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One of the main things I was wondering was where you'd put the end date of the Roman Empire. I'm so very very happy you place it in 1453. I strongly encourage you to never ever ever use the phrase "Byzantine" My two questions, for now: 1. Can you tell me more about the "War of the Flames" fought during Republican times for control of NW Iberia? 2. What do you feel about Caracalla's extension of citizenship?
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May 24, 2012 08:44
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Farecoal posted:but you can't have a Roman empire without Rome The Roman state was always the Roman state. SPQR till 1453. gently caress off with that crap. Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 08:00 on May 25, 2012 |
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May 25, 2012 07:58
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Speaking about the continuation of Rome, here's an interesting little-known fact. Several countries currently use a currency that is a direct descendant of the Roman denarius: the dinar.
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May 25, 2012 17:20
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GF, you can disregard my question. I'm not sure what I was asking about. I think it was the Cantabrian Wars. I honestly don't know where I got such a dramatic name for it.
Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Jun 4, 2012 |
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Jun 4, 2012 08:16
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My best quickly written summary of the hierarchy of the early Christian church. The early church had five people in charge, patriarchs of the principal Roman cities. These were the patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. This is a good marker of how Eastern in character Christianity was at its beginning and how important the East had become to Rome in general. Only one of those cities is in "Europe" west of the Bosporus. With Constantine came a tradition that the Emperor was in charge of the Church as a whole, so-called "Caesaropapism". With the conquest of three of the patriarchates by the muslims came the greater importance of the final two: Rome and Constantinople. When Roman power in Italy waned a little after the 8th century, the Patriarch of Rome got a bit uppity and started carving out his own personal fiefdom in the consciences of western European christians and their rulers. This was the office that came to be the Papacy. It's important to know that the Pope shouldn't be more important than the other four patriarchs, but various holders of the office of Patriarch of Rome aggrandized themselves through a bunch of absolute bullshit, including the famous Donation of Constantine.
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Jun 7, 2012 05:24
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One thing that seemed missing from the discussion about how Roman legionaries in the Principate were paid is the fact that yes, they did get grants of land but instead of becoming doughty Roman soldier/farmers most of them just sold off their property to go live off the proceeds in Rome or some other city. This helped along the continuing rise of the latifundia and all it's crappy consequences. Also, it's really true that discussion of the HRE doesn't belong here. I don't mean all my posts to be prickly and one-track, but they are. 753-1453, Roma semi-eterna!
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Jun 13, 2012 10:09
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Grand Fromage posted:The HRE is kind of an interesting case but yes, it's not Rome. I may post about it a bit later just to give my view. The HRE claim isn't nearly as much bullshit as imperial Russia's claim but it's still, at best, shaky.
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Jun 13, 2012 11:00
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Gregory Mammas had a successor who was Patriarch for 3 years, Athanasius II. He fled to Mount Athos after the fall and died in 1459.
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Jun 23, 2012 22:23
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Has anyone ever read the Harry Turtledove/Judith Tarr novel Household Gods? It's about a lady from the mid-late 1990's who gets propelled by plot device into 2nd century Pannonia. Not too bad, if you don't take it too seriously. It's a fun book to contrast to Lest Darkness Fall, wherein a 1930's professor goes to 6th century Rome and everything works out just fine for him.
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Jul 8, 2012 21:50
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Grand Prize Winner posted:It's not a subscription unless you're a really lovely poster. On-topic, what is the current or most recent opinion of the historical community about the emperor Gallienus?
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Jul 12, 2012 02:07
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Don't forget Septimius Severus! Also Claudius Gothicus and Carus depending on what you believe. You know, the Carus who was maybe killed by lightning. Claudius Gothicus is the only important one after Septimius Severus who wasn't murdered, and he did die pretty young of plague so it's not like his death was an old man in his sleep sort of thing. The Crisis of the Third Century has a lot of amazing stories and personalities.
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Aug 12, 2012 12:58
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If you take the historical sensibilities of Washington Irving and merge them with the sensationalism of British tabloids, you get Suetonius. This is why so many books, TV shows, etc. use the guy as their primary or sole reference with no mention of the dubious nature of a lot of the poo poo the guy wrote down. He's the source of many myths, just like Washington Irving was. Suetonius is fun but he's just not someone whose accounts you should ever take as gospel truth.
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Sep 1, 2012 07:43
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Grand Fromage posted:Which is a completely accurate assessment of him. Born into the imperial family and became emperor at 17. Imagine you were pampered your whole life and then given literally endless power at 17. code:
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Sep 10, 2012 23:32
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The Romans never got isolationist, they just lost large amounts of territory in calamities, tried to get it back, then got hit with another calamity over and over and over again. Manuel I was still making serious attempts to regain Italy and Egypt in the mid-late 12th century, just a few decades before the nuclear bomb that was the Fourth Crusade got dropped on Constantinople.
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Sep 28, 2012 01:43
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One of the bad things that springs from the old emphasis on Western Roman history as a story of elites and emperors is an emphasis on the incursions of barbarians as the primary engine of collapse as opposed to the decline of civil society in the larger cities and the growth of latifundiae in the countryside. Is there a good book or essay or anything about the direct transition between the latifundia and the manorial estate?
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Oct 6, 2012 10:09
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In perhaps Gaul, Spain, or Northern Italy, where there was more continuity than the outlying areas.
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Oct 6, 2012 10:11
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Grand Fromage posted:Let's say you're governor of Cyrenaica during the good times of the 100s AD. The central government has decided Cyrenaica is rich and you, as governor, owe 1000 pounds of gold as your taxes this year. This must be collected.
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Oct 10, 2012 12:20
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There were standardized sizes of pottery and gigantic pottery factories that probably incorporated some elements of what we consider assembly line production.
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Oct 17, 2012 13:39
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Cervixalot posted:Caracalla was another. Like Caligula, referred to an article of clothing (in this case, a hooded cloak) that he wore often. IIRC in The History of Rome its mentioned as never being used in his presence due to his distaste for it.
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Oct 31, 2012 10:05
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Here's a fun trivia question I was reminded of by the poster who was asking about Scandinavia. Who can guess what traveled along the route in red?
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Nov 9, 2012 00:27
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It's amber. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber_Road
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Nov 9, 2012 03:46
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So in historiography, Theodosius is the emperor of Rome. After his death, the empire is divided up into Eastern and Western halves with an Eastern emperor and Western emperor. This had happened before, but the Empire had always been united again under a sole emperor who was just called the emperor of Rome. So why was the next sole Roman emperor called the only the emperor of the East? Very frustrating.
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Nov 12, 2012 20:43
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sbaldrick posted:After the defeat of the Magyars there was really no major migration event into Europe that was considered to be a straight up migration. After that it was straight up invasions, it's an odd change.
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Nov 13, 2012 21:51
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Is there any good fiction set during the Peloponnesian War?
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Nov 16, 2012 01:58
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On Wednesday I was having a conversation with my father, who was a classics major and worked on excavations in Athens in the early 80's, in the Greek area of the University of Pennsylvania museum. His idea was a travelling exhibit of ancient Greek and Roman coinage that reflects the politics of the time in which it was minted, i.e coinage as propaganda. Do you all think there's enough examples out there to make a compelling show? Would you attend such an exhibit?
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Dec 8, 2012 10:22
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SlothfulCobra posted:I was just wonering how much documentation there was on how the Egyptians worshiped cats, because people say that a lot, but for all I know it could've been like the old archeological joke where if somebody sees a bunch of stuff that they can't quickly explain, they just assume it's religious imagery.  sullat posted:The allegation that empresses (and queens and other powerful women) liked to do night-work on the side is a very popular and common accusation. Somehow I doubt many of them have anything approaching "truth" to them, however. Not just powerful ladies, don't forget Elagabalus.
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Dec 13, 2012 01:57
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Roman religion is a lot like American cuisine: some things are changed, some things are rearranged, some names are attached to things that have no connection to their original meanings.
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Dec 13, 2012 05:38
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Paulywallywalrus posted:GF, could you please tell me about the level of superstition in Rome? I am predisposed to consider Romans to be rather rational but to what degree did Elites believe the myths of Rome? I.e. Brutus family being part of the overthrow of the Roman kings, other patricians seeking to link themselves to the founding of the Republic and 200 senators from Latin and Sabine states. Also, a pet questions, vestal virgins, "7" kings of Rome, and Romulus' mother...the town wolf that everyone knows how to "treat" right? (haha)
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Dec 17, 2012 20:58
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If you had modern knowledge you could do all sorts of things in old Rome. Why, you could distill liquor, produce a regular newspaper, and even build a mechanical telegraph.
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Mar 2, 2013 14:04
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Jazerus posted:That's pretty unrealistic, don't you think? It's not as though you'd be able to get a loan easily from a Syrian banker or anything like that.
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Mar 2, 2013 22:51
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Ras Het posted:Or, to put it in less inane terms, a monotheist faction within Israeli court took control of its religious policies during the Babylonian captivity.
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Mar 5, 2013 12:37
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Biblical Israel was also monstrous. They can both be bad. I guess the main difference is that humans have come up with the concept of "crimes against humanity" in the interim.
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Mar 5, 2013 13:06
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I was mainly upset at using the same term for the current inhabitants of that area and the people who lived there 3000 years ago. I feel that they should be differentiated.
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Mar 5, 2013 13:10
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Even beyond languages, just think about how many alphabets the Romans encountered.
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Mar 9, 2013 14:26
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Where do Cretan hieroglyphs fit into the overall origin of writing thing?
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Mar 10, 2013 10:41
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Justinian II was pretty fond of moving large groups of people around before his nose got cut off and he went nuts.
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Mar 14, 2013 05:10
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The emperor Carus was assassinated by lightning.
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Mar 15, 2013 23:36
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brozozo posted:I know you might be retreading the same ground for you, but I immensely enjoyed Norwich's three volume Byzantium.
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Mar 24, 2013 23:02
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Alexander the Great chat is a great excuse to liven things up by posting "The Legend of Alexander the Great" by Jack Handey, famous for his Deep Thoughts. I hope I haven't already posted it in this thread, it's pretty much awesome and amazing. quote:Alexander the Great hung his head. He had conquered everything, and there was nothing left to conquer. “What about this area over here?” he said, pointing to an unshaded part of the map. http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2012/03/12/120312sh_shouts_handey?printable=true
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Apr 3, 2013 06:22
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Hogge Wild posted:Athenians seem to have transported troops and horses in trieres that had only the upper-level rowers, but to me it seems like a waste to use warships that have small cargo capacity for transportation when you have fat-bellied merchant ships. Some fleets were also lost when the ships were beached so the crews could forage and enemy attacked. I think it would have been smarter to carry supplies with the navy. Were navies supplied only by modified rowed warships, or did someone use sailing merchant ships also?
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Apr 13, 2013 09:47
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