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Apropos Suetonius, the anglo-dutch group HERR released the album "XII Caesars" which sets excerpts from the book to music:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOmPO--avro More to the subject of the thread: why is it that the dramatic periods in the mid- to late empire seem to be relatively ignored compared to the very late Republic and early Empire? I am primarily thinking of depictions in popular culture and popular histories. For example, the bibliography of Adrian Goldsworthy seems to concentrate on the period before 100 AD. How are the events after 200 AD treated by professional historians? Is there any particular emphasis in current scholarship?
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May 25, 2012 00:33
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Grand Fromage posted:Germany's not especially poor, but other than amber there was nothing there that Rome couldn't get elsewhere. Amber was valuable but not enough to justify the conquest of a huge new province. From what I have read, agricultural technology also played a role in this. The soil in Germany is heavier and denser than what you find further south, and the Romans only had ards available, which are ill-suited for German soil. The difficulty of tilling the soil would thus be an additional obstacle for the Romans. Post-Roman agricultural developments like the introduction of the heavy carruca plow changed this. Can't find the source, but the carruca is supposedly first mentioned in a document from Northern Italy dating to the year 642.
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Jun 18, 2012 11:37
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WoodrowSkillson posted:If the article says that's it's wrong. Incthe east Antioch was second in size only to Alexandria during the classical period, and the two were the main govt centers in the eastern portion of the empire prior to Constantinople's founding. It's not about the famous Antiochia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochia_ad_Cragum
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Sep 18, 2012 17:51
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Grand Fromage posted:It's a matter of debate, but most modern Roman historians (as far as I know) don't even use the name anymore. There's no real distinction. Medieval Roman Empire is a better term for the period. One peculiar thing is that the term "Byzantine" is even used in Modern Greek: If you look at the article in the Greek Wikipedia you will find that they call it Βυζαντινή Αυτοκρατορία (Vyzantiní̱ Af̱tokratoría) rather than some variation on the historical term Basileia tōn Rhōmaiōn. Why they would use this "western", originally derogatory term for the state is an open question.
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Oct 10, 2012 14:19
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Tao Jones posted:Byzantium was the Greek name for the city before it was called Constantinople. Byzantium was founded by Greeks, and in many ways the later Eastern Roman Empire was culturally Hellenic and ruled by Greek emperors, so it doesn't surprise me that modern Greek would use the name that emphasizes the Greek-ness of the Eastern empire and not the Roman-ness. Perhaps, but "Constantinopolis" is an obviously Greek name as well, and one that it would make more sense to use in the context you describe.
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Oct 10, 2012 20:25
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DarkCrawler posted:"Constantinopolis" is Latin. And Constantine was Roman. Kōnstantinoupolis/Konstantinoúpoli is Greek, but it's just a Greek transliteration of the Latin name. Pretty sure "-polis" comes from the greek πόλις meaning "city". Unless I am gravely mistaken, the Latin equivalent would be "urbs". The name may have been coined by Latin-speakers, but it still seems to be a Greek name.
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Oct 10, 2012 21:36
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Speaking of which, has there ever been a movie set in the Eastern Roman Empire? There's this small list, none of which look particulary promising: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Films_set_in_the_Byzantine_Empire
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Nov 12, 2012 15:29
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Grand Fromage posted:The Germanic tribes that moved into those areas Romanized within a generation or two and started speaking Latin instead of their native languages. This may have been touched upon before, but why did they stop incorporating nations? Was it social and political stagnation, like when the Roman state stopped expanding the ruling classes preferred maintaining the status quo, or some kind of cultural shift where "roman-ness" came to be viewed as something barbarians cannot acquire, or perhaps other reasons? Kopijeger fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Jan 30, 2013 |
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Jan 30, 2013 09:31
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Grand Fromage posted:Though, to be fair, had his father not died/been killed we might be talking about Philip instead. On that note, what do we know about what Philip intended to do in his campaign against the Persians? Is it likely that he would have attempted to do the same things Alexander did, ie campaign all the way to India and marry his officers to Persian noblewomen, that sort of thing?
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Apr 2, 2013 15:41
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karl fungus posted:Do we have any realistic paintings of people that survive from antiquity? In Roman Egypt, there was a tradition for painting portraits in a naturalisti style and attaching them to mummies. Owing to the dry climate, there are hundreds of well-preserved ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits
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Jun 20, 2013 17:33
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There's Atalanta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atalanta
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Jun 26, 2013 14:45
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Funny thing is, I remembered first learning about Atalanta in the game Age of Mythology. She was one of the heroes you could recruit, so I guess your idea is not very original.
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Jun 26, 2013 15:18
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karl fungus posted:How much of Rome did they even understand in prior centuries, anyway? Like, what did they know about Rome in the Middle Ages? Also, did the Byzantine Empire keep records of its lost western half? Also, what did the ancient Romans know of history prior to their own ascendance, like the Achemenid empire and the various Egyptian dynasties?
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Jul 10, 2013 12:49
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sullat posted:Whereas the Holocaust is just... Bizarrely and pointlessly cruel. Eliminating 12 million taxpayers and laborers because you don't like the cut of their jibs? Even the Assyrians would scratch their heads at that. This is strictly speaking off-topic, but according to Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands, by 1942 it had become obvious that there were not enough food available in the Axis-controlled territories to feed everyone, so it was decided to off the "undesirables" considered unfit for hard labour and work the rest to death in concentration camps. That is to say, it was certainly cruel, but there was also a certain callous logic to it - get rid of excess mouths to feed by offing the ones you don't want around anyway first.
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Jul 19, 2013 21:55
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Falukorv posted:There was a famous Prussian vagrant in the 19th century who managed to impersonate an officer and due to the militarism of Prussia managed to convince a troop of soldiers long enough to arrest the major of his town and seize some of his money. Early 20th century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Voigt
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Jul 25, 2013 22:03
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karl fungus posted:How did age work in Rome? Like, did they have expectations of particular age groups? Were there certain things you could only do after reaching a certain age? Did people celebrate your birthday? At the very least, certain public offices had minimum age requirement. A quaestor had to be at least 30, a consul 42.
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Aug 6, 2013 22:50
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PittTheElder posted:I wasn't super sure, so I just read it all again, and indeed it was well before that point. This would have been during the original migration of Frankish folks into the borders of the empire. Reportedly quite a few modern French words relating to warfare have obviously Germanic* roots, which isn't surprisingly given the nature of a warrior aristocracy. Whereas Latin retained a very strong influence on French by virtue of Latin remaining the language of court and law. But even there, there's I guess a number of pronunciation and tense changes that are clearly Germanic in origin. French Wikipedia has a list of words of Frankish origin. Seems to be mostly military terms and words having to do with the feudal social order.
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Aug 13, 2013 11:30
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Don't remember where I read it, but apparently after Greek became the sole official language (sometime in the 700s?) the only ones who bothered with Latin were a few scholars who needed it to interpret older legal documents. Maybe officials and traders who had dealings with the Western church would know it as well, but it was certainly not prestigious anymore. As for loan words, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_words_of_Byzantine_Latin_origin
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Aug 15, 2013 22:25
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jmzero posted:I found your post here super entertaining. How many Romans would have access to this kind of cooking? There was apparently something akin to modern eateries: http://ancientstandard.com/2007/08/11/mcroman%E2%80%99s-happy-meal-fast-food-in-ancient-rome-1st-c-ad/ Note how the article mentions that there are plenty of excavated residences that seem to lack dedicated food preparation areas, indicating that the residents got their meals from outside. Upper-class Romans would presumably have full kitchens in their residences and slaves to cook and serve the food.
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Sep 28, 2013 22:24
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On that note, how did the Greeks (city-states and successor kingdoms alike) view the Romans before they were subjugated, and how did they view them afterwards?
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Dec 2, 2013 23:15
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Keep in mind that much of the area in question had already been under alien (primarily Persian) rulers for quite some time before Alexander, so it probably didn't make that great of a difference to the local inhabitants. I got the impression that the seleucids mostly kept the Achmeneid imperial structure intact, complete with satrapies.
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Dec 5, 2013 23:51
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Oberleutnant posted:I seem to recall that there was a heavy dose of discrimination in favour of Greeks (or Greek speakers) in Ptolemaic Egypt. Something about only Greek speakers being allowed to serve as officers in the armed forces, and things like that. That promise of an automatic advantage over the huge native population might be enough to entice somebody away from home and across the sea. Plus, plain old land grants to any Greek willing to settle in the Hellenistic states and fight for the Successor monarchs.
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Jan 22, 2014 21:53
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Octy posted:Also, didn't Mussolini come close to demolishing most of the Imperial forums? There's a whopping great big road that goes through the middle, at least, providing a very convenient place to survey the area. Mussolini actually removed a number of medieval and renaissance-era buildings from the forum so that the remains of the ancient buildings would be exposed. Like this:  This is what remains of the temple of Mars Ultor. On the rear wall you can see the groove where the roof of a monastery that used to be there fit. But it is true that there are unexcavated remains under the Via del Fori imperiali, apparently there is a proposal to tear it up and conduct a proper dig underneath.
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Apr 19, 2014 23:48
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VanSandman posted:Also, if I recall correctly, isn't the famous wolf statue almost certainly Etruscan? That is the conventional view, but there is some evidence to the contrary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Wolf
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May 5, 2014 19:09
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Grand Fromage posted:The same thing happens to Rome later when the Muslims come flying out of Arabia right after Rome and Parthia finished a solid 30 years or so of hardcore warfare. Wasn't that Sassanid Persia rather than Parthia?
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May 12, 2014 13:57
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Exioce posted:Secondly, what knowledge and skills does your average modern person have that, if they were placed into the past, would allow them to be more than just an ordinary person in society, perhaps very rich? Clearly, modern engineers, doctors, chemists etc know a helluva lot, but I'm thinking of us normals. Basic literacy and numeracy could be an asset in a society where such skills are rare, depending on circumstances you could introduce the current numeral system ahead of time. Knowledge of modern hygienic practices, such as "boil stuff in order to kill bacteria", and "try to minimise exposure to excrement and other biological waste" could also give an advantage. 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 14:06
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Grand Fromage posted:For more specialized knowledge, I can't think of anything better than giving the Romans gunpowder. Better if you want the Romans to annihilate everyone, anyway. That's probably the most useful technology that they actually would've been able to do something with given their other technical skills. Which era Romans are you referring to here? Anytime before the fall of the Western Empire? Would their metalworking really be up to the task of creating cannon or handgun barrels?
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Jun 26, 2014 14:29
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WoodrowSkillson posted:The original iron handguns and small bronze cannon would be game changers when used against other societies in antiquity, not to mention using it in grenades and rockets. It would turn an already efficient and frightening army into a terrifying force. No doubt, but that wasn't my question. Once again: was Roman metalworking up to the task of casting bronze cannon or making iron handguns?
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Jun 26, 2014 14:49
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Arglebargle III posted:I'm not sure pasteurization would solve any of those problems, since, you know, refrigeration doesn't exist. You could invent canning which would preserve milk and also any other thing. I think that's a bit more useful. Not quite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakhchal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_%28building%29
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Jun 29, 2014 09:15
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TheHoosier posted:I can't imagine what kind of utter havoc would be caused by the equivalent of Kenny Powers being transported back in time and having to explain to Caesar that his namesake would become a poo poo pizza chain. Or even what pizza is. Except for tomatos, everything you need to make pizza already existed in the ancient world. What's so difficult about "it is a dish consisting of a flat piece of bread dough with some combination of vegetables, cheese and meat on it, baked in an oven until the cheese has melted and the dough is baked."? Hell, something like that might actually have existed back then. Kopijeger fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 21:04
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StashAugustine posted:What was going on in Italy between the 'fall' of Rome and the Byzantine invasion? Basically, the Goths kept the Roman administrative apparatus in place and ruled as nominal subjects of the Eastern emperor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odoacer#King_of_Italy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogothic_Kingdom
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Jul 10, 2014 01:05
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How about the classic "Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo"?
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Jul 18, 2014 18:58
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thrakkorzog posted:The ability to read and write Hieroglyphics was usually limited to to scribes, priests, and royalty. After the Romans came in it was expected that anybody who wanted to get anywhere in life would be expected read and write in Latin and Greek. It's likely that a cosmopolitan Egyptian would have treated learning hieroglyphics as a pointless activity, since it's not like any Egyptian farmer had any cultural attachment to hieroglyphics. Surely that began (in the case of Greek) with the establishment of the Ptolemaic dynasty and subsequent Hellenisation of the country?
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Aug 9, 2014 12:09
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One would think that given Roman domination of Britain the Welsh and Cornish would have been more strongly influence by Latin than Irish/Scots Gaelic. Is there any evidence to indicate that this happened? Granted, it may be difficult to determine whether a Latin-derived term can be traced back to Roman times or was introduced later through the Church or the Norman rulers.
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Sep 27, 2014 12:32
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feedmegin posted:For what it's worth, surely the expectation would be that the Saxons wiped out the local men and then shagged their women. So not quite literal ethnic cleansing, and not a total genetic replacement of the locals. (Though you'd still expect to see a difference I guess) They wouldn't even need to kill off all the men, just the upper classes. If the bulk of the Romanised Celtic population are serfs under Saxon warlords, and there are no learned Celtic speakers to maintain the culture around then it is easy to see how the Saxon culture and language would come to be adopted by the commoners.
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Sep 27, 2014 12:35
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:I meant built in the ancient world (although that was really interesting too.) I think I remember hearing about some 5 decked ship that wasn't seaworthy but was basically built as a 'look how loving huge my boat is mortals' thing. The "40-rowed" of Ptolemy IV Philopator?
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Sep 30, 2014 21:19
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Well, the Romans appropriated a lot of Greek stuff and the Ptolemids Egyptian stuff. Probably there are other examples.
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Oct 10, 2014 13:40
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Probably because he was installed as emperor by his father Orestes after the latter had toppled the previous emperor Julius Nepos.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:15
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On a related note, once the country of Belgium was created in the 19th century it was decided that they needed a figure from history to be a national hero for the new country. They settled on a previous-ly obscure chieftain mentioned in Commentarii de Bello Gallico: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiorix
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Nov 13, 2014 12:20
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the JJ posted:Okay, so there's a very Persian poet who called himself 'the Roman' because he lived in Rome. This one? quote:Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, and popularly known as Mowlānā but known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi, (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and mystic. Rūmī is a descriptive name meaning “the Roman” since he lived most of his life in an area called Rūm because it was once ruled by the Byzantine Empire.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:45
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