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Chikimiki posted:They actually built one (well, the Greek under Roman rule) called Aeolipile or Hero's engine, but it was mainly seen as a toy rather than something useful. Roman metallurgy was advanced enough to build even a bigger one I guess, but why build a huge, expensive and failure-prone machine when you have hundreds of cheap slaves? 
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May 30, 2012 20:29
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Grand Fromage posted:Nope! That's a torc, a kind of jewelry which is heavily associated with Gauls by the Romans, though it's used more widely than that. A torc + a mustache is the standard way to say "this guy is a Gaul" in artwork. This needs some updating. 
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Jun 1, 2012 11:46
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Am I wrong or do we actually have no clue as to what Roman, or other ancient, music was like? They had no written systems of notation, at least such that have survived to this day, so we're limited to assumptions based on what instruments were available and how they are banded together in paintings, mosaics and reliefs. I suppose one can also make more or less edumacated assumptions, as assumably ancient musical trends can be studied in the same way that traces of languages that died millennia ago can be studied. Also Rome started from a tiny state and became an empire that lasted for over a thousand years (as a tiny state toward the end). Today musical trends change twice in a generation (that's a conservative estimate not counting the monthly new subgenres) but one must wonder how the music changed between Etruscan kings and Byzanthine emperors as contacts were made with remote civilizations in Africa, Asia, Germania and Britannia.
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Jun 3, 2012 18:26
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edit: double post
Nenonen fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jun 3, 2012 |
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Jun 3, 2012 18:27
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Grand Fromage posted:There is a reason why everything in law has Latin names. If you transported Cicero to the modern day he would understand most of what we do. Probably the biggest difference is that modern trials are not a public performance designed to win over the audience. Roman lawyers spent the whole time mugging for the camera so to speak. Going out to watch a trial was a popular form of entertainment. Again, Cicero would immediately understand all the tv courtroom dramas and judge shows. Hell, he'd probably understand even The Jerry Springer Show, it's kind of like gladiators except more gruesome.
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Jun 5, 2012 09:56
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Grand Fromage posted:I've never seen Asterix, can you post some examples? What is wrong with you? On a serious note: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
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Jun 5, 2012 11:24
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Grand Fromage posted:Asterix is a Europe thing man. I've never seen it in the US. Rome is a Europe thing too. If Asterix is too European for you then you'd better stick to your local ancient civilizations, Bub!  Anyway, here's a specimen. The internet is full of more of the likes of this for you to analyze: 
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Jun 5, 2012 11:30
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Amused to Death posted:It's funny to think about aqueducts in the fact of how dirty the Tiber, and every river running through a big Roman city must've been between all the trash, waste and sewage systems going into them. I mean Rome is built on a large river yet no one appears to be drinking from that thing. Why sure, I would drink water from Thames, Seine, Potomac, Moskva, Neva or other river flowing through any modern major city in a heartbeat! Although they would probably be less immediately lethal to drink from than a few centuries earlier when the concept of sewage treatment was unheard of. Still, I don't understand people who fish in big cities.
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Jun 7, 2012 17:06
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Grand Fromage posted:Gladiators are the property of their owner, who is responsible for their housing, food, excellent medical care (gladiators, soldiers, and the rich nobility all had the same kind of quality care, which was the best in the world until quite recently), and training. A gladiator in the arena represents a huge investment of money, which will pay off many many times over if the gladiator is successful. However, if he dies? You just lost a shitload of time and cash. The idea that they were always fights to the death naively presumes that the fights were a noble sport, something like today's olympic boxing. They weren't. I find gladiator fights to be closer to modern free wrestling events. I bet that a lot of the fights were pre-determined. Meanwhile a successful slave fighter represented a big investment, and the people that owned them were not necessarily very sporting chaps. I don't think you would have wanted to make enemies with such people by killing one of their prize fighters even if you could. I assume that the Ben-Hur chariot race wasn't very typical either?
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Jun 9, 2012 13:28
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Christoff posted:On that topic. Why is Latin such a dead language? Aside from maybe people in the Vatican speaking it. Latin is a dead language because humanists killed it. The original vulgar Latin mixed into other local languages and languages of the invaders, eg. Spanish was influenced by Iberian languages and Arabic. The only living branch of vulgar Latin survived in Catholic monasteries spoken by monks, until during the Renaissance humanists made it seem like a retardation of classical Latin. Wikipedia posted:Ad fontes was the general cry of the humanists, and as such their Latin style sought to purge Latin of the medieval Latin vocabulary and stylistic accretions that it had acquired in the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire. They looked to golden age Latin literature, and especially to Cicero in prose and Virgil in poetry, as the arbiters of Latin style. They abandoned the use of the sequence and other accentual forms of metre, and sought instead to revive the Greek formats that were used in Latin poetry during the Roman period. The humanists condemned the large body of medieval Latin literature as "gothic" — for them, a term of abuse — and believed instead that only ancient Latin from the Roman period was "real Latin". Today's ecclesiastical Latin is a dead form of the language, stored in formaldehyde so it wouldn't evolve.
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Jun 10, 2012 08:12
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Mescal posted:I don't follow this post. What does humanist mean in this context? I assumed that latin was dead because all languages that old have transformed into another language or other languages. Renaissance humanists were scholars who idealized ancient Greek and Roman texts and tried to return Europe back to those ideals in contrast to the 'dark' Middle Ages. Renaissance = rebirth. Languages don't die because they get old. Modern English has been used for 500 years now, and it has evolved during that time. But it has remained a dominant language in the areas where it is mostly used (UK, USA, Canada, Australia etc.) so it hasn't been subjected to heavy influence from other languages during that time. Shakespearean or King James era English are different to modern English, but not so different as to be only remotely understandable. Vulgar Latin, on the other hand, was under very heavy pressures during the Middle Ages and it became creolized (I don't know if this is a proper term here, I ain't no linguist), eg. in France mixing up with Frankish and finally becoming Old French, essentially the beginnings of a new language. At the same time though, people throughout Gallia would have been speaking different dialects and mixtures of languages and dialects, rather than everyone adopting the same mixture at the same time. While later on the state tried to standardize the French throughout the empire and exterminate other languages, the regional dialects and other languages like Catalan and Basque are still used by small minorities (still over a million speakers when all are combined). 
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Jun 10, 2012 09:21
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For a 'dead language' Latin is a super easy one. Linguists and phonologists have tons of material due to the language being used continously for millennia over a huge area, up to this day. Try one that is neither spoken any more nor has left too many written records - like Etruscan. Deciphering ancient Mayan glyphs is 'easy' in comparison, as there are still people who speak the language. quote:Only a few educated Romans with antiquarian interests, such as Varro, could read Etruscan. The last person known to have been able to read Etruscan was the Roman emperor Claudius (10 BC – AD 54), the author of a treatise in twenty volumes on the Etruscans, Tyrrenikŕ (now lost), who compiled a dictionary (also lost) by interviewing the last few elderly rustics who still spoke the language. Urgulanilla, the emperor's first wife, was Etruscan.
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Jun 10, 2012 17:40
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euphronius posted:Hoxne Hoard was buried sometime after the Legions left http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoxne_Hoard My favourite bit: quote:Peter Whatling, the tenant farmer, had lost a hammer and asked his friend Eric Lawes, a retired gardener and amateur metal detectorist, to help look for it.
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Jun 16, 2012 07:59
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Dr Scoofles posted:As I understood it, in Roman times public baths were also a basic requirement and were available for cheap or free use by any citizen. But then, you had to be a citizen. How large a percentage of Britain's population were?
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Jun 17, 2012 09:41
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Potzblitz! posted:That still leaves the issue of border security and German raids. It just seems (in hindsight, granted) that Rome could have avoided a boatload of trouble by conquering and romanizing Germany. Did any Roman later ever voice regret about not putting down those uppity Germans when Rome still had the strength to do so? Even if they had expanded their borders to the Urals would it have mattered? They were not going to fully Romanize all the Germanic and Slavic peoples. There was always going to be another barbarian tribe behind the border, ultimately the Huns. Rhine was at least some sort of strategic barrier.
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Jun 18, 2012 11:39
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Thundercakes posted:If you take the Bible's word for it, the events surrounding Jesus' crucifixion had a profound impact on Pilate, but I can't see how the crucifixion of a single man who claimed to be the son of God and gathered a following of people would be seen by Pilate as anything other than a threat to Roman rule. It seems very unlikely that the evangelists would have known the Roman prefect that closely to have been able to record his private words and thoughts. Even less so with Pilate's wife, who is mentioned to plea for JC. But then - would Pilate have perceived all of those Messianic cults as a threat, either? A little religious division among those monotheistic weirdos should have kept the clergy dependant on Rome's support, I think. It was the violent anti-Roman zealots like Sicarii (literally daggermen) that were a bigger concern than a bunch of pacifist vagabonds.
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Jun 19, 2012 20:25
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Base Emitter posted:Did Mussolini only adopt the symbols of Rome, or did Roman political attitudes influence fascist ideology? And if it did, was it at all accurate, or were fascists entirely projecting their own beliefs onto the Romans? Only to the extent of militarism and aggressive foreign policy aimed at creating a colonial empire. But the latter was tied more to the late-19th century imperialist attitudes that Italy had been trying to pursue before fascists. There wasn't anything uniquely Roman about militarism, either. The fascist ideology was otherwise very different from ancient Romans. Fascists were Italian nationalists, whereas for Romans your ethnicity was less important, indeed later on the capital was moved out of Italy. Fascism was also founded on rather egalitarian principles (despite of Italy remaining a monarchy until 1944) instead of the Roman society where all political power was with the nobility and economy was based on slavery. Besides, no Roman consul or emperor would ever have treated a German leader as his equal. 
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Jun 20, 2012 02:15
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Well I'm a direct descendant of Julius Caesar, Trajan, August, Octavian Is that so. Julius Caesar had no recognized biological grandchildren, although doubtlessly he shared his bodily fluids with all shapes and sorts of trollops. Bastardus! Also, Augustus and Octavian... are you suggesting that he was a self-sufficient hermaphrodite? That would be the second kinkiest rumour that I've heard told about a Roman emperor.
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Jun 20, 2012 13:01
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To Chi Ka posted:I was wondering about the ecological transformation of North Africa. From what I've read, the region was a lot greener than it used to be, to the point where North Africa was considered the bread basket of the Empire because of the amount of wheat it produced. It used to be, but that was before the Romans. I don't know how much it has changed between Carthagenan days and today. I could see irrigation causing salinity problems, too, like in Mesopotamia, so that once fertile land would eventually cease producing crops. Erosion would have been another issue in semi-arid regions. quote:The Neolithic Subpluvial — sometimes called the Holocene Wet Phase — was an extended period (from about 7500–7000 BC to about 3500–3000 BC) of wet and rainy conditions in the climate history of northern Africa. It was both preceded and followed by much drier periods. Nenonen fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Jun 20, 2012 |
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Jun 20, 2012 15:13
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Grand Fromage posted:Speaking of months, they're Roman. The old Germanic calendar is so much better. October? Slaughter month. December? Fat sucking month. Finns also use non-Roman month names but they're very agrarian in comparison. Sow month, Summer month, Hay month, Harvest month...
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Jun 23, 2012 12:48
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Grand Prize Winner posted:That bridge from the last page is awesome, Magna Caseum. Can you think of any other examples of still-in-use roman buildings/infrastructure? There are many ancient temples still in use. Rome's Pantheon is a fine example, it was built at the time of Augustus as temple to all gods but nowadays it serves as a Catholic church and also as tomb of king Vittorio Emanuele II. Hagia Sophia was built as an Orthodox temple after which Turks converted it into a mosque and added minarets; nowadays it's a museum and some of the original mosaics have been restored.
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Jun 23, 2012 20:58
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What's your opinion of Xena: Warrior Princess' depiction of Romans?
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Jun 25, 2012 12:35
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euphronius posted:Why would you land an invasion force under the cliffs of Dover. (I didn't see the movie.) Julius Caesar tried to do so on his first incursion to Britain, but the defenders were waiting for him on the surrounding hills so he headed to elsewhere. The reason being that there was a good natural harbour there, nowadays the coastline looks completely different.  If Caesar could have landed there then it would have been a great spot - his ships would have been safe from Channel storms, for one thing.
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Jun 25, 2012 14:54
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Supeerme posted:Can someone tell me why is the Western Rome are always shown in either Red or Eastern Rome, Purple? Was there any clear reason of the colors itself? I don't know about that. In Civilization I, Rome (and England) was white.  I haven't seen red being associated with Rome myself. But Roman legions used red a lot (standards, cloaks, shields). Purple is really simple though. In antiquity to middle ages, Tyrian purple is associated with the emperor because it was extremely expensive, having to be extracted from a specific type of mollusk. You'd literally have to rule over an empire to be able to afford it.
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Jun 25, 2012 20:58
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Trump posted:Someone mentioned the Roman dodecahedrons earlier in the thread, but is there other weird mysteries out there regarding roman history? Very few people are aware that Roman empire invented Christianity. http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/ quote:This latest ground-breaking work in Christian scholarship reveals a new and revolutionary understanding of the origin of Christianity, explaining what is the New Testament, who is the real Jesus, and how Christ's second coming already occurred. The book Caesar's Messiah shows that Jesus was the invention of the Roman Imperial Court. Their purpose: to offer a vision of a “peaceful Messiah” who would serve as an alternative to the revolutionary leaders who were rocking first-century Israel and threatening Rome. This discovery is based on the parallels found between the Gospels and the works of the historian Josephus, which occur IN SEQUENCE. Hemp Knight posted:Anyone know if anything ever happened with them? 
Nenonen fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Jun 26, 2012 |
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Jun 26, 2012 22:11
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DarkCrawler posted:Not Christianity exactly but so many important traditions and beliefs that people think come straight from 0-30 AD were created by Roman Christians way after Jesus or anyone who knew him died. But that's not a mystery, cursory reading of Christian history tells you that the Roman Empire and Romans have more to do with modern Christianity then Jesus of Nazareth ever did. No, no. No, no, no. No. You've got it all wrong, go read the link I posted and watch Atwell's interview again. Jesus Christ was created by Emperor Titus as a false messiah to trick the Jews. Or, as Joseph Atwill so well puts it: "The Roman Emperor had many titles - one of them was Jesus Christ." There you heard it!  Further food for thought: Excerpt from a review posted:It is emotionally hard to learn that the character of the Virgin Mary was really a satire of Cannibal Mary during the siege of Jerusalem, and that a close reading of the Gospel of John shows that Lazarus is taken out of the tomb only to provide the substance for a cannibal feast. As the text says 'they made him a supper' (KJV,ASV, NASB,LITV translations).
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Jun 27, 2012 01:16
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:From what I've seen, it looked like the Byzantine's weren't able to raise a large army (40k max). Why was this? Talking around the time of the Komnenos. For one thing, raising large armies requires grain surpluses to feed them. The empire had lost its most productive grain areas in North Africa by then and Saracen pirates were affecting trade. The population living in the empire controlled areas was also half of what it had been five centuries before and only 1/4-1/8 of what it had been 1000 years before. While the empire was still the greatest power in Europe, it was only a shadow of the glory days of Rome.
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Jun 27, 2012 15:48
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I doubt that the concept of 'serial killer' was even around. That is more of a 20th century shock press invention used to describe sociopaths like Ted Bundy. This is important to bear in mind - a hitman, highwayman or terrorist that kill people primarily for money or political cause are not 'officially' defined as serial killers. Until then there were just murderers, some of whom were more prolific than others. The exact count didn't matter when there were no things like fair trials and other such formalities.
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Jun 28, 2012 09:44
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Baron Porkface posted:How seriously did they take the "Emperor is a god" thing? I don't think it was anything too out of ordinary for Romans because they were used to worshipping the genius of the patriarch of the family. Divinity of the emperor was more of a natural extension of that idea and was actually preceded by public offerings to Augustus' genius. Still, I can't avoid thinking that many senators rolled their eyes at the motion.
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Jun 29, 2012 15:26
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Masonity posted:Were Ulysses S Grant, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson non-American presidents? I mean, back in their day they only had around 270 years of ancestry in the USA, just as Cleopatra only had around 270 years of ancestry in Egypt. This comparison only holds if you think that they had mingled with the real Americans that preceded European settlers. Are the Afrikaner actually Africans or are they just a European enclave in Africa? I'd say the latter.
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Jul 1, 2012 23:13
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Samopsa posted:When did Italy become Italy? I mean, obviously a lot of different cultures and languages were based in the area we now call Italy, but did the Romans actually recognized Italy as a whole? Or did that start with the unification of Venice, Milan, Genua etc? Also, how similar were the peoples in Italy before the expansion of Rome - linguistically and culturally? Has Italy ever become Italy is another question - there still seems to be plenty of deeprooted parochialism today. From the point of view of Lega Nord Sicilians might as well be Africans.
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Jul 2, 2012 00:03
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furushotakeru posted:Caesar gives no fucks about child kings. Neither did Odoacer. Vae victis! 
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Jul 2, 2012 23:28
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The same concept also applies to folklore. When nationalism took fire after the Napoleonic wars, national epics such as Kalevala were formed by systematically collecting tons of epic poetry from the local peasants. The problem was, much of that had to do with the old in-out. Most of those poems were left out from the Kalevala collection, apart from morally acceptable bits such as condemning incest. Even then Kalevala is quite raunchy by the standards of the day, but the original sources are more explicit. Those sexual poems were nevertheless written down and archived all the same. quote:"Hey dick wake up dick/on top of this maid's oval office/this child's hips/this bird's butt/Rise rooster stand stacked/mighty sausage up/rise young without lifting/without pulling with ropes./If you don't rise I will bewitch you/if you're not excited I will curse you." This is Finnish folk poetry from 19th century, but I am not ready to accept that only Finnish peasants were that dirty.
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Jul 3, 2012 22:09
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Hemp Knight posted:Is the Latin C = hard C more an American thing? I'm replaying Fallout New Vegas at the moment, and that uses the hard C for Ceasar, which sounds a bit odd since I'm used to the soft C from things like Gladiator and Rome. The German Kaiser is closer to the correct pronounciation. English pronounciation has nothing to do with that, and Fallout New Vegas has nothing to do with either.
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Jul 5, 2012 13:13
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uinfuirudo posted:Well than we should go for neo ceaseria just to irk you more... I'm mostly offended when people can't spell Caesar. Or Israel. Or Libya. Or... (Also Neo is Greek.)
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Jul 6, 2012 08:28
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It's a shame, really - Rome would have been even better if everyone had a moustache or goatee. Now the only one with facial hair was that fat kid. Btw. didn't some Romans go so far as pull the hair with tweezers so they didn't need to shave daily?
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Jul 6, 2012 12:56
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Nero was a brave avant-gardist where Hadrian was a successful popularizer. 
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Jul 6, 2012 14:45
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junidog posted:That makes sense for it not ever being widely used, but was are there any one-off cases of some rich dude or emperor building a metal palace or something? Can you explain what a metal palace would be like? Like, just the roof, the entire exterior or supporting elements as well? Metals have a lot of qualities as a building material that need a lot of specialized knowledge that would have made it very difficult to come up with a successful result. Let's suppose that you built it the normal way and covered with sheet metal plates, to me that would seem like the easiest solution. You'd still have to deal with: * corrosion: after a few years your house is going to be a real rustbucket * thermal expansion: my prediction would be that under the hot Italian sun and cold winter nights the elements would soon be bent out of shape * electric conductivity: thunder storms would be something special
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Jul 8, 2012 02:33
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Grand Prize Winner posted:The whatnow? I googled 'lauteet' and all I got was pictures of saunas and a bunch of Finnish. Mr. Ras Het was referring to a Finnish urban legend about someone with too much money and too little common sense ordering the construction of a sauna with the benches (lauteet) made of metal rather than wood. 
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Jul 8, 2012 06:28
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Grand Fromage posted:Just the Mediterranean coastline, the big oases in Libya and Egypt, and down the Nile/Red Sea coastline some. There was no motivation to attempt to cross the Sahara. Besides, Sahara was swarming with Garamantians and other nasty sand people. Like with Caledonia, it was easier to just build a limes against them and occasionally go to raid their cities than to wage costly campaigns against them. Rome had enemies/assets waiting for exploitation in every direction, but the riches were in Asia, not Sahara.
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Jul 9, 2012 04:01
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