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Fintilgin posted:If 'one emperor in Rome' worked so well for so long, why did the 'one' bit and the 'Rome' bit stop working? Because the empire changed. In the beginning, everything was in Rome. All the power, all the wealth. Gradually that spread out into Italy, but it was still centralized. As the provinces developed, Romanized, and prospered, power spread out. By the period we're talking about, Rome wasn't that important anymore. The power was in the provinces, where the money and the legions were. It was hard for some dick in Rome to tell you what to do in Syria when your Syrian province is making more money than anyone in Rome has ever seen and you have five legions loyal to you and you alone. By moving the emperors to the provinces, they would (in theory) be able to be in the new power centers and handle poo poo there. It worked in Constantinople, not so much in the west.
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Jun 8, 2012 03:58
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Grand Fromage posted:Because the empire changed. In the beginning, everything was in Rome. All the power, all the wealth. Gradually that spread out into Italy, but it was still centralized. As the provinces developed, Romanized, and prospered, power spread out. By the period we're talking about, Rome wasn't that important anymore. The power was in the provinces, where the money and the legions were. It was hard for some dick in Rome to tell you what to do in Syria when your Syrian province is making more money than anyone in Rome has ever seen and you have five legions loyal to you and you alone. In addition, Rome, once it started expanding, didn't really do any sort of efficient government. The system to rule the provinces was outside Italy always very much an ad hoc arrangement that was made into a permanent system over the years. The interesting part is that in many regards, the early expansion was very much something the Romans didn't really plan or anticipate. As long as things were good and the money was rolling in, there was no real push toward efficient management. The kinda management and government bureaucracy you'd really want to have around once things take a turn for the worse. Adrian Goldsworthy makes the point in "Fall of the West" that Rome was in many regards too big to fail. It took a long time before anyone could actually challenge Rome seriously. Rome lacked an impetus for serious reform for a long time, and when it would have been needed and Diocletian carried out his reforms, it was too little, too late. It could well be argued that the East actually managed to carry out the necessary reforms.
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Jun 8, 2012 07:11
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I'm not even gonna ask about the historical veracity of something like Starz Spartacus since it's purely entertainment. Just want to see a few words on gladiators. I know the big misconception people love to bring up is that they weren't the cut musclemen we like to cast them as in movies but were likely a little fattier since the layers added protection against wounds to vital organs. I remember watching a History channel thing that suggested some noble ladies did in fact like to "dabble" in gladiator
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Jun 8, 2012 08:12
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There are a LOT of misconceptions about gladiators and a ton of interesting things. I actually took a whole course on gladiators and Roman entertainment so I can answer a lot of these kinds of questions. The fitness of the gladiators would vary, there were both the cut guys and fatter guys. It is a misconception that you have to be some sort of 0% bodyfat ubermensch to fight well, bulky guys could do fine. I don't know for sure but I would bet that it depended on the style, if you're the speed-dependent retiarius it's probably best to stay lean, if you're a big slower secutor some bulk might help. You can analyze the remains of gladiators to get an idea of their health but it's hard to match that up with their fighting style. Being able to avoid injury would be beneficial for everyone, gladiators were not intended to fight to the death most of the time. There are records of female gladiators. They're rare but definitely existed. Never heard of nobles doing it though, that was scandalous enough if a noble man did.
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Jun 8, 2012 08:28
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Alan Smithee posted:I'm not even gonna ask about the historical veracity of something like Starz Spartacus since it's purely entertainment. Just want to see a few words on gladiators. I know the big misconception people love to bring up is that they weren't the cut musclemen we like to cast them as in movies but were likely a little fattier since the layers added protection against wounds to vital organs. I remember watching a History channel thing that suggested some noble ladies did in fact like to "dabble" in gladiator Gladiators were a lot like professional athletes today. They signed autographs and the most famous ones gave endorsements for products. Particularly successful gladiators would endorse goods in the arena before commencing a fight and have their names promoting products on the Roman equivalent of billboards
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Jun 8, 2012 08:30
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So how much fixing of fights was going on? Considering how much it seems bribery was part of the government did it become part of the entertainment as well, or did they have rules against that?
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Jun 8, 2012 08:33
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TEBOW 3 16 posted:Gladiators were a lot like professional athletes today. They signed autographs and the most famous ones gave endorsements for products. Particularly successful gladiators would endorse goods in the arena before commencing a fight and have their names promoting products on the Roman equivalent of billboards All true. They were actually going to have this in Gladiator but thought the audience would call bullshit on it. People tracked stats like with modern athletes too, I have a picture of some graffiti where someone drew two gladiators, wrote their names underneath and their win/loss records. The best modern equivalent of a gladiator would probably be boxers from the golden age of the sport. A highly skilled, famous gladiator would've been like Ali or Foreman. Golden_Zucchini posted:So how much fixing of fights was going on? Considering how much it seems bribery was part of the government did it become part of the entertainment as well, or did they have rules against that? No way to really know, but people haven't changed any so I guarantee it happened. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Jun 8, 2012 |
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Jun 8, 2012 08:39
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The product endorsement thing I've actually never heard of. I know it's silly to imagine a Myrmillo going "Rome-o's, a cereal the gods themselves have put their marshmellow blessings upon! Available at your local Aventine markets!" but that's what I'm imaginingGrand Fromage posted:There are records of female gladiators. They're rare but definitely existed. Never heard of nobles doing it though, that was scandalous enough if a noble man did. Didn't Commodus cause a bit of stir by going into the arena? Granted he would have a steel sword and the gladiator would have a wooden one so fixed doesn't begin to describe it
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Jun 8, 2012 08:58
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Were Gladiators allowed to have personal possessions?
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Jun 8, 2012 09:16
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Alan Smithee posted:The product endorsement thing I've actually never heard of. I know it's silly to imagine a Myrmillo going "Rome-o's, a cereal the gods themselves have put their marshmellow blessings upon! Available at your local Aventine markets!" but that's what I'm imagining He would also fight a bunch of midgets while pretending to be a giant, lovely guy.
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Jun 8, 2012 11:29
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Alan Smithee posted:
He'd charge the city exorbitant fees just to watch him as well, and he horrified them. He'd go out there and just murder defenseless giraffes which horrified the people of Rome. euphronius posted:If the legions would have been loyal to the "state" rather than whatever Augustus or Caesar was leading them it may have worked. It seems to me it was just to easy to get a few legions together and start a civil war (or it was just to easy to be reasonably afraid the OTHER GUY was going to start a civil war so you better start one first.) The state didn't give them anything. Remember that after Trajan, there was no expansion for the empire anymore. There was no sacking of cities and no territorial expansion the soldiers could get a piece of (or much land at all anymore). By the end of the Empire, the soldiers weren't even Roman by any degree. They were various germanic and hun mercenaries. Being a soldier was just slavery by another name. The concepts of the state, or "glory of the empire" or whatever bullshit meant nothing to them. What they knew was that this guy was promising them something better than the other guy. Remember what Severus said to his two sons. "Be harmonious, enrich the soldiers, and scorn all other men" They certainly did the second thing, but Caracalla killed his brother at a meeting arranged by his mother to try to broker peace.....in front of their mother. 
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Jun 8, 2012 13:03
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Grand Fromage posted:All true. They were actually going to have this in Gladiator but thought the audience would call bullshit on it. People tracked stats like with modern athletes too, I have a picture of some graffiti where someone drew two gladiators, wrote their names underneath and their win/loss records. If gladiators had win/loss records, does that mean that losing didn't necessarily mean death as often as movies/tv shows seem to depict?
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Jun 8, 2012 13:30
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MagneticWombats posted:If gladiators had win/loss records, does that mean that losing didn't necessarily mean death as often as movies/tv shows seem to depict? Gladiators were very expensive and received some of the best healthcare in the empire.
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Jun 8, 2012 13:39
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Kemper Boyd posted:In addition, Rome, once it started expanding, didn't really do any sort of efficient government. The system to rule the provinces was outside Italy always very much an ad hoc arrangement that was made into a permanent system over the years. The interesting part is that in many regards, the early expansion was very much something the Romans didn't really plan or anticipate. Even the expansion in Italy was like this. It was very much treaty-by-treaty with different groups and cities. And THAT's what the organization elsewhere was based on. Messy!
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Jun 8, 2012 14:10
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MagneticWombats posted:If gladiators had win/loss records, does that mean that losing didn't necessarily mean death as often as movies/tv shows seem to depict? I've read (I can't remember where however) that only about 10% of gladiatorial matches ended in a death.
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Jun 8, 2012 14:24
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Were Gladiators allowed to have personal possessions? Also more generally related to the gladiatorial events: - Did the emperor really get to decide whether the losing gladiators lived or died? - What kind of events were held? Gladiators fighting each other or fighting dangerous animals I know about, but were there really events where prisoners were allowed to fight for their freedom? Smart Car fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Jun 8, 2012 |
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Jun 8, 2012 15:38
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I dont know about fighting for freedom, but one of the main reasons the pope banned theater was the practice of buying prisoners as stand ins to murder on stage.
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Jun 8, 2012 15:56
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Would anyone be so kind as to write a bunch of stuff about how the Eastern Romans basically got screwed by modern Western history? I know I'm hardly alone here when I say that I think the Medieval Romans fail to get even a fraction of the credit they deserve. But why is that? Grand Fromage has already touched on it, but a lot of it boils down to the mediaeval attitude that "they are heretics and outside the One True Church," and when that ended, the 18th/19th century attitude that Byzantium was just an appendix to the story of the Roman Empire, and an appendix basically consisting of decadence, intrigue, endless decline and obscure religious disputes at that. I think that's more or less Gibbon's view of it. I think sometimes historians like to write, and readers like to read, about states that they know are on their way up. This is why you get more books about Republican and Augustan Rome than the later imperial period or about mediaeval Florence or Venice than 18th century Florence or Venice. The Byzantines get caught up in that too, regardless of the fact that they kept going for about a thousand years.
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Jun 8, 2012 19:04
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MagneticWombats posted:If gladiators had win/loss records, does that mean that losing didn't necessarily mean death as often as movies/tv shows seem to depict? The vast majority of gladiatorial matches did not end in death. I'll go into this more. I'm headed to bed now but you guys on that weird side of the planet are up, so post the poo poo out of gladiator/arena questions and I'll do them tomorrow.
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Jun 8, 2012 19:29
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General Panic posted:
This is true. I hate reading "Fall of" anything history books unless it's like Nazi Germany or something or the following state is more awesome.
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Jun 8, 2012 20:48
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DarkCrawler posted:This is true. I hate reading "Fall of" anything history books unless it's like Nazi Germany or something or the following state is more awesome. I have the same feelings myself. It's why I don't know nearly as much about Rome after Marcus Aurelius, it gets depressing. Alan Smithee posted:Didn't Commodus cause a bit of stir by going into the arena? Granted he would have a steel sword and the gladiator would have a wooden one so fixed doesn't begin to describe it Yep, he's the most famous of that kind of incident. Huge scandal by fighting in the arena. Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Were Gladiators allowed to have personal possessions? Yep. All slaves were allowed to own things and make money. Successful gladiators would be filthy rich; the potential rewards of being a gladiator were great enough that many citizens chose to sell themselves into slavery in order to be gladiators. A surprisingly large number of things you associate with professional athletes today--product placement, fame, fans, wealth--can be applied directly to gladiators. MagneticWombats posted:If gladiators had win/loss records, does that mean that losing didn't necessarily mean death as often as movies/tv shows seem to depict? Modern Day Hercules posted:I've read (I can't remember where however) that only about 10% of gladiatorial matches ended in a death. I'm not sure where that statistic comes from but it might even be lower than that. Gladiators typically did not die. Here's the facts on dying in the arena. Gladiators are the property of their owner, who is responsible for their housing, food, excellent medical care (gladiators, soldiers, and the rich nobility all had the same kind of quality care, which was the best in the world until quite recently), and training. A gladiator in the arena represents a huge investment of money, which will pay off many many times over if the gladiator is successful. However, if he dies? You just lost a shitload of time and cash. The typical one on one kind of match would go until one gladiator was beaten so badly that he couldn't fight anymore, or he yielded. The victor strutted around a bit and the loser is carted off to see the doctor. This is the first place where death can occur, you can just be wounded accidentally or beaten to death. The winner wouldn't be punished for this, it is obviously going to happen from time to time. Smart Car posted:- Did the emperor really get to decide whether the losing gladiators lived or died? When a gladiator yields, there are two possible outcomes. If the gladiator fought well, he would be granted missio, which my professor translates as mercy but Google does not. Doesn't matter, point is that the match was over. If the gladiator did not fight well, however, he could be denied missio. One of two things happens then. Either the victorious gladiator does this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRW4_pRkBIs&t=390s Or a dude dressed as Mercury comes out and executes him with a square hammer. We have a bunch of skulls with the evidence of this. Finally, there were actual fights to the death. We have several advertisements for these, which include the phrase "sine missio"--no mercy/stop. These appear to be a big draw. It's also further evidence that gladiators were not expected to die, since if they did usually there'd be no reason to advertise that there will be death at a particular match. The advertisements are pretty cool. I can't find one because I am apparently an idiot, but they'd go something like there will be games in Pompeii on the kalends of July. Twenty pairs of gladiators will fight, plus a hunt with animals brought all the way from Persia. Food will be provided and the awnings will be used. Twenty door prizes will be awarded. These would be written on walls all over the city, and often in neighboring cities too--it doesn't appear to be too unusual to travel for games. Catch a match in Rome, head down to Pompeii and see some more. Smart Car posted:Just to add to this, how much freedom did the gladiators have? Popular depictions usually have them as slaves or prisoners with little to no liberties, but the recent posts make it pretty clear that's not accurate. The successful ones had a lot of freedom, but your average gladiator didn't actually have much. The training schedule was very strict and there was harsh discipline involved. It was not an easy life--you were still a slave--but the potential rewards are massive if you do well. Smart Car posted:- What kind of events were held? Gladiators fighting each other or fighting dangerous animals I know about, but were there really events where prisoners were allowed to fight for their freedom? No, there were various prisoner related events but fighting for your freedom is not one of them. It might've happened, it would be up to the discretion of the local authorities, but it wasn't like a thing. A brief rundown of common events: Gladiator vs gladiator. Teams of gladiators vs teams of gladiators. Animal hunts. Historical reenactments. Prisoner execution by means of animals, gladiators, as the losing side in a historical reenactment, or anything else that seemed fun. Races. A typical schedule for games would be animal hunts in the morning, executions at lunchtime and then gladiators as the main event in the afternoon. It was an all day event.
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Jun 9, 2012 11:31
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Are there any (known) instances of Gladiator's being wealthier than their owners?
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Jun 9, 2012 11:56
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And a word on animals. What were the logistics involved for bringing in exotic animals from far away places?
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Jun 9, 2012 12:03
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Alan Smithee posted:And a word on animals. What were the logistics involved for bringing in exotic animals from far away places? I would assume a very strong iron cage in the belly of a ship.
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Jun 9, 2012 12:49
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So if the early roman soldiers were expected to pay for all their equipment, if you were too poor could you not serve in the military, why would they fight? Were they paid after a campaign with some of the spoils? Not much use for money marching around in Gaul I imagine.
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Jun 9, 2012 13:24
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Grand Fromage posted:Gladiators are the property of their owner, who is responsible for their housing, food, excellent medical care (gladiators, soldiers, and the rich nobility all had the same kind of quality care, which was the best in the world until quite recently), and training. A gladiator in the arena represents a huge investment of money, which will pay off many many times over if the gladiator is successful. However, if he dies? You just lost a shitload of time and cash. The idea that they were always fights to the death naively presumes that the fights were a noble sport, something like today's olympic boxing. They weren't. I find gladiator fights to be closer to modern free wrestling events. I bet that a lot of the fights were pre-determined. Meanwhile a successful slave fighter represented a big investment, and the people that owned them were not necessarily very sporting chaps. I don't think you would have wanted to make enemies with such people by killing one of their prize fighters even if you could. I assume that the Ben-Hur chariot race wasn't very typical either?
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Jun 9, 2012 13:28
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Are there any (known) instances of Gladiator's being wealthier than their owners? Not that I know of, no. It's possible but not the kind of documentation likely to survive. Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:I would assume a very strong iron cage in the belly of a ship. Pretty much. They would collect as many as possible to maximize the chances of them making it back to wherever alive. The legions were sometimes employed in this, especially in North Africa. This is also commonly accepted to be why things like giraffes and lions no longer exist in North Africa. PhantomZero posted:So if the early roman soldiers were expected to pay for all their equipment, if you were too poor could you not serve in the military, why would they fight? Money, prestige, honor, duty. Fighting was a duty expected of a Roman man and to avoid it was cowardly, a stain on your honor that would ruin you and maybe your entire family. If you went on campaign and distinguished yourself, you could move up in the world. The fighting tended to take place in the summer campaign season, between planting and harvest, so you didn't really have anything else to do anyway. You would also loot the gently caress out of wherever you were invading, or alternatively not have Hannibal loot the gently caress out of where you live.
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Jun 9, 2012 13:44
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PhantomZero posted:So if the early roman soldiers were expected to pay for all their equipment, if you were too poor could you not serve in the military, why would they fight? The poor did not fight in the legions until the Marian reforms in the late 100s BC. Until then, it was only the richer classes that had to fight, which in a way makes a whole lot of sense, and kept the military's goals in line with the States'. They did get their share of the spoils, but also they were the ones who would be directly profiting from any conquests, and before they were a'conquerin, they wanted to protect their own interests. Also, in Roman society all prestige and political influence was directly the result of success and valor on the battlefield. Even famous pacifists like Cicero had to do their time fighting in the Legions to be taken seriously. In Rome, their politicians were their generals. You fought in the legions to become a politician, and the most prestigious political position, the two yearly appointed Consuls, were mostly generals with managing state affairs being secondary.
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Jun 9, 2012 13:52
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The state is everything in Roman culture in a way that's hard for modern people to grasp. If you were a noble, you had to dedicate your life to it if you wanted to go anywhere. Your entire family, and your family's legacy, are based on service. Every noble Roman man was expected to be a military man, rise through the ranks of politics and go as far as he could. The expected ambition of every Roman man was to be elected consul, be a great general, conquer new lands for the empire, and receive a triumph. That's the ideal life of a Roman nobleman, and the kind of thing that will bring up his family and be an example to them for literally centuries. A noble Roman man who wanted to achieve anything could not avoid the military. It's a warrior culture and a service culture that practically worships the institutions of the state. If you were a True Roman Man it simply wouldn't even occur to you to avoid fighting. Obviously, people have different temperaments and all the cultural baggage in the world can't change it, there are people who aren't interested. Cicero, as mentioned, had zero interest in being a warrior. But he did have ambition, so off to fight he went. And always remember, our values have their roots in this culture, but they are emphatically not the same as the values Romans had. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Jun 9, 2012 |
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Jun 9, 2012 13:59
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Grand Fromage posted:Yep. All slaves were allowed to own things and make money. Successful gladiators would be filthy rich; the potential rewards of being a gladiator were great enough that many citizens chose to sell themselves into slavery in order to be gladiators.
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Jun 9, 2012 17:02
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Potzblitz! posted:Strictly speaking, a slave's peculium (everything he owned and earned) was still his master's property. It only became "his" property if he became a freedman. There's actually some debate on whether this is true or whether the peculium was legally protected from the owner accessing it. In either case, it seems most owners respected the rights of their slaves. Mistreating slaves wasn't acceptable, especially after the Servile Wars. I know I've said it before, but the image that comes to mind when you think slavery is probably the chattel slavery from the American south. Roman slavery is a very different thing, much more nuanced and (generally) much less brutal. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Jun 9, 2012 |
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Jun 9, 2012 17:07
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Grand Fromage posted:This is also commonly accepted to be why things like [...] lions no longer exist in North Africa. Or Europe.
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Jun 9, 2012 19:08
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PhantomZero posted:So if the early roman soldiers were expected to pay for all their equipment, if you were too poor could you not serve in the military, why would they fight? On slavery, I think it helps to understand that the Roman concept of slavery extended from old school concepts of apprenticeships all the way through indentured servitude, and down to short lives of extreme brutality (mines, quarries & latifundiae). Mere chattel was just the low end. A bunch of low end slaves thrown into the arena to die was like a demolition derby, not something you'd want to drive your Ferrari into. A highly trained gladiator was like the Ferrari. In re Roman noblemen, in modern media we almost always use British accents to distinguish the Roman social classes. The only hitch with that is to most English speakers, upper class Brit speak sounds fairly effete. It's something of a disservice to the Roman upper class, who were pretty far from that.
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Jun 9, 2012 20:32
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physeter posted:In re Roman noblemen, in modern media we almost always use British accents to distinguish the Roman social classes. The only hitch with that is to most English speakers, upper class Brit speak sounds fairly effete. It's something of a disservice to the Roman upper class, who were pretty far from that. I liked how Rome Total War used harsh American accented voiced for the Romans soldiers.
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Jun 9, 2012 21:01
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physeter posted:Conscripted. If they didn't have gear, they could buy from the state. If they didn't have cash, the cost would be deducted from the stipend they would otherwise be receiving from being on campaign. If you could choose any Accents (Speaking English) to portray Roman Nobles, which would you pick?
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Jun 9, 2012 23:32
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physeter posted:The only hitch with that is to most English speakers, upper class Brit speak sounds fairly effete. It's something of a disservice to the Roman upper class, who were pretty far from that. I think its cool as hell, but we can settle this in the arena later. Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:If you could choose any Accents (Speaking English) to portray Roman Nobles, which would you pick? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iSPc8oU7YIY#t=9s Fromage, didn't you mention that the Romans invented the hamburger? Farecoal fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jun 9, 2012 |
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Jun 9, 2012 23:35
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Farecoal posted:Fromage, didn't you mention that the Romans invented the hamburger? Oh, come on, what kind of "invention" is the hamburger? That's like "inventing" the cup of water.
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Jun 9, 2012 23:39
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Farecoal posted:Fromage, didn't you mention that the Romans invented the hamburger? Ground beef and pine nuts, shape into a patty, cook and serve between two slices of flatbread. Little garum for sauce. TildeATH posted:Oh, come on, what kind of "invention" is the hamburger? That's like "inventing" the cup of water. They wrote down the recipe first. 
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Jun 10, 2012 01:21
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Farecoal posted:Fromage, didn't you mention that the Romans invented the hamburger? Actually, you'll find that Kim-Yong-Il,glorious leader, may a thousand moons weep his passing etc etc, is credited as the inventor of the hamburger in North Korea.
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Jun 10, 2012 01:42
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So were the capite censi allowed to vote? I would assume if they did it'd be in the tribal assembly since they're too destitute to be plebians and part of the plebian council. Or I supposed the century assembly if they were soldiers. I still don't see how exactly the century assembly functioned once you start getting to the 2nd-1st century BC when soldiers are often stationed far from Rome, yet the century assembly had the pretty important role of electing consuls and other higher magistrates, so obviously there were still soldiers there voting.
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Jun 10, 2012 02:48
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