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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:There's something a time traveller could sell in Ancient Rome: maps to the homes of famous people. Yeah, I guess that would make proscription easier for everyone.
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Nov 10, 2019 16:41
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:There's something a time traveller could sell in Ancient Rome: maps to the homes of famous people. Remember that being public was a huge part of Roman culture, far more than anywhere I can think of today. Anyone important/famous was not living anonymously, you'd know where they were or be able to find out easily. Your clients have to show up at your atrium every morning, there's no hiding out.
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Nov 10, 2019 18:35
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Being a client to a senator sounds like a huge hassle Was the benefit they could provide really worth the time spent fluffing him instead of taking care of your own business?
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Nov 10, 2019 19:57
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cheetah7071 posted:Being a client to a senator sounds like a huge hassle There’s a slave for that.
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Nov 10, 2019 20:00
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If you had the right patron, absolutely. They could change your entire life. People weren't doing it just for fun. Of course, you could have the wrong patron and get hosed.
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Nov 10, 2019 20:00
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Grand Fromage posted:If you had the right patron, absolutely. They could change your entire life. People weren't doing it just for fun. what's the procedure for changing patron?
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Nov 10, 2019 20:59
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Grand Fromage posted:Remember that being public was a huge part of Roman culture, far more than anywhere I can think of today. Anyone important/famous was not living anonymously, you'd know where they were or be able to find out easily. Your clients have to show up at your atrium every morning, there's no hiding out. Well yeah it would be easy to find out but even easier to have a map with all the information on it.
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Nov 10, 2019 23:11
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Would a modern map be readable to ancient people?
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Nov 11, 2019 06:19
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FreudianSlippers posted:Would a modern map be readable to ancient people? Topo lines didn't get invented until fairly recently so that might be confusing though I imagine its an easy enough concept to grasp. I also imagine there would be a lot of "No really, you are bullshitting me on how accurate this is." Other than that I don't see why they wouldn't be able to figure it out. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Nov 11, 2019 |
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Nov 11, 2019 07:49
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The Forma Urbis Romae dates back to ~200CE and doesn't look all that different from a modern city map, except it was three stories tall and made of marble
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Nov 11, 2019 08:01
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what was the first polity to put a map of their own country on a flag or some equivalent, a la kosovo or cyprus today? did that not start until modern surveying etc allowed for truly accurate maps, or were people using their inaccurate ancient timey maps in this way? also i was gonna celebrate my catching up to this thread finally with a cisternpost but i instead found out that one of the zelda games has an apparently very well-regarded dungeon called Ancient Cistern edit: i did run into a very columbus-centric timeline.jpg 
oystertoadfish fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Nov 11, 2019 |
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Nov 11, 2019 12:47
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Grumio posted:The Forma Urbis Romae dates back to ~200CE and doesn't look all that different from a modern city map, except it was three stories tall and made of marble  Imago Mundi, Babylonian from about 500 BC. It's not a map in the modern sense, it's more "here's us, here's the direction and distance to go to get to them" with just circles or triangles to represent destinations in approximately correct locations. ETA: link for more info https://www.ancient.eu/image/526/babylonian-map-of-the-world/ Deteriorata fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Nov 11, 2019 |
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Nov 11, 2019 15:43
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cheetah7071 posted:Being a client to a senator sounds like a huge hassle The morning levy would have varied from patron to patron. It might be once a week for one guy, or whatever. Patrons traveled, commanded armies, took vacations. But the key here is that this is how everything works. Your kid is sick? Tell your patron, a doctor will be around to your house in the next day or two. Need a loan? Help with local thugs? A job? A scribe to do your will? Getting hassled by publicani? Want to start a business? Need a specific type of slave? Some food for a wedding? A tutor? A business contact in Sicily? Dowry help? Whatever it is, you are expected to ask for help with it, and a good patron will look to his own resources and other clients and see who can help you out for a discount or even for free. In return, you vote how he says and you might even fight when he says. And when it is your turn to supply goods or services or information at the patron's request, you're expected to comply. A baker might send fresh bread to the patron's house every other day. A doctor will make a few free housecalls that week. A builder will patch a roof or two. Even a guy without a trade could at least swing his fists or a club, or see or hear something useful to someone else. The patronage system wasn't something they did on the side. It was the very core of how their society functioned, it WAS the business. Managing this network was the patron's primary concern on a daily basis. It was the base of his power in the city. And was the basis of your security and comfort as a client in a city of nearly a million people with effectively zero law enforcement and no social services to speak of. Beyond your immediate circle of family and neighbors, this was it. The only other people on the planet who would give a drat about your welfare were these people.
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Nov 11, 2019 16:23
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Its not perfect, but I always felt once learning about patronage is it was kind of similar to the mafia. It's not an exact match, since there is thousand + of years of displacement between the two, but the idea remains the same. Maybe you are a contractor or union, you provide some no-show jobs to the mob so they can have fake legitimate income and they then lean on city council/developers to employ your guys. Or you are an associate and you do dirty work for the family, but you get cut in on deals and get some measure of protection from police/other gangs. Also it is completely out in the open and expected rather than illegal.
Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Nov 11, 2019 |
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Nov 11, 2019 17:48
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I think the way it works is that our current economy, most "informal" relations that don't have like paperwork and official payments tend to be associated with corruption. If something is based on "an understanding" rather than anything official, it's ripe for exploitation and can't be officially regulated or challenged in a court of law. Places with more practices like that also tend to be associated with being harder for foreign investment, since they work on rules that people outside the area don't know. Although possibly loose social understandings rather than formal cash relationships are the more natural form of human behavior, because the only way we can definitively say things like "unfair" or "unequal" is from the anonymizing aspect of cash where everything is clearly represented by easily comparable numbers. I've actually been wondering lately just how much our current economy is derived from the specific needs of medieval trading companies working across disunited and unreliable states, and whether Romans could've maybe done something like transferring a favor from one side of the continent to the other.
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Nov 11, 2019 18:47
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oystertoadfish posted:what was the first polity to put a map of their own country on a flag or some equivalent, a la kosovo or cyprus today? did that not start until modern surveying etc allowed for truly accurate maps, or were people using their inaccurate ancient timey maps in this way? I can't think of any premodern flags with maps on them. They grew out of battle standards so they were simple easy to read at a distance identifiers at first. They also weren't adopted on a large scale until like... the 1700s? And I don't think a majority of countries had them until the 1800s.
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Nov 11, 2019 18:56
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Jack2142 posted:Its not perfect, but I always felt once learning about patronage is it was kind of similar to the mafia. It's not an exact match, since there is thousand + of years of displacement between the two, but the idea remains the same.
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Nov 11, 2019 19:10
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Halloween Jack posted:Is it inaccurate to liken feudalism to a protection racket? Given the kind of poo poo knights did to people all the time, not really.
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Nov 11, 2019 19:13
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Would gangsters go as far as preventing you from moving to another town to avoid them cause feudal lords sure did
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Nov 11, 2019 19:17
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've actually been wondering lately just how much our current economy is derived from the specific needs of medieval trading companies working across disunited and unreliable states, and whether Romans could've maybe done something like transferring a favor from one side of the continent to the other. As the empire expands, there are clear historical records of foreign nobles becoming clients of prominent Romans. Not only did foreign potentates participate in the system, the system itself was likely one of the major reasons the empire was so stable for so long. There's a moment in HBO's Rome where Pompey snarls something about only having to stamp his foot and legions will spring up all over Italy. I don't know if he ever said that, but if he had, it would have been an accurate statement. At that point in his life, there are at least tens of thousands of fighting men in Italy alone who are connected one way or another to the Pompeii. They might be clients of clients of clients, but they are subject to Pompey's call one way or another.
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Nov 11, 2019 19:33
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quote:The Senate delayed in appointing a successor to Caesar, but at last resolved to do so and also resolved by an overwhelming majority that Pompey also must lay down the command of his provinces. They were encouraged to defy Caesar to this extent by Pompey's boast when they asked what forces he had. "Have no fear!" he answered, "I have only to stamp my foot and legions will spring up round me." When a false report arrived that Caesar had crossed the Alps, Marcellus and the two consuls elect most went their own initiative to Pompey to beg for his aid, while all the optimates went into mourning. quote:By these flatteries Pompey was so puffed up, and led on into such a careless security, that he could not choose but laugh at those who seemed to fear a war; and when some were saying, that if Caesar should march against the city, they could not see what forces there were to resist him, he replied with a smile, bidding them be in no concern, "for," said he, "whenever I stamp with my foot in any part of Italy, there will rise up forces enough in an instant, both horse and foot." Two different translations. Seems to come from Plutarch.
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Nov 11, 2019 19:41
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I can't find my book that quoted it but in Saint Odo of Cluny's biographical account of the life of Saint Gerald of Aurillac (855-909), he apparently recounts an incident where Saint Gerald meets one of his serfs/peasants who had skipped town and made a successful life for himself elsewhere. Odo emphasizes how saintly and impossibly virtuous it was for Gerald to not immediately ruin the man's new life by revealing his origin and having him tried for lying about his birth.
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Nov 11, 2019 19:43
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Grand Fromage posted:Two different translations. Seems to come from Plutarch. Can’t post this without the punchline: quote:As soon as the report of [Caesar crossing the Rubicon] came flying to Rome and the city was filled with tumult, consternation, and a fear that was beyond compare, the senate at once went in a body and in all haste to Pompey, and the magistrates came too. And when Tullus asked Pompey about an army and a military force, and Pompey, after some delay, said timidly that he had in readiness the soldiers who had come from Caesar, and thought that he could speedily assemble also those who had been previously levied, thirty thousand in number, Tullus cried aloud, "Thou hast deceived us, Pompey!" and advised sending envoys to Caesar; and a certain Favonius, a man otherwise of no bad character, but who often thought that his insolent presumption was an imitation of Cato's boldness of speech, ordered Pompey to stamp upon the ground and call up the forces which he used to promise.
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Nov 11, 2019 19:51
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skasion posted:Can’t post this without the punchline: haha, hic Rhodus hic salta
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Nov 11, 2019 20:41
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This thing about the patron system reminded me I had a question: What pre-industrial culture had the most byzantine--with a lowercase 'b'--power structure in practice? I'm talking a mashup of court rank with land-owning rank with clans, patrons, religion, military, whatever the hell. I'm wondering about particularly confusing situations where a handful of prominent people are together to take care of something and nobody knows who is actually "in charge."
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Nov 12, 2019 03:33
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:This thing about the patron system reminded me I had a question: What pre-industrial culture had the most byzantine--with a lowercase 'b'--power structure in practice? I'm talking a mashup of court rank with land-owning rank with clans, patrons, religion, military, whatever the hell. I'm wondering about particularly confusing situations where a handful of prominent people are together to take care of something and nobody knows who is actually "in charge." I feel like the Republic of Venice is a good candidate here.  quote:In the heyday of their republic, the Venetians selected their lifetime leader, the Doge, by a complex system involving lot-drawing. The system had developed through the Middle Ages, becoming ever more complex to avoid manipulation, before being codified in 1268. The procedure consisted of a series of ten ballots that alternated between sortition and election. All participants had to belong to the Great Council, which included several hundred members of the most prominent families. The process might be called fetura, for the Latin for breeding, the same method used in genetic or evolutionary algorithms. The steps were as follows (Dahl 1994, 14-16):
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Nov 12, 2019 03:46
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Squalid posted:I feel like the Republic of Venice is a good candidate here. 
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Nov 12, 2019 03:53
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:You are right, and your response is great, and I know about the Doge, but every time I see it in print I think: there is... more than one of these, apparently? 
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Nov 12, 2019 05:50
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:there is... more than one of these, apparently? What is this thing? Is there a reason someone wrote misspelled words making up nonsense phrases on a renaissance painting?
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Nov 12, 2019 06:00
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Yes. It's exactly as silly as you think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_(meme)
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Nov 12, 2019 06:26
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Epicurius posted:What is this thing? Is there a reason someone wrote misspelled words making up nonsense phrases on a renaissance painting? because memes
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Nov 12, 2019 06:28
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Epicurius posted:What is this thing? Is there a reason someone wrote misspelled words making up nonsense phrases on a renaissance painting? The internet.
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Nov 12, 2019 06:31
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Well, that seems foolish.
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Nov 12, 2019 06:33
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it's ancient history now, anyway
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Nov 12, 2019 06:38
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Squalid posted:I feel like the Republic of Venice is a good candidate here. With all those Blind Draws I can see why Enrico Dandolo ended up in charge.
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Nov 12, 2019 06:39
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I think the real find of the thread is someone who somehow never became aware of doge memes until now.
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Nov 12, 2019 09:02
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It should be noted that "doge" is in this case a misspelling of "dog" and most variations of the meme have nothing to do with Venice.
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Nov 12, 2019 09:14
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Grand Prize Winner posted:It should be noted that "doge" is in this case a misspelling of "dog" and most variations of the meme have nothing to do with Venice. Except for the latter ones that were made by people who realized the misspelling was exactly the same as a medieval Venetian title. Because that's memes for you
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Nov 12, 2019 09:28
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So I've gotten into A Legionary's Life, Rome and History of Rome cast at the same time and have gotten really stoked about Roman history  Can anyone tell me about what daily life was life for a roman, both in and out of the army, or point me to reading material? Thanks!
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Nov 12, 2019 10:18
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I don't feel qualified to answer any of those but you'd probably want to specify time period, social class, and location. At a guess you'd get up in the morning and go Roman around until the sun started going down, when you'd cease your Roman and go to bed.
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Nov 12, 2019 11:06
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