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I've also read the entire thread over the past couple of weeks, it's been very interesting. I have a ton of questions that I mostly forget at the moment, but I'm sure they'll come back to me. For now though, three that I've actually retained: Could someone go into more detail about the lasting effects Roman culture had on the east? How dominant were the Roman influences as opposed to the Hellenistic ones? In particular linguistically would be helpful; the principle counter argument I've gotten to the lack-of-divide between Byzantium and Rome has been that "they all spoke Greek"- I know someone said that the east always retained Greek as its language so that's a silly counterpoint, but all the same I don't feel confident enough on the points to actually argue about it. How much of a hand did iron have in the bronze age collapse, if any? I vaguely recall something from my childhood (it might have been from horrible histories...) about an iron-equipped civilization able to annihilate those that used bronze. Am I mangling events or did they have some relation? I'm also interested in hearing what people have to say to defend the study of the ancient weaponry and armour, and the machinations of individuals. These topics all seem to utterly dominate discussions about Rome, but what merits do they actually have? While things like the movements of people and languages, the origins of religious and cultural prejudices and so on can all be very useful today, what reason is there to learn that most legionaries actually wore chainmail instead of lorica segmentata, or who Cicero would be meeting in Brundisium on Sunday? Why are the latter topics so dominant in our education but the former so barely touched on? Is it just because pop trivia like that is more interesting or is there a purpose to it that I'm missing.
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Nov 23, 2012 00:12
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Thanks for the answers guys. I phrased that third question much more abrasively than I meant; sorry if it came off as hostile. I'm quite interested in history as a hobby, and I got into an argument with someone recently of the merits of the study of antiquity, with them saying it was pretty pointless to worry about anything more than a few centuries old as being applicable to the modern day. And while I definitely think it's useful for seeing the origins of current cultural biases (in the introduction of Persian Fire the author talks about a professor that was a friend of his wanting to change a mandatory history course from the impacts of the third reich or something similar to a study about the crusades; they laughed at him, saying it was irrelevant to the modern day, and then 9/11 happened and that part of history suddenly became incredibly relevant again), and while this is more of a curiosity but still useful- ethnic and linguistic origins. But I had to concede that the majority of what we learn (at least at a high school level) is relatively useless knowledge- I have seen a shift from, say, what I see in textbooks from the 70s versus what we have now (which are still like twenty years old but hey) towards more general studies, but it is still mostly not terribly relevant. I understand that the reason there's so much more emphasis on random objects and such is because it's all we have; people wouldn't be able to see ethnic migrations or know for sure where certain people came from, but hell are they good at throwing crap on the ground. Still though, how is it useful to the majority of people, beyond "cool". I suppose if I ever went into film production I could make something historically accurate (and it has for sure dampened my enjoyment of historical movies), and for pub trivia I'm unmatched! And I get the merits of them for proper historians, after all much of our understanding is based on random crap that we dig up. But that's not something I, or very many people, will be able to do. I'm not sure I have a question as such, but I sort of wanted to vent my inability to argue in defense of my hobby. fake edit: wait actually that can sort of be a question! what do you all say to people that attack the study of ancient history? And an actual question: Can somebody go into depth about racism in the ancient world? Were people actually "colourblind"; i.e. are people even recorded as having different skin tones? (even without any racial connotations someone must have noticed that black-africans look pretty different to germans, for instance) Is it correct for me to say that racism is a pretty new thing? If so, roughly when was it starting? You guys have talked about it a bit with Romans and Greeks, but what about Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Chinese? Trade wasn't a local thing even in the bronze age; people must have had some connections. Also kind of specifically in this: I've heard Cleopatra described by Romans as a temptress from the east. What would east be? Was she considered Greek or Egyptian by the Romans? So say Doris of Argos seduced enough important Roman men to be considered a menace in the same way. Would she be just the same as Cleopatra of Egypt, or would she be considered much less exotic. Koramei fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Nov 25, 2012 |
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Nov 25, 2012 19:58
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SlothfulCobra posted:It's amazing how much of ancient siege tactics seemed to just vanish by the medieval era. I guess either people started to figure out how to get past walls or building poo poo in the middle of a battlefield just became too costly. Did military technology change for the better over time? How would a Roman army from the 2nd century fare against one from the 8th and 12th? I'm guessing a uniform army like that of high Rome would be impossible to pay for in fractured Medieval Europe, but what about simpler things like rectangular shields versus the silly oval ones they used in late antiquity and the middle ages? (yes I am a hypocrite) Also, how big would cities be in the Bronze Age? Not necessarily just population wise, but how sprawling would they be too. Is something like this ridiculously oversized? Again a scale thing, how big would walls be? Are things like the epic stone walls in Rome Total War far too massive or could some actually get that big. I feel like it would be completely impossible for them to get anywhere near that big but every depiction of the ancient world seems to have enormous cities with immense fortifications. Is this just a layover from Renaissance prejudices against the middle ages, inflating antiquity; a way of making it all seem more epic for movies and crap; or were there actually huge cities, enormous armies and ridiculously huge walls sometimes. Also, what can people tell me about the Hittites? I know they were a central Anatolian civilization that clashed with the Egyptians (in Kadesh? with chariots! I don't remember), but wikipedia is being pretty useless at providing examples for their art and architecture and I have absolutely no mental image of it, or them as a civilization. Koramei fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Nov 30, 2012 |
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Nov 30, 2012 00:08
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quote:in Rome your dick was visible a lot of the time SlothfulCobra posted:Speaking of the Hittites, how much non-biblical evidence is there for the nation of Israel? According to their own book, they were a force to be reckoned with in the ancient world, but I never read about them in relation to other known civilizations. I always thought they were a reasonably important regional power, but against any of the actual players (Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Persia) they would get stomped on.
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Nov 30, 2012 00:57
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I know virtually nothing about it so this is just conjecture, but I'd imagine contemporaneous Indian militaries might be a good place to start looking. I'm interested to know what people think of what this man says here (I haven't read through the entire military history thread yet so apologies if it's been posted there already): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmaYtNW_wR8 It's in regards to how Greek phalanxes would fight each other. Rather than what I've always heard (okay I've only ever read a few books about wars in Classical Greece but each of them said it)- that the two sides would shove at each other as a wall of shields until one broke, he says they would have generally stood off actually using their spears to poke at each other. It sounds pretty convincing to me; they aren't well armoured in places that would be most vulnerable while shoving, and the first lines would basically always die- and considering they were conscripted Greek citizens rather than crazy bloodthirsty barbarians or martial :HONOUR: Romans, ridiculous battlefield heroism and glory and stuff isn't going to appeal to them in the same way continuing to live is. Koramei fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Nov 26, 2013 |
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Dec 2, 2012 05:25
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Squalid posted:He makes some interesting points but he doesn't seem to have much real evidence. So to support his claim that each side would stand off to stab at a distance he says the front lines would want space to maneuver. Maybe, but with 20 guys pushing behind you unable to see what's going on it doesn't matter how much space you want. He believes they may have used their spears underhand, but how does he explain all vases on which soldiers hold their spears over their head? His ideas definitely seem worth considering, but also feel incomplete on their own. He goes into the vase paintings a bit here; it's a very limited sample but there does seem to be a mix of underhand/overhand depicted, and his reasoning for most of the overhand ones is that it's a more dramatic pose and the vase painters wanted pretty vases more than accurate ones (hence them often being naked and not carrying battle equipment and stuff). More on underhand/overhand spears here too. Regarding your first point, and I'm not sure how to explain this away, I'm just curious: How would the sides know when to route? If they weren't able to see (and especially in the blinding Corinthian helmets with dust in their faces and clashes of battle deafening them I can very much imagine that they weren't able to see), the only way I could see them knowing when it is time to go is when literally all but like 3 or 4 lines of them are dead. The way we know phalanxes just seems to be completely inflexible and almost always resulting in both sides getting virtually obliterated. I just can't imagine the pre-Macedonian Phalanx being the dominant form of warfare in much of the Mediterranean for centuries when the commanders know that the course of the battle will be completely impossible for them to shape and will almost always leave a great deal of their city's fit young men dead on the field. Can somebody explain to me how this is what scholars concluded it to be like? And actually in general, how did the populations of the ancient world cope with the horrendous casualties we hear? Because it doesn't make sense to me. Also while we're on the topic, can somebody give a summary of how warfare in the Khmer Empire/ Indonesia worked? If Southeast Asian warfare wasn't so dependent on Indian/ Chinese influence, I imagine it would have been shaped by the Jungle and all that? Would they have set piece battles in the way we know them? Because that would seem to favour ambushes and skirmishes a lot more.
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Dec 2, 2012 18:01
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the JJ posted:It's rout. Goddamn it. I swear to god there is something in the goonhive mind that can not get that right. Holy poo poo I feel really stupid now. In my defence it is not a word that comes up often in normal conversation. quote:So in short, no one thinks everybody died in every battle that'd be silly. Those sorts of battles tend to be horrific, exceptional, and game changing. The massacre of the Athenians at Sicily is pretty terrifying; they'd been marching under arms without water for a few days and finally came across a stream. They stampeded towards the water while the Syracusans and Spartans fell on them, and many we still desperately lapping at the water as it turned red with the blood of their friends. This was more me saying that if the people had no room to maneuver and were being forced forwards, as we might expect with the whole shield-bashing rather than spear poking thing, the only way it could turn out is with horrendous casualties. I remember reading that the each of the engagements in a battle would be short, only a few minutes long at a time before backing out for a moment and clashing again. How would they be able to back out if there are 20 guys behind them pressing forward? Stampede mentalities do not work well for battles. It's another reason the traditional view of battles with hoplite phalanxes just doesn't make sense to me; and the more I hear about it the worse it seems.
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Dec 2, 2012 20:05
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WoodrowSkillson posted:I'm not seeing why the idea of the two phalanxes keeping spearlength apart is weird. No one would want to break formation to push ahead since they would get stabbed by like 5 people. The rear lines would not shove the front lines forward if the idea was to stay spearlength away from the start. As men died and tired, the winning side would inch forward as the front line takes a step or two, with the rear lines stepping up in sequence. Routs would start from the rear, not the front, as too many of the men in front died, and the rear hoplites turn and run. I take it the shoving match isn't nearly as much of a consensus among historians as I'd previously thought though. the JJ posted:Maybe, maybe, they fought in shifts, which would really be the only way a deeper line could be a benefit unless a. you were having a rugby scrum or b. you were planning on a lot of people in the front ranks dying, and you were planning on winning by having the other guy run out of men. The deeper line is still useful for morale though; the more guys you have, the less aware the ones at the back will be of what is happening at the front, so the less inclined they will be to run away. Although if it's as flexible as I'm advocating for they might have a better idea. I don't know, the whole system is confusing to me. Mitthrawnuruodo posted:Could someone throw some interesting light on how this came to be? Actually though that idea had a potent effect on Byzantine Rome at the time. "Clearly if they are gaining so much ground they must have pleased god. Let's persecute everybody using icons to win back his favour!"
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Dec 3, 2012 18:39
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the JJ posted:I think the answer is 'no one really thinks they did shoving matches?' You're basically reiterating points from that reenactor video someone put up, but I don't think anyone here looked at that and went 'what a dumbass.' I was the one that posted that  . Plenty of people think they did shoving matches. Every book I've read about it in (admittedly not all that many) has said that, the History of Rome podcast said that, they did that in 300, the guy in the video said people say that. It is not something that nobody thinks, and that nobody here thinks that is only perhaps indicative of what scholars think rather than authors that write for the general consumers like myself. And I went to pains to come up with my own points thank you very much. Koramei fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 19:38
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Squalid posted:the idea appealed to me because if you can push through an enemy's formation you will completely break them they'll have no choice but to flee. Still thinking about it some more the problems he identifies with this sort of combat are pretty glaring. The point about guys getting crushed could be serious if you had enough guys pushing. I definitely can't imagine that sort of combat lasting for hours. I think i'd like to hear under what circumstances he does believe shoving occured. You can ask on his video, he'll respond. I think what you said is one such example though- if one side thinks they have a significant advantage they can rush forward to try and force a rout. But then maybe it doesn't work; the other side doesn't rout, instead trying to hold their ground by pushing back, and so begins the shoving match. (and everybody dies)
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Dec 4, 2012 00:24
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Grand Fromage posted:Right. Augustus had everything a princeps would have in his titles and powers, and there was no republican restoration after him. But it's all convention. If you want to define emperor as one guy is in charge (not counting dictator) you could say Rome had seven and then a really long interregnum. Did calling them the princeps actually fool anybody? Particularly just the masses; would they have thought that it really was just the Republic as usual (if they cared at all) or were they well aware times had changed? ... actually on that, how much of an effect did the change to concentrated power actually have? Had Rome remained a republic for the rest of its history, would it have likely had the same achievements as it did under an Emperor?
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Jan 5, 2013 07:46
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Halloween Jack posted:Augustus smartly eased himself into empery with his series of name and title changes, didn't he? When Caesar adopted him, he changed his name to some variation of Julius Caesar, and when Caesar was deified, he added Divi Filius to his name. Even after he effectively became sole ruler of Rome, he was calling himself "First Citizen" for quite a while, if I'm not mistaken. "First citizen" is the literal translation of Princeps isn't it? That title would last all the way until Diocletian, although any symbolic meaning behind it had obviously been lost by that point.
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Jan 7, 2013 19:38
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sullat posted:They weren't terribly fond of the last few emperors because they tried to re-unite the Orthodox church with the pope in exchange for support, but very little was forthcoming for all their concessions. I think Constantine XI was viewed more favorably posthumously; before the fall and his death he was just another emperor trying to scrabble out an empire in the ruins. QuoProQuid posted:What was the life of the average Roman citizen in Constantinople during the last decades of the Empire? Were there citizens preparing for the inevitable Ottoman invasion or did they think the walls would hold forever? How was Constantine XI viewed? While I'm not sure that this was true for most of his reign, during the siege and when defeat was inevitable he was looked on fairly favourably. The citizens of Constantinople were well aware that they didn't have much time left when he was coronated, so I don't think anybody would have considered him responsible for the woes they faced. His try to mend the schism would have certainly alienated some people, but only really the most hardline. Most people realised the necessity of western aid by this point, so they didn't object to it, unlike during an earlier emperor's attempt. He was extremely important during the siege proper, as any leader would be of course, but deciding to stay with his people rather than flee, greeting and inspiring his soldiers, and fighting alongside them and to his own death placed him above many leaders, and certainly most of those they had had recently. And of course posthumously he's something of a saint figure for Greeks even today. Koramei fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Jan 12, 2013 |
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Jan 12, 2013 07:39
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benem posted:I'd also attribute this sort of disconnect to the fact that modern armies developed pretty sophisticated means of enforcing discipline in the face of the enemy. Wasn't it routing that decimation was for? One person in your unit routs, one tenth of that entire unit is executed. In any case I think anything less than the full army routing would be met in a similarly draconian way, or at least with the leader of that group being killed. I think this got less brutal over time though. It's practices like that that made the Roman army so unbeatable though; while their comrades are dying around them the Roman soldiers wouldn't so much as flinch, they'd just keep moving on mechanically and unstoppably, at least to a level far beyond their contemporaries. The Roman army's discipline in its hay day was one of its greatest strengths.
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Jan 18, 2013 04:10
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General Panic posted:I suspect that DIY "justice" would have been part of all of these cultures, and indeed of Ancient Rome, especially outside the cities. It wouldn't necessarily have been pure vigilatism; more like the village elders resolving the community's disputes. A lot of that would have gone on whichever empire was nominally in charge at the time. It's just a feature of all peasant cultures. I guess I hadn't thought about this much, but I always considered Egypt to be much more centralised than other empires, since everybody would literally be within a few miles of the main route for traveling. Although I guess considering they reached all the way to the Levant at points that doesn't really hold out. How would the Egyptians go about wrangling the peasants during monument-building season? Could they only reach out to a fraction of the total population, or were people much more dutiful or something? Or is that a dumb question since they had four thousand years of history so obviously it's going to vary.
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Jan 24, 2013 22:19
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QuoProQuid posted:Did the Gallic Empire have any chance of surviving longer than it did? The way Wikipedia presents them, Gaul was doing a good job of fending off the Romans, but the moment Postumus dies things go to hell and they are quickly subsumed. Was it ever really an empire rather than just a loose coalition of tribes? While it could have probably survived longer than it did, its fall was likely inevitable. The reason Germania wasn't taken is because the land was not valuable enough and the border not defensible enough to offset the cost; the same is not true for Gaul. Koramei fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jan 27, 2013 |
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Jan 27, 2013 23:45
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AdjectiveNoun posted:He's not talking about the Gauls as in the Celtic people.  I was thinking Postumus sounded far too Roman a name, completely forgot about that Gallic Empire. I'm not sure I agree with you on Palmyra going first though; if we're dealing in hypotheticals here, there's no reason Odaenathus had to have died when he did, and had he not then there's no reason for Rome to go after Palmyra first since they were still ostensibly supporting Rome at the time (and for a while under Zenobia too, no?). But Rome getting its act together was far from a given, so had so many things not happened the Gallic Empire could well have survived for a long time. That's what I think at least, although I suppose I've lost all credibility on my knowledge of the period. Koramei fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Jan 28, 2013 |
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Jan 28, 2013 00:10
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Big Willy Style posted:I don't know if this question is really stupid or what but when did gold and silver become so important and why is used for currency? How did this come about? Because it's really valuable. Gold in particular is extremely easy to craft for artistic purposes; it's malleable, flexible and can be hammered quite thin, and when polished it obviously has a very pretty shine far beyond other metals. It probably acquired some mystical properties in cultures since it was the first metal to be produced by humans, so that added some value to it. And most importantly, it is, and always has been, extremely rare; in all of human history we have mined about 160,000 tons of gold (most of which was mined industrially in the past century). By comparison, it would only take 2 years to mine that amount of iron at the height of the Roman Empire. Silver is similar but basically slightly less so in all those things.
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Jan 28, 2013 19:13
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Another reason is Christianity. 
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Jan 30, 2013 19:07
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Redczar posted:Speaking of Mesopotamian civilizations, I know this was mentioned in the thread somewhere, but what was that one kingdom that was basically forgotten by everyone because they were destroyed so thoroughly? Assyria (probably neo-Assyria?), although I believe almost all the Mesopotamian civilizations were something of a mystery until reasonably modern times. Weren't people really excited to find Babylonian ruins since they were confirmation of something in the Bible? What's the difference between the neo-Assyria/Babylonia etc and original ones anyway? Is it just a name only thing for status or were they actually a resurgent form of the old ones? BrainDance posted:Getting away from, Rome, Greece and Europe Is there anyone here who knows a bit about Sumer? You might be thinking of the myth of Inanna; the oldest written story in human history. It all forms a kind of coherent tale, although it's broken up in a way you'd expect from something written five or six thousand years ago. It sounds like what you described, although really it's fairly important to read anyway since it's the oldest written story in human history. I also think it might be that because it's the only piece of Sumerian writing I've actually read so I don't have a lot of other options to draw from.
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Feb 1, 2013 06:23
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Grand Fromage posted:Also the single champion duels to decide battles did happen. Rarely, but it was a real thing. The Romans never did it but I think the Greeks did occasionally. What kind of situations would this be in? Just to resolve a mutual dispute, surely; say two forces were arguing over who got to ravage a certain town or something. I can't imagine anybody would risk their own life or family or even significant possessions really based on their side's champion. Am I wrong? fake edit: this is what I imagine the outcome to those duels would be if anything serious was at stake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EQWcB1vXXg
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Feb 6, 2013 05:19
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I.W.W. ATTITUDE posted:So there was (as close as we can tell from genetic evidence) a population of humans living in the British Isles that predated the "Celtic" peoples that are the first known cultural-linguistic group to be historically recorded as living there? That's very interesting. During the last ice age the English Channel was above sea level, so it's reasonable to assume that humans crossed it at that point.  The Walking With episode for mammoths is about a journey over that sea and it has humans in it so that must be the truth I have a question about island migration though, and while it doesn't really apply to The British Isles since I think on a good day you can see them from France, but how did stuff like the remote Pacific Islands get inhabited? Like Easter Island; it's literally the most remote inhabited island on the planet. I know Polynesians had sophisticated ocean current maps and good boats and stuff but there's no way they could have known about that, or even some of the less remote islands. Did someone just decide to sail a boat (with enough people to make a sustainable population) out on a transoceanic voyage with no idea where they were headed because they were feeling lucky?
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Mar 3, 2013 06:02
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General Panic posted:But why would anyone want to abandon a presumably popular and "successful" religious system? Has that ever been worked out? I think that for this the only thing that makes sense is when we abandon the assumption that he was doing it for political gain; maybe in the long run it would make him more powerful (and immortalize him even more), but in the short term it's painfully obvious to anybody that it would cause unrest. So the only logical assumption is just that ... he thought he was right. That he fervently believed in Aten and wanted to "spread the love and salvation" . I mean that's sort of the case for most prophets and all that, isn't it? They're often in a situation where they're likely to end up dead for no discernible benefit. He just happened to be the most powerful person in the world at the time. That's my guess, anyway.On that, the Egyptians were the most devout in regards to the Imperial Cult of all the Roman Empire's subjects weren't they, since they had a long history of God-Kings? How much did the Pharaohs themselves actually believe in their divine status? Was it just there to fool the masses or was it more ingrained than that. And thanks for the answers about the Polynesians guys.
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Mar 4, 2013 21:24
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Ras Het posted:The Sarmatians (whose relation to the Scythians is fairly vague, but they both spoke Iranian languages) Huh, I always thought the connection was more firm than that. I don't suppose you (or anybody that knows about them) feel like doing a write up on the Scythians do you? That whole region is fairly neglected in general history. Phobophilia posted:Well, if we're going by that definition, Judaism started out like that as well, where this particular tribe worshipped one particular god out of the entire pantheon of the local semetic tribes. It's just that this monolatry gradually evolved into full blown monotheism where the fellow members of its pantheon were derised to become unholy demons and the former subsumed all functions of the latter. It took a very long time to transition, didn't it? I thought that even Medieval Christianity (and I guess even to this day to an extent) was more monolatry than actual monotheism; what really are the archangels but minor deities themselves, not to mention coopted mythologies in the Divine Comedy and so on.
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Mar 5, 2013 00:42
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Fragrag posted:We subjugated Congo, doesn't that count as a black mark on our history? I don't mean any offense to Belgium, but yeah, I'd always heard that it was the most brutal of all of the European powers in its treatment of native populations. And ha, until I checked just now I hadn't realised that he actually did; I thought that was just in Asterix. Speaking of, opinions on the historical validity of Asterix comics? Was there a lone tribe of Gauls with magic potion? 
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Mar 8, 2013 23:36
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Golden_Zucchini posted:Writing was only invented out of whole cloth two or three times in the entire history of humanity. Cuneiform in the Fertile Crescent was the father of every written language in Europe and Western Asia, whether it was directly copied/adjusted or another culture heard about this writing concept and decided to make their own. It happened again in Central America and spread among the various cultures there. Finally, there's debate over whether the Chinese invented writing in isolation or if they heard about people to the west using marks to represent speech beforehand. The timing could go either way. That's so strange. It feels like such an obvious idea to us now, and writing so vastly improves efficiency. It's not like it's hard to come up with a system. Cave paintings and such are nearly universal, aren't they? How common was it for them to be representative of something rather than intended only as art? Pictographs seem like such a natural way of communication between people that speak different languages to me. Ras Het posted:There's also the Easter Island writing system. It might've been totally indigenous, but more likely inspired by Spanish writing. Is it phonetic? Surely China -> Polynesia -> Easter Island makes more sense? Or is it only after European contact that it was developed. How common was trade between the Polynesians and East Asians anyway? Through Indonesian middlemen or something instead? And was there any Chinese knowledge of Australia? Also, this is just directed at Grand Fromage (and has nothing to do with ancient history) but I don't know what more appropriate threads you read more regularly: What's the general reaction in South Korea towards the north declaring they're going to scrap the armistice? Is it being taken more seriously than stuff in the past? (if you want to respond it'd be great if you did so here it'd be nice to have someone that is living in Korea's perspective in that thread)
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Mar 9, 2013 20:33
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Grand Fromage posted:It's an easy quick answer: no one cares. There's a Korea thread in T&T for any further discussion. I don't usually read the threads of people armchair wargaming my home being destroyed. Oh cool I didn't realise there were that many Korea Goons. Thanks! quote:Writing seems like an obvious idea to us, but that's us. Considering how few completely original systems ever emerged, it doesn't seem like it's a thing that occurred easily to people, though once people encountered it they saw the value. I definitely need to read up on cave paintings (if nobody knows anything hint hint), writing so definitely seems like the natural conclusion to them. Considering how much later Chinese characters were developed (Wikipedia says 3000BC in Mesopotamia compared to 1200BC in China) that is definitely ample time for the basic concept to disseminate across Eurasia though. Actually, people have covered Roman/Chinese trade a bunch already, but how much pre-Roman trade/ contact was there at those distances? Have Greek or Egyptian ceramics been found in East Asia too? Also I think the Mesoamerican writing systems are supposed to be slightly different from their Eurasian counterparts? Not developed at all for clerical purposes; just artistic, or something like that. You did just omit the Mesoamerican writing system though right? Is there evidence for trans-Atlantic/Pacific trade that writing would have passed on through? Install Gentoo posted:There were probably plenty of attempts to make one before anyone got one that actually stuck, including people inventing them after other places had it, but before they'd heard of those. I don't know, it seems like such a useful thing that after it'd been thought of it wouldn't be lost easily. Most of the early forms of the writing systems we know today weren't particularly elaborate, either. It doesn't have to be perfect on conception, and it's not like they were trying to develop a written form of absolutely everything, just the things they needed. Base Emitter posted:I'm sort of amazed that something as different as Chinese letters could evolve from the same roots as Latin lettering. If it wasn't thought of independently, it was probably just the notion of written word that was passed to the Chinese. I probably know less than Wikipedia on the subject, but I remember clearly from when I studied Mandarin that a lot of the characters (and radicals especially) are obviously derived from pictographs (pretty sure there was a chapter in one of the textbooks about the root of person, tree, moon and so on showing the obvious transition) rather than something mutated from the Western Eurasian stuff. Where are all the linguists at? I must sound stupid here. Koramei fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 04:49
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Shy posted:Attested, not developed. Huge difference. Some much earlier discoveries in China may suggest that the characters were developing long before that. Oh. Roughly how much longer, do you know? edit: ^^^^^ WELL WIKIPEDIA AIN'T VERY CLEAR  I thought the cuneiform that was around at 3000 BC basically was just glorified tally marks. I guess I could do with reading the whole page!
Koramei fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Mar 10, 2013 |
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Mar 10, 2013 05:25
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Also, another standpoint: Painting/drawing are actually more artistically challenging than sculpting. While sculpture can be very technically challenging, the skills to get better at it are things that people can learn through other, more practical, applications (and these skills had been built upon for thousands of years prior to the truly great Classical poo poo). Sculpting a brick, a capitol on a column, and a person are obviously different things, but they are still comparable. A fine mason could have a go doing some nifty sculptures and come out okay. It's more about the craftsmanship than the art to make it look good. Sure, an understanding of anatomy makes your sculptures shitbutts better, but it's not ruined without it. Without an understanding of perspective, and form, and flow, and tangents, and so on, if you're drawing anything that isn't a pattern it will look pretty lacking. These are concepts that would not be fully understood until the renaissance. Perspective in particular is why you can see such lovely reliefs and sculptures but crappy paintings from these periods. You don't need to work on making something seem three dimensional when it is literally three dimensional.  Elgin Marbles ~440BC  Rando wino pot ~430BC It may seem unfair to compare the very greatest classical relief with a random pot but I'm too lazy to search for other examples and the problems are the same in these. This would get slightly better by the time of the Romans, significantly worse during the middle ages (the Romans may have valued a more stylized approach as time went on, but that evidently ate away at their technical skills; all Medieval art is notably lacking technically in ways that the villa painting is not), and would mostly sort its self out during the Renaissance.
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Mar 11, 2013 04:41
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Komet posted:You can't really use red figure pottery to gauge Greek painting from the 5th century since the style of art is restricted by potting and firing techniques. That's why you see more line drawing than painting on pottery. Okay, fair, it was lazy of me, but really the linework is all we need to see the shortcomings of 2d art at the time. Here, take the pot you posted. My tablet pen's pressure sensitivity is a bit broken at the moment so forgive the crappiness of these.  The entire scene takes place in the foreground (like with all classical pots, I guess) so depth isn't such an issue, but you can see how it's basically all in profile. This is because drawing people in more interesting angles is really hard But they did try with that Alexander mosaic, and with reasonable success. Here, however, you run into the issue the pot did not have: depth.  Darius is in the foreground, that random cavalry dude is in the background. And yet, they are both exactly the same size. I chose to illustrate this with arms, which was stupid, but you can look at anything else in this and it's the same; the horses maybe illustrate this most clearly (I should have gone with them  )Okay, look at this horsebutt right in front of Darius  It's mean of me to criticize them for not having foreshortening when it's something even seasoned artists have trouble with today, but it's a clear issue that you don't have to worry about in sculpture. The whole mosaic in fact looks like someone just flattened a relief. The way the figures are emphasized, the way the soldiers only go back about three lines. Stuff like that horsebutt just doesn't look right like it is, but if it was literally sticking out it'd be quite nice. Most of the ideas that would vastly improve painting and drawing just aren't even considered at this period or for a very long time after; I'd thought painting was considered a very important part of producing a sculpture, but not so much by its self. I guess I was wrong, but the way these drawings are approached smells very sculpture-centric to me. Anyway, now the villa piece. This one's a bit different; the artist clearly considered perspective while making it, and this looks like they've started to approach the painting as a painter rather than a sculptor. It's just that this is before these theories were actually fully understood.  They clearly thought "the columns don't just continue straight ahead, they converge". It's just that they didn't understand how the columns would converge. The villa mosaic is an attempt at what would become one point perspective- this means all of the lines that are structurally parallel, such as those columns, should vanish into a single point on the horizon. They just clearly did it visually rather than with any method, because the lines converge, but they don't converge in the right place . And some of the lines don't converge at all.I have nothing against ancient 2d art, it's nice and has an obvious quality to it that's hard to achieve. There's a simplicity in misunderstanding basic concepts that can make your art look really special. It's just... think of it like the kind of thing you'd get out of a ninth grader if you gave them infinite resources and time but no guidance whatsoever. Well rendered but lacking basic understanding.
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Mar 11, 2013 17:57
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Komet posted:I think you're trying to judge ancient painting through the lens of Renaissance painting. Second Style architectural motifs aren't intended to be Perugino paintings, with properly balanced compositions and almost pedantic adherence to the geometry of perspective. The painters are competent enough to understand the concept of perspective, but there's really no interest on their part in portraying it as rigidly as those painters of the Renaissance period. As I said before, Romans had a fondness in the early imperial period for illusionistic painting and even what we might call impressionism. No, my whole argument has been that that is not what I (and many other people) am doing  . There are still some fundamental flaws in these; it isn't really pedantry, these are things that modern artists adhere to instinctively. They're lacking in these pieces because they aren't fully understood, whereas techniques for sculpture are and had been for a long time, so I don't think it's fair to dismiss it entirely as stylistic differences. Aside from a slightly better understanding of anatomy, Renaissance sculpture on the whole is not markedly better than Classical Greek (and Hellenistic and Roman) stuff; Renaissance painting most definitely is, and not just for the superior materials; that was my point, and I think it explains a good deal of the discrepancy the original post was referring to.It is worse than later stuff, not through a lack of talent on the part of the artists of the time, just a lack of knowledge. And Deteriorata I don't know what ninth graders you've been talking to but most I know certainly don't understand even one point perspective
Koramei fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Mar 11, 2013 |
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Mar 11, 2013 20:06
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Oh that's a good way of putting it GF; I've been mulling around that analogy for a while but hadn't had any luck not coming off as a neo-nazi . It does make me wonder though; while we should definitely credit Philip with much of Alexander's success- and Alexander's conquests would have been impossible without him- would Philip have really been able to achieve the same kind of greatness? So much of the fuel for Alexander's conquest was his ego, wasn't it? There wasn't really any reason to go all the way to India, he just did because he felt he was the greatest and could achieve anything. Youthful ambitions and all that.
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Apr 2, 2013 20:27
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Ras Het posted:How can you justify the thirst to conquer the world, though? Considering the masses of casualties, there's no way to make it any more ethical than genocide. While we can definitely brush a lot of Alexander's motivations off as his ego it's very silly to apply modern moralities to people from more than two thousand years ago. Conquering the world was not the same kind of deal then as it is now. Aureon posted:i'll stop there because oh my god i'm defending hitler This is sort of the point of the analogy (and while it definitely works better for Genghis I don't think it's undeserved for Alexander either)- a thousand years from now there won't be that clause when analyzing the effects of WW2. Did Hitler mean to unite Europe in the wake of WW2? No, he wanted an ethnically homogenous Greater-Germany. Did Alexander mean to thrust Europe into the forefront of the ancient world and spread hellenistic culture all the way to Japan? No, he wanted glory. Did Genghis Khan mean to open up trade all across Eurasia? No, he wanted to crush his enemies, see them driven before him and bla bla bla. The analogy is to analyze their benefits when their atrocities are long out of living memory, not to say Alexander is as bad as Hitler. That there are only a few people in all of history that we can compare in this way is surely a good thing?
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Apr 3, 2013 01:05
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Ras Het posted:And the Holocaust was not the same kind of deal in the 1940s Germany as it is now... We idealise the ancient world in a way in which we never would, say, Cromwell or the Mongol conquests. Why shouldn't we be able to talk about this sort of moral questions? Roman society was hosed. Greek society was hosed. Senseless war for the purposes of glory is hosed. We can admit that and still be fascinated by the ages. Roman history in particular has a lot of slobbering nigh-fascist fans, which isn't always very pleasant. Actually part of what spurred the analogy (at least when I was thinking about it, I can't speak for GF) is from Dan Carlin talking about how the Mongols are being idealized. I know that's very true in my generation, actually. Most people my age don't know they committed atrocities at all (those that know anything about the Mongols at least). And you shouldn't be able to condemn Alexander uniquely because his ideas did not differ much from the norm. Yes the Greeks were hosed, yes the Romans were hosed, but everybody was hosed. Everybody was an expansionist rear end in a top hat, everybody was a genocidal maniac, everybody was a racist pig. These are common ideas at the time and Alexander's treatment of his victims was all things considered not so bad. Genghis and Hitler were both monstrous in their time, and you can see this especially clearly in Genghis, who won (that fact being why it isn't so clear in Hitler) and whose descendents ruled over China for a long time (long enough to spin propaganda at least) and yet was still viewed as evil by his former subjects and their descendants for what he did. It's valid to criticize idiots like  that think Greek culture is superior to modern culture, and it's valid to criticize idealization of Greek and Roman virtues, but it isn't so valid to criticize an individual, a lauded individual, based on perceptions that were not even remotely present during his time.on the ancients being assholes though: Can someone go deeper into Greek oppression of Women? People talked about them being forced to be veiled and escorted everywhere, but I think it was just an addendum to another point. I'm very interested to hear more- because in reference to this discussion, while most people are well aware the Romans are jerks, I think the Greeks are idealized far too much.
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Apr 3, 2013 02:32
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Dr Scoofles posted:Oh, and thanks for your advice GF! I am totally making space to do these ancient sites properly. Grand Fromage posted:No problem. I would say your minimum is two days Pompeii, one for Herculaneum. You could go to the museum on Herculaneum day if you get a good early start. There is a ton around Naples so you can easily fill more time if you have it. Cumae, Paestum, Capua are all neat. Oplontis is a nice preserved villa in Naples, for a little extra time to fill if you have it. I loved me some Pompeii but I might contest this a bit. There's definitely enough to see to occupy yourself for days and days if you want to, but I think that length of time is pushing it for most people. One for Pompeii, one for Herculaneum + museums is probably plenty if you're not literally a Roman historian . Especially if you're dragging along family. At least tell them to keep a look out for all the penises or something.Then again my experience may be tainted because when I was there my sister got lost and we had to spend like a whole day in the middle of an Italian summer searching for her in the ancient Roman city without any roofs. Also I have a question about the connection between Mycenaean, Classical and Minoan Greece but I'm not entirely sure what it is so I'll come back with it later.
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Apr 20, 2013 18:10
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Grand Fromage posted:Pompeii is fairly large, I had two days there and didn't see the entire city. If you're really pressed for time one day would be worth it, but why rush unless you have to? Pompeii and Herculaneum are as close as you're ever going to get to walking around the Roman world, they're two of the best preserved ancient sites on Earth, Roman or otherwise. I say take your time. Oh there is so much to see and I'd love to go back there, I'm just sayin' that two days back to back is probably Rome enough for most people that don't have a specialist interest. There's enough to hold an average person's attention for over a week, but I was there for two and a half hectic days and wouldn't say I felt short changed.
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Apr 21, 2013 03:56
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Some of the slavery in the Ancient Near East has got to be worse I'd have thought? Wasn't having your nose and ears and so on sliced off sort of par for the course? I'm not sure how much to blur the line between war captive and slave though.
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Apr 24, 2013 17:58
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euphronius posted:Just listen to the Rome podcast again. Well, Other ones, in no particular order: Try to listen to hardcore history again; I hate the voice of the presenter in every single podcast for the first half hour or so and then I get used to it. It's a very good series and chances are you'll grow to like him. BBC Radio 4 does a bunch of good ones- A History of the World in 100 Objects, presented by the director of the British Museum (and with a ton of high profile guests) is very interesting and informative, if it gives extremely broad strokes. In Our Time has a fairly meh presenter but the series is structured around what guests he brings on, and they often have clashing perspectives, which is quite interesting. Both cover a wide variety of time periods. At the end of History of Rome, the dude talked about 12 Byzantine Rulers, which is a full take on Byzantine history structured, obviously, around the rulers. It was generally pretty good but I noticed a few inaccuracies, and the presenter is extremely biased towards the Byzantine perspective ("Byzantium was the sole savior of the west against the cruel horrible Muslims  "). Still worth a listen I would say, especially since it's an underrepresented part of history. I think he's an actual historian too. That same presenter also did Norman Centuries, about, well, the Normans. In particular there's a lot about the Sicilian Kingdom. I have no idea how accurate most of it is since I didn't know jack about the Sicilian Kingdom before I listened to it, but the stuff about William and Hastings and stuff seems fine. Both this and his other one are fairly truncated though, but they're both about subjects I knew next to nothing about and it was a fine start. This podcast about the history of China has been getting mentioned here and in a few other places (come to think of it, it might always have been GF talking about it, but he probably knows a good podcast); I haven't listened to it yet but it looks extremely comprehensive like holy poo poo that will take me a long time to get through. Also The Ancient World Podcast has been getting talked about a bit in this thread. It's fairly fast paced, he brushes over a few events I think he should go into and focuses on some stuff I think he should brush over, but it's also good as a summary. I think he tries to fit too much into too small a podcast though, but I finally got a clear picture of the Bronze Age Collapse from it so it's worth listening to for that alone. I can look up links for them if you have trouble finding any of them, but I think they're mostly fairly easy to get. Also all on itunes. Hardcore history is the only one with a paywall, and it gives you a good selection of episodes for free. Koramei fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 30, 2013 02:02
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Which British history podcast do you listen to GF? I tried one once but the guy sounded about 15 which put me off completely.Eggplant Wizard posted:In Our Time has a lot of history and also soothing British voices. Believe it or not though SA actually has a podcast subforum where you might be able to find something. He is so dull sounding! I can barely stand it. And wow, I always thought that was a music subforum so my eyes would just glaze over it in the index. I feel stupid now. Do we know much about the Minoans? How derivative was their culture of that of the greater Mediterranean at the time? In the Ancient World Podcast the dude seems to think they're their own thing; he even says they were one of the original sources of written language, but I always thought they weren't nearly so special. And do we know how much Mycenaean culture draws from the Minoans as opposed to their other neighbors, and classical Greece from Mycenaean as opposed to whatever else in the 500 year interim?
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Apr 30, 2013 02:33
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Yeah, make sure you get to the Vatican. It's crowded, but the only part that's crowded to the point of it really hampering enjoyment is the Sistine Chapel. Try to arrive early in the day, though. And its museum is great, and goes all through Italian history; plenty of Roman and even Etruscan stuff, not just Renaissance and Medieval. Also definitely seconding the "wander Rome" thing. There are actually all sorts of (cat infested) ruins just scattered about the city in nice little parks.
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May 2, 2013 18:34
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