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Dr Scoofles posted:
That's a strange comparison, I'd sooner use a spa / sauna as analogy for Roman baths. They are just as luxurious, or even better. Swimming pools are for sporting, not chilling.
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Jun 17, 2012 09:18
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Samopsa posted:That's a strange comparison, I'd sooner use a spa / sauna as analogy for Roman baths. They are just as luxurious, or even better. Swimming pools are for sporting, not chilling. I drew that comparison as swimming pools today are considered to be a public amenity, a basic requirement of any decent town or city. In fact they also called 'public baths' here. Saunas and spas are far more exclusive, private and expensive. I can't afford to go to a day spa that's for sure. As I understood it, in Roman times public baths were also a basic requirement and were available for cheap or free use by any citizen.
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Jun 17, 2012 09:33
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You should visit Budapest or something sometimes then for a real modern analogy. They still have the old public natural spring baths running, entrance fees are about 10 bucks. I was there last summer and it was awesome and relaxing. And very pretty. E: they are Turkish baths from around 1500,or based on them, so basically Roman! Samopsa fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Jun 17, 2012 |
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Jun 17, 2012 09:40
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Dr Scoofles posted:As I understood it, in Roman times public baths were also a basic requirement and were available for cheap or free use by any citizen. But then, you had to be a citizen. How large a percentage of Britain's population were?
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Jun 17, 2012 09:41
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How did they even know you were a citizen? I imagine your name had to be on some ledger and well known citizens were simply just...known but what if you borrowed your reclusive dominus' clothes and said you were him? Was it just a matter of walking the walk?
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Jun 17, 2012 10:37
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Alan Smithee posted:How did they even know you were a citizen? I imagine your name had to be on some ledger and well known citizens were simply just...known but what if you borrowed your reclusive dominus' clothes and said you were him? Was it just a matter of walking the walk? Honor system with enormously draconian punishments if you were caught. The same way they operated in most arenas! EDIT: Also the franchise was extended more and more as the Empire went on, until in 215 Caracalla declared every free man in the empire a citizen with all its attendant privilieges such as the right to pay the Emperor huge amounts of cash. Oh. And bathe. Paxicon fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Jun 17, 2012 |
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Jun 17, 2012 10:49
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Dr Scoofles posted:Do you have any good stories/accounts of excessive luxury in Roman times? I'm thinking extravagant feasts, indoor water gardens, vast villas, ultimate spas, private theatres and so on. I don't know about extravagant feasts, but obviously the emperors were known for having vast villas. Nero's Golden Palace is a good example. It was built after the Great Fire in 64 and some say it covered 300 acres. It is supposed to have contained a 30m statue of Nero himself, pools and fountains, an artificial lake and a revolving ceiling underneath the dome. People would come and dine under this ceiling while perfume was sprayed on them and rose petals floated down. On the subject of baths, would they not have been a breeding ground for all sorts of horrible bacteria or things like that? Isn't that why we put chlorine and all sorts of things in our bathing pools today? Octy fucked around with this message at 12:03 on Jun 17, 2012 |
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Jun 17, 2012 11:59
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GreenX posted:A couple of pages back the colouring of statues was mentioned. I was in herculaneum about a month ago where I was confronted by this: Without seeing it up close I can't be sure (I don't remember this particular one from Herculaneum) but it could be original. Herculaneum has a lot of the best preserved paintings because the city was buried by a mud flow, rather than the loose pumice that covered Pompeii. This mud turned to stone. It makes excavation a huge pain, but it preserved things almost perfectly. I have another original painting that's amazing but imgur is down at the moment, will add later. Octy posted:On the subject of baths, would they not have been a breeding ground for all sorts of horrible bacteria or things like that? Isn't that why we put chlorine and all sorts of things in our bathing pools today? The water was replaced regularly. But yes. You washed before getting in the baths, it's the same thing that modern public baths do. Modus Operandi posted:Here's something that's more speculative history but what do you all think of theory that the Huns are actually the Xiongnu? I think it's rather interesting even though Horse nomads and their strategies all share similarities. I'm reading a book on the period right now (when I'm not sidetracked by my Taiping Rebellion book) and we haven't gotten to the Huns yet, but this author is going to strongly argue that the Huns are not the Xiongnu. From what else I've read, the old Hun=Xiongnu hypothesis has fallen out of favor because it doesn't match up with the timeline and some of the cultural records we have. There might have been some relationship, but the straight up idea that the Chinese beat the Xiongnu and they wandered over to gently caress up Rome isn't as commonly accepted anymore. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Jun 17, 2012 |
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Jun 17, 2012 12:25
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You can still get that in Asia. Just last week I paid about 10,000â‚© for a nice shower in sea water followed by a hot water, very hot water and then cold water bath. It's pretty much a public thing here, every town has a few jimjillbangs.
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Jun 17, 2012 13:57
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Baden Baden has a modern roman bath. Imgur is down so enjoy a link to google images https://www.google.com/search?q=Car...iw=1525&bih=712
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Jun 17, 2012 14:25
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That painting: This is all original, preserved in the villa at Oplontis. One of the best pieces of Roman painting I've ever seen personally. A nicely preserved painting in Pompeii. Typically the preservation in Herculaneum is better, this is a notable exception from the House of the Vettii, a house owned by two ridiculously wealthy freedmen brothers: 
Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jun 17, 2012 |
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Jun 17, 2012 15:00
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Why did the loss of the legions in the Teutoburg Forest halt further expansion into Germany? What did Rome do wrong in that battle? What exactly happened in those woods?
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Jun 17, 2012 16:43
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How were children treated in the Empire? Did they have a public education system as well? When did a child formally become an adult and in what ways did their life change between the two? What do we know about Roman exploration? Was it done officially beyond military conquest? Was it uncommon for people to set out to travel for the sake of travel or discovery? Related to this I'm entranced by Chinese-Roman relations, do you have any interesting anecdotes regarding that subject? And this last question might not have an answer, but what did Romans see when they looked to the future? For instance we typically envision a future of flying cars and megacorporations; what did the Romans tend to see on the horizon, if anything other than "further conquest"? Thanks for this thread Fromage!
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Jun 17, 2012 17:17
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Foolhorn posted:Why did the loss of the legions in the Teutoburg Forest halt further expansion into Germany? What did Rome do wrong in that battle? What exactly happened in those woods? Well, it wasn't so much the One Big Thing that halted expansion, so much as the icing on the cake. There simply wasn't much to gain by pushing past the natural frontiers and into Germany. No loot, poor land, cut off from the coasts, etc. etc. As for the battle itself, the legions got caught in marching in columns, the ambushers isolated and massacred the forces bit by bit.
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Jun 17, 2012 20:22
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Octy posted:On the subject of baths, would they not have been a breeding ground for all sorts of horrible bacteria or things like that? Isn't that why we put chlorine and all sorts of things in our bathing pools today? The hot pools at Bath, as used by the Romans, were closed from 1978 to 2006 because of infectious organisms in the aquafier, although that's a natural hot spring rather than the usual man-made bath house. I suspect that by modern standards those probably were a breeding ground for germs. Regarding the earlier post comparing modern swimming pools unfavourably with the Roman ones, of course, the Roman political system, especially under the Republic, was based on having ambitious aristocrats spend a ton of their own money on public facilities, including baths, as a way of winning public support. It's as if Mitt Romney or David Cameron decided to win elections by dipping into their own pockets and paying for new leisure centres for all. Later on the Emperors themselves took over this role, as part of all that bread and circuses stuff. If they'd been paying for the baths out of general tax revenues paid by all voters, in the same way that we do now, they might not have been quite so lavish with them. It's also a lot cheaper to run something when most of the "employees" are slaves anyway.
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Jun 17, 2012 21:44
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the JJ posted:Well, it wasn't so much the One Big Thing that halted expansion, so much as the icing on the cake. There simply wasn't much to gain by pushing past the natural frontiers and into Germany. No loot, poor land, cut off from the coasts, etc. etc. More specifically, the enemy commander was quite familiar with Roman tactics, and so he used the wide dispersion of the Romans (stretched out across a column 15-20km long) to outnumber them locally. 1000 barbarians vs. 1000 Legionnaires is an uncertain fight, but 1000:100 is utterly one-sided, and then those troops could attack the next century, and the next. And this was all going on during a heavy rainstorm, so the Roman shields and bows were both waterlogged and heavier/useless, respectively. It was a total pain in the rear end for commanders to communicate and coordinate on an ancient battlefield, much less over tens of kilometers, during an ongoing rainstorm, while being ambushed on all sides.
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Jun 17, 2012 23:37
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Fly Molo posted:More specifically, the enemy commander was quite familiar with Roman tactics, and so he used the wide dispersion of the Romans (stretched out across a column 15-20km long) to outnumber them locally. 1000 barbarians vs. 1000 Legionnaires is an uncertain fight, but 1000:100 is utterly one-sided, and then those troops could attack the next century, and the next. And this was all going on during a heavy rainstorm, so the Roman shields and bows were both waterlogged and heavier/useless, respectively. It was a total pain in the rear end for commanders to communicate and coordinate on an ancient battlefield, much less over tens of kilometers, during an ongoing rainstorm, while being ambushed on all sides. The enemy commander, Arminius, was more than just familiar with Roman tactics. He was given up as a child from his home where the Cherusci tribe lived east of the Rhine as a 'hostage' in exchange for his people and village to be allowed to continue to exist. He was sent to Rome and raised as a Roman. The point being that he would eventually return home and help Romanize the people. He was raised as a soldier and was very adept. He battled as a Roman and learned their tactics. He was very aware that the Roman way of fighting, as a cohesive unit made them an unstoppable force compared to the Germanic way of fighting which was pretty much every man for himself charge in and start swinging. He was chosen by Varus to be his right hand man, and eventually made his way back home to Germania with the Legions. Arminius appeared as a Roman, but was still very much a German tribesman and was resentful of the way Romans attempted to 'civilize' the people. Roman law, trade, culture went against everything the German tribes believed in and unrest was very much on the rise. Arminius was able to unite the tribes despite their natural tendencies to never be ruled by another, and made it clear that the only way Germania would be free of Rome was to fight alongside one another, to set aside the infighting and fight as the Romans fight. And as has been said above, he was able to ambush the Roman Legions while they were marching, unprepared and unsuited to fighting in the dense forest, territory they had never seen before. Sadly, after the Romans were driven back past to the west bank of the Rhine, the German tribes began to fight again, not wanting to be ruled by another, and Arminius was assassinated.
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Jun 18, 2012 00:23
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SeaWolf posted:The enemy commander, Arminius, was more than just familiar with Roman tactics. He was given up as a child from his home where the Cherusci tribe lived east of the Rhine as a 'hostage' in exchange for his people and village to be allowed to continue to exist. Didn't the Romans strike back a few years later and devastate the tribes? Also, how large would these tribes be?
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Jun 18, 2012 00:44
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Didn't the Romans strike back a few years later and devastate the tribes? Also, how large would these tribes be? They did, under Germanicus. Arminius was also turned on by his former allies something like a few months after the victory. Germanicus' successes partly make it hard for me to buy the "Rome was never going to conquer Germania anyway" line of thinking regarding the Teutoburg disaster. As far as I know, up until that point Augustus was dead set on making the Elbe River the eastern border in the north, which would be a far more strategically defensible position then the Rhine. Augustus was drat good at getting done what he wanted done, and had Varus not blundered into that valley, I think things may have turned out differently. Germania was not a rich province, but that is not why it was wanted, the Elbe was the main reason for the expansion, not loot and plunder.
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Jun 18, 2012 00:55
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WoodrowSkillson posted:They did, under Germanicus. Arminius was also turned on by his former allies something like a few months after the victory. Germanicus' successes partly make it hard for me to buy the "Rome was never going to conquer Germania anyway" line of thinking regarding the Teutoburg disaster. As far as I know, up until that point Augustus was dead set on making the Elbe River the eastern border in the north, which would be a far more strategically defensible position then the Rhine. Augustus was drat good at getting done what he wanted done, and had Varus not blundered into that valley, I think things may have turned out differently. I was under the impression Germanicus' successes had fairly questionable value and also that Augustus was set upon maintaining the 'natural borders' of the empire as they were when he died, whatever that means. Then again, I'm a Tiberius fan boy so don't listen to me. :P
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Jun 18, 2012 01:03
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Octy posted:I was under the impression Germanicus' successes had fairly questionable value and also that Augustus was set upon maintaining the 'natural borders' of the empire as they were when he died, whatever that means. Then again, I'm a Tiberius fan boy so don't listen to me. :P Augustus got super into that after Teutorburg, seeing it as a sign that the Empire was over expanding.
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Jun 18, 2012 01:16
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The Teutoburg Forest defeat definitely took the wind out of their sails but the idea that it stopped Roman expansion into Germania was invented by German nationalists in the 1800s. There just wasn't a strong enough motivation to keep messing with it. The entire idea was to make the Elbe the border, and that by doing so it would also end the threat of German raiding. There wasn't really anything in Germany that the Romans cared about, so it didn't take a lot to kill the plan. If the Romans had really wanted Germany for some reason they would've conquered it.
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Jun 18, 2012 01:21
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Interesting! Didn't the Romans also station an absurd number of legions (I think like 6?) in one area along the Border of Germania? Also, wasn't part of the reason Germanicus went into Germania to retake the standards of the destroyed legions?
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Jun 18, 2012 01:38
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General Panic posted:The hot pools at Bath, as used by the Romans, were closed from 1978 to 2006 because of infectious organisms in the aquafier, although that's a natural hot spring rather than the usual man-made bath house. I suspect that by modern standards those probably were a breeding ground for germs. This little critter, to be precise  Though I can't help but wonder how many people in history have died of awful deaths that were blamed on innocent third parties, amplifying the tragedy.
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Jun 18, 2012 01:39
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Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:Interesting! Didn't the Romans also station an absurd number of legions (I think like 6?) in one area along the Border of Germania? Yep. Taking legionary standards was a really bad idea most of the time. I found this map on the wiki of pedias  but it looks right to me and is very cool. Illustrates things better than a description. The Cherusci are Arminius' tribe, to put that in context. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 01:49
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Did the Romans ever consider invading Scandinavia? Or was there nothing there that they wanted so they left it alone? I presume they traded with the natives to some extent, though.
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Jun 18, 2012 02:22
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Octy posted:Is there any suggestion that the Romans considered invading Scandinavia at one time? Or was there nothing there that they wanted so they left it alone? I presume they traded with the natives, though. There was absolutely nothing there they would've cared about. Cold, no resources they were aware of, few people. Trees I guess but they weren't desperate enough for lumber to go that far.
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Jun 18, 2012 02:24
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Octy posted:Did the Romans ever consider invading Scandinavia? Or was there nothing there that they wanted so they left it alone? I presume they traded with the natives to some extent, though. Roman traders probably wandered quite far around the world, the Romans were aware of what they called Scanda. There are probably some really cool stories that we will never know about Julius the trader who went all the way to Korea and back or something.
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Jun 18, 2012 02:38
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Grand Fromage posted:There was absolutely nothing there they would've cared about. Cold, no resources they were aware of, few people. Trees I guess but they weren't desperate enough for lumber to go that far. I just thought it might've been a case of conquering it for military glory in the same way Caesar and then Claudius invaded Britain.
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Jun 18, 2012 03:04
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See that green, flat, lovely spot to the left of Dacia? What's that, and why didn't the Romans ever annex that?
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Jun 18, 2012 03:18
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TildeATH posted:See that green, flat, lovely spot to the left of Dacia? What's that, and why didn't the Romans ever annex that? Are you referring to the bit that says Iazyges? They were a nomadic tribe that had some dealings with Rome, particularly in regards to Dacia. I believe they eventually became a client kingdom.
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Jun 18, 2012 03:28
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TildeATH posted:See that green, flat, lovely spot to the left of Dacia? What's that, and why didn't the Romans ever annex that? My understanding is that when the Romans took Dacia, they only kept the valuable areas (mostly the South) and left the North alone. I believe that encompassed the area you're talking about.
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Jun 18, 2012 03:30
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Octy posted:Are you referring to the bit that says Iazyges? They were a nomadic tribe that had some dealings with Rome, particularly in regards to Dacia. I believe they eventually became a client kingdom. Iseeyouseemeseeyou posted:My understanding is that when the Romans took Dacia, they only kept the valuable areas (mostly the South) and left the North alone. I believe that encompassed the area you're talking about. Yeah, the area marked Iazyges. I'd call it West more than North, but that's why I used the projection-independent Left. It just seems like a nice place to colonize ex-soldiers and such. I figured they never conquered it because it would have been chaotic and unstable because of its proximity to Central Asia.
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Jun 18, 2012 03:48
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Octy posted:I just thought it might've been a case of conquering it for military glory in the same way Caesar and then Claudius invaded Britain. Britannia had valuable resources though. Even the Romans didn't just march on places that were totally worthless. And it's a long way away. Maybe if they'd conquered Germania and up through Denmark, they would've gone there. Minor expedition like in Hibernia and then split, I'd guess. Revener posted:What do we know about Roman exploration? Was it done officially beyond military conquest? Was it uncommon for people to set out to travel for the sake of travel or discovery? Related to this I'm entranced by Chinese-Roman relations, do you have any interesting anecdotes regarding that subject? Travel appears to be common, at least by pre-modern standards. Most people still didn't go anywhere but it's not as restricted as it is later, the Roman infrastructure and control of such a vast area made it easier. I think Roman-Chinese relations should be a whole post of its own, it's an interest of mine too. I've talked a bit about it earlier, and have been mulling over a novel on the subject so I've done some reading. Revener posted:And this last question might not have an answer, but what did Romans see when they looked to the future? For instance we typically envision a future of flying cars and megacorporations; what did the Romans tend to see on the horizon, if anything other than "further conquest"? I don't remember reading much of this, but further conquest is probably about right. Societies didn't change as rapidly then, in the pre-modern world you don't get a lot of speculation like that. The entire conception of time is rather different, it goes both ways too. There are all kinds of pieces of medieval art about the Roman Empire where the Romans are all dressed like English knights and behaving exactly the same, rather than any kind of attempt to portray the past as being different. A lot of technological progress happened without huge revolutions that completely changed the way the world worked. The way most people lived in 300 BCE wouldn't be that different than how they were living in 1 CE. To us life in 1712 is almost like looking at an alien world. We expect rapid and radical change now, so our vision of the future reflects this. Dr Scoofles posted:Also, Fromage - do you have any good recipes for Roman style sweets, puddings or breads? I'm a competent baker and cook and am dying to try my hand at Roman cooking. I'll happily post my results here Take roses fresh from the flower bed, strip off the leaves, remove the white from the petals and put them in the mortar; pour over some broth and rub fine. Add a glass of broth and strain the juice through the colander. This done take 4 cooked calf's brains, skin them and remove the nerves; crush 8 scruples of pepper moistened with the juice and rub with the brains; thereupon break 8 eggs, add 11 glass of wine, 1 glass of raisin wine and a little oil. Meanwhile grease a pan, place it on the hot ashes or in the hot bath in which pour the above described material; when the mixture is cooked in the bain marieº2 sprinkle it with pulverized pepper and serve.3  This looks like a reasonably complete web version of Apicius: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Apicius/home.html This one has fewer but is written out more like a modern recipe, the ones in Apicius are not exactly detailed. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/historical/ant-rom-coll.html#5 The only Roman dessert I've tried is stewed dates. Take some dates, remove the pits, fill with walnuts, stew in honey for about ten minutes.
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Jun 18, 2012 04:02
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WoodrowSkillson posted:Roman traders probably wandered quite far around the world, the Romans were aware of what they called Scanda. There are probably some really cool stories that we will never know about Julius the trader who went all the way to Korea and back or something.
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Jun 18, 2012 06:40
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cargo cult posted:Probably inspired by this thread, I was also thinking of perhaps hundreds of untold stories of Roman Marco Polos who saw much outside of the empire but never returned to record what they'd seen. I wonder how many just set up housekeeping wherever they found themselves and went native... I'm wondering about how much contact there was between Rome and India... India is a lot closer to Rome, and there must have been some, because India knew about Roman (and Greek) astronomy. Apparently there was even an Indian astronomy book called "Doctrine of the Romans". Was this just a few texts filtering east by trade routes, or was there more regular and significant communication between Rome and India?
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Jun 18, 2012 06:54
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There was at least one Roman town in India and a couple trading posts. This is the India portion of the Roman world road map, the Tabula Peutingeriana: The Ganges is labeled there near the top. Muziris is the town in India, we suspect it was permanently inhabited by Romans because of the temple of the Augustales located there on the map. There are recent excavations that may have found Muziris, they're still investigating but they definitely found a Roman site of some sort. The other outposts may have been permanently inhabited or just small trading posts, we're not sure. Scroll back some pages for a statue of Lakshmi found in Pompeii. Buddhism made it to Rome, though it obviously didn't take off. There was lots of contact and trade with India across the Arabian Sea. The whole map if you're interested: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg
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Jun 18, 2012 07:01
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That is one hell of an amazing map. It looks schematic, like a subway route map, and I see from Wikipedia that's sort of how it was intended? Impressive, both the road network and the map.
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Jun 18, 2012 07:11
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Yeah it clearly doesn't match up with actual geography. I've attempted to label it here, I make no guarantees about accuracy but this is at least roughly correct. Also it was done in Korean MSPaint so shut up about the quality. http://i.imgur.com/vilqb.jpg It's also not an accurate representation of Roman world knowledge. As I've said they knew about China, but it's not anywhere on here. Ptolemy's world map does have China on the eastern end.  It also has a feature common to a lot of ancient maps of having India as a big island. I'm not sure why. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Jun 18, 2012 |
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Jun 18, 2012 07:23
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Does that bottom right part labelled "Pirate" actually mean there were Pirates in that area? Or did Latin / Whatever have another term for Pirate? Would be cool if we took that word directly from Latin and copied it into English / Other languages.
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Jun 18, 2012 08:16
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