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Telsa Cola posted:Yeah my favorite mindfuck is the relative lateness of the introduction of the bow and arrow. You get reaaal fancy pottery before you get them. Don't you need to be pretty on top of wood selection/seasoning/shaping to make a bow powerful enough to kill things? It might have been tried many times before that, but abandoned for being poo poo.
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Apr 5, 2018 01:48
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The Lone Badger posted:Don't you need to be pretty on top of wood selection/seasoning/shaping to make a bow powerful enough to kill things? It might have been tried many times before that, but abandoned for being poo poo. I will do some journal readings to double check this but I’m going to go with not really because you don’t need to outright kill things, just wound them enough to make tracking/finishing them off feasible. This also ignore things like small game,birds, and fish which don’t take much force to kill. I think power comes into play more when you are dealing with large animals like bison (which get herded off of cliffs instead) or with humans wearing armor.
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Apr 5, 2018 02:00
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SlothfulCobra posted:As far as I've gotten in the History of Rome podcast, it seems like Rome is basically the ship of Theseus, steadily replacing bits of itself, and on a few occasions totally swapping out ships like nothing happened. Not just Rome, this is true for almost any society that lasts for literally thousands of years.
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Apr 5, 2018 05:23
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So basically we went from Slavery America to No Slavery America* to McAmerica? *terms and conditions may apply
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Apr 5, 2018 06:25
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Re: butt sponge chat, just a fluff article, but this guy lays claim the butt sponges were shared: https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/ancient-roman-bathrooms/ The laundry bit was neat, didn't know about that.
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Apr 5, 2018 07:13
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Rome was clearly ended forever when that goddamn hippy Scipio Africanus refused to grow a beard like a good Roman should 
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Apr 5, 2018 09:11
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How did the Roman/Greek view of and attitudes towards their gods differ from modern conceptions of God? I.E. We usually think of God as this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-benevolent force who cares deeply and personally about our well-being/obedience to his rules, which cover most spheres of daily life and are regarded as inherently good universal rules in and of themselves. I get the impression that the Romans and Greeks didn't view their gods in this sense, but how did they look upon them exactly? Was it basically a superpowered version of the Roman client/patron relationships?
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Apr 5, 2018 14:59
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It's a hard question to answer. For sure the gods were not in any way all powerful, knowing, or benevolent. The client-patron relationship is closer to the mark. The gods existed and your job as a mortal was to not gently caress with them. You would also ask for their intercession on your behalf, but that required you to offer something in exchange--the gods don't work for free. There is no charity in the pre-Christian Roman world, from religion or from other people. If you please the gods, they'll be on your side and all will be well. This is a big part of why mystery cults became so popular, most of them offered gods who were not dicks and promised a better world. An afterlife that wasn't just existing as some sort of shadow in a grey mist was something new that religions like Christianity promised.
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Apr 5, 2018 15:10
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Grand Fromage posted:You would also ask for their intercession on your behalf, but that required you to offer something in exchange--the gods don't work for free. On that note, did the Roman gods have a habit of favoring people who live a certain way? I.E. "If I am constantly aggressive and decisive, traits which Mars favors, surely he will bless me more since I embody the traits he likes best!"
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Apr 5, 2018 15:22
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Haven’t listened yet but here is a thread favorite topic : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xnl51
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Apr 5, 2018 16:12
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Tomn posted:How did the Roman/Greek view of and attitudes towards their gods differ from modern conceptions of God? I.E. We usually think of God as this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-benevolent force who cares deeply and personally about our well-being/obedience to his rules, which cover most spheres of daily life and are regarded as inherently good universal rules in and of themselves. I get the impression that the Romans and Greeks didn't view their gods in this sense, but how did they look upon them exactly? Was it basically a superpowered version of the Roman client/patron relationships? Traditional Roman religion was very much indeed like client patron relationship. The basis of relationship between god and man was "do ut des", "I give that you might give". Religion is contractual: we sacrifice to the gods in exchange for success and bounty that will enable us to continue to sacrifice to the gods. There are recorded instances of various offerings being promised to the gods if they keep us from military disaster or the death of an emperor for such and such a period; when the gods failed to do this, the promised offerings were withheld. The great gods don't care about our daily lives or how we behave in general, so much as they care about how we properly conduct ourselves towards them in rituals and prayer. Religious rituals were generally carried out in public, by the ruling class (priesthood was a significant political office, if not one carrying much power), for audiences, with extreme caution because mistakes or disruptions invalidated them. Deliberately interfering with religious ritual was an extremely serious offense; under some circumstances, such as Clodius Pulcher's infamous transvestite infiltration of the women-only rites of Bona Dea, it could be considered a capital crime (Clodius only survived by getting his (earthly) patron to heavily bribe the entire jury). Religious ritual was also extremely common; more days in the Roman calendar had sacred significance than did not. Every Roman household had small idols of various spirits, the dii familiares, who took care of the family and the household in exchange for veneration and small votive offerings. Every crossroads had a shrine to the spirit of that crossroads. The countryside was all over shrines and sacred groves. Templa, or sacred precincts (often containing a fanum or aedes, a building in which a god lived) formed a major central element of any large Roman settlement. Greek views on the gods varied widely and could be quite different from anything traditional Romans believed, and it's important to remember that all our major sources on Roman religion are coming from a culture whose native religious traditions had undergone quite a bit of syncretic influence from the Greeks.
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Apr 5, 2018 16:18
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I'm listening to the Sunday School Dropouts podcast as a painless way to get acquainted with the bible. And: Holy poo poo the Hebrews suck. They're a violent bunch of theocratic lunatics. Every time a plague happens the priest class blames some random family for marrying foreigners or worshipping the wrong god or wondering too loudly why the priests eat better than everyone else. And then kills them in a way that feels in no way like organised justice No wonder old testament God is a nightmare crazy person, the priests need to a boogeyman to bully the people.
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Apr 5, 2018 16:26
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Stringent posted:Re: butt sponge chat, just a fluff article, but this guy lays claim the butt sponges were shared: Matthew 27:48 gets a whole new meaning when you know about this. 
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Apr 5, 2018 16:44
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Telsa Cola posted:I will do some journal readings to double check this but I’m going to go with not really because you don’t need to outright kill things, just wound them enough to make tracking/finishing them off feasible. This also ignore things like small game,birds, and fish which don’t take much force to kill. I think power comes into play more when you are dealing with large animals like bison (which get herded off of cliffs instead) or with humans wearing armor. It'd have to be pretty powerful and precise to beat a sling / atlatl. Is there really a niche for a kinda lovely bow?
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Apr 5, 2018 16:50
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Arglebargle III posted:Holy poo poo the Hebrews suck. They're a violent bunch of theocratic lunatics. Every time a plague happens the priest class blames some random family for marrying foreigners or worshipping the wrong god or wondering too loudly why the priests eat better than everyone else. And then kills them in a way that feels in no way like organised justice. Like the Roman gods, the Hebrew God is also in a contractual relationship with his worshipers. In this case, it's "Follow the commandments I give you, and the community will be protected and blessed. Break them, and the community will be punished." So a lot of the bible is "People break the Commandments, the community suffers. People follow them, the community thrives."
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Apr 5, 2018 16:53
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Something that doesn't get enough recognition is that the Romans had their own native religion that was quite important and nothing like the Greek or Etruscan pantheons of named gods we're all familiar with. Romans had an almost animist tradition that somewhat resembles Shinto. Everything had a spirit, and Roman gods were gods of places. They did not have names or personalities, they were simply the spiritual force of a road or a tree. These forces would come into conflict at times and had to be propitiated--this is why you find magical talismans (often penises) at crossroads for an example, to calm the two road spirits crossing each other. The family lares and the genius are the most familiar of these, but they're everywhere. Roman religion was also extremely conservative. It's full of ancient rituals that no living person understood at all but had to be performed precisely to ward off, presumably, some sort of doom that would happen if the rituals ended. If any part of a ritual was messed up you had to start over. Etruscans were the same way but even moreso.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:03
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Yeah except God isn't real, so if you read with this in mind it's much more about the priest class oppressing and terrorizing their people before they settle down and kings take over.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:05
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Arglebargle III posted:Yeah except God isn't real, so if you read with this in mind it's much more about the priest class oppressing and terrorizing their people before they settle down and kings take over.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:12
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Arglebargle III posted:Yeah except God isn't real, so if you read with this in mind it's much more about the priest class oppressing and terrorizing their people before they settle down and kings take over. Imposing your own ideology on ancient cultures is a bad way to understand history.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:12
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Hey guys, look at these idiot soldiers, making sacrifices to Jupiter for a quick victory. Don't they know their god is only a social construct? 
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Apr 5, 2018 17:23
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Only, hear me out, there's a lot of stuff in Genesis through Numbers about Levites slaughtering other Hebrews for worshipping other gods. Also LOL at the idea that we can't interpret history without taking religion at face value.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:37
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Arglebargle III posted:Only, hear me out, there's a lot of stuff in Genesis through Numbers about Levites slaughtering other Hebrews for worshipping other gods. Maybe taking the Bible literally and out of historical context is a bad idea.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:39
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Now you're just looking to pick a fight.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:42
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The hebrew bible was not written while those events were taking place
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Apr 5, 2018 17:49
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The Hebrews took their religion differently from the Romans, as evidenced by how the Romans thought it'd be fine to just stick a couple of their religious symbols around Israel after they were invited there to rule, and then the Hebrews fought back against Roman impositions to the point that Rome basically did a genocide on them to bring the territory in line.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:56
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Y'all are ignoring that his point was since jupiter was not actually talking to people that in effect you were seeing the priests exerting control over the populace.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:57
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It was actually bird entrails and the flight of eagles which exerted said control. Not priests. Hardly a state of religious autocracy.
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Apr 5, 2018 17:58
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euphronius posted:It was actually bird entrails and the flight of eagles which exerted said control. Not priests. It was a clear aviocracy.
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Apr 5, 2018 18:10
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I don't think it's a contradiction to say "priests promoted religious beliefs that gave priests more power" and "priests earnestly believed that doing so was the best for everyone". Humans are quite capable of convincing themselves of the morality of their own self interest. Fully understanding the society requires understanding the religious thought even though there's a passable model of behavior in which everything is a priestly scam.
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Apr 5, 2018 18:18
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aphid_licker posted:It'd have to be pretty powerful and precise to beat a sling / atlatl. Is there really a niche for a kinda lovely bow? This is second hand and I don’t have any articles for it currently but I had a professor who dealt heavily with experimental archaeology and projectile points point out that mechanically, its way easier to use a bow from an ambush position in foliage then it is to use anything else due to the smaller range of motion. Plus, its a material thing. I can knock out like 5 arrow heads with the same amount of material needed for one or two spear or dart heads, so that likely is a factor. And that said it depends on what you mean by kinda lovely bow.
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Apr 5, 2018 19:22
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Telsa Cola posted:This is second hand and I don’t have any articles for it currently but I had a professor who dealt heavily with experimental archaeology and projectile points point out that mechanically, its way easier to use a bow from an ambush position in foliage then it is to use anything else due to the smaller range of motion. Plus, its a material thing. I can knock out like 5 arrow heads with the same amount of material needed for one or two spear or dart heads, so that likely is a factor. I had no clear picture what I meant to be quite honest. I just figured that in terms of range, power and precision there were pretty good things available already, so I wasn't sure what would make someone mess around with the bow concept for long enough to make it evolve past those. Your explanation makes perfect sense. Thanks and sorry.
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Apr 5, 2018 19:43
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A bow's also easier to use in general. I'm not a weaponologist but I've hosed around a lot and bows are pretty straightforward to use compared with getting good at a sling or javelins, and that simplicity can be an advantage. There was a decent period of time where guns weren't any better than a well-made bow in trained hands, but a gun was simpler and took far less training than getting good with a bow so guns took over.
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Apr 5, 2018 19:47
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Grand Fromage posted:Something that doesn't get enough recognition is that the Romans had their own native religion that was quite important and nothing like the Greek or Etruscan pantheons of named gods we're all familiar with. Romans had an almost animist tradition that somewhat resembles Shinto. Everything had a spirit, and Roman gods were gods of places. They did not have names or personalities, they were simply the spiritual force of a road or a tree. These forces would come into conflict at times and had to be propitiated--this is why you find magical talismans (often penises) at crossroads for an example, to calm the two road spirits crossing each other. The family lares and the genius are the most familiar of these, but they're everywhere. It would be interesting to see how all those Roman spirits influenced later German mythology, because Germanic (and later German) mythology is full of weird spirits/kobolds/dwarves living everywhere. The difference seems to be that Romans liked to worship them, while Germans often thought them a nuisance at best. Sometimes helpful, though: Some make shoes, others are good at pottery. It gets rather complicated fast, though: Apparently there are German spirits who take only milk and others who will only take alcohol as payment and if you confuse this, your house can be wrecked like an army of poltergeists invading. (Sometimes they'll just go, of course. Don't want to make things too easy to understand, after all.)
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Apr 5, 2018 19:47
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aphid_licker posted:I had no clear picture what I meant to be quite honest. I just figured that in terms of range, power and precision there were pretty good things available already, so I wasn't sure what would make someone mess around with the bow concept for long enough to make it evolve past those. Your explanation makes perfect sense. Thanks and sorry. Hey no worries, you don’t have to apologize. The whole weirdness around the adoption of the bow is what makes it interesting. Now the really crazy poo poo is the toggle harpoons with drag hoops that the inuit and other whaling native communities made. That poo poo is crazy complex. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Apr 5, 2018 |
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Apr 5, 2018 20:23
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I think archeological evidence shows Australian aborigines invented and then subsequently abandoned the bow, for whatever reason.
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Apr 5, 2018 20:33
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As literature the early bible is p. miserable as well. There are no sympathetic characters except like Joseph and two kids who try to do an offering and get burned alive for doing it wrong.
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Apr 5, 2018 20:46
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“I have a message from the Lord” Stab stab stab. All time favorite Old Testament bible line.
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Apr 5, 2018 22:20
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Libluini posted:It would be interesting to see how all those Roman spirits influenced later German mythology, because Germanic (and later German) mythology is full of weird spirits/kobolds/dwarves living everywhere. I'm not convinced that had much to do with the Romans. There are many, many cultures that have spirits - mischievous, evil and good - being everywhere. Seems a pretty basic concept for most peoples. The Arabic pre-Islamic religions (we still find a lot of this in the 1001 Nights stories), African religions, Chinese and Japanese all feature similar concepts. I know not much about old South Asian religions but I wouldn't be surprised if they had something similar. Nature makes a lot of unexplained sounds and has a lot of difficulty do explain small phenomenons - a spirit/kobold/goblin/yokai makes for an easy explanation.
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Apr 6, 2018 06:41
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Decius posted:I'm not convinced that had much to do with the Romans. There are many, many cultures that have spirits - mischievous, evil and good - being everywhere. Seems a pretty basic concept for most peoples. The Arabic pre-Islamic religions (we still find a lot of this in the 1001 Nights stories), African religions, Chinese and Japanese all feature similar concepts. I know not much about old South Asian religions but I wouldn't be surprised if they had something similar. Icelandic people still take elves pretty seriously today. It’s a little crazy.
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Apr 6, 2018 06:52
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spoon daddy posted:Icelandic people still take elves pretty seriously today. It’s a little crazy. I'm a bit jealous. In comparison, German mythology is so demolished all that is left is some story collections and a few academics working on it.
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Apr 6, 2018 07:11
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