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sullat posted:I think there's an anecdote from Herodotus where Sparta and Corinth each send five dudes to fight in lieu of the army. The Spartans claim they won because they had twp survivors, while the Corinithians claim they won because their guy stayed behind to loot the dead. So they had to fight a battle to resolve the issue anyway. Yep, that's one I remember now that you mention it. Calling the Spartans cowards really didn't go so well for Corinth in the long run.
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Feb 6, 2013 05:38
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Grand Fromage posted:Also the single champion duels to decide battles did happen. Rarely, but it was a real thing. The Romans never did it but I think the Greeks did occasionally. Rome vs Alba Longa (assuming it actually happened). It was a 3 vs 3 duel between the brothers Curiatii and Horatii, so as not to weaken either army too much leaving them ulnerable against the Etruscans. The Albans lost and everyone moved to Rome. The Alban nobles (the Julii, Sevilii etc) were incorporated into the Roman nobles as senators and accepted as patricians.
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Feb 6, 2013 06:26
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It sounds like such a more civilized way of fighting. Assuming that any side is willing to keep to the bargain and you're not fighting over something important enough that people would rather die than be subjected to what a loss represents.
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Feb 6, 2013 06:36
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Generally we don't take the stories of Alba Longa as truth. The stories about Alba Longa probably relate to a real place but I don't think there are any records of specific events that are considered reliable. I really don't know much about pre-Republic Rome though. It's a "stuff happened but we have no real records and stories are full of bullshit" nebulous time, and that's about as far as I go.
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Feb 6, 2013 06:37
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Grand Fromage posted:Also the single champion duels to decide battles did happen. Rarely, but it was a real thing. The Romans never did it but I think the Greeks did occasionally. From my extensive knowledge gained by watching all 95 episodes of the Three Kingdoms tv series, the Chinese were doing it too. Now, I don't know how much of that was historical truth and how much was legend
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Feb 6, 2013 08:11
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Captain Postal posted:Rome vs Alba Longa (assuming it actually happened). It was a 3 vs 3 duel between the brothers Curiatii and Horatii, so as not to weaken either army too much leaving them ulnerable against the Etruscans. The Albans lost and everyone moved to Rome. The Alban nobles (the Julii, Sevilii etc) were incorporated into the Roman nobles as senators and accepted as patricians. That story in particular always makes me smile a little when I'm reminded of it. Niccolo Machiavelli, while most famous for The Prince, also wrote a book called the Discourses on Livy, which use Livy as a touchstone for investigating how to order the government of a republic. One of his chapters in the Discourses is about this story, and NM is straight up "if duels like this really happened in the manner described, they're so phenomenally stupid an idea that the captains who agreed to them should have been lynched" (I'm paraphrasing here, of course, but that's the general thrust of his argument). Like a lot of these stories, it's nice and patriotic, but it's implausible in the extreme that a city would put its future in the hands of three dudes instead of its army. If duels were a thing in Greece, we don't have any credible evidence of them. So I think they were the stuff of Homeric legend.
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Feb 6, 2013 13:23
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Duels are ritualised warfare. Things they are good at: (a) resolving disputes where the stakes are low enough such that any outcome satisfies both parties. (b) demonstrating who amongst us are hot poo poo. Things they are not good at: (a) resolving high-stakes disputes, such as which italian city state gets to own all the trade routes (b) scenarios where the rules are fluid and all the players are acting on the principle of "anything goes"
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Feb 6, 2013 13:45
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SlothfulCobra posted:It sounds like such a more civilized way of fighting. Assuming that any side is willing to keep to the bargain and you're not fighting over something important enough that people would rather die than be subjected to what a loss represents. While the idea is appealing in some ways, I think that the civilized way of dealing with minor issues is to appear before a court. If an issue isn't important enough to go to war over, then no one should have to die to settle it.
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Feb 6, 2013 14:12
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I can see it happening only for the losing side to decide to charge anyway.
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Feb 6, 2013 14:46
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lil sartre posted:From my extensive knowledge gained by watching all 95 episodes of the Three Kingdoms tv series, the Chinese were doing it too. Now, I don't know how much of that was historical truth and how much was legend From what I've read of classical Chinese stories, they used champion duels as more of a warm-up round. The stories are full of "their guy and our guy rode out and fought, and our guy won so we were totally pumped when it was time for the whole armies to meet."
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Feb 6, 2013 16:30
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Isn't the David and Goliath story basically a retelling of such a "duel"? But I don't think it was used much to determine entire battles, just as noted: "Warm-ups" / Showing those pissant soldiers of yours that the big lords are willing to get their hands dirty too. Good morale boosters (if you win).
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Feb 6, 2013 18:04
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Gabriel Pope posted:From what I've read of classical Chinese stories, they used champion duels as more of a warm-up round. The stories are full of "their guy and our guy rode out and fought, and our guy won so we were totally pumped when it was time for the whole armies to meet." I'm pretty sure most people in the classical era did this sort of thing. The exceptions are the people with a special appreciation for the value of discipline in their armed forces, and they tended to do very well as a result.
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Feb 6, 2013 18:09
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My school is having a lecture on Roman Sculpture tomorrow, would anyone be interested in a .pdf of the lecture if I can find the link?quote:The James F. Ruffin Lecture in the Fine Arts presents Dr. Steven L. Tuck of Miami University of Ohio who will present an illustrated lecture on the sculpture collection of the Emperor Tiberius at Sperlonga.
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Feb 7, 2013 02:53
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Oh poo poo Dr. Tuck was my professor. Definitely go. This thread owes its existence to him.
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Feb 7, 2013 02:55
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What's the current theory on Arianism and it's popularity? The theory that for example donatism fucks up any serious administrative church and had to go seems reasonable, but all of a sudden you have arianism being professed by some emperors and the army. I don't really buy that the average joe/emperor/army unit was deeply troubled by Jesus being a platonic demiurge or not. There has to be some sociopolitical reasons behind it because historical materialism rules.
Dante fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Feb 7, 2013 |
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Feb 7, 2013 11:59
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Dante posted:What's the current theory on Arianism and it's popularity? The theory that for example donatism fucks up any serious administrative church and had to go seems reasonable, but all of a sudden you have arianism being professed by some emperors and the army. I don't really buy that the average joe/emperor/army unit was deeply troubled by Jesus being a platonic demiurge or not. There has to be some sociopolitical reasons behind it because historical materialism rules. Ehhhh... you'd be surprised about those theological quibbles, and the whole man/God thing is sorta a big deal. Never underestimate the stupid poo poo people will do because they think they're right God dammit. The Dome of the Rock, amusingly, is inscribed with 'Jesus was a mortal man, not the son of God, you twits,' so you know it's a debate with staying power. Socio-political wise, I'd say there's probably now one underlying trend pushing it save that it existed in a sort of legitimate-but-not-establishment space so an Emperor seeking to get distance from/control over the mainline clergy might swing that way, or maybe having already tapped more regular sources of support, they might try and get some heretical support.
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Feb 7, 2013 13:06
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Did the Romans engage in any sort of tourism? The pyramids would have been around even back then, and they would be right on their doorstep. I'm sure there were plenty of abandoned temples and such everywhere too. Think about all the wilderness and scenery they could visit without industrialization having ruined everything.
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Feb 7, 2013 16:45
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Yes, tourism was a thing. It was helped a lot by the remarkable road systems with developed inns and cart/horse service stations all through the empire. The government also sponsored official itineraries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana or travel guides, that stretched from Scotland to the Euphrates. In early Roman times it was popular for the rich to travel south from Rome to the newly conquered Campania whose coastal cities were famous for their night life and lax morals. Trips to Greece for vacation and education were also popular for the rich. Caesar took a famous river boat tour up the Nile with Cleopatra, but I guess that was also a PR stunt. As the Empire got older, pilgrimages to the Holy Land also became popular. euphronius fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Feb 7, 2013 |
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Feb 7, 2013 17:02
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euphronius posted:Yes, tourism was a thing. It was helped a lot by the remarkable road systems with developed inns and cart/horse service stations all through the empire. The government also sponsored official itineraries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Peutingeriana or travel guides, that stretched from Scotland to the Euphrates. Note though that not all travellers are tourists. I don't know if Romans saw the distinction, though, but travelling because of work or business (or war) is nowadays not seen as 'leisure travelling', and our methods of travel are very comfortable - and fast - in comparison. But anyway, what you said about Roman holiday resorts. Also, famous mineral water springs and other major spas attracted travellers that we nowadays would call as health tourists. I think pilgrimages predate Christianity - at least in the sense of travelling to a major temple or oracle. In fact, Nero went to see the priestess of Apollo at Delphi and was so angered by the response that he had her buried alive. Or so they say. But he wasn't the only Roman to visit the great oracle.
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Feb 7, 2013 18:31
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Yeah I would include "pilgrimage" as a type of tourism. Another famous pilgrimage is Alexander the Great going to the Siwa Oasis to visit the prophet there. Obviously the vast vast majority of people living in most of the history of the Roman empire were legally tied to the land and thus would never travel much or at all.
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Feb 7, 2013 18:35
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karl fungus posted:Did the Romans engage in any sort of tourism? The pyramids would have been around even back then, and they would be right on their doorstep. I'm sure there were plenty of abandoned temples and such everywhere too. Think about all the wilderness and scenery they could visit without industrialization having ruined everything. On the pyramids, not only would they have been around back then, but they would have already stood for some 2000+ years. The pyramids are really old.
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Feb 7, 2013 18:42
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Grand Fromage posted:Oh poo poo Dr. Tuck was my professor. Definitely go. This thread owes its existence to him. I am far too amused by the poster for it.  
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Feb 7, 2013 22:54
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Not My Leg posted:On the pyramids, not only would they have been around back then, but they would have already stood for some 2000+ years. The pyramids are really old. How much did classical era historians know about the history behind the pyramids and other really, really ancient monuments? Did they have chronologies of kings and successions and building dates or did they just know "these fuckers are old"?
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Feb 7, 2013 22:57
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They almost certainly had chronologies of kings, since Ptolemy and others used those in astronomical research. If there were a source that said that "this was built during the reign of King Dongs the Eighth of the Butts line", a scholar could know how old it was. Everyday people would probably just have "this poo poo is loving old" as their frame of reference, though.
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Feb 7, 2013 23:09
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There were souvenirs too. We have some little model gladiators that were sold at arenas, and there are other examples that I don't remember offhand.
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Feb 8, 2013 03:03
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When Roman soldiers swore their oaths, to whom were they pledging loyalty? Was it to their general, the Emperor, Rome itself, or some, all or none of the above?
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Feb 8, 2013 04:28
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To the Roman state, in theory. I don't think this ever technically changed but in later years the soldiers were loyal to their generals first and foremost. Probably the emperor second (unless your general opposed him) and the state was somewhere down the list. I actually don't think I've read an oath, does anyone know if this survived in written form somewhere?
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Feb 8, 2013 04:34
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Grand Fromage posted:To the Roman state, in theory. I don't think this ever technically changed but in later years the soldiers were loyal to their generals first and foremost. Probably the emperor second (unless your general opposed him) and the state was somewhere down the list. Might be an anecdotal example in Ammianus? I might be remembering that wrong. Seems like if it were ever recorded he'd have been the one to do it.
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Feb 8, 2013 04:43
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How did one become a Roman Governor? Was it an appointed position or hereditary? I know they had official responsibilities, but in practice were they more nobility or actual administrators?
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Feb 8, 2013 04:46
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Appointed by the Senate, and later the emperor. It was a popular post on the way up the political ranks, since you got to squeeze the province for money. One year terms with the possibility of further appointment. There weren't any officially hereditary posts in the government until we're talking about the Middle Ages, even the emperors had a whole legal fiction thing going on.
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Feb 8, 2013 04:50
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karl fungus posted:Did the Romans engage in any sort of tourism? The pyramids would have been around even back then, and they would be right on their doorstep. I'm sure there were plenty of abandoned temples and such everywhere too. Think about all the wilderness and scenery they could visit without industrialization having ruined everything. There's also a school of thought that says that a lot of Holy Sites for Christianity in Jerusalem, are really only holy sites because some locals were scamming St. Helena, which explains why a lot of holy sites are so close together. They wanted to make it really easy for an 80 year old woman to walk to the closest holy place. At the time she visited all those holy places, her son was the first Christian emperor, and had money to burn, and was the first Christian emperor, so holy sites became holy just because Constantine's Mom said so. thrakkorzog fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 10:05
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Grand Fromage: Your old professor has the weirdest twitch. He shuts his eyes really fast and sucks his face in a little. Really goddamn strange, never seen anything like it. Besides that though, he gave a great lecture & has ~recently~ been appointed a full professor. Before this lecture, I never really understood the lengths "scholars" would go to prove a rather mundane detail (That the sculptures at the Sperlonga Villa depicted a scene from the Aeneid, and not the Odyssey). On the subject of govt. positions: Could governorships also be considered pensions/rewards for Consuls, etc.? If I remember correctly, Crassus was appointed Governor of Syria & another province after his Consul terms expired.
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Feb 8, 2013 11:47
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Grand Fromage posted:Appointed by the Senate, and later the emperor. It was a popular post on the way up the political ranks, since you got to squeeze the province for money. One year terms with the possibility of further appointment. There weren't any officially hereditary posts in the government until we're talking about the Middle Ages, even the emperors had a whole legal fiction thing going on. This developed somewhat as the empire grew. In the Republican period, the governors were always men who'd reached the top of the tree in Rome, served a term as consul or praetor, and then got sent out by the Senate for a year (or more) to rule a province, and also frankly to raise some cash to pay off the massive debts they usually built up whilst getting to be consul. The expression "proconsul" for a governor comes from that system, and the core Roman provinces continued to run on that basis. Augustus later took direct control of some provinces, mostly newly conquered frontier ones which had a heavy military presence, and the emperors ran them through officials called legates. Britannia, for instance, was run that way. They'd probably have liked to do that everywhere, but taking long-established privileges from the Senate wouldn't have been politically wise. The emperors also "reserved" a few small provinces for the knights (rich Romans who weren't quite rich or aristocratic enough for the Senate) - I suppose it was a way of letting them in on the action. Pontius Pilate in Judea, for instance, wasn't a senator, but a knight, and he wasn't a proconsul or even legate, but a procurator. It ended up as quite a complicated system.
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Feb 8, 2013 11:56
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This is a holiday weekend in Korea and it got me thinking what were some important Roman holidays and what were they like? Here most of the big holidays seem to be really heavy on paying respects to your grandparents and ancestors. What about Rome? Were they all centered around Roman gods? The Roman state? And what did Roman people do to celebrate?
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Feb 8, 2013 13:09
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:On the subject of govt. positions: Could governorships also be considered pensions/rewards for Consuls, etc.? If I remember correctly, Crassus was appointed Governor of Syria & another province after his Consul terms expired. It wasn't really a retirement, but yes! The way it worked was that after their 1 year term, a consul would become a "Proconsul" which means exactly "For a consul" IE: Someone filling in for a consul in a province. This is the title of a roman provincial governor. He would have at his disposal junior magistrates who had finished their terms (Propraetors, proquaestors etc) and they'd be appointed to govern a province for a set period - This period grew longer and longer as the empire started to rise. In general this was to the benefit of the provincial as it ensured the governor was not just there to steal as much as he could for a year and then head back to Italy.
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Feb 8, 2013 13:57
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BrainDance posted:This is a holiday weekend in Korea and it got me thinking what were some important Roman holidays and what were they like? Here most of the big holidays seem to be really heavy on paying respects to your grandparents and ancestors. What about Rome? Were they all centered around Roman gods? The Roman state? They had TONS and added more and more as time went on. My personal favorite is the "secular games" - While we associate secular with the lack of religious interference, the romans associated with the idea of "Seculum" - The uppermost period a human life could possibly extend. They were still intensely religious events, celebrating a miracle by the underworld Gods "Dis Pater" and "Proserpina". The short version is, they saved a sick child and demanded the father would organize these games. The games were celebrated with sacrifices, feasts and gladiatorial combat as well as theatre and hunting animals in the arenas. Torches, sulphur and asphalt was burnt to honor the Gods below. These events were extremely prestigious and advertised as "Games no living man has seen before and never will again!" ... Until Claudius added a second set of Secular games in his reign to celebrate a different event (The founding of Rome). From then on there were two sets of games "No-one would ever see again" that cropped up within peoples lifetime, leading to much amusement and mocking of Claudius.
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Feb 8, 2013 14:08
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:On the subject of govt. positions: Could governorships also be considered pensions/rewards for Consuls, etc.? If I remember correctly, Crassus was appointed Governor of Syria & another province after his Consul terms expired. This is the underlying tension between Julius Caesar and the senators during the Gallic Wars. Julius isn't just protected by an army in Gaul, but his imperium as well. If he gives up his governorship, his imperium will lapse and he can be prosecuted on any number of charges, real or imagined. This is also the reason why many people claim that De Gallica Bella was written as a PR puff piece, in that Caesar was trying to sway the electorate not to support his eventual prosecution. This might help explain a few of the conversations in HBO's Rome. When the men are talking about their governorships, it's not because Macedonia is lovely, but because what they are really saying is "this is where I want to enjoy my prosecutorial immunity".
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Feb 8, 2013 14:23
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General Panic posted:The emperors also "reserved" a few small provinces for the knights (rich Romans who weren't quite rich or aristocratic enough for the Senate) - I suppose it was a way of letting them in on the action. Pontius Pilate in Judea, for instance, wasn't a senator, but a knight, and he wasn't a proconsul or even legate, but a procurator. It ended up as quite a complicated system. There's some confusion about Pilate's title. Tacitus says that Pilate was a procurator, but an inscription found in Caesarea in 1961 reads (with several lacunae; visible text marked in bold) [dis avgvsti]S TIBERIEVM [... po]NTIVS PILATVS [praef]ECTVS IVDA[ea] E[fecit d]E[dicavit] ("To the august gods, this temple of Tiberius [...] Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, constructed and consecrated.") This has some bearing, as "praefectus" was a military title, while procurator was a civilian one. So if the trial of Jesus happened as the Gospels say, the presiding Roman magistrate was almost certainly a military man.
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Feb 8, 2013 14:29
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Paxicon posted:The short version is, they saved a sick child and demanded the father would organize these games. The games were celebrated with sacrifices, feasts and gladiatorial combat as well as theatre and hunting animals in the arenas. Torches, sulphur and asphalt was burnt to honor the Gods below.. I can only imagine being the father of the kid. On one hand I'm sure, as a Roman citizen, he believed his kid was saved by whatever Roman medicine and prayer etc. On the other hand... Was probably a case of "ehhhh, let's not use that wine but maybe the (Roman) Franzia..."
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Feb 8, 2013 15:16
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The sick children is from the origin myth, not a recurring event. It describes a Sabine man whose children are ill and he is instructed by the gods how to save them by performing a sacrifice. The secular games were held every 100-110 years, since at that point anyone who was alive during the last one would be dead, and an entirely new group of people were alive to see the current one. Hence the "games no man has ever seen or will see again!"
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