Ludovicus
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Posts posted by Ludovicus
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As for the early Christians in Rome... I can't help but smile a bit as I imagine A. Patricius Romanus looking somewhat askance at his slave, Fervidus (who has only recently heard the Word and converted to the new Christian cult) as Fervidus (descended from a long line of domestic-bred slaves) humbly requests his master's patience and acceptance, explaining how he is "a part of a continuum of thousands of years of religious tradition."
-- Nephele
The Romans certainly didn't accept that viewpoint. Celsus, for example, looked down on them:
"...they gather a crowd of slaves, children, women and idlers...... Come to us you who are sinners, you who are fools or children, you who are miserable, and you shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven..."
And, as you probably know already, there are numerous similar statements attributed to him.
Our Fervidus must have seemed a threat to A. Patricius Romanus and the whole Roman order. There is a passage from Paul in which he states that " neither Greek nor Jew, male or female, slave or free..."
While this revolutionary impulse of early Christianity did not survive the Empire much, I can see how it challenged Roman power.
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The American Revoltion continued as
various sectors of the population excluded
from the fruits of the early revolutionary
years struggled for their rights under the
inspiration of the Declaration of Independence.
It's interesting that African Americans
cited the Old Testament prophets, not the Greeks
or the French Enlightenment philosophers,
in the quest to expand democracy.
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In several cases the local languages added new words to Latin, e.g.
carrus, from carra; originally "a two-wheeled Celtic war chariot".
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Does anyone know of where I can get a breakdown of Languages of the Roman Empire / Republic? I would like it broken down by provice or even by nation?
I am interested in the different languages used in inscriptions throughout the empire, which langages were in use and to what extent?
Mary Beard's book on Pompeii cites graffiti written in several languages. My information comes from reading a review of the book here:
http://web.mac.com/blaricci/iWeb/Site%2013/My%20Links.html
St. Augustine mentions that Punic was still spoken in the hinterlands of his province in the late 4th century. Basque seems to have survived the Roman conquest of Gaul and Hispania.
Whether or not these language were expressed in inscriptions is another story. I'm looking forward to replies to your post.
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Trash heaps, garbage dumps, latrines, sewers, and privy pits. What would we do without these sources of archaeology? It's not the broken columns, the semi-complete pediments or the marble busts, but the lowest of the low that enrich history.
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Don't bet on it.I think there's a good chance that a fourth century speaker of Latin would be able to understand a modern speaker of Italian or Spanish.The issue is actually easy to answer, because linguistic intelligibility is reciprocal.
You can verify by yourself that modern Italian and Spanish speakers require translations to understand IV century Latin.
If that hypothetical Roman of the Late
Empire were to shop at the butcher's alongside a modern
Italian or Spaniard I'll bet they would understand each others
languages quite well. Please remember that my reference is to
the mutual intelligibility of spoken language.
Non mi placet carne de vacca, said the Roman.
Preferisco agnello, said the Italian.
Sic, adoro carne de agnello, replied the Roman.
Creo que la carne de pollo tiene un gusto
superior, added the Spaniard.
Bene, nos videmus.
Si, ci vediamo.
Si, nos vemos.
Sic, bona idea.
And they returned home.
And all the went home.
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If a person from ancient Rome were exposed to any of the Romance languages, do you think that he might be able to understand some of them, or would they be totally incomprehensible?
I think there's a good chance that a fourth century speaker of Latin would be able to understand a modern speaker of Italian or Spanish. By late imperial times spoken Latin was beginning to lose its case system, relying more on prepositions. Here's one modern Romance language that may be the best candidate for an answer to your hypothetical question:
The Pater Noster in Modern Sardinian:
Babbu nostru, ch
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Excerpts from Joy Connolly's lengthy review of Mary Beard's Pompeii, The Nation: October 21, 2009:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091109/connolly
Beard insists on only one thing: "'Our' Pompeii is not a Roman city going about its business, then simply 'frozen in time' as so many guidebooks and tourist brochures claim. It is a much more challenging and intriguing place."
She reveals how a city badly roughed up by earthquakes, rebuilt, shaken again, partly evacuated, blasted and blanketed by volcanic ash from Vesuvius in 79 CE, then tunneled into, looted and finally forgotten was rediscovered in the eighteenth century, excavated, rebuilt, bombed by Allied forces in 1943 and reconstructed once more, becoming the "city in a bottle" dramatically if misleadingly packaged for tourists.
The eyewitness account of the younger Pliny, who wrote that his naturalist uncle died getting a closer look at Vesuvius on August 24-25, is undermined by medieval manuscript variants recording several different dates and the on-site discovery of autumnal vegetables and a coin minted later in the year.
With its focus on labor, education and religion, The Fires of Vesuvius is a testament to how much Roman studies has to offer the contemporary political imagination. Well-informed in the latest research in demography, the history of Roman politics, architecture, ancient economics, feminist and post-colonial studies, Beard probes the experience of men and women, free and slave, rich and poor.
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The above mentioned comparison of native Americans and Romans is probably as anachronical as it's possible within UNRV, ie. like 10,000 BC vs the Roman Era; in any case, the extinction of the Megafauna was a universal phenomenon out of Eastern / Southern Africa (ie, including therefore the whole future Roman world around 10,000 BC too).
Evidence and experience overwhelmingly show that complex civilizations (as the Romans) have overhunted far more (exponentially in fact) than pre-agrarian populations (eg, some Barbarians) for a number of reasons.
It seems that Southern Africa megafauna survived quite well: giraffes, rhinos, elephants, hippos, et alia. It's
only recent homo sapiens who Is threatening these animals.
From Alan Wiesman, "The World without Us" on why African large mammals survived:
"...humans and megafauna evolved together. Unlike unsuspecting American, Australian,...herbivores who had no inkling of how dangerous we were when unexpectedly arrived. African animals had the chance to adjust as our presence increased."
Then, of course, came the Romans of recent history.
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I've read recently in a couple of books on Ancient Rome that the thirst for bigger and more awe inspiring Games led to a massive kill-off of animals throughout the Empire and its' environs. I've read of the need to hunt further and further from Rome to find animals that were once available more locally. And I've read of animals that were killed off completely.
I'm reading Allessando Barbero's "The Day of the Barbarians" about the Battle at Adrianople in 378. 9 years before this momentous battle, the Emperor of the eastern Empire, Valens, signs a treaty with the Goths. A Greek rhetorician Themistius gives a speech in praise of the peace.
According to Barbero, Themistius says (in a combination of direct quotation and paraphrase), "We worry so much about preserving animal species, we're worried that elephants may disappear from Libya, lions from Thessaly, and hippopotamuses, from the Nile; therefore we should rejoice that a race of men, yes, barbarians, as some will say, but men, has been saved from extermination."
The comparison between animals and Goths is interesting, but not the topic I'm raising at the moment.
Clearly Themistius is referencing a common and well known concern for the preservation of animals. I'm curious is anyone else has come across similar concerns in literature? Are there any specific statistics around the amount of animals that must've been killed in Games to raise concerns over their continued existence?
How interesting! By the way, do we have any idea when the European lion was exterminated?
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Melvadius, I don't know whether to sing your praises for the two links you included in the last post or to shout one of those ancient British curses at you. I spent three hours online completely enthrawed. Seriously, thanks for the Vindolanda site! But three hours!
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I wonder if there are studies on the Latin found in the letters/writing from the Vindolanda site. I can't think of another cache of Latin documents so revealing of everyday life.
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Footprint that size could also be of adult women.
Good point!
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Fascinating find! Here from La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, is a photo of the overlying mosaic, one of the most beautiful I've seen. Click on "successivo" to see more images of the footprints under the mosaic.
http://www.repubblica.it/2008/12/gallerie/...-mosaico/5.html
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I found it very intresting that when I was in Rome this past time, Where I was staying, I did not know the area. I had to ask a resident how I get to the Colosseum from where I was staying. They did not know it by the Colosseum, Flavian Ampetheater or any other way I could phrase it. Only when I showed them the "visitors map" that I get whenever I am there and I showed them the place on the map where it shows it, did they know what it was. I tried "Arena" and whatever other name I could think of, but still they were highly confused.
Is there another term that the Italians use in todays day and age that I do not know of to call the Flavian Ampetheater by?
Did you try saying the name in Italian, Colosseo?
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I will be in Sicily next week. Anyone with experience visiting the 4th CE Imperial Villa site? I'm wondering if there's been any recent archaeology news? What's not to miss at Piazza Armerina?
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I was thinking along the lines of a Latin-speaking community with deep roots back to imperial times, nourished by refugees fleeing post 410 AD Rome. In modern times we think of large metropolis with neighborhoods defined by minority ethnic groups. I may be way out on a limb, but could there have been a Latin quarter in Constantinople peopled not just by traders but by the descendants of these earlier Western Empire Romans? Do we have authors writing in Latin from the Byzantine period?
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Mussolini was so interested in using the
monuments of Imperial Rome to legitimate fascism that his projects destroyed
many of the post imperial layers of the city.
So the city's transition from the end of the empire to
the medieval period is mostly lost.
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Crushing taxes, paid by the peoples of the reconquered Roman lands, were a featured of Justinian's reign:
"Naturally these great enterprises (architectual wonders, Hagia Sophia, etc.) demanded great expense. Justinian's subjects frequently complained of the heavy taxes; many people in the lands he conquered back thought that the glory of being once more Roman citizens was bought too dearly when they realized how much they had to pay to the Roman exchequer."
from the Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08578b.htm
Small wonder that when the Byzantines attempted to retake Naples they were met with fierce opposition from its citizens.
"Before he could advance on Rome, Belisarius first had to take Naples to the south, which he invested in the summer of 536. After failing to persuade the populace to submit peacefully, he subjected the city to a month-long siege. Naples was so stubbornly defended that Belisarius began to despair of taking the place
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I just finished reading James O'Donnell's The Ruin of the Roman Empire, and it really put Justinian through the meat-grinder. I wonder how people here feel about the history he's written.
Thanks. What an interesting thesis. This is a book that I'm definitely putting on my wish list. On the surface, it's always seemed that the Byzantines under Justinian undermined what was left of the old Roman order in Italy. Who needs fiction when history is much more entertaining?
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Excellent site Ludovicus, Thank for bringing it to our attention.
I like this reflection from the author Thomas Cole........
"The mighty spectacle, mysterious and dark, opens beneath the eye more like some awful dream than an earthly reality -- a vision of the valley and shadow of death.... As I mused upon its great circumference, I seemed to be sounding the depth of some volcanic crater, where fires, long extinguished, had left the ribbed and blasted rocks to the wild flowers and ivy."
Yes, yes. And for dozen centuries the ruined Colosseum nurtured "the wild flowers and ivy" brought from African in the cages and bellies of the beasts that would entertain. Domenico Panaroli made an illustrated study of the flora of the amphitheatre's floor before it was removed.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Colosseum#Flora
"The Colosseum has a wide and well-documented history of flora, ever since Domenico Panaroli made the first catalog of its plants in 1643. Since then, 684 species have been identified there. The peak was in 1855 (420 species). Attempts were made in 1871 to eradicate the vegetation, due to concerns over the damage that was being caused to the masonry, but much of it has returned. Today, 242 species have been counted, and of the species first identified by Panaroli, 200 remain.
The variation of plants can be explained by the change of climate in Rome through the centuries. Additionally, bird migration, flower blooming, and the growth of Rome that caused the Colosseum to become embedded within the modern city center rather than on the outskirts of the ancient city, as well as the deliberate transport of species, are all contributing causes. One other romantic reason often given is that their seeds being unwittingly transported on the animals brought there from all corners of the empire."
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The site of the Colosseum has been through so many different changes...
For precisely that reason I find the Oxford Archaeological Guide to Rome a must for anyone visiting Rome.
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This is one of my favorite sites on the Flavian Amphitheater. It covers the monument's history from the preconstruction site through modern times.
http://www.the-colosseum.net/idx-en.htm
Here are two teasers:
"The valley collected the waters, which created a marsh or a lake, depending on the season. The small lake was fed by the waters of the Rio Labicano, a stream flowing down the Labicana valley, more or less along modern day Via Labicana. The stream can still be seen underground when visiting the Basilica of St. Clemente in Via di San Giovanni. There you can descend about 30 feet under modern ground level and walk on the cobblestones of old Roman alleys, enter shops and houses, visit a Mithraic temple and listen to the soothing sound of running water. The stream is still there and the water runs clear and fast, enclosed inside a conduct built in the 19th century in order to drain the underground of the church."
"The inscription on the right - dating back to 484 or 508 - commemorates the works that the Praefectus Urbi Decius Marius Venantius Basilius had had done - at his own expense - to repair the arena and the podium, damaged by an "abominandus" earthquake.Venantius' repairs of the arena meant the dismantling of the remaining colonnade, by sliding the columns and pieces down in the underground of the arena, and filling it up. In 519 Eutaricus Cilica held games in a Colosseum without the upper portico or underground, not to mention other major damages to the cavea, entrances, etc."
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San Giovanni in Laterano is fitted with the huge metal doors taken from the Curia Julia, the ancient Senate House in the Forum. So there's a touch from a pagan past. As far as I know, the church was constructed in stages. The first of which was a rather plain late Roman basilica/hall. Later it was embellished.
Here's an illustration of the what the original church looked like before a devastating fire and subsequent reconstruction.
http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth...ohn_lateran.jpg
Here's a photo of those colossal doors:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doo...Curia_Julia.JPG
Does anyone know when the Senate House lost its doors?
"judeo-Christian vs Greco-Roman influences and the American Revol
in Historia in Universum
Posted
The Christian Right will not look at the evidence that the Founding Fathers, though Christian, held very few beliefs that we find today in fundamentalist, theocratic Christianity. I find it refreshing that these early leaders, many of whom were Deists, saw the separation of Church and State as a fundamental principle for the protection of religious freedom. Thus so far have many Christians strayed from their own history.