|
Is there any firm ideas on what Eastern Europe was like during the later parts of the Imperial era and on into the Early Middle Ages? Seems like while classical authors had at least some marginal understanding of Germania and could even name the names of some Germanic folks, beyond the Oder or Vistula information devolved into arm-waving and vague mumbling like "This is where the Venedi or Veneti are maybe and who knows how they got there". Also, the Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire is decades old at this point, right? Are there any more recent works which add more info to the original PLRE?
|
#
¿
Feb 25, 2013 23:14
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2024 19:39 |
|
|
Post-Roman/Sub-Roman Britain question: I've been fiddling with a Fall of Rome mod for Crusader Kings 2, and as part of that Sub-Roman Britain in 475's got to be addressed. I've seen a couple of depictions of Britain around this period, but I don't know enough about Sub-Roman Britain independent of that stuff to make a judgment as to what's a better set of data, guesses and baseless assertions to work with for the purposes of a CK2 mod. I know that Sub-Roman Britain is not the best-documented region of Late Antiquity Europe, but if any of you guys could at least point me in the right direction of what to look for where, you guys would have my eternal thanks. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Apr 20, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Apr 20, 2013 06:09
|
|
|
Alekanderu posted:Urban sprawl requires motorized transportation. How much was there in the way of public transportation in a big ancient city like Rome? Or Athens or Alexandria or Constantinople, for that matter. Given the volume of traffic in such cities, surely at least some sort of makeshift jump-on-a-cart system has to've been in place, if not necessarily stuff like the Red Cart taking a defined route through the east side of the city, while the Blue Cart goes around the hills of Rome, etc.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2013 14:53
|
|
|
Litmus Test posted:I've always been under the impression the goths massacred the population of Rome. And did Romans (wealthy ones anyways) flee to Byzantium when the West fell? e: I am dumb. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jul 17, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Jul 17, 2013 18:06
|
|
|
If you haven't read any of Gonick's works, go out and read some now. Seriously awesome stuff.Grand Fromage posted:Frankly
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2013 15:39
|
|
|
AdjectiveNoun posted:But the Goths were Romanised? The Gothic rulers liked to strongly emulate some Roman traditions, but Gothic never was a Romantic language and the separation of Arian Goths and Roman Catholics in Theodoric's realm certainly indicates a self-perceived difference between a Roman and an Ostrogoth, at least. They never became Romans to same sort of degree that the peoples of Gallia and Hispania ever did.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2013 03:25
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Not true for everyone. The Visigothic Kingdom in Spain was as Roman as it got, and maintained the most "pure" Roman culture and tradition in western Europe until the Muslims came. 
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2013 05:45
|
|
|
Bad alt-history question: Hero of Alexandria's little ball of steam was clearly not a firm basis for an Industrial Revolution in Antiquity. For one thing, a lot of the financial mechanisms and intellectual practices which helped get the proper Industrial Revolution just didn't exist in Ye Classical times, like joint-stock companies, the printing press, the Scientific Revolution, modern banking, and plenty of other massively important ideas and techniques. How many of those conceivably had a chance to come into being and thrive in ancient Athens or Rome? Some of them, like putting stamps with letters on the underside of a screw press, surely can't have been too far outside the realm of conception.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2013 20:49
|
|
|
Paxicon posted:I think part of the reason why that never happened is that if you have a dozen slaves just standing around, it's just easier to tell them to write it. People like to take the path of least resistance.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2013 21:53
|
|
|
euphronius posted:The Romans also had gigantic corporations.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2013 21:57
|
|
|
euphronius posted:The technical details are all locked up in academic journals. Here is a link http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40697762?uid=3739864&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102188889573 quote:The Accounting Historians Journal
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2013 22:09
|
|
|
Heather's pretty good. His earlier books are all about the Goths, so The Fall of the Roman Empire seems to go on about them a bit more than other Germanic groups, but it's nonetheless a solid read. I thought the basic thrust of his argument was that the Roman Empire's governing structure was simply not fit to deal with a massive influx of migrants, and hadn't been fit for that sort of thing since Antonine times.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2013 16:14
|
|
|
It Came From Paradox Forums:quote:[Theodoric] was appointed Consul, Magister Militium and Patrician by Emperor Zeno. He grew up in Constantinople and had a Roman education. He brefly was the regent of the Visigoths, he conquered the region around Massalia, stopped the Vandals from raiding Italy and he dealt with the Eastern Emperor as an equal. Plus, he was very well liked by the Romans in Italy. So even if he was the dejure king of the Ostrogoths, he was a defacto [Western Roman] Emperor and actually considered so by his subjects and many in the East Now I know a bit about Late Antiquity and this strikes me as a load of horseshit, but did any contemporary writers actually say anything remotely close to "yeah, Theodoric's basically a Roman emperor"? I don't know who, if anyone, this guy is referring to when he mentions "his subjects and many in the East" who considered Theodoric an emperor.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2014 16:32
|
|
|
The same fellow talked a bit more a pointed to this wall of unsourced text. Choice bits:quote:Although it may be too late to institute this, I just completed a series of studies into Ostrogothic Italy that very effectively and conclusively demonstrated that during his reign Theodoric the Great presented himself as and was accepted as a Roman 'princeps' model of emperor by all of his Romano-Italian subjects, the Gallo-Romans and Romano-Illyrians he brought back into the Western Empire with seperate conquests, AND the Eastern Imperial court, which addressed him as such in official correspondance (prior to the ascension of Justinian)and referred to his empire as an equal partner in the Roman Imperial world - one of two 'republics' in a world surrounded by barbarian-ruled Kingdoms. quote:there was a very real chance for a while - when Eutharic the Hispano-Roman 'Visigoth' was chosen by Theodoric to succeed him as Western Emperor and had his succession recognized by the Eastern Emperor, Justin, who even adopted the young man as his son-at-arms - that Theodoric's reinvigorated Western Roman Empire (which is what it was referred to in its day by both inhabitants, officials, friends, allies, rivals, and enemies) was going to hold on to not just Italy, Provence, Illyria, the Cisalpine provinces, the Western Roman provinces up to the Danube, and Sicily but also Hispania. I just really want to figure out what the devil the root of this "Theodoric was a Western Roman Emperor" thing comes from, because I haven't heard it before the above-linked thread.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 3, 2014 20:15
|
|
|
How strong were regional accents in the Roman world? I understand that Ancient Greek had dialects up the wazoo like Aeolic, Ionian, Attic, etc., but I haven't heard jack about Latin in Antiquity. Given the legions being a basis for some settlement and folks being shuffled around everywhere, how localized did dialects get-- was it something more general like all the folks in Gallia sounding sort of distinct from folks in Italy, or that Romans and Florentines or folks from Lyons and Paris sounded clearly different from one another?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 14, 2014 22:37
|
|
|
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.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2014 15:47
|
|
|
Jazerus posted:A still would probably be an average modern person's best bet for getting rich at any time prior to its actual invention. New and exotic booze is almost always a solid product. And then introduce proper bookkeeping, Arabic numerals, and semaphore telegraphy?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2014 17:44
|
|
|
Octy posted:Yeah, I can't see time travel ever being available to the masses. There'd always be some dick who'd ruin it for everyone. It should be strictly limited to academics and scientists.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2014 17:21
|
|
|
Imapanda posted:Ahem. The aeolipile was a glorified tea kettle. Even just building a steam engine like one of Watt's would be a doozy, since there wouldn't be any machining worth a spit nor the ability to finely (tenth of an inch, even!) measure anything. I'm not sure if Romans even differentiated between types of coal, which is important for designing the firebox. Heck, the aeolipile didn't even have valves.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 05:14
|
|
|
How to travel in time: A beginner's guide. Once all the text is recovered, it will be reprinted and sold widely, and one enterprising fellow will use it to travel back in time to Pompeii, and then...
|
|
#
¿
Jul 14, 2014 01:14
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:I don't think there's any connection, it's just kind of an obvious pattern that pops up. Swastikas show up all over the world too and don't seem to have any connection.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2014 12:00
|
|
|
Octy posted:I came across this website once which claimed that up until the 1600s or something Europe was ruled by black people. Julius Caesar was black. Attila the Hun was black. Elizabeth I was black. White people eventually rose up, took over and have since whitewashed (heh) history, but that it's only a matter of time before the truth comes out. The site may have been satire, but someone had put an awful lot of effort into it. 
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2014 17:04
|
|
|
What the gently caress is a happy ending doing in Classical antiquity?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 22, 2014 13:28
|
|
|
Back To 99 posted:While there definitely is a western oriented bias in mainstream history, I think this is the case with all people without their own writing system. You don't enter history until China or the Mediterranean encounters you.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2014 11:46
|
|
|
If I understand things right, there were Alans based out of Orleans in the 440s/450s, right? They were the ones who got involved in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. They apparently left such an impact on the area that there's still towns around there named Allainville, Les Allains, Allaines, and so forth. Was all that just because of the 450s, or did the Alans stick around for a while? Were there still Alans in Gaul at the advent of the 6th century? 7th century?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2014 16:30
|
|
|
I've been reading a little bit on Roman North Africa, and I keep finding bits that try to emphasize the how Romanized the Berbers were then. Just how Romanized were they? Were towns like Caesarea and Volubilis strictly the work of Berbers who embraced the Roman way, or did Italians coming over play a big role in all that? If the Berbers were so heavily Roman back then, why aren't they now? Arabization aside, the Berber language doesn't seem to have much Roman(ce) influence in it. Is it comparable to Roman Britain and how the sub-Roman Britons gradually just dropped Latin altogether, but while the Empire was going hot were quite keen on that whole Roman thing?
Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Jan 13, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2015 23:41
|
|
|
Was the Eastern Roman Empire ever close to going the way of the WRE and Odoacer in the 5th century? The ERE didn't seem to experience the same level of barbarian settlement that the WRE dealt with- Goths didn't take over Egypt or anything on that scale- but at the very least it looks like there could be a fair comparison made of the political situations created by Ricimer and Aspar in the WRE and ERE, respectively.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 30, 2015 20:15
|
|
|
Behold Europe at the time of the Western Roman Empire's fall, as faithfully and accurately recreated by earnest people in the Paradox forums: Political:  and cultural: 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2015 16:22
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Is that wrong? Beamed posted:You're missing the mighty Garamantes.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2015 04:05
|
|
|
Beamed posted:I was re-reading the thread and saw this; did you go to UMich by chance? My Early Medieval Era course was structured the same. I find it interesting how he took to task even the notion that Islam was what destroyed the Mediterranean trade routes. Was the argument that that Med trade routes were collapsing before Islam, or that there was no actual collapse of trade routes? I knew a Rutgers professor who argued that at least North Africa's sea trade collapsed once the ERE took over after the WRE's collapse, and that the arrival of Islam actually revitalized trade in places like Cyrenaica and Tunis, but I don't know enough about that to know how much merit that has.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2015 17:54
|
|
|
cheerfullydrab posted:It's not as pro-"Byzantine" as I'd like, but I enjoy it.  What would something more 'pro-byzantine' be? Remove kebab with some text alterations and an oversized picture of Justinian's face in mosaic?
|
|
#
¿
May 5, 2015 04:56
|
|
|
Noctis Horrendae posted:"Reman Empire" just doesn't have the same ring to it. 
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2015 05:05
|
|
|
Would sub-Roman Britain continue on the same trajectory to Welshness without the Anglo-Saxon conquests? I'm running a small LP right now, playing a game focusing on 5th century Europe, with the intent to convert the game over to Crusader Kings 2 once it's done. Right now in the game, Britain has emerged from the WRE and has successfully repulsed the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. There's been some talk already about what their fate might be, and I'm not sure if an organized sub-Roman Britain is likely to be more Celtic or Romantic by the Middle Ages. Was Britain Romanized to a decent degree anywhere by the late 4th/early 5th century? Without the conquest, would the Britons still end up speaking Welsh or something very close to it, or would there have been a larger Romanizing influence and the emergence of Brithenig or some such sort of British Romance language with a strong Celtic influence, rather than straight-up Celtic?
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2015 21:39
|
|
|
CK2 starts in 769, before the Vikings' attack on Lindisfarne or the Normans or any of those later movements, and it's that time, pre-Viking, I'm most interested in making into a half-decent start for a scenario. I can try to anticipate further Germanic movements later on, but I still got to have something good for a mid-8th century Britain sans the Saxons.
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2015 21:54
|
|
|
Christology just seems like more trouble than it's worth.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 1, 2015 04:18
|
|
|
Squalid posted:For another fun piece of pedantry, why would one expect social relations in the Eastern Empire to follow the same track as those in the West? Feudalism was not some inevitable product of Roman Imperial rule. If you want an exact sort of question out of that, why didn't dynastic succession become firmly established in the later Eastern Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire or just Roman Empire depending on who exactly you're talking to) rather than Imperially-appointed strategos? The emperor's power seems to've fluctuated wildly over the life of the Byzantines, and there seems to've been many potential opportunities for local magnates to wrest further power away from Constantinople by pushing for the principles of dynastic succession.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 28, 2015 04:45
|
|
|
I have a historiography question which might belong here or in the Medieval History thread- Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain includes several purported kings who are supposed to have ruled during Roman times. Did Geoffrey think that Britain wasn't conquered, or that these kings all sort of paid lip service to Roman suzerainty, or what? Is there a historical basis for any of these Roman-era British kings, apart from maybe conflating some Roman governor or usurper with a native Briton somehow?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 5, 2017 19:47
|
|
|
Just introduce the printing press and paper mill. Maybe also stills, so Romans can get rollicking drunk on brandy too.  Friar John posted:Lot of stuff here, I'll speak a little about what I remember. Honestly what's really throwing me for a loop is the story of King Lucius and the introduction of Christianity to Britain in the 2nd century. How could Geoffrey, Nennius, Gildas & co. reconcile the idea of Britain becoming officially Christian two centuries-or-so before Constantine, while being part of the Roman Empire? The story of all the early Christian martyrs was fairly popular and well-know as far I can tell, so surely they knew the the Empire itself was still pagan and persecuting. How is that supposed to gel with the idea that even (lesser?) kings went Christian in Roman Britain at the same time without them all being overthrown/obliterated by the Romans? I'm just overthinking myths, aren't I.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 6, 2017 18:04
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:One of the big issues in the 400s was just that everyone on the throne was worthless.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2017 17:19
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 19, 2024 19:39 |
|
|
What's the most accurate chronicle known from antiquity, as far as anyone can figure? I'm not even fussed about the scale of it, it could be Iohannes Q. Publicola's account of the town of Nihildunum ("Excavations have shown that his description of the municipal sewage system was remarkably on-point") or it could be a broad description of Europe that was free of elaboration ("this ancient author at least admitted he had no idea what was on the far side of the Dneipr and did not venture to guess what was there"). Ancient accounts of history and geography weren't even trying to go for the same sort of objective this-is-how-it-is sort of thing that a lot of modern works go for, but every period of history has its weird dudes that do weird things, so I'm curious if there is some old dude from Alexandria or Ephesus or somesuch who actually did try to write plainly and without fabrications about stuff, even if his peers said his work was boring and lame and stupid.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2017 16:53
|
|