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bobthedinosaur posted:Did Romans wear togas? All the time! In fact if you were a magistrate in Republican Rome you weren't supposed to wear anything else. Only citizens could wear it though, foreigners weren't allowed to. The toga is like the most Roman article of clothing ever.
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Oct 25, 2012 08:37
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Romans did wear togas, but they were more like a business suit than standard clothing. Rome had a lot of rules and customs about clothes, which in my opinion wasn't so much because of fashion, but instead because they were a society based on inequality. (One of the problems with thinking some people are just inherently better than others is that it's hard to tell who's your inferior/superior at a glance. So one way of dealing with this is to have clothing traditions that make it obvious.) Only a Roman citizen was entitled to wear a toga, and criminals were often stripped of this right. As time went on, this became a ritual thing - if you were a citizen and you were doing Important Business in the forum without wearing a toga, people would make fun of you. Slaves weren't allowed to wear a toga at all, and instead had to make do with a basic tunic. Ordinary people who wanted something fancier could go for something called a pallium (or palla if you were a girl), which was a basic cloak that originated in Greece, and is the kind of cloak that you see classical Greek figures often represented in. Aristocratic Romans saw the pallium as being foreign, low-class, something that scumbag hippie philosophers would wear. The pallium was generally of square shape, made of wool or flax, and could be used as a blanket or spread out to sleep on in a pinch. In modern times, the Pope's robe is a descendant of this garment. The toga had symbolic meaning as a garment of peace, so soldiers wore a sagum, which is the short, red cloak-like garment that you've probably seen in paintings or costumes. Ordinary soldiers wore duller shades of red, while officers wore bright scarlet. Generals wore a variant of the sagum called a lacerna, which was purple. Lacerna were also apparently used by Senators as something like an overcoat or bulletproof vest, since lacerna could be reinforced with leather. There were a bunch of different types of togas, which were meant to differentiate different types of citizens or let people show off how awesome and important they were. There was a special toga for children, young men (toga virilis), a special toga worn by candidates for office, one for priests, one for magistrates, a dark one for going to a funeral, one for the consuls or a triumphant general, and so on. Togas had a lot of different fashions in how they were worn, and that changed quite a bit. Julius Caesar had a reputation for dressing in a particular loose and baggy style, which became popular with other younger men and turned into something like the James Dean look of the time. Roman women had three different types of gown to choose from. The peplos, the chiton and the stola. The peplos and chiton were simple gowns that pretty much are like taking your window curtain, draping it over your body, and using belts to tie it in place and give it some definition. The stola was a more upper-class and ornate variation on the same theme. (The Statue of Liberty in NYC is wearing a stola, as a point of reference.) Many Roman women used jewelry and elaborate hairstyles to adorn themselves, since their clothes didn't let them stand out much.
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Oct 25, 2012 08:37
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In the History of Rome podcast Cato the Younger was referred to as kind of annoying; for example he apparently wore a very old style of toga his great-grandfather would've worn. But I was reading wikipedia and he seems like a pretty amazing fellow and I was wondering if I'm missing something here or if the guy who does the podcast just dislikes him for some reason.
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Oct 25, 2012 08:44
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Cato the Younger was both amazing and a huge annoying dick. Kind of like Cicero. It is possible to be both!
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Oct 25, 2012 08:48
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Imagine if there were someone in US politics who dressed like George Washington, refused to use modern technology on moral grounds, and decried everything that the government's done since 1800 as being morally corrupt, illegitimate, a betrayal of the principles of the American Revolution, etc etc. Now imagine that same guy was very media savvy and knew every trick of Senate procedure, and constantly used his knowledge of both for the sole purpose of pushing his back-to-1789 agenda and obstructing anything he didn't agree with. Even if he was totally sincere about everything he said and did and lived his convictions to the hilt, I'd wager people would find him completely insufferable, too.
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Oct 25, 2012 08:55
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Ah, I see where he was coming from then. I guess I got the feeling that he was more ineffectual as well which is why I was so surprised when I started reading his track record.Tao Jones posted:Imagine if there were someone in US politics who dressed like George Washington, refused to use modern technology on moral grounds, and decried everything that the government's done since 1800 as being morally corrupt, illegitimate, a betrayal of the principles of the American Revolution, etc etc. Now imagine that same guy was very media savvy and knew every trick of Senate procedure, and constantly used his knowledge of both for the sole purpose of pushing his back-to-1789 agenda and obstructing anything he didn't agree with. This is giving me Tea Party vibes 
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Oct 25, 2012 09:10
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Tao Jones posted:Imagine if there were someone in US politics who dressed like George Washington, refused to use modern technology on moral grounds, and decried everything that the government's done since 1800 as being morally corrupt, illegitimate, a betrayal of the principles of the American Revolution, etc etc. Now imagine that same guy was very media savvy and knew every trick of Senate procedure, and constantly used his knowledge of both for the sole purpose of pushing his back-to-1789 agenda and obstructing anything he didn't agree with. Sooo, Cato the Younger is a Ron Paul equivalent?
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Oct 25, 2012 09:52
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Well, I wouldn't want to go for a direct comparison with Ron Paul, but I'd say the rhetorical strategies employed are similar to a lot of modern libertarian-type arguments, yes. (I doubt that the Cato Institute's name is an accident.) I'm pretty sure I've pointed people to Plutarch's "Parallel Lives" in this thread before, but his Life of Cato the Younger is one of the more interesting ones, if you're interested in supplemental reading. I can't find a complete text of it online to link people to (Internet Classics Archive's text cuts out partway through, strangely, and penelope.uchicago.edu keeps timing out), but it's good reading if you're interested in Cato and have a free evening. John Dryden's been the go-to translator of Plutarch since around 1700, so if you're more dedicated at looking through the public domain than I am, you can probably find it online somewhere.
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Oct 25, 2012 10:13
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The Late Republican period is probably unrivaled in history in the amazing people it contained and who lived in the same time and knew each other closely or featured prominently otherwise. And with almost all these people wanting power or some other ultimate desire it's no wonder that it all ended so spectacularly as it did. You got all these amazing personalities and geniuses (whether in politics, oratory, intrigue or military) that if they had been all by themselves in any other period of history with the same relative skillset, each of them could have risen to crazy heights. And they are still world famous despite having to compete with each other. Marius Sulla Pompey Julius Caesar Sertorius Crassus Cassius Brutus Marc Antony Cleopatra Cato Cicero Sextus Pompey Augustus Livia Agrippa Spartacus Catiline Clodius Am I missing anyone? DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Oct 25, 2012 |
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Oct 25, 2012 11:12
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Tao Jones posted:Well, I wouldn't want to go for a direct comparison with Ron Paul, but I'd say the rhetorical strategies employed are similar to a lot of modern libertarian-type arguments, yes. (I doubt that the Cato Institute's name is an accident.) Perseus has all Plutarch's Lives. This is a link to the English translation http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0014 Or you can read it in Greek if you like.
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Oct 25, 2012 11:53
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DarkCrawler posted:Am I missing anyone? Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo 
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Oct 25, 2012 12:08
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Octy posted:Perseus has all Plutarch's Lives. This is a link to the English translation http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0014 Oh, yeah, of course. I spaced out on checking Perseus - I think that I thought they'd only have it in Greek and not in translation, since I mainly use that for hunting around in the original language.
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Oct 25, 2012 14:31
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DarkCrawler posted:
Marcus Livius Drusus the Younger, a young archconservative who went renegade in an attempted plot to enlist all of Italy into his clientela in return for citizenship. He was assassinated and the Social War began. Maecenas, Octavian's fruity public relations guy, amply covered in HBO's Rome. Q Caecilius Metellus Pius, Pompey's co-general in the Sertorian War. Generally underrated. And of course, the "bad guys". Jugurtha, Vercingetorix, Mithradates Eupator, etc.
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Oct 25, 2012 14:44
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I still have no idea what "roman purple" looks like. (This is in reference to Toga Chat.) Apparently the shade is not reproducible by computers. It is not purple like Grimace though, and it is not red like a cardinal.
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Oct 25, 2012 14:47
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Also I feel compelled to poo poo on the parade slightly. The late Republic is incredibly interesting and full of amazing figures, it's the center of the period I know so I'm not saying it isn't incredible. But quote:The Late Republican period is probably unrivaled in history in the amazing people it contained and who lived in the same time and knew each other closely or featured prominently otherwise. I would take some issue with this. There certainly were other periods every bit as dynamic and interesting, full of the same kinds of larger than life people, but they aren't anywhere near as well documented so we don't know them. I'd bet the crisis of the third century period is comparable, if we had the records to know about it. But we don't. I did notice the probably in that but anyway. Sometimes I feel the late Republic overshadows so much and has been unfairly amplified by historians. It's entirely understandable since it's the best documented period, but worth mentioning that at least part of why it's so famed is simply because we have a lot of material to go on. If it were spotty and another period well documented, we'd be talking about that one.
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Oct 25, 2012 14:48
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Frosted Flake posted:When did the Byzantine nobility start changing their names from, for example Claudius and Florentinus to Peter and Paul? How did the cultural progression from Roman to Greek go? this is from last page but I'm interested in this too. It seems like Peters and Pauls and Johns just sort of pop up in in the Greek Empire. Did everyone that had a kid during the reign of Constantine just jump to these christian names for their kids and that was that? Did any families Hellenize their names from the latin origin to fit in better?
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Oct 25, 2012 14:50
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I have no idea. I'm sure Christianity was part of it, you start seeing biblical names even in the western empire. If I were to guess I'd say it was the combination of Christianity and the abandonment of Latin among the upper classes.
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Oct 25, 2012 14:55
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quote:Peters and Pauls and Johns Peter is a Greek name, Paul is Latin, and John is a Hebrew name from Greek. I wouldn't say those are "Christian names" really.
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Oct 25, 2012 15:15
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Yech, at one point I'd have believed everything this Colbert Report guest Anthony Everitt said, but now I recognize he's a classicist and not a historian, and one that is about as critical as Agesilaus in evaluating sources. Thanks for ruining that for me, Roman history thread 
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Oct 25, 2012 15:51
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Grand Fromage posted:I would take some issue with this. There certainly were other periods every bit as dynamic and interesting, full of the same kinds of larger than life people, but they aren't anywhere near as well documented so we don't know them. I'd bet the crisis of the third century period is comparable, if we had the records to know about it. But we don't. Just notice how none of the previous posters (nor anybody else for that matter) even mention Cinna even though he ruled Rome for several years of the Late Republic
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Oct 25, 2012 16:27
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Tao Jones posted:Roman women had three different types of gown to choose from. The peplos, the chiton and the stola. The peplos and chiton were simple gowns that pretty much are like taking your window curtain, draping it over your body, and using belts to tie it in place and give it some definition. The stola was a more upper-class and ornate variation on the same theme. (The Statue of Liberty in NYC is wearing a stola, as a point of reference.) Many Roman women used jewelry and elaborate hairstyles to adorn themselves, since their clothes didn't let them stand out much. Peplums are back in fashion this year (which proves that all you need to do is wait long enough). http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/mar/20/how-to-wear-a-peplum
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Oct 25, 2012 16:28
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euphronius posted:I still have no idea what "roman purple" looks like. (This is in reference to Toga Chat.) This is actually interesting, I had no idea the shade wasn't in the sRGB gamut but it appears that it's in the AdobeRGB gamut so I punched in the HSV values into illustrator and checked it out. The monitor on the left is a wide gamut monitor with 96% AdobeRGB coverage and the right is your average consumer sRGB monitor.  Obviously my lovely camera phone can't really capture the wide gamut colour but it gives some kind of idea of the difference. The colour that appears on your monitor is much muddier and more of a red wine colour than Tyrian Purple which has a punchy red undertone. Also, the precise Tyrian Purple HSV values (325°, 98%, 40%) did some weird poo poo to my wide gamut monitor. Kind of a weird stroboscopic effect like you'd get on old CRTs when there were really bright reds and they'd bleed, so it's probably not even producing it that well.
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Oct 25, 2012 21:59
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euphronius posted:Peter is a Greek name, Paul is Latin, and John is a Hebrew name from Greek. I wouldn't say those are "Christian names" really. This is kind of a pointless thing to say, of course none of them were christian names before christ but they're still the names of the arguably three most important figures in christian history aside from christ himself. They have been widely passed down as names among christian-influenced cultures the entire time christians have existed, so they are "christian names" in every sense that matters in the slightest. In every way it is possible for a name to be considered a "christian" name these three names qualify. DarkCrawler posted:The Late Republican period is probably unrivaled in history in the amazing people it contained and who lived in the same time and knew each other closely or featured prominently otherwise. I strongly disagree with this. Just off the top of my head, in no particular order (and DEFINITELY not exhaustive) there are many periods of western history that are equally important and full of influential and brilliant as gently caress people: the 20th century (Bolshevik revolution / world wars / cold war) american revolution french revolution protestant reformation reign of louis XIV reign of henry VIII Italian renaissance carolingian renaissance I'm surely missing many others, and this discounts all of asian and african history which i know basically nothing about. The issue as grand fromage mentioned is that the late republic period is pretty well documented and we as a society are in love with it. andrew smash fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Oct 25, 2012 |
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Oct 25, 2012 23:22
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Mitsuo posted:Yech, at one point I'd have believed everything this Colbert Report guest Anthony Everitt said, but now I recognize he's a classicist and not a historian, and one that is about as critical as Agesilaus in evaluating sources. I hope this clarification is unnecessary, but just in case, please, please don't paint all classicists with the Agesilaus brush. We're not all like that. I love my art and literature but I have no attachment to any of them as factual, and I love studying the attested history just as much as the historical mythology around it. but seriously the ancient Indians had giant gold-digging ants, no really e: vvv oh jesus. I understand in this case. Disdain away. SneezeOfTheDecade fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 26, 2012 00:14
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Besesoth posted:I hope this clarification is unnecessary, but just in case, please, please don't paint all classicists with the Agesilaus brush. We're not all like that. I love my art and literature but I have no attachment to any of them as factual, and I love studying the attested history just as much as the historical mythology around it.
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Oct 26, 2012 00:40
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I dread to see what happens when alien archeologists dig up Free Republic.
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Oct 26, 2012 00:45
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andrew smash posted:This is kind of a pointless thing to say, of course none of them were christian names before christ but they're still the names of the arguably three most important figures in christian history aside from christ himself. My badly made point was that those names did not spring up starting in the 4rth century.
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Oct 26, 2012 01:15
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There's nothing wrong with (most) classicists, don't dismiss them! I haven't seen Colbert yet so I'm prepped to get mad 'bout history. E: First loving thing this guy says, Rome didn't have a culture so they just stole culture from Greece!
Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 26, 2012 01:16
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Grand Fromage posted:There's nothing wrong with (most) classicists, don't dismiss them! I haven't seen Colbert yet so I'm prepped to get mad 'bout history. I couldn't close the window fast enough when he said that 
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Oct 26, 2012 02:27
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Besesoth posted:I hope this clarification is unnecessary, but just in case, please, please don't paint all classicists with the Agesilaus brush. Yeah, unless you lot have particular examples to complain about, then this is all just baseless whinging. Academic classicists and historians have their place, even if their views and motives are a tad pedestrian; point is not to read the classics and dig things up for the mere sake of it, but to study them as part of one's education in the good.
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Oct 26, 2012 02:33
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DarkCrawler posted:The Late Republican period is probably unrivaled in history in the amazing people it contained and who lived in the same time and knew each other closely or featured prominently otherwise. Meh, no. I can think of a few ancient eras off the top of my head that would rival/exceed the Late Republican period. If you want China, then think about the Warring States until the start of the Han dynasty. If you want to stay in the West, then there are a tonne of impressive generations in the Hellenic world; late 5th century through to the early 4th century was a pretty amazing time. I'm sure some others around here can blab on forever about WW2/cold war or some other popular, modern era.
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Oct 26, 2012 02:41
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Grand Fromage posted:There's nothing wrong with (most) classicists, don't dismiss them! I haven't seen Colbert yet so I'm prepped to get mad 'bout history. One of these days I'm going to buy a pair of nice sturdy Louisville Sluggers, paint "NUANCE" on one and "CONTEXT" on the other, and hang them on my wall as a warning to neophyte classicists. Also: Agesilaus posted:even if their views and motives are a tad pedestrian Truthfully, between us: are you just going out of your way to live up to the  branding at this point?
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Oct 26, 2012 02:53
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Agesilaus posted:I'm sure some others around here can blab on forever about WW2/cold war or some other popular, modern era. Honestly, the modern era doesn't really have the same sense of high-caliber leadership. I could throw out some names in the political (Winston Churchill, Robert McNamara) and military (Chester Nimitz, William Sherman) realms, but sheer charisma has less of an critical role in our increasingly complex world. For example if David Petraeus hadn't been the commanding general in Iraq, it's probable that someone else would still have implemented a version of the Petraeus Counterinsurgency Doctrine. There's so much else going on that our leaders are constantly at the mercy of events, and even the most brilliant are blunted by having to work through our massive bureaucracies. Now of course the old Romans also lived in a complex world, etc., but it's just at a whole other level now. A modern Cicero or Augustus simply couldn't exist. They just wouldn't be interpreted the same way. That said, if someone like David Petraeus were to be transported back into the Roman era and given a legion or a senate seat, they'd probably change the face of history. The contemporary level of command talent and training is extremely high. But the conditions for creating that kind of legendary figure don't really exist any more. Kaal fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 26, 2012 03:16
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Kaal posted:Honestly, the modern era doesn't really have the same sense of high-caliber leadership. I could throw out some names in the political (Winston Churchill, Robert McNamara) and military (Chester Nimitz, William Sherman) realms, but sheer charisma has less of an critical role in our increasingly complex world. For example if David Petraeus hadn't been the commanding general in Iraq, it's probable that someone else would still have implemented a version of the Petraeus Counterinsurgency Doctrine. There's so much else going on that our leaders are constantly at the mercy of events, and even the most brilliant are blunted by having to work through our massive bureaucracies. I dunno about that. The Atlantic just put out a really good article on leadership in the army. A lot of this poo poo still matters, it's just that we lack the historical distance to weed out the 'noise.'* *This is a horrible statement and the historian in me cries to say it. The 'noise' is the everyday life and something we crave knowledge about and just don't have most of the time.
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Oct 26, 2012 03:40
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the JJ posted:*This is a horrible statement and the historian in me cries to say it. The 'noise' is the everyday life and something we crave knowledge about and just don't have most of the time. It is at once comforting and terrifying to me to know that the Library of Congress is preserving our modern "noise" for posterity in the form of all the tweets on Twitter, ever.
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Oct 26, 2012 03:53
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Kaal posted:A modern Cicero or Augustus simply couldn't exist... the conditions for creating that kind of legendary figure don't really exist any more. I don't know if I agree with that either. Again looking to more contemporary examples, you can find people who radically changed their societies or even the world. Not alone, but Augustus didn't do it alone either. Best examples that spring to mind are Martin Luther, Napoleon, and Lenin.
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Oct 26, 2012 05:21
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Do we have any evidence that the armies of late antiquity were really getting a lot smaller? It seems that the further you go back, the more ridiculously inflated the troop numbers get because earlier historians basically just made poo poo up and if there were a lot of Gauls coming into Italy they were like "I'm not counting that, let's say it's 200.000". So did everyone, Romans and barbarians alike, just have smaller armies or did the reporting simply get more accurate?
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Oct 26, 2012 05:43
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There was a manpower shortage. By late antiquity being in the army sucked. Everyone had already been granted citizenship, the pay wasn't great, the discipline had gotten harsher, and the likelihood you were going to get horribly slaughtered by Huns was significantly higher than ever before. Nobody wanted to join it, it was so bad that they made it hereditary (along with many other jobs--the beginning of serfdom is here) to force enough people to stay in. They still hired massive numbers of Germans to keep the ranks filled.
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Oct 26, 2012 05:45
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andrew smash posted:I don't know if I agree with that either. Again looking to more contemporary examples, you can find people who radically changed their societies or even the world. Not alone, but Augustus didn't do it alone either. Best examples that spring to mind are Martin Luther, Napoleon, and Lenin. Well Martin Luther and Napoleon aren't really in the Modern Age, even when we're comparing against the antiquity. And I think Lenin is a great example of someone whose very real accomplishments are inextricably tied to a variety of other actors. The Russian revolution definitely would have occurred without Lenin's contributions. It's socialist underpinnings would have been a different variant of Marxism, but it would be largely similar. Russia's geopolitical decisions, such as withdrawing from WWI or forming the Soviet Union, were driven by externalities and would almost certainly have occurred. Fundamentally, Russian socialists needed a leader to embody their revolution, and Lenin carried out that role. But there are any number of senior revolutionaries who could have taken his place. What makes Lenin such a good example of this, is that when he died five years after the revolution he was so easily replaced by Stalin. The USSR continued apace under his leadership, and in much the same way for many years. Whereas Stalin represents a much more visceral type of leader figure, much more in common with those famous old Romans. The USSR without Stalin would have been radically different. Similarly, Rome without Augustus would have been radically different - it may well have remained a Republic. Kaal fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 26, 2012 05:54
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furushotakeru posted:I believe it was mentioned before that Roman wine was sold in concentrated form, which is why they added some water before consuming it. 
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Oct 26, 2012 08:59
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