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Just checking in real quick. Came up in my life these days. Sea people, still a mystery right?
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Mar 3, 2015 12:22
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BrainDance posted:Just checking in real quick. Came up in my life these days. I believe the latest research indicates they were Bolivians.
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Mar 3, 2015 12:28
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BrainDance posted:Just checking in real quick. Came up in my life these days. No it's pretty much settled. It was the Hwan Conquest.
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Mar 3, 2015 13:01
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Jerusalem posted:It's bizarre, it never even occurred to me to think about them carrying about prefab stuff but that makes a lot of sense. Legionary forts were basically IKEA products. They may have gathered some material in the field depending on the location, too. But think about your marching fort if you were fighting in Mesopotamia. Not going to be many trees around for building it. Also keep in mind the baggage train. The soldiers carried a lot of stuff in packs but they also had plenty of wagons.
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Mar 3, 2015 13:44
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Imagine how frustrating that would've been the first time you encountered it. "Ha ha, we have shadowed the enemy army unseen. Let us wait until they camp and fall on them during the night. Victory is assu--god drat it."
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Mar 3, 2015 13:46
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Grand Fromage posted:Imagine how frustrating that would've been the first time you encountered it. "they are leaving the field! pursue them to their camp and slaughter them in their ten...what the gently caress!"
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Mar 3, 2015 14:27
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Where did they get a castle? Who the gently caress left the castles out and unlocked again? Ted?
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Mar 3, 2015 14:34
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Worse than that I was under the impression that, if conditions permitted, the Romans would basically build fortifications on the the battlefield the day of the battle.  "Hah we have cornered these foreigners on the open field where we can bring our superior numbers to bear and overwhe... WHERE THE gently caress DID THOSE BATTLEMENTS AND TRENCHES COME FROM?!"
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Mar 3, 2015 15:03
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This is pretty much why the Romans are so goddamn fascinating to me. All ancient societies are awesome and I loved the Chinese stuff that was posted earlier, but Rome just is so anachronistic and strangely modern. It's such a direct reminder of how little humans have changed, and how people back then really were the same as us. All of the modern seeming things like their military structure, the public toilets, the advertisements, etc. It makes it easier for me to imagine that world, and immerse myself in the stories and history.
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Mar 3, 2015 15:29
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So... what's the deal with Pompey Magnus? He seems to have had no personal enmity towards JC - was he literally convinced to start a civil war by his friends? De Quincey supposes it was a period of Roman history (not unlike the later Empire) in which every competent and influential man felt obliged to iacta alea. Has anyone who gave up Rome to his rival and buggered of to Spain / Egypt to raise armies ever won a civil struggle? The civil war is far more interesting than the entire Gaul thing. Feels like it actually matters. Also, somewhat recognizable. Like "in war great events are often brought about by trifling circumstances". That's familiar. "Cato, who in his usual manner, consumed the day by a tedious harangue".  However, it's sorely lacking in any sort of strategic discussion (and a big old "here are the acting persons and their factions" appendix, but that's a bit too much to expect). What is each side trying to do, beyond the immediate level? Related - this is in no way framed as a political struggle. JC stands for truth, justice, and the Roman way. His enemies... claim to do the same, but are really acting out of personal enmity for him.Neither side represents particular interests, as far as the writer is concerned. Hell, JC himself is far more honest - he's in Gaul to conquer, Gauls and Germans seek freedom / influence / loot by opposing him. (Which ties back into my original Pompey question, I guess). Do I understand correctly, based on Cataline, Sulla and others, that at this point if you were successful enough, you'd pretty much have to head a conspiracy to take over the republic - because otherwise the senators would accuse you of trying to take over and have you killed?
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Mar 3, 2015 16:40
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You've kind of got an understanding of the state of play in Rome at that time. Bear in mind this is all in the context of Marius and Sulla, their civil war pulled the curtains of government off people's understanding of power. Basically people now accepted the possibility of seizing absolute power, not just stopping at being a Consul, which meant that even if people weren't aiming at that other people would be worried that they were. The only way to really counter that was to grab absolute power and use it to neutralise anyone who wanted to neutralise you to prevent you getting absolute power. Kind of Game Theory gone mad. Julius Caesar is pretty much impossible to read simply because we have so many varied sources all with their own very, very biased interpretations of his actions. He was clearly a prototypical Roman in his lust to be No. 1 but there's really no way to know if he simply wanted to suceed within the system and was forced by his opponents into conquering the system itself to survive or whether he really wanted to absolute power and was forced to fight a war for it. Pompey really didn't, as far as I can see, have any personal enmity towards Caesar and vice versa. He certainly had a loving marriage to his daughter and may well have been willing to sit on the sidelines if she'd lived (unlikely though). I think it's fair to say pretty much everyone was motivated by a wide variety of drives in that Civil war, I doubt any of the players were totally just in it to defend Roman virtues and neither were they in it for purely personal achievement. Largely because those two pretty much intersected most of the time, there was nothing more Roman than achieving greatness in the manner one's forefathers and what that meant could get fairly situational. Lastly regarding whether anyone won a Civil War by buggering off to the provinces and abandoning Rome, that certainly happened a lot in the later Empire as Rome's importance began to fade. Constantine really made taking Rome one of the big moves of his own conquest but he hadn't made it his main ambition. At the point of the late Republic though Rome is still The City and Pompey not having forces there hurt him. His biggest problem though wasn't really that his forces were on the edge of the Empire but that those forces loyal to him were very spread out. Combined with facing a brilliant, younger general with a fanatically loyal force it put him at a pretty big starting disadvantage.
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Mar 3, 2015 17:20
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Xander77 posted:So... what's the deal with Pompey Magnus? He seems to have had no personal enmity towards JC - was he literally convinced to start a civil war by his friends? nec quemquam iam ferre potest Caesarue priorem Pompeiusue parem Caesar was no longer able to put up with somebody higher than him; Pompey was no longer able to put up with an equal.
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Mar 3, 2015 17:24
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homullus posted:nec quemquam iam ferre potest Caesarue priorem Yeah, that is pretty much the classic personality diagnosis of the two.
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Mar 3, 2015 17:25
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Xander77 posted:So... what's the deal with Pompey Magnus? He seems to have had no personal enmity towards JC - was he literally convinced to start a civil war by his friends? De Quincey supposes it was a period of Roman history (not unlike the later Empire) in which every competent and influential man felt obliged to iacta alea. Basically Pompey vs. Caesar is the Roman Crisis for lack of a better word coming to a head. It has been ongoing for years and finally two people where left standing and one was going to come out on top. Augustus vs. Anthony was literal who get's to succeed the boss.
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Mar 3, 2015 17:39
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Remember that we're only reading Caesar's side of the story. Personally, I think it's nothing more than propaganda and doubt Caesar ever hesitated to cross the Rubicon. He had by far more military force than anybody else, and marching armies on Rome had been happening for decades. Sulla went to the east, let Marius have Rome, and still came back and took it. But Marius died in the meantime, so that could be considered an exception.
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Mar 3, 2015 17:46
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BurningStone posted:Remember that we're only reading Caesar's side of the story. Personally, I think it's nothing more than propaganda and doubt Caesar ever hesitated to cross the Rubicon. He had by far more military force than anybody else, and marching armies on Rome had been happening for decades. There is no history that is not propaganda. The tricky thing about Caesar is that he came home with an army of witnesses. I think far more of the spin comes from what he doesn't say than from what he does.
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Mar 3, 2015 19:34
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Everything I've read about Pompey suggests that he was just desperate to be accepted/beloved by pretty much everybody. He wanted his soldiers to love him, he wanted the people to adore him, he wanted the Senate and particularly the upper class to accept him, and he couldn't bear the idea of being left out. Where Caesar reacted to rejection by just shoving himself in anyway and forcing respect, Pompey seemed to react by trying to ingratiate himself as much as he could. In fact wasn't this part of the big issue with the Civil War, that he was so desperate to keep everybody happy that he allowed arguments (particularly from Cato) to rage on all night, and as a result nothing got done. In his youth he was the dashing young go-getter who just jumped in and got things done (or took credit for Crassus' work) and was happy enough thanks to his youth, good looks, wealth and popularity that he didn't care so much about what the upper class thought. But as he got older he became so obsessed with being considered one of them/an elder statesman/respected by the establishment that he lost the spark and fire that made him so effective a General? WoodrowSkillson posted:This is pretty much why the Romans are so goddamn fascinating to me. All ancient societies are awesome and I loved the Chinese stuff that was posted earlier, but Rome just is so anachronistic and strangely modern. It's such a direct reminder of how little humans have changed, and how people back then really were the same as us. All of the modern seeming things like their military structure, the public toilets, the advertisements, etc. It makes it easier for me to imagine that world, and immerse myself in the stories and history. Absolutely, reading about them they seem so relate-able and oddly modern, despite being a couple thousand years removed from us. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Mar 3, 2015 |
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Mar 3, 2015 22:51
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homullus posted:The tricky thing about Caesar is that he came home with an army of witnesses. I think far more of the spin comes from what he doesn't say than from what he does. Witnesses to his public actions, but not to his internal thoughts, and probably not to his negotiations with the Senate. Pompey does come across as very strange, for a Roman politician/general. Most of them were out for power, raw and simple. Pompey seems to have actually had some respect for the Republic, as an institution. Surprising few Romans seemed to have really cared about it.
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Mar 4, 2015 00:08
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BurningStone posted:Pompey does come across as very strange, for a Roman politician/general. Most of them were out for power, raw and simple. Pompey seems to have actually had some respect for the Republic, as an institution. Surprising few Romans seemed to have really cared about it. This is the guy who raised an army and demanded a triumph as a private citizen, and then demanded to be made consul without being a senator, let alone an Quaestor, Aedile or Praetor? That Pompey? You think he gave any gently caress at all about the Republic and its institutions beyond that they were his toys?
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Mar 4, 2015 00:20
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Captain Postal posted:This is the guy who raised an army and demanded a triumph as a private citizen, and then demanded to be made consul without being a senator, let alone an Quaestor, Aedile or Praetor? That Pompey? You think he gave any gently caress at all about the Republic and its institutions beyond that they were his toys? Heh. By the standards of the day he was Mr Nice Guy for not proscribing every political opponent (or potential political opponent, or family member of a political opponent...) He never pushed for a dictatorship and seems to have somewhat listened to the Senate, particular when he got older. But I don't want to pretend he was a saint, none of them were.
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Mar 4, 2015 02:08
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What the gently caress was Charybdis supposed to be? Is it just a whirlpool or is it an actual creature?
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Mar 4, 2015 02:16
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An actual creature who creates whirlpools, in most versions of the story.
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Mar 4, 2015 02:39
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I don't know if you'd have to head a conspiracy to take over the republic, but there was definitely a point at which the only way you could go in Roman politics was down, and Pompey's kind of a case-study in that. Even by 61, his enemies had started to crank up the Roman envy machine against him and start saying he wanted to be a king, just stole credit for other people's hard work, The generations at the end of the Roman republic had definitely seen what a guy with supreme power could do and I don't have any doubt that they feared it. So I think they'd try to undermine successful people, but I doubt it would have been a matter of course that murder or execution was inevitable. Also it's true, one of Cato's primary weapons in the Senate were filibusters. Basically the order of business was that people in the Senate were given the opportunity to speak regarding a bill in order of illustriousness, and when it got to be Cato's turn he would often consume the rest of the day's business talking when it was a bill he didn't like.
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Mar 4, 2015 04:06
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What are some good ancient history-related podcasts?
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Mar 6, 2015 03:52
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karl fungus posted:What are some good ancient history-related podcasts? History of Rome, History of Byzantium, History of the Papacy, early episodes of History of Japan
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Mar 6, 2015 03:58
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Smoking Crow posted:History of Byzantium Did that ever pick back up? He went for a few months without an update and the quality of the podcast was never that great to begin with (to be fair he had BIG shoes to fill following on from History of Rome) so I just kind of forgot about it.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:50
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Jerusalem posted:Did that ever pick back up? He went for a few months without an update and the quality of the podcast was never that great to begin with (to be fair he had BIG shoes to fill following on from History of Rome) so I just kind of forgot about it. Yes, he's gone pretty in depth on a lot of topics over recent episodes.
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Mar 6, 2015 04:52
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The quality improved fairly quickly and he's definitely finished the hiatus. At this point he's covered the emergence of Islam and fall of the Persians. He's just up to the end of the Heraclian dynasty so if you're in any way interested in the period definitely pick it back up.
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Mar 6, 2015 05:54
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Thanks! I will try to listen to these at work.
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Mar 6, 2015 05:59
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MrNemo posted:The quality improved fairly quickly and he's definitely finished the hiatus. At this point he's covered the emergence of Islam and fall of the Persians. He's just up to the end of the Heraclian dynasty so if you're in any way interested in the period definitely pick it back up. Did his voice get any less annoying? edit: lol http://news.google.com/news/url?sr=...cnid=368&at=dt0 Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Mar 6, 2015 |
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Mar 6, 2015 06:06
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Arglebargle III posted:Did his voice get any less annoying? If you found it annoying, it isn't any different.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:30
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MrNemo posted:The quality improved fairly quickly and he's definitely finished the hiatus. At this point he's covered the emergence of Islam and fall of the Persians. He's just up to the end of the Heraclian dynasty so if you're in any way interested in the period definitely pick it back up. Well poo poo, looks like it is time to stock back up on episodes then. I was probably spoiled by coming into History of Rome after it was finished and never having to wait for new stuff.
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Mar 6, 2015 07:32
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karl fungus posted:What are some good ancient history-related podcasts? China History Podcast, for all the names you'll forget 20 seconds after hearing them..
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Mar 6, 2015 09:51
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The origin of Islam episode seemed like a pro-listen to me but I don't know poo poo about it so someone else may know better! E: of history of Byzantium.
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Mar 6, 2015 14:13
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alex314 posted:China History Podcast, for all the names you'll forget 20 seconds after hearing them.. This is a great podcast for a quick overview into China's history you can build on.
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Mar 6, 2015 17:52
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The Ancient World is pretty good. Broad but not excessively so. The host does ape Duncan's style a bit but the humor doesn't quite click like it did in the History of Rome. He also did follow up series after the main Ancient World podcast wrapped up that went into the stories behind the discovery of the major artifacts that allowed us to understand the history of the ancient civs. He's now doing a Bloodlines series where he's tracing the family lines that followed from Augustus, his actual biological descendants as well as adopted family.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:22
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Captain Postal posted:This is the guy who raised an army and demanded a triumph as a private citizen, and then demanded to be made consul without being a senator, let alone an Quaestor, Aedile or Praetor? That Pompey? You think he gave any gently caress at all about the Republic and its institutions beyond that they were his toys? Legitimacy really mattered to the new blood. Pompey wasn't a new man but he could count on one hand the generations of his bloodline that had sat in the Senate. It was common for new blood to align itself to more conservative Roman elements in order to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the SPQR. Old blood like the Julii and the Claudii, or ancient pleb houses like the Antonii, more often gave zero fucks. Pompey comes of age during the First Civil War, all he knows is demanding things by swordpoint. That's how Dad did it, that's how Marius & Sulla did it, and it's worked out pretty well so far. But in his later years, Pompey isn't a kid anymore. He's a true champion of Rome, he's actually earned the cognomen of Magnus. He's taken Roman armies to victory on three continents and deservedly received the love and admiration of the Republic. His identity has become irrevocably intertwined with it by that point.
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Mar 6, 2015 19:43
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physeter posted:Pompey comes of age during the First Civil War, all he knows is demanding things by swordpoint. Pompey posted:Stop quoting laws, we carry weapons!-
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Mar 6, 2015 19:58
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Baracula posted:The origin of Islam episode seemed like a pro-listen to me but I don't know poo poo about it so someone else may know better! The fundraising episode was really interesting as an introduction to the whole thing. Coming from the perspective of someone who knows pretty much jack about the topic he comes across as very influenced by Tom Holland (whom he has an interview episode with) and might be overly skeptical of the documentary evidence but he doesn't really sell any of this as definite proof either way, more on the lack of certainty we have regarding what the hell actually happened with the emergence of Islam beyond some charismatic figure uniting Arab tribes and going on a good old conquering spree. Also he has a few interview episodes which provide a good source of outside expert views and make a nice break from the overall narrative. Yeah his voice is the same, if you've listened to 3 or 4 episodes and it's still annoying that's probably not going to change but I can't see how it's bad enough to not be worth the quality of the show. Personally I find the China History guy kind of annoying voice wise and don't really like the guy that does WWII history but, generally, the quality of what they're putting out gets me to tolerate it. I find if a new voice is annoying at first that usually a few episodes at least gets me accustomed to it.
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Mar 7, 2015 03:30
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karl fungus posted:What are some good ancient history-related podcasts? Topics in Korean History is amazing. His voice is a little interesting but it does grow on you pretty fast. Unlike that China History guy imo. Start with the Black Water Dragon miniseries. Its got musket wielding Samurai, armor plated paddle-boats, crazy late Ming Dynasty power politics, and European Jesuit priests among many others fighting it out after Japan launched the 16th century beta version of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Seriously. http://www.topicsinkoreanhistory.com/2012/12/07/the-black-water-dragon-i/ statim fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Mar 7, 2015 |
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Mar 7, 2015 06:55
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