul 11, 2014 02:11
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If we're really lucky, maybe it will have the complete works of Nero's poetry. They say his poetry was so good, people would give birth in the stands rather than leave.
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Jul 11, 2014 02:50
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What would one of the larger settlements in, say, Gaul have been like at some different points in ancient history? Like, around 300 BC, around year 0, and around 300 AD?
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Jul 11, 2014 06:16
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