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Is the arrangement between metropolis and hinterland anything except colonialism writ small?  More seriously, it depends on what you're thinking of when you say colonialism. This isn't Leopold II sort of poo poo by any stretch of the imagination. Even on the (relatively speaking) milder end of the scale, Egyptian culture wasn't really any more upset by Roman rule than it had been by the Ptolemies, religious freedom was 99% guaranteed thanks to polytheism for most of Roman Egyptian history, just as the intellectual traditions of Alexandria continued to flourish. Nor do I remember particular economic travails being recorded in Egypt due to the Roman use of it as a breadbasket.
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Aug 9, 2014 01:20
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The Romans also had a deep respect for Egyptian culture. It was as ancient to them as the classical world is to us - and to the Romans, that kind of longevity meant that they had to be doing something right. Sure, your average Egyptian farmer was basically expendable (all average farmers were expendable  ), but Egypt was treated with kid gloves in colonialism terms. No reason to risk provoking a pantheon that might be able to eat Jupiter and Mars for breakfast.vv: The Library of Alexandria presumably contained at least a few translations of some kind of history into Greek. That kind of thing is very hard to know since almost all of the texts of the classical world have been lost. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 02:55
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How did the Romans know about ancient Egyptian culture? Did the Egyptians write histories about themselves that got translated to Latin?
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Aug 9, 2014 03:00
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They likely had history books of some form, yes. Certainly stories and traditions. The Roman use of Egypt for food certainly was not an innovation. All empires end up doing similar things, as naturally some of your territory will be better for growing food than others, so transporting it around is the way to go. Plus the really ancient world, long before the Romans, was profoundly urban. Lots of huge cities, which needed food from elsewhere in massive quantities.
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Aug 9, 2014 03:10
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karl fungus posted:How did the Romans know about ancient Egyptian culture? Did the Egyptians write histories about themselves that got translated to Latin? The Greeks probably wrote about it, if the Egyptians themselves didn't. Alexandria was basically Nerd Central. Even before that, there's some evidence of cultural transmission -- Plato's Socrates uses a few expressions that reference Egyptian things and brings up stories (supposedly) from Egypt. Herodotus also has an entire chapter about Egypt.
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Aug 9, 2014 05:35
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Also we have a kind of anachronistic divide in our mind of east/west divide: there's some showing that Egyptians had a lot of influence on Greeks before Greeks even became Hellenes. All the Mediterranean cultures were basically mixing around quite a bit, at least eastern Med. By the time the Romans showed up Egypt would have been thoroughly Hellenized, at least in the major cities (Alexandria) which is what anyone cared about anyways. I don't know if conventional colonial theory really works in antiquity. Most people never interacted with any kind of rulership outside the cities (and though the cities contained comparable modern populations most people didn't live in the cities) so whoever was in charge was just a different person the tax collector paid to. That's not to say there weren't revolts or riots or things like that, but it is why in the ancient world you could just kill the ruling class and install a new one and (for the time being) things could just keep trucking along for most people.
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Aug 9, 2014 05:45
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Tao Jones posted:The Greeks probably wrote about it, if the Egyptians themselves didn't. Alexandria was basically Nerd Central. When was the ability to read hieroglyphics lost? Presumably there were temple priests who could read them for the Romans, but by 5th/6th C it seems to have been lost. Was that due to early islamic or christian persecution of egyptian priests, or some other reason?
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Aug 9, 2014 05:50
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Captain Postal posted:When was the ability to read hieroglyphics lost? Presumably there were temple priests who could read them for the Romans, but by 5th/6th C it seems to have been lost. Was that due to early islamic or christian persecution of egyptian priests, or some other reason? The decline of hieroglyphs probably started around the time of Alexander's conquests and was a gradual process throughout the Greco-Roman period. I don't think it was the result of active persecution, but more the authorities having their own, more familiar, alphabets with wider use and hieroglyphics becoming a marginalized skill. Some Roman authors seemed to think that hieroglyphics were crazy weirdo writing with symbolic or allegorical meanings rather than letters representing sounds. (I can easily imagine drunk Roman legionnaire-bros pestering some poor Egyptian -- "Dude, I want to get a cool Egyptian tattoo! What's the, like, glyph for 'honor'?") We know that Emperor Theodosius closed all non-Christian temples in 391 and that was more or less the end of their use as inscriptions, so that's probably when it stopped being something people passed down.
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Aug 9, 2014 06:35
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Captain Postal posted:When was the ability to read hieroglyphics lost? Presumably there were temple priests who could read them for the Romans, but by 5th/6th C it seems to have been lost. Was that due to early islamic or christian persecution of egyptian priests, or some other reason? The ability to read and write Hieroglyphics was usually limited to to scribes, priests, and royalty. After the Romans came in it was expected that anybody who wanted to get anywhere in life would be expected read and write in Latin and Greek. It's likely that a cosmopolitan Egyptian would have treated learning hieroglyphics as a pointless activity, since it's not like any Egyptian farmer had any cultural attachment to hieroglyphics. Although Herodotus has a story where the Egyptians spotted Helen of Troy, and kept her there in Egypt, until her dad came to pick her up. So the whole Trojan war was just a horrible comedy of errors. The Trojans couldn't give back Helen because they didn't have her, she was held up in Egypt. thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 11:05
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thrakkorzog posted:The ability to read and write Hieroglyphics was usually limited to to scribes, priests, and royalty. After the Romans came in it was expected that anybody who wanted to get anywhere in life would be expected read and write in Latin and Greek. It's likely that a cosmopolitan Egyptian would have treated learning hieroglyphics as a pointless activity, since it's not like any Egyptian farmer had any cultural attachment to hieroglyphics. Surely that began (in the case of Greek) with the establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty and subsequent Hellenisation of the country?
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Aug 9, 2014 12:09
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Kopijeger posted:Surely that began (in the case of Greek) with the establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty and subsequent Hellenisation of the country? I'm sure it would have greatly reduced the number of writers if hieroglyphics weren't used for administration, but I don't think that would have come near to actually wiping it out. The Macedonians in the delta would have been a very small minority of upper class invaders. I was curious why the native priests in Upper Egypt stopped not only worshiping their gods, but forgot their entire written language. Closing all temples in 391 sounds like it would have killed that skill set within a generation or two, which might explain why in the 5th C they only knew the meaning of a few and didn't know the origins of any. Captain Postal fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 13:38
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What does the thread title mean? "poo poo posts to him"?
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Aug 9, 2014 14:23
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Tao Jones posted:We know that Emperor Theodosius closed all non-Christian temples in 391 and that was more or less the end of their use as inscriptions, so that's probably when it stopped being something people passed down.
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Aug 9, 2014 15:04
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Berke Negri posted:Most people never interacted with any kind of rulership outside the cities (and though the cities contained comparable modern populations most people didn't live in the cities) so whoever was in charge was just a different person the tax collector paid to. This pretty much describes a lot of 19th century colonialism too, though. Joe Bloggs in the village in Africa or India probably never interacted directly with a colonial administrator; he had the same village chief and much the same life as always, it's just the taxes went somewhere different.
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Aug 9, 2014 15:29
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Hogge Wild posted:What does the thread title mean? "poo poo posts to him"? To he who poo poo posts. The second part about being buttfucked sadly wouldn't fit.
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Aug 9, 2014 16:50
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Grand Fromage posted:To he who poo poo posts. The second part about being buttfucked sadly wouldn't fit. Drop the unnecessary words: Roman/ancient history thread: buttfucking edit: Buttfucking can be in Latin.
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Aug 9, 2014 17:11
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Grand Fromage posted:To he who poo poo posts. The second part about being buttfucked sadly wouldn't fit. But, allowing your neologism, that's not a 3rd person verb ending. Interpreting it, you have to contrive something spectacularly awkward with a 2nd person or it ends up meaning 'to he who the posts with the poo poo'. Needs a facit or to go participle or something.
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Aug 9, 2014 17:37
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I don't know any Latin beyond a bit of vocab, I just copied it from the suggestions in the thread. If somebody who actually does know Latin wants to fix it I'll edit.
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Aug 9, 2014 17:56
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^ Aren't you doing a PhD? I've always been told by professors whether they did their PhD in Australia or England that fluency in Latin and Greek is a prerequisite, and you've got to have a good handle on Italian, German and French because a lot of the scholarship is in those languages. Hell, I'm only doing Honours and I'm finding the modern languages part difficult because an awful lot of stuff about the later empire is in German and French.achillesforever6 posted:Man Theodosius was a dick To be fair he was pretty alright before then, especially when it came to pagans. Octy fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Aug 9, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 22:42
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Nope, no PhD for me. Maybe some day. Typically you need ancient Greek and Latin and two modern languages from these choices: English, German, French, Italian.
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Aug 10, 2014 03:18
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Had me fooled.
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Aug 10, 2014 04:01
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I'm just that good.
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Aug 10, 2014 04:19
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Hahaha yeah let's all get history PhDs. Who am I kidding I'd probably be more employable with a history PhD. 
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Aug 10, 2014 04:30
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None of us are employable.
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Aug 10, 2014 04:36
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Grand Fromage posted:I don't know any Latin beyond a bit of vocab, I just copied it from the suggestions in the thread. If somebody who actually does know Latin wants to fix it I'll edit. I guess my fix is 'ad postentem stercore', to the person who posts with poo poo, but it kind of depends which of the infinite English meanings of 'to' you want. Dedicated to, to as in a letter ... ?
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Aug 10, 2014 07:32
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It's my fault, I used google translate like a bad person.
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Aug 10, 2014 08:12
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Sleep of Bronze posted:But, allowing your neologism, that's not a 3rd person verb ending. Interpreting it, you have to contrive something spectacularly awkward with a 2nd person or it ends up meaning 'to he who the posts with the poo poo'. Needs a facit or to go participle or something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8&t=125s
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Aug 10, 2014 08:13
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Zopotantor posted:I think I know where this is going. That's more or less what my Latin lessons were like. That includes the 'If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off'.
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Aug 10, 2014 08:39
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So I was in modern day Turkey recently. Sadly didnt get to go to Istanbul but did get to see Side in Antalya (south coast). They have some awesome ruins from ~200AD. One thing the badly translated information signs talked about was how side was somehow important in the imperial cult. Which is why its called Side (see-day rather than left hand side) but I couldnt really get any more info than that? Anyone know much a out the devlopment of the imperial cult and why it was a big deal in this souther anatolian port? They had some pretty kicking rad temples to Apollo and Athena (i think) as well which struck me as a bit odd.
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Aug 10, 2014 09:20
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Grand Fromage posted:None of us are employable. There's your thread title.
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Aug 10, 2014 09:21
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Speaking of my job, I'd like to know any Roman references to gambling, especially dice. Have there been actual Roman dice recovered at any site? I think of the ancient Romans as gambling folk.
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Aug 10, 2014 11:46
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 Roman d20. http://www.christies.com/Lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=4205385
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Aug 10, 2014 11:58
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Hogge Wild posted:
Obviously used for playing Labyrinths & Lemures.
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Aug 10, 2014 12:41
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Sleep of Bronze posted:I guess my fix is 'ad postentem stercore', to the person who posts with poo poo, but it kind of depends which of the infinite English meanings of 'to' you want. Dedicated to, to as in a letter ... ? The full thing was "Ad eum qui postes stercore, pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo" so if it's possible to condense that into something that fits. 
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Aug 10, 2014 12:55
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Grand Fromage posted:The full thing was "Ad eum qui postes stercore, pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo" so if it's possible to condense that into something that fits. Ah, Catullus 16. I can't speak a word of Latin but I recognize it well.
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Aug 11, 2014 06:30
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Comrade Koba posted:Obviously used for playing Labyrinths & Lemures. That only raises further questions, like how they pronounced THAC0.
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Aug 11, 2014 11:55
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With a lisp, of course.
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Aug 11, 2014 14:05
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thrakkorzog posted:That only raises further questions, like how they pronounced THAC0. Since Greek theta was more of an aspirated "T", it would probably sound like our "taco."
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Aug 11, 2014 15:02
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homullus posted:Since Greek theta was more of an aspirated "T", it would probably sound like our "taco." That's a zero frater.
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Aug 11, 2014 23:18
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Hogge Wild posted:
Anybody know if the symbols on this die have known meanings? My first thought was alchemical or astrological symbols, but I don't know how far back some of those go. They certainly don't look like Roman numerals.
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Aug 11, 2014 23:43
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