|
gradenko_2000 posted:I'm working through the Rome HBO mini-series, and I had a couple of questions: 2. Nope 3. Opium Big fan of the series myself.
|
#
¿
Apr 17, 2013 13:24
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 12, 2024 14:03 |
|
|
Roman influence was rather wiped out in Britain, and English people did/do have all sort of ideas about their culture being part of the whole Greco-Roman Western European continuity. Just the fact of being conquered by French people six hundred years after the legions left Britain doesn't make up for the fact that after the withdrawal of Roman forces there was a significant degree of depopulation, breakdown of the legal and economic system, etc. There was less of a continuity as in France where latifundia become manorial estates and such. Yet British people, most specifically English people, have claimed and still do claim the same heritage as other Western Europeans. I'm trying to say people who do that are full of poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 20, 2013 04:50
|
|
|
The speed of overall technological advance wasn't any faster between Augustus and Maximinus Thrax than it was between 1000 and 1250.
|
|
#
¿
May 12, 2013 23:15
|
|
|
Pimpmust posted:Well, you can also look at that topographical map of Turkey posted earlier and get a pretty good answer why the Arabs didn't blitz to Constantinople. Not their kind of terrain, so to speak.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 14, 2013 18:56
|
|
|
karl fungus posted:
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2013 02:04
|
|
|
I was thinking a lot about the whole idea in scholarship and popular opinion of the "Roman Empire" ending and the "Byzantine" empire beginning, and I was thinking that the whole thing hinges on an imaginary immediate transition from a majority Latin-speaking polity centered on Rome to a very much "non-Roman" Greek-speaking state centered on Constantinople. I've made many posts in this thread about how I believe the Roman Empire ended in 1453, not 476, most of which were made in anger and not particularly well phrased. Here's a list I came up with of possible immediate transition points between a "Roman" state and a "non-Roman" entity. In chronological order. 1. Creation of the Principate/majority population of "Rome" being non-native speakers of Latin 2. First non-Italian Emperor 3. First official capital that is not Rome 4. Institution of the dominate 5. First official designation of Constantinople as the Roman capital 6. Increasing reliance on foederati 7. Final division of the Empire into "Eastern" and "Western" halves 8. Last Western Emperor 9. Last Latin-speaking Roman Emperor 10. Abolition of Latin as a language of government 11. Institution of the title of Basileus in an official context 12. Institution of the theme system 13. Direct control over the city of Rome lost for the last time 14. Abolition of the Senate 15. Abolition of the title of Consul Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Mar 31, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 12:28
|
|
|
Besesoth posted:I don't think "give the lie" means what you think it does. "Provide an alternative", perhaps.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 15:53
|
|
|
Besesoth posted:I apologize; I think was unclear. I think that your major point is correct - that it's wrong to not continue to call the empire out of Constantinople the Roman Empire, especially since that's literally what they called themselves. But I think you're going about it the wrong way; the "when did the transition happen?" question is a red herring if what you mean is "there wasn't an actual transition". Offering alternative transitive points isn't going to convince anyone of anything other than that you believe there was a transition!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2013 19:36
|
|
|
One of my favorite later Emperors was Manuel II. He was a pretty solid ruler for his time, when the Empire had been reduced to just a tiny fragment. One of the most noteworthy parts of his reign was a giant tour he took of the courts of Western Europe begging for help. He went as far north as England. I've always thought that just the fact that nobody seized the throne while he was away from Constantinople for so long said something about him. The Westerners didn't do a whole lot to help him, but luckily the Ottomans got smashed by Tamerlane and the empire got a few decades relief. He did a pretty good job of taking full advantage of the resulting chaos among the Ottomans. Overall, he ruled for 34 years, which is an impressive reign considering the straitened circumstances of the 15th century empire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_II_Palaiologos
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2013 21:46
|
|
|
karl fungus posted:How did the transition from late empire to feudalism work? The upper class could only respectably make money off the ownership of land. Over time the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Small-scale farms were bought up one after another by the large landowners. Also the legal system increasingly tied poorer people to their land or their occupations. The giant estates actually ran out of slaves to work their fields, so they turned the free Roman citizens into semi-slaves, coloni, with the ready help of the government. These giant estates quite often survived intact into barbarian rule, as did the legal system.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2013 00:26
|
|
|
So I'm currently reading "Count Belisarius" by Robert Graves. I think it would make an amazing miniseries, just like "I, Claudius", and I hope I get to see this happen in my life. I've previously read "I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" and own copies of both those books. Has anyone who reads this thread or post in it read "Count Belisarius"? If so, what is your opinion of that book? So far it seems extremely dry but enjoyable and very much in the style of the other two.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2013 11:41
|
|
|
Elissimpark posted:Its been probably ten years since I read it, but the mention of Justinian's name still rubs me the wrong way! Wikipedia suggests the history is off (especially bits towards the end of his life) but still a good read. I thought it was a good teaser for a period of history many people aren't really aware of.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 1, 2013 17:14
|
|
|
That emperor is the extremely forgettable Trebonianus Gallus. I had to look it up. I was able to guess that it was 3rd century work, though!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2013 08:54
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:Really if you're looking for information on random low class folks, Rome isn't particularly special, outside of the fact that there were a large number of urban dwellers. I'd expect that to be especially true for rural farmers; I imagine the life of a country peasant doesn't look too much different in 1500AD than it did in 1500BC. The vast majority of urban dwellers of Rome, which is also to say the vast majority of people in the state in general, lived in the East. There were definitely more people living a more vibrant urban life in Anatolian City #44-C than in Londinium, at the highest point of the Empire in the 2nd century or any time onward. The Western provinces were abandoned for good reason. If you have certain areas ruled by Rome that have a decent tax base, a massive cosmopolitan society, and a history going back over 10,000 years, are you going to choose unprofitable areas swarming with barbarians that were conquered by Julius Caesar a few centuries ago? Eastern Empire best empire.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2013 11:59
|
|
|
canuckanese posted:497 is the year that Emperor Anastasius officially recognized Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, as his representative in Rome. He was a token servant of the Roman Emperor, but in reality they had absolutely no authority over him. Essentially, it's the year that Italy/the western half of the empire was officially ceded to non-Roman power. 497 is when Rome loses control of Italy.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2013 21:56
|
|
|
The East never stopped caring about the West. Especially not about Italy. The reason your "Byzantine" Empire gets called Roman is because there was a direct continuity between it and all the other Roman states before it. You can't slap an artificial name on a state just because it feels right to you. The HRE, Tsarist Russia, etc. made certain claims on the idea of Rome. The state with its capital at Constantinople actually was Rome, with an unbroken continuity going back to Romulus and Remus.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2013 23:25
|
|
|
There's another point. Which story do you like better: the last Emperor of Rome was a teenage puppet of a German general who retired to live in complete obscurity in a lavish villa on the Bay of Naples. Empire, over. OR the last Emperor died beside his soldiers and his citizens fighting against impossible odds on the walls of his capital city. Even better if you know that Constantine XI could have totally escaped to the Morea and saved himself, for at least a little while, leaving everyone to die with no leadership whatsoever. He didn't.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 14, 2013 23:41
|
|
|
the JJ posted:Just quoting you as a stand in. I guess I disagree. Diocletian splitting the Empire into two Augustuses and two Caesars was kinda a big deal and even before the West fell you got a real separation. There's you separate polity. Especially with Constantine going Christian (as Mehmet to Islam) this coincides with a real big shake up in religious and linguistic/cultural shifts. You definitely did get all sorts of people 'identifying' as Roman, especially people living in Rome and actually speaking Latin, or at least a derivative thereof. I mean, all those loving Dukes were claiming legitimacy through the Roman office of Dux. I don't think you can say 'they called themselves Roman and claimed to trace through blah' ergo they're the one true Romans because other people could do the same thing, arguably with better cultural, linguistic, and geographical backing. Such that 'identifying' with a central government is really a thing before the 18th century. I'm not saying the ERE wasn't Roman, just that the Empire had clearly splintered and there were lots of post-unified Roman 'Romes' roaming around. Calling the ERE 'Byzantine Rome' is as good a place as any, mostly because Constantinople-ian Rome sounds silly but we all agree that calling it the ERE is dumb because it's not always East of anything we'd call a Western Roman Empire. Greek Rome is okay, certainly helps that at times the western bits of Europe started going by the Latins (e.g. 'the Latin Empire' that, you know, got set up in Constantinople), medieval Rome would fit with the Ancient->Republican->Imperial dynamic only when you say that my first thought is Pope's using indulgences to build mistresses and gently caress cathedrals because, you know, there's this other thing also called Rome. By your logic, if a general in Bolivia carries out a coup d'etat, I can then decide, on my own, whether or not I believe that Bolivia should really be called 'Bolivia' any more. Also by your logic, I'm going to stop learning about the kingdom of Cilician Armenia. There was already an Armenia way to the north, an older Armenia, so calling a certain state 'Cilician Armenia' is just silly!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2013 14:37
|
|
|
achillesforever6 posted:It also helps that the books that Caesar wrote were purposely done in a simplistic way that anyone who knew basic Latin could understand. Personally I just find the story of Julius Caesar extremely inspiring and enthralling of how a man could rise to power so quickly and effectively. I envy his ambition and tact; he was also at least not a complete dick sans genocide of the Gauls and actually gave a poo poo about the common people.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 20, 2013 09:16
|
|
|
That the final destruction of the Republic, which was a largely undemocratic oligarchy of the richest among Roman citizens, has a lot to do with Caesar and was a bad thing. One man rule lead to a lot of bad things. Caesar cynically courted the people and supposedly acted in their interests but despotism wasn't in the end actually in the interests of the people. A better way would have been a Republic that grew more democratic as time went by. But that's a complete and total pipe dream for so many reasons. I should probably cool it with the Falernian.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 20, 2013 11:18
|
|
|
I've tried to come up with further elucidation of the really broad things that I was talking about. The best I can do is to say that I believe that the gradual change from legion-serving smallholder to servus toiling on a latifundia or insula-dwelling urban mob member was, in the end, helped along by one-man rule. I don't mean that the Senate, especially not a Senate that killed the Gracchi and was dominated by the likes of Crassus, necessarily would have stopped that kind of change, but I think it had a greater potential for doing so than the Principate, an institution which grew out of the legacy of the actions of Caesar and others. This is a statement with so many twists and qualifications but it's the best I can do to elaborate on my feelings.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2013 10:01
|
|
|
Captain Postal posted:Quick question: what is the oldest surviving signature? As in, a person writing their own name (or using their own personal seal on wax themselves etc)? Would it be medieval or earlier? Referring to formal documents only (so excluding graffiti)  He used a stencil.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 29, 2013 18:23
|
|
|
Charlemagne didn't draw the letters or the lines going out of them, he did the middle part and put an X in it. The example I posted was not the best. KRLS really just means KAROLUS and it was used by a few other fellows with the name after the Magnus.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2013 02:45
|
|
|
Here's a better example. 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2013 02:47
|
|
|
karl fungus posted:Why would he even need a stencil in the first place? How many documents can he have possibly been signing?
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2013 03:24
|
|
|
"We'll get our beloved Emperor to sign this fake order dispatching that particularly stuffy sendgraf on a mission up Abul-Abbas' rear end! It'll be hilarious!" *multiple chancery officials are executed*
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2013 04:19
|
|
|
The Assyrians were basically the Evil Empire in somebody's really bad fantasy novel. Has anyone ever read Nicholas Guild's two books about an Assyrian prince? Some very not-good historical fiction, that.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2013 12:15
|
|
|
Wolfgang Pauli posted:What about the Welsh? Weren't they the survivors of the remaining Romano-British? Does anyone else have one particular lost classical work that they really wish would turn up in someone's basement or a cave somewhere?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2013 08:08
|
|
|
Dr Scoofles posted:Today I got a copy of Apicius' recipe book and decided to have a go at making something. I thought it would be really interesting to try and recreate some ancient Roman flavours.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2013 07:47
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Fish sauce is basically identical to garum, yeah. For pepper, Romans mostly used long pepper, not black, so if you can find that it'll be more authentic.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 29, 2013 10:45
|
|
|
Babe Magnet posted:When I stopped reading, there was talking going on about telling that story someday. I missed it, apparently. Can I get a recap? That sounds hilarious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_silkworm_eggs_into_the_Byzantine_Empire
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2013 23:55
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:There's a difference in self-identification. The east was the only place where people still considered themselves Romans. The rulers of the western successor states took Roman titles and such to try to legitimize themselves, but the Roman culture died after a while. Also, the east is a continuous single Roman government, which doesn't exist anywhere else. Berke Negri posted:This question is kind of alt-history, but how different would things be if the Arab Conquests never happened? Would the Roman Empire been better poised to, if not take back, at least bring into the fold the West, or was the whole thing on the brink of falling apart anyways if it wasn't one thing it would have been the others. The biggest difference it seems to me is that the shared Romance/Greek language would have persisted so the Mediterranean would feel a bit less bifurcated along North/South lines I guess? You should look up "Agent of Byzantium".
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2013 07:15
|
|
|
thecolorpurple posted:So does Australia not have a british legacy?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2013 15:07
|
|
|
Speaking of switching between Asian and Greco-Roman history, I think the most frequently asked question is the one about contact between classical Rome and China.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2013 20:55
|
|
|
homullus posted:As is often the case, the best starting point is already covered by my girlfriend, Ms. Pedia.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2013 21:21
|
|
|
joxxuh posted:I didn't know the senate went on meeting into the 600s, that's really cool. Seems like that would go far to explain why deposing the last western emperor was not seen as such a great catastrope by his contemporaries. Also the Roman Emperor had direct control of Rome after Justinian until the late 8th century. The Emperor ruled through the Exarch at Ravenna and through the Pope. Popes had to have the approval of the Emperor. Most of them were from areas of the Eastern Mediterranean. There was Imperial control over all kinds of specific things in Italy. Pope Martin I had himself seated without approval and was arrested in Rome, tried in Constantinople, and exiled to the Crimea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Papacy But again, a Roman Empire, ruling over Rome, just isn't considered Roman after 476.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2013 08:41
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Who am I to fight against convention. Few Roman historians consider it the end of the empire, but it's a convenient break point for late antiquity/middle ages, rather than the nebulous "somewhere in the 600s" for when the economy goes to poo poo and the senate stops meeting and Roman culture really starts dying in the west. Theodosius presided over a lot of the destruction of old pagan traditions. No more Olympic games, no more Vestal Virgins. He presided over the promulgation of the Nicene Creed as the standard of Orthodoxy and the institution of Christianity as the mandatory state religion. His death caused the last large split of the Empire. That's personally where I would place the dividing line between the classical phase and whatever sort of periods you want to define afterward.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2013 08:49
|
|
|
rzeszowianin 44 posted:Don't forget The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Definitely worth a read.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2013 09:54
|
|
|
I think you are forgetting the importance of bringing the Good News about God's only son to the rats, owls, etc. that live in ruined buildings. For shame!
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2014 01:08
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 12, 2024 14:03 |
|
|
The Romans didn't really differentiate between races like moderns do, their concept of ethnicity was based on who was oppressing and who was receiving the oppression.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 19, 2014 13:02
|
|