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How did legion recruitment work? Would each have their own recruiters that they would send around the province they were stationed in, or was there a form of centralized recruiting? And what social obligations did magistrates have? iirc Julius Caesar was a quaestor when he was fighting in Spain - shouldn't he have been off in Rome or somewhere managing public finances?
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Aug 7, 2013 16:14
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Grand Prize Winner posted:I GIS'd these on a whim and they're pretty neat. This was branded on their shoulders, right? Like the SPQR Maximus has in Gladiator? What did Romans think, if anything, of piercings, tats & hair? I've always thought of Romans as being conservative in a no piercings, tattoos, clean shaven, no crazy haircuts, etc. way.
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Aug 8, 2013 17:37
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How close were the Russian Grand Duchies / Scandinavian Countries and the Byzantines? Between the Russians & Byzantines I"m wondering more about their Orthodox-connections, was there any real support of the byzantines from them due to that connection? From the Scandinavians, I'm wondering more about the Varangian Guard and that arrangement. Was there any real distinction between Byzantine & Western European armies between 1k C.E. and 1453? Let me know if this should go in the Medieval Thread instead, thanks.
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Aug 14, 2013 15:24
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canuckanese posted:And where would your average person get poison? Everyone had access to knives or maybe even swords, it'd just be more convenient. Kind of like how many people today commit suicide with guns. Probably from the forest in the backyard with the witch living in it 
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Aug 14, 2013 17:15
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Brain Candy posted:Nah, Galba to totally does this a few generations later, and Hadrian and Trajan have hometowns in Spain. But given how many emperors end up in their positions solely because they have the backing of the front line legions from somewhere, I think you answered your own question. Did legions have personal loyalties (e.g. supporting Octavian because he's Caesar's son and all) or was it motivated more by greed (e.g. essentially mercenaries)? It seems to me that the basic legionnaire was solely motivated by gaining wealth & prestige, perhaps also by virtue of civic service, but at the same time there's so many stories of legions fighting for 'their man/leader'.
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Aug 23, 2013 16:55
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physeter posted:We see the past through the prism of our modern experience, which is armies loyal to the state, or loyal to a political movement of some kind. But there's a good argument that very early Rome was essentially a bandit camp, and its earliest armies simply groups of raiders. This can radically change the way we see the later generations of the Roman army, an institution which functioned at its best on foreign ground hitting foreign targets. The oldest traditions of the Roman army are not so far from the basic behavior of rape and plunder. What type of financial autonomy did they have? This is the only real part I'm having trouble grasping, unless you mean in the sense 'they protected markets in villages under their 'protection' and received taxes from them'.
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Aug 28, 2013 03:39
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eszett engma posted:I just came across this image the other day, and assuming it's accurate, why did the population make such a big jump in the 400-200 BC period? (also assuming the difference isn't just an artifact of the increase in resolution there) e: VVV yeah, I was looking at the wrong pop. scaling. Iseeyouseemeseeyou fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Aug 28, 2013 |
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Aug 28, 2013 19:00
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the JJ posted:Sparta was surprisingly matriarchal. Aristotle bitches at some point that the Spartans have allowed their (weak irrational etc. etc.) women own something like 66% of the land because a. they could own land in the first place and b. their husbands and fathers kept dying so... If I'm understanding you right: Women could own land, wealth, etc. in Sparta - though it's well known Spartans/Spartiates couldn't own (or at least it was heavily discouraged) land / wealth, c/d? If that's right, it makes a fair bit of sense as the dudes are always out 
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Sep 1, 2013 04:18
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The Belgian posted:I liked this vase with a giant dick I saw in the altes museum in Berlin (not my picture, just the first result on google) how germanic 
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Sep 10, 2013 22:27
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What was the status of peoples in conquered lands who weren't enslaved? Was there something in between 'Slave' and 'Freedman', or were they all given to legionnaires who retired there, essentially as serfs? Or perhaps, did plots of land get sold off back in Rome, along with the people inhabiting them? I'm thinking of specifically two examples: 1) Gaul: If I remember correctly, Caesar claimed* to have enslaved a million Gauls. Surely that didn't constitute the entire population of Gaul? And what do you even do with that many slaves? 2) Greece: It always seems there's an abundance of Greek slaves throughout the Roman Empire, especially 'Learned Greeks'. Did "Greek" refer to Greeks that had moved to Anatolia / The Levant, and so as the Empire continued expanding so did the Greek populace? * I think it's a fair assumption that approximate numbers dating back thousands of years are likely inaccurate. edit: Are there any good books on the (local) economic impact of a Roman/contemporary conquest?
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Sep 12, 2013 17:54
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Jazerus posted:You could be a noncitizen, nonslave, nonfreedman and it was no big deal, more or less equivalent to being a freedman. Recently conquered peoples might have a tough time integrating, but they weren't intrinsically worthless as people any more than any other noncitizen once the conquest was over. 1) How were slaves spread out? Were they all brought to trade centers and sold, or were the majority kept to work the land that used to be theirs? 2) I meant there seems to be a poo poo ton of Greek slaves. I'm probably just thinking every learned slave was Greek. What happened to the nobility/royalty of conquered peoples? If there was any real hereditary form of this - rather than an elected tribal leaders or officials.
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Sep 12, 2013 18:36
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Arglebargle III posted:The German people. Conquered and assimilated people were a huge asset and not just as slaves. Most famously the Illyrian provinces provided a string of good general-emperors that pulled the Empire back from the brink in the late 3rd century. Germans were an asset and a problem for the Empire for centuries; imagine if they had been Roman Germans instead of foreign Germans, they could have been an asset without the liabilities that came with employing cultural outsiders. What was the reaction in the upper echelons of roman society to, essentially, commoners becoming emperor (e.g. Aurelian)? Also, what was the reaction to non-italian romans becoming emperor, if any?
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Oct 1, 2013 17:41
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Grand Fromage posted:It was also strange that the first two seasons were reasonably historical, then the last part of season 3 went so completely off the rails that it threw me hard and took me out of the show. I'm sure this has been asked before, but what's your opinion of the starting battle in Gladiator?
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Oct 30, 2013 17:14
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Guildencrantz posted:Like with so many others, the Romans. But the Roman conquest was basically the comma at the end of a long, slow decline. After their golden age the state was just decaying in isolation. It's a model example of the death spiral that happens to stagnant societies: every war made the Spartiate/Helot ratio worse, and they had no mechanism for promoting people to Spartiates. As a society that held philosophy, progress and critical thinking in deep contempt, they were completely incapable of generating any kind of reform movement, and so couldn't adapt to changing circumstances. The only thing they were good at was "not getting conquered" and by the time the Romans rolled around, Sparta was a backwards, isolated, irrelevant living history exhibit. I vaguely recall reading something about periokoi becoming Spartiates (or citizens) after 10 generations in Sparta - is this accurate or am I thinking of something else? Also, are there any population statistics on how many Spartiate families there were?
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Nov 5, 2013 01:29
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Continuing off of Big Beef City, were any legions considered more 'elite' than the other? I know there's the whole connection between Caesar and the 13th, but were they objectively better/more elite/prestigious? Rather than being his favorites / rubicon crossing.
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Nov 13, 2013 01:12
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How did greek nations recruit for their colonies? i don't mean initial military/trading colonies, etc. but later states (ptolemy egypt, seleucids, baktria, etc.) attempting to increase their greek population. I'm imagining these states running marketing campaigns against each other to recruit immigrants, but wiki is lacking on this subject.
Iseeyouseemeseeyou fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jan 22, 2014 |
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Jan 22, 2014 21:40
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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. Kopijeger posted:Plus, plain old land grants to any Greek willing to settle in the Hellenistic states and fight for the Successor monarchs. Slim Jim Pickens posted:Military settlement was huge thing. Recruit soldiers through promise of land, acquire land/lose soldiers, on repeat. Yeah, I understand throwing land/power at people is the easy way to get them to come. But I'm wondering if there was competition between the Diadochi for colonists or if it just boiled down to "Ptolemaic Egypt will give you more land than Seleucia"/There were enough colonists to go around.
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Jan 23, 2014 02:47
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Are there any (recovered) records of the population of Greece compared to the Diadochi states?
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Jan 29, 2014 20:16
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Octy posted:Further evidence that life wasn't all roses for slaves, at least in this context. I think there was also a law dating back to the Republic which basically said that testimony from a slave could only be believed if the slave was tortured during questioning. they said this in the second season of rome when they're torturing the boy who tried to poison atia 
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Sep 17, 2014 06:01
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What was the difference between a Quaestor & Procurator? It seems to me they carried out the exact same function.
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Sep 17, 2014 10:02
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Paxicon posted:As far as I know, the Quaestor was a lower position more akin to an aide whereas a Procurator acted with autonomy? Ah, I read that but completely ignored it. Thanks!
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Sep 17, 2014 11:03
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Was there ever a black roman senator? Iirc there were some Germans inducted senators under Julius Caesar.
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Oct 20, 2014 02:00
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euphronius posted:It was very important for aristocrats and politicians to be from Rome or direct descendants of colonists from Rome. There are some counter examples obviously. Was this through the entirety of the Republic & Empire or just until a certain point..? I assume Roman [re: from Rome] would be of very little significance after, say, the Social Wars & Sulla's proscriptions. If anything, it seems like this would be limited to a minority of aristocrats and socialites.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:05
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Obliterati posted:It's not uncommon in the Ancient world for rulers to try and 'erase' predecessors like this, especially if their own ascent is on shaky foundations. My favourite example is Hatshepsut, the female Pharaoh: her son and successor  Context: Thutmose II died in 1497, leaving his Great Royal Wife/Sister Hatshepsut as regent for his son, Thutmose III (2 yr. old at the time). Thutmose III ruled as king from 1479-1425 and Hatshepsut ruled as king from 1479-1458 (21 years). Hatshesput made herself co-regent [of Egypt] when Thutmose III was 3 or 4 and eventually pharaoh - Hatshepsut was the first Egyptian female to rule in her own right. During their co-reign, Hatshepsut served as senior king (depicted forward of Thutmose III in their shared art), while Thutmose III was her junior and, rather successfully, commanded the military. Hatshepsut was not Thutmose III's mother - he was her nephew and the son of Thutmose II and a lesser wife, Iset. Okay, technically, Thutmose III was her stepson. However, upon Hatshepsut's death there was no question of Thutmose III's succession. The only 'shaky foundations' were perhaps from the phenomenon of previously having a female king. Obliterati posted:he destroys a bunch of her obelisks and literally chisels her name out of genealogical/pharonic records in tombs and the like. Removing a previous ruler from memory also allows you to point at their accomplishments and claim them for yourself. Actually, in almost every instance of Thutmose III carving over Hatshepsut's cartouches, he replaced it with his father, Thutmose II's, cartouche and rarely with his grandfather's, Thutmose I. Therefore, he could claim those accomplishments and monuments as part of his legitimate heritage. See: Raised representations at Inner Anubis Chapel, Hathor Chapel at Deir el-Bahri, and sunk-relief representations on the walls of the Chaelle Rouge at Karnak. Thutmose III's proscriptions weren't a damnatio memoriae. Rather, he sought to erase the memory of her as king. He left alone most, if not all, statues of her depicted prior to her ascension, e.g. as Thutmose II's Great Royal Wife/Queen/Sister. This was because her statuary prior to her ascension depicted her as female, whereas after her ascension her monuments depicted her as a man. Prior to 1449, emptying of some of Hatshepsut's temples/statuary occurred, but without destruction of the statuary - 2 instances of her name being erased occurred, iirc. Between 1449 and 1438, year 30 and 42 of Thutmose III's reign respectively, the destruction at Deir el-Bahri occurred, which consisted of the removal of the uraeus from her crowns, smashing to pieces of statues and and more limited erasure of her name (discussed further below). The remnants were all dumped in two locations, Senemut's Quarry & Hatshepsut's Hole. In his 42nd regnal year, Thutmose III ordered the systematic erasure of her name from statues, etc. - this was 20 years after her death - so it seems unlikely he was doing this out of spite. As the public stage of Egyptian politics was the temple, one possible reason for his destruction of Hatshepsut's memory as king was in response to a royal power struggle. One theory is that Thutmose III's son, Amenhotep II's, ascension was unsure as a result of Thutmose III's intended heir & Amenhotep II's older brother Amenemhat dying in 1455 and that supporting a succession dispute between the Thutmoside & Ahmoside bloodlines. The Ahmoside line wanted a scion of their family to be crowned, which challenged Thutmose III and his heir. The Ahmoside line was claiming legitimacy through Hatshepsut, as Hatshepsut's mother & Thutmose I's Great Royal Wife, Queen Ahmose, was an Ahmoside. This theory is supported by evidence that erasures of Hatshepsut's name were originally limited to 'Maat' from her name 'Maatkare', Maat being the goddess of justice, right order, balance, etc. By removing this component, Thutmose III discredits/called into question her legitimacy, and thus that of the Ahmosides. The main arguments against this is that there is no proof there was a contender from the Ahmoside bloodline seeking the crown and whether or not this distinction actually mattered at the time. Another possibility is that this was just an attempt to erase evidence that the phenomenon of a female king ever occurred, although prior instances of female regents, albeit not pharaohs/kings, are known. It's pretty late & i'm super tired, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about something.
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Nov 24, 2014 11:25
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Obliterati posted:To be honest you seem like you know more about this than me? If we're using damnatio memoriae this specifically then yeah, fair enough. Yeah, I remembered seeing your post a while back and now that I have access to my books again, I decided to sperg a bit. What you posted is essentially what any textbook on the matter will say. I might be wrong about Hatshepsut being the first female ruler, though I can't be bothered atm to double check.
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Nov 24, 2014 14:03
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