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Crassus was the biggest rear end in a top hat though. He raced towards burning buildings and offered to buy it and the surrounding buildings for a vastly reduced price. If you accepted, he would use his firefighters to put out the fire. If you refused, he let it all burn down. 
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May 27, 2012 09:38
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Boris Galerkin posted:Yeah thanks but I don't do podcasts. The only way for me to actually get something out of one is to do absolutely nothing else when listening because I can't pay attention and do something else (eg working, gaming), just one or the other, and I have absolutely no interest in staring at iTunes for X minutes no matter the topic. 
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Jun 15, 2012 14:12
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The Janministrator posted:I'm actually a history major who took the unfortunate path of choosing American history as a focus. As a result, I've felt myself wanting to branch out. I was thinking of actually writing my senior dissertation on Sicily, where my family's from. I know this is a broad question, but do you know anything interesting about Roman Sicily or any suggestions on focus points for the topic? I know it was seized during the Republican period. I'm sure it and Malta remained very strategic points for the empire as its right in the middle of the Mediterranean. Also, was there any sort of conflict that came about when the empire split? I know the Byzantines had control of the island later on as they were the ones who eventually lost it to the North Africans.
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Jun 26, 2012 10:32
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Grand Prize Winner posted:How much is known about training regimens for the Legions? Anything, pre- or post-Marian would be fine. The only surviving work (afaik) is De Re Militari by Vegetius, from the fifth century AD. It is a patchwork of things copied from earlier sources, and it reeks of 'those young people of today  ' and an admiration for ye olde times when men still lived according to Roman virtues. Its still pretty informative about things like siegecraft and training of recruits.
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Jul 2, 2012 12:28
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Smirking_Serpent posted:How true is the ending line of Patton – the story about a slave standing behind a general during a triumph and whispering that all glory is fleeting? 9-Volt Assault fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jul 17, 2012 |
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Jul 17, 2012 08:21
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Grand Fromage posted:It's perfectly sensible, it's primarily a Republican era tradition (later triumphs are reserved for the emperor almost exclusively) and Romans would absolutely not want a general to get a big head and think he should be in charge. The idea of a king or anything like it was repugnant to them. Im doing my MA in ancient history after a BA focussing mostly on 17th/18th century (with some dabbling in Roman history), and something that i've always noticed is how its apparently normal to publish articles full of statements like 'well Cicero/Seneca/Tertullian says <X>, which means this is how it really was'. I know the lack of sources makes it hard to confirm or deny most citations we got, but the certainty with which authors make statements still baffles me at times.
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Jul 17, 2012 08:54
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Smirking_Serpent posted:How true is the ending line of Patton – the story about a slave standing behind a general during a triumph and whispering that all glory is fleeting? A translation of the relevant passage goes 'Even when, amid the honours of a triumph, he sits on that lofty chariot, he is reminded that he is only human. A voice at his back keeps whispering in his ear, “Look behind thee; remember thou art but a man.” And it only adds to his exultation, that he shines with a glory so surpassing as to require an admonitory reference to his condition.' No mention of a real person, slave or not, standing behind the victor. Of course, Latin translations are pretty flexible and i've seen translations that did say it was a real person, so it might be a matter of interpretation. Perhaps it was a real person, or it might be talking about the conscious of the victor. There is a silver cup from Boscoreale which depicts Tiberius with a slave standing behind him, so there is some proof supporting the idea of a slave behind the victor. However, if you see the order of the procession, the soldiers were right behind the general, so it could also be taken literally: 'you did not win this victory alone, like some god, but thanks to your soldiers'. Anyway, while i still think the story is not true, there is also enough proof for it to be true. We simply cant be sure due to the vagueness of the statements we got. It just shows how hard it is to make definitive statements about Roman times. Most facts can be interpreted in multiple ways. 9-Volt Assault fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Jul 18, 2012 |
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Jul 18, 2012 09:10
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Base Emitter posted:Did the Romans understand enough about cancer to try removing tumors surgically? It seems like some cases you'd have a tumor that could be seen or felt that they would know would eventually overtake a patient.
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Aug 7, 2012 06:48
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Agesilaus posted:Yes, we can compare the two, as evidenced by this very thread. Why do you think we can't compare the ancients to the moderns? There's nothing in your post that suggests that we cannot; at most, you say that ancient Romans are different from modern people, but I've never heard someone claim that you can't compare different things. Studying classics is actually not that helpful if you are looking for guidance for the here and now. You are mostly studying the elite of the elite, filtered through 2000 years of civilizations trying to compare themselves to their idea of what Rome was (i.e. mostly Rome as an example of what the people wanted themselves to be).
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Aug 20, 2012 10:31
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Mustang posted:Another good book on the day to day lives of Romans is Life in Ancient Rome by E.R. Cowell. Even tells you how ancient Romans used to take a dump. 
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Aug 29, 2012 10:22
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This is an awesome article about the recently found Roman mosaic in Turkey, and how Carthage drove the Romans from Turkey: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2205416/How-far-did-Romans-Massive-mosaic-Turkey-leads-think-spread-empire.html
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Sep 20, 2012 09:52
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Phobophilia posted:I prefer the historian over the classicist, because the requires you to be highly critical of sources rather than an incredulous buffoon.
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Sep 22, 2012 10:54
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Some 16th century German dude collected a bunch of historical sources and named it Corpus Historiae Byzantinae, which was afaik the first recorded use of the term. In the 17th century there was also a French collection of sources collected as the Byzantine du Louvre
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Oct 10, 2012 07:00
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I like the story (myth?) about the Greek Milo of Croton, who was said to walk around with a baby calf on his shoulders every day. Since the calf would become heavier over time, so would his strength increase. Its perhaps one of the first recorded stories of using progressive resistance exercise? Pliny also has some stories about feats of strength in his natural history in book VII, like one of the bodyguards of Augustus, who reportedly could squat a cart filled with winesacks, or a dude who walked around in a suit of armour weighing 1000 pounds. Im not sure if there is much written material about training. Galen has written about using a kind of dumbbells to strengthen the body, and there is the Gymnasticus from Philostratus, written in the third century AD. There is this mosaic from the Villa Romana del Casale showing a Roman woman lifting weights, from the 4th century AD. 
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Oct 11, 2012 15:29
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I find it interesting that sites like Mitrou, Lefkandi and Kynos seemingly show no signs of disturbance (or at least abandonment) during the Bronze Age collapse, despite being located in the centre of Greece. Everything around them was falling apart, but the people there just kept on living there during the transition period. Although they do show signs of changing social structures based on excavated cemeteries and such, so they probably were affected by it all.
9-Volt Assault fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 15:35
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Base Emitter posted:Ok, I'm officially fascinated, especially as I haven't had a history class involving anything before Rome. Is there a good, general book on the Bronze Age and its mysterious finale? On the other hand, it might not be the best introduction book, sitting at over 900 pages, spending 400 pages on specific archaeological sites and generally seems written with historians or students of ancient history in mind. It also doesnt say a whole lot about the collapse specifically (looking at the table of contents +- 12 pages), but it should give you a bibliography to check for more information.
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Nov 14, 2012 15:05
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Koramei posted:Wait what.
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Nov 30, 2012 07:49
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achillesforever6 posted:But weren't they somewhat more progressive with their women's rights than Athens. I mean still gently caress those assholes, but I thought I heard Sparta had better rights for women compared to Athens.
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Dec 1, 2012 21:24
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Source? The worst text is from Theopompus (quoted by Athenaeus), who is obviously full of poo poo: quote:Sharing wives is an established Etruscan custom. Etruscan women take particular care of their bodies and exercise often, sometimes along with the men, and sometimes by themselves. It is not a disgrace for them to be seen naked. They do not share their couches with their husbands but with the other men who happen to be present, and they propose toasts to anyone they choose. They are expert drinkers and very attractive. Also, Aristotle remarked that men and women dined together, which is supported by murals found, just like there are paintings found of women joining men at games, indicating a far greater public life for women compared to especially Greek women. And another thing, the Etruscan mentioned both the father and the mothers name in inscriptions. And the woman could keep using their own name instead of taking on the husbands name. Sure, its all not the most solid evidence ever, but the negative reactions you can find here and there towards Etruscan women in Greek and Roman sources are pretty telling. Its a shame Claudius' history of the Etruscans didnt survive, as im wondering what he would have written about it.
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Dec 2, 2012 21:09
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Cervixalot posted:I'm getting pretty close to the end of The History of Rome podcast, and looking for a book or another podcast to pick up where it leaves off. I've got the History of Byzantium podcast in my feed ready to check out, but I think i'm more interested in continuing the history of the kings, military and development of Western Europe. Chris Wickham's 'Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400-800' or 'The Inheritance Of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000' both look pretty decent. The first one also won several awards for history books and looks like the one more suited towards an interested amateur audience.
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Dec 4, 2012 16:50
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In case people are interested in some of the current research being done in classics (and also other subjects), Cambridge Journals offers free access to all articles published in 2012 until early march: http://blog.journals.cambridge.org/2013/01/free-access-to-all-2012-content-on-cambridge-journals-online/
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Feb 1, 2013 12:28
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A_Bluenoser posted:From a certain perspective actors, prostitutes and gladiators are all the same thing - people who entertain you using their voices and bodies. There have been plenty of high-class prostitutes in history who were very highly trained and well-paid but in few cultures would their profession have been considered something to aspire to by the upper classes. From that perspective it's not hard to see why actors were not treated any differently. It's also worth noting that in a lot of cultures theatre was not considered a particularly high form of art. Most of Shakespeare's plays, for instance, would probably have been enjoyed much as summer blockbusters are today rather than as great works of art. Funnily enough, part of the education of young noble sons was to reenact famous trials and such, acting out various roles and positions in the debates. Being able to speak in public was something that was expected of every man, so a lot of attention was given to the voice and body language. It was also used to instill values of masculinity through examples. Although its mostly a thing from the Empire iirc, coming into vogue during the time of the Second Sophistic.
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Mar 25, 2013 16:18
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Hey look, two new studies which conclude that the Carthaginians did in fact sacrifice children.
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Jan 26, 2014 12:31
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Kopijeger posted:Then again, you might simply wind up like the protagonist in Poul Anderson's short story "The man who came early".
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Jun 26, 2014 14:27
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Cyrano4747 posted:I can't believe I'm actually trying to logically think this through in my head but here we go. . . 
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Sep 10, 2014 08:36
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PittTheElder posted:Has anybody in this thread read Guy Halsall's Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West? I picked it up based on the recommendation of history types from another web forum, and I absolutely loved it, even though its really, really dry. But half the footnotes seemed to be about how Peter Heather has it wrong, and I'm curious if anyone has read both and might have an opinion. Its been a while since i read both (Halsall's book and Peter Heather's 'The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History.'), but from what i remember they disagree about why the Roman Empire 'fell'. Heather is more supportive of the idea that it happened because of barbarian migrations, downplaying the internal problems of the Roman Empire, while Halsall seems more inclined to acknowledge that the internal problems of the Roman Empire gave way for the barbarians to settle in Roman lands. Also, Halsall supported the idea that the invading people where more of an army, while Heather thinks that entire tribes settled in Roman land. It's also funny that Heather goes on about how wrong Halsall is in his 2010 book 'Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe'. So perhaps also read Heather's work to get a contrasting view?
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Oct 12, 2014 10:36
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The more i think about museums the more uncomfortable i'm becoming with them. Like those statues from the Parthenon being in England, it simply makes no sense. You can write three paragraphs about what they are, place it next to them and it still doesnt make it any less weird to see those statues in England. I never had much trouble with museums until last year, when i visited the Dutch National Museum of Ethnology. I couldnt help but feel kinda uncomfortable looking at room after room of items that used to hold real meaning to real people and here they are, presented as something exotic to look and marvel at, but with hardly any context or meaning left to them. I dunno, i should probably dig into some of the literature surrounding it to see some better formulated arguments for and against museums.
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Oct 27, 2014 16:46
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Grand Fromage posted:One thing is museums aren't just display cases. The majority of what they do is research work that takes place in those back rooms nobody gets to see. Yeah, i was thinking that perhaps i had less of an issue with displaying stuff that was found locally, but then i remembered that i have more in common with a random Greek person living today than the Germanic people who strolled around the place where i now live 1500 years ago and well, that whole argument kinda flew out the window. Still, walking around the Forum in Rome is not something that could really be replicated by placing bits and pieces of it in a museum, so i guess sometimes it works to experience things in their original place? Then again, the Pergamon Altar was still impressive despite it being in a museum. The Ara Pacis too.
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Oct 27, 2014 20:11
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The British Museum loaned one of the Elgin Marbles to the Hermitage in Russia, causing Greece to become outraged, what with the museum not only claiming that the marbles were to fragile too move, but also because they hid the loan until after the artifacts were already in Russia.
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Dec 8, 2014 13:17
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bean_shadow posted:What was the best time to be a woman in the ancient world? I know it was never GREAT but didn't Egyptian and Roman women have it better than Greek? Etruscan women seemed to have had it pretty good. The Romans and Greeks were horrified by the fact that they appeared outside, attended banquets and dinner parties and talked to men other than their husband, thus leading them to think all Etruscan women were whores. Of course, this all tells more about Roman and Greek ideas about women.
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Jan 5, 2015 11:33
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The Romans liked to use Greek athletes during games, even though they would disapprove a Roman spending as much time exercising as the athletes did. Just like they loved gladiators but if you decided to become one yourself. What is also often seen in Roman literature is that training the body was a distraction from training the mind. For example, both Cicero and Tacitus talk about this. However, this idea is also seen in Greek literature, and Romans loved copying Greek literature. Its not really clear whether its just a way of showing that you know your Greek poo poo and are thus part of the elite, or that Romans really considered physical training bad for the mind. Considering how training for war was Good and Roman i guess it was only bad if you trained to be a fit handsome dude, and not if you trained to be a fit handsome dude who was good at stabbing people. Another thing is that the Romans linked physical appearance and posture to character. So on the one hand a fit and muscular body could be seen as someone who had neglected the mind, but also as someone who embodied Good Roman VIrtues like determination and manliness. It can be seen in statues like the ones from Polykleitos which were often copied by the Romans, which embodied the masculine ideal that should be copied, but also a statue like the boxer of Quirinal, which embodied the toll and beatings a boxer takes, which could deform a man. But of course such statues could also be seen as presenting a virtue, because persevering through pain and suffering is also a good thing. Basically, Roman attitudes towards athletes were contradictory and varied and are another reason why Roman history owns. Also, two good books about athletics in the Roman world are Newby, Greek Athletics in the Roman World (Oxford 2005) and König, Athletics and Literature in the Roman Empire (Cambridge 2005).
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Jan 23, 2015 14:05
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This is a fun article about the reconstruction of the pronunciation of a poem by Sappho, including a reading of how it might have sounded. It sounds quite... different. It als linked to this page: http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/ , which has more readings from Greek and Latin texts. I especially recommend the one from Terence, as it sounds quite hilarious.
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Mar 17, 2015 11:23
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:They practiced child sacrifice so it wouldn't be too shocking, really. Well.... this is a really suspect claim based mostly on Roman (who of course hated their guts and had every reason to claim they practiced something as terrible as child sacrifice), and Greek sources. The important distinction is that they claimed the Carthaginians did it for religious purposes, which was of course completely different from 'exposing unwanted children to the elements' like proper Greeks and Romans did. Or how the Romans might have buried a Vestal Virgin alive if she ever lost her virginity, which is a way of appeasing the gods, but of course totally not a religious sacrifice because technically she wasnt condemned to death.  However, the sources we have that claim the Carthaginians did it are all suspect for one reason or another. Diodorus Siculus claimed a Carthaginian army sacrificed prisoners, instead of their own children, to the flames, only to have their own camp go up in flames as a suitable punishment, which makes it more of an moral tale than a reliable report. Tertullian is a Christian who claimed that child sacrifices continued on in secret, which he of course would say to talk poo poo about competing religions. Not only that, he was also fully enveloped in Greco-Roman culture and child sacrifice is the perfect way to make a distinction between civilization and barbarism. Plutarchus mentioned it to, but he disagrees with other writes by saying that before offering the children were killed, instead of burned alive. Other writes mention the sacrifices of adults instead of children. So what we got is a bunch of reports who all contradict each other and are all written by people with agenda's. And then there is Polybius, who was at Carthage during the third Punic war and gave an eyewitness description of it, but made not a single mention of child sacrifices. Which you would expect as it would have stood out to the Romans, especially as a way to make the Carthaginians even more deserving of their defeat. The best 'proof' there is, is archeological, but even that is kinda iffy, because it can also be interpreted as the cremation of babies who died in infancy. Yes, there is an increase in bodies found when the city fell on hard times, but increased child mortality isnt that strange when the city was under siege or lacking food or any such things.
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Apr 20, 2015 09:25
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Arglebargle III posted:The Bactrian camel is a disgrace to life on Earth, and its continued existence as a species is as inexplicable as it is shameful.
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Apr 29, 2015 09:15
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My biggest  was that not-Europe was not some dumb shithole until the Europeans came. 
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Apr 29, 2015 14:40
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I was reading about the feud between Cicero and Clodius and its an amazing story, starting with Clodius' sister hitting on Cicero and ending with Clodius renouncing his patrician rank to become tribune of the plebs so he could banish Cicero. In between there is stuff like Clodius falsely trying to prosecute the sister of Cicero's wife (a Vestal Virgin) for having sex with Catiline, the actual Catiline conspiracy where Cicero and Clodius work together, Clodius dressing as a woman to infiltrate a mystery rite to hit on Caesars wife, and Crassus using his wealth to bribe the jury to get Clodius to walk away from it all. Its amazing and i want it turned into an HBO serie. 
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May 6, 2015 21:23
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MrNemo posted:Honestly I find it weirder once you realise how government authority worked in the purely personal feudal sense. Really came home to me listening to the History of the Crusades podcast when Richard I comes along and supports Guy for the throne of Jerusalem because, while he wasn't of particularly high ranking nobility, was an indecisive, untalented and uncharismatic miliary leader and had just managed to screw up badly enough that he had lost nearly every city in Jerusalem aside from the one controlled by someone who was opposed to his rule; he was from the same area of France as Richard and so nominally owed fealty to him (and thus Richard had responsibility to him) and both claimed descent from a water fairy in French mythstory establishing familial ties. I take it you have never worked in a company that employed some questionable hiring tactics like nepotism?
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May 27, 2015 09:32
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fspades posted:Also, "The Inheritance Of Rome" by Chris Wickham. This is a cool and good book. Jamwad Hilder posted:So I think this is kind of within the scope of this thread, maybe better suited for Medieval? I'm interested in learning more about the Viking age/Carolingian Europe. Anyone have any good recommendations for where to start? For Carolingian history, check out the books written by Rosamond McKitterick. 9-Volt Assault fucked around with this message at 10:30 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 10:27
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mornhaven posted:Persian Fire was pretty good, though if I remember correctly about half of it was about the Greek city states in the Persian War. It's been a while since I read it so I might be misremembering it. Any book that claims that the Greek victory against the Persians saved western civilization is just dumb. Tom Holland is a good writer but not a good historian.
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Aug 18, 2015 12:18
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Robin Lane Fox wrote a book, Traveling Heroes in the epic age of Homer, in which he tries to match the Greek myths about gods and heroes to actual physical places and people that the Greeks, specifically the Euboans, came into contact with during their travels in the 10th-8th century, and how this can transform myths. Its a cool book and the author is a distinguished scholar so unfortunately no theories about Atlantis or Bolivia being the source of the myths.
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Sep 13, 2015 09:02
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