edgewaters

Found this conversation in another forum, and it was too funny not to share: Ah yes, I can see it now. Frank Miller's Socrates, wherein a totally ripped Socrates slays foes, with extreme prejudice, in the First Peloponnesian War. Later, disillusioned with the Athenian ideals for which he once fought, Socrates turns to a life of sophistry, only to slay Antiphon, and Cratylus after a bitter argument. Distraught over his expulsion from the greeknit underground, Socrates slices a path of moral mayhem, leaving a wake of severed conclusions and decimated premises in his wake. Placed on trial for his crimes against good, common sense, Socrates surprises all of Greece, when after raping and slaying his entire citizen tribunal, he drowns himself in a vat of the hemlock-laced blood of his victims.

Well ... I've always thought that the decline of the economic importance of the City itself was a major factor. The Roman worker had to be increasingly subsidized to compete against cheap provincial (slave) labour. And with economic importance migrating away from the central nexus, so did authority; as the powerful latifundia owners began to expand their holdings and drive out the free Roman farmer/settler, they were able to secure the offices of provincial administration and cement their power by making those offices hereditary. Not only was there a trade deficit with the provinces, the central authority was losing its teeth to its own provincial producers and adminstrators. There was a dissipation of power happening, I think, even before the migrations were really a factor.

Not sure but Homes and Gardens magazine did a rather effulgent piece on him (or rather, on his "handsome Bavarian chalet"): http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/graphic/0,,1075414,00.html

Hard to say, isn't it? Without actually living for centuries, none of us can really say whether history becomes more or less distorted with the passage of decades. I'd have to really say, though, that in this case, the majority of references are going to be from popular culture and our descendants are likely to inheirit little more than a crude caricature. The notion of the Nazis as a fanatical force animated by preternatural evil (rather than very human state politics - the "banality of evil" as Arendt put it) has a magnetism to some that is even stronger than the oratory magnetism of Hitler, and I imagine its one fetish that will not so easily give up the ghost. Well, I think one can take that question even further. Would we have a different perception if the invasion of Poland never happened?

I think being drawn and quartered was the worst. Another one ... not sure where it is from ... has a rat placed in a cup, which is then held or secured (open side down) over the victim's navel.

It isn't half as bad as the Minnesota Vikings.

Maybe, maybe not, but irrelevant either way. Whether its officially acknowledged doctrine, an unspoken policy, or a condemned practice, a great deal syncretism occurred at all stages of Christianity's evolution, and ultimately contributed to its spread.

For the same reason they'd Christianize pagan holidays, I suspect. One of the big strengths behind Christianity's rapid explosion was that it worked within the framework of the societies it encountered, and not just during the Roman/Dark Ages era; syncretism continued to be a huge factor in Christianity's spread even into the New World. One needs only look at Mexican or Latin American Catholicism to see how powerfully active syncretism is in Christianity - for instance, Our Lady of Guadelupe/Tonantzin, or the peculiar ways in which the Mexicans celebrate All Saints Day.

Ah, I wouldn't make any sweeping generalizations based on the campaign in Gaul, and apply retroactively to the Celts of the 5th century BC, or to "Celts" in certain particular areas (eg the Scottish frontier, or Celtiberia). Gaul was one particular case at one particular time. Not sure the invasions of Rome and Greece were spurred by Germanic pressure - as far as I know it wasn't really an issue in that time frame. Germanic pressure on the Celts seems to begin with the Cimbri and Teutones horde in the late 2nd and early 1st century BC (and nobody's really sure if the Cimbri were Germanic or Celtic). As regards the identity, this is very true, but until new groupings are identified and named we're sort of stuck with "Celt".

Absolutely - the military organization of most medieval knights, for instance, owes far more to the loose and individualistic, charisma-based organization of the war-band than it does to the legion. However, for some reason, the Celts - after, as you mention, a period of extraordinary military dominance around the 5th century BC - seem to have really dropped out of the race as a military contender by the 1st century BC. It's not just the Romans who begin to consistently defeat them, so do the Germans (quite often, as in Gaul or Noricum, the Celts are actually petitioning the Romans for assistance against rampaging Germanics). I think it comes down to a Roman influence via trade - they were getting quite wealthy by this point and importing a lot of luxuries in places like Gaul and Britain, and those groups seemed to be particularly ineffective militarily. One might suppose that the increased wealth and luxury of the lifestyle in these areas contributed to their military erosion. The fact that the Romans had their hands full in the more isolated areas - for instance, the costly campaigns against the Celtiberians or the repeated failure of expeditions and overrunning of border defences in Scotland - would seem to indicate this.

Doesn't make much sense to us, perhaps, but remember that everything depended on the seasons and the exact timing of when to sow and when to reap and how long between growing seasons they would have to rely on stores. It was their whole world, really - everything about their lives was determined by the passage of seasons. If you can imagine how much people are affected by very sharp swings in gasoline prices today, multiply that level of concern a few dozens of times and you've got a basic idea of how important it was.

You're talking about the Atlantic Facade theory. The idea isn't really that Iberians colonized the British Isles directly from Spain, but, that the whole of Atlantic Europe formed at one time a distinct group, covering all of the Atlantic seaboard from Gibraltar to Scotland - including the north and west of France as well as the Netherlands. Spain and Britain, being more isolated than France or the Netherlands, were simply less affected by population movements which occurred on the continent, which is why they continue to share some heritage. Caesar couldn't make up his mind about the Belgae. He said they were both Celt-like and German-like.

Why a shame? Movies - or any kind of story, really - should make you think. If you have to put your mind on hold and "block" all the messages oozing out between the lines because they are patently vile and false, its not much of a story, in my opinion. A good story makes you think, encourages you to think, and though sometimes the messages might be disturbing, they should also be uplifting and inspiring.

Sure ... the saints were a substitute for patron deities and the various cults popular in Rome. Its not really even much of a secret; one of the first steps towards beatifications is the confirmation of a "public cultus" and the whole of the saints constitute the "cult of the saints" (these are official Catholic terms!) The biggest public cultus, of course, is that of Mary, who seems to carry alot more intercessionary power and a far more diverse portfolio than, say, Diana or Vesta. The public cultus of Mary appears very much to have acted as a substitute and replacement for the cults of Vesta, Juno, and Minerva combined.

This group (the Zealots) probably even moreso than modern comparisons. After all, they were battling each other in the streets during the siege of Jerusalem!! Gangs of zealots under three leaders - Eleazar, Simon, and John, struggled for control of the city; Eleazar (leading the Sicarrii) was driven out and fled to Masada before the siege but Simon and John were battling each other even as the Romans sieged the city.

Propaganda certainly wasn't invented by the Romans. Religion itself has propagandistic elements all the way back to the dawn of civilization, and of course, these early civilizations left propaganda devices that still function to impress the credulous with notions of otherworldly power (pyramids etc).

Law. I mean, its a unique contribution. Lots of civilizations have left us something architecturally/technologically (Persians, Celts, Chinese, even native Americans, most any major group one can name), and had their great achievements in these areas, but none other than Rome have left such a profound influence on one of the most basic elements of our society, through so many different nations.

Well, Brennus was not fighting legions, but phalanxes. He got them on open ground and he had a large cavalry contingent and a force of swordsmen. The phalanx was ill-suited to a battle of this nature. And after that, there aren't alot of Celtic victories against the Romans (with the exception of Celts as mercenaries, eg in employ of Hannibal). A couple of battles with Vercingetorix - none of which were terribly disastrous for the Romans - and a few bad losses in the Iberian campaign, mostly due to the astounding fanaticism of the locals and mistakes on the Roman side. Nothing much besides that.

Well, the Romans were concerned about the Britons supplying weapons to the Gauls - so who knows - maybe it was a third center of excellence in terms of iron sophistication. The only thing is that the Romans adopted many designs from the smiths of the eastern Alps and Spain - chainmail, gladius etc - and even employed a great many smiths from these areas to manufacture arms and armour (eg, Imperial Gallic helmets are distinguished from Imperial Italic as being crafted by Gallic smiths, and IGs are found in vast quantities). So what did they adopt from the Britions? And why wasn't Britain a major source of Roman arms, as the other captured metallurgical centers were?

In the sense of a regimented formation - men fighting in ordered ranks and so forth - this is absolutely true. But, in a few cases, it is evident that some sort of practice in coordination occurred - although it might be possible it developed out of real experience on the field rather than at practice? The whole purpose of marching in a formation like that is that everybody stays together. Otherwise, you'd spend all your time fetching the fast back and getting the slow to hurry up. And once your elements scatter like that, you can't control them any longer; they might go anywhere, become distracted with other opportunities, and so on. Some level of discipline is essential to moving a large force quickly. It's one thing to keep a horde together when moving slowly, but moving quickly (particularly with a fair number of cavalry, as Brennus had) and remaining a single force is difficult - especially when you're talking about such individualists. Without some sort of military cohesiveness, Brennus never would have reached Rome - there would be Celts busy looting the countryside between Clusium and Rome, but no army per se, just pockets of bandits. Sure, but to command an army requires more than charisma - there are practical matters, like a form of communication down to the common foot-soldier. Usually this is a chain of command. When you've got 80 or 100 thousand men, one man cannot hope to command it alone; he can give a speech once in a while (maybe even once a day) but that's not enough to coordinate a force in the field, even just for the sake of movement. Therefore, there must have some kind of rough division of forces and units in a sense; perhaps simply chieftains with war-bands. If so, this particular group at this particular time were disciplined enough that Vercingetorix could, at least sometimes, give orders to the chieftains and expect that they could get almost all the men to follow them. Not, of course, to the degree a Roman commander would be able to do; but to some degree, at least. This is absolutely not typical of Celtic forces! Charisma certainly played a role, but there are some factors involved in getting from A (charismatic leader) to B (large, cohesive force). Namely there has to be some way that the desires of the commander can, at least some of the time, be communicated quickly and efficiently, without distortion, and obeyed. I can't imagine this being possible among such an individualistic people without some ruthless disciplination occurring.

Seeing as most Celtic societies featured a warrior class whose chief occupation was war, I imagine training in personal combat must have taken place. I'd presume it was mostly in the form of contests and such - not the same kind of training a Roman soldier would receive. As for training in formation, who knows. In the majority of cases, no. But there might have been a few exceptions. Armies of large size do not move rapidly unless there is some form of cohesiveness and a degree of practice in marching, yet Diodorus Siculus writes of Brennus' advance on Rome: "The Gauls flamed into the uncontrollable anger which is characteristic of their race, and set forward, with terrible speed, on the path to Rome. Terrified townships rushed to arms as the avengers went roaring by; men fled from the fields for their lives ... The sheer speed of the Gallic advance was a frightful thing." Untrained armies consisting primarily of infantry simply don't go "roaring by" with "terrible speed". This takes a certain amount of coordination and training, no matter how wild and enthusiastic the forces may be (in fact, the wilder and less disciplined they are, the slower they tend to move). There are similar reports of speedy advances from the attack on Greece, and Pausanius' description of the trimarcisia system in use by the other Brennus indicates some degree of coordination, at least among the cavalry host. Too, anytime a large force is able to move about and be commanded at the direction of a military leader with any efficiency, some sort of discipline is involved. So, I think it is safe to say that among Vercingetorix's men, discipline was instilled by some means, and some sort of rough training is a pretty safe bet, as he is reported to have been able to exercise a good degree of command over his forces (at least, until battle was joined). Then we have the Britons; if they resisted Caesar's landings with large forces of chariots, they cannot have done so without practice; I don't think it's possible to maneuver any great number of chariots together in battle without it. But for the most part, the warriors of Iron Age Europe would have got their skills from their lifestyle and from the endemic warfare which existed between the tribes. There was no need for practice, when the real thing was such a common occurence as it was among these peoples. Any particular Celtic host would likely include a relatively high proportion of veterans, warriors who lived and breathed strife. And with the exceptions noted above - and possibly some Celtiberian forces - I think it's safe to say with certainty that there was no military training (ie in units) in the vast majority of cases, and the exceptions are defined only by questions about how they could have done certain things, which leave room for speculation (rather than any sort of confirmation).

When specialization becomes apparent. Instead of the populace being hunter-gatherers and maybe part-time horticulturalists who craft their own tools (as at Catal Hayuk), a truly urban society has people who specialize in a single task; as a craftsman, farmer, hunter, builder, trader, and so on.

There's also language (obviously). Maritime tradition in the Baltics was quite different from any Celtic designs. Clothing was very different; Germanics liked brilliantly painted shields, but wore plain textiles usually without dye, where Celts had very plain shields, but brilliantly dyed woolen twill clothing. The wool thing is a bit odd, considering that, as mentioned, Celts tended more to agrarian ways and Germanics more towards pastoral ways, it really should be the other way around - Celts in textiles and Germanics in twill - but it is not. Settlements were different - no true hillforts in the style of things like Maiden Castle for the Germanics (except in the twilight cultures along the shared frontier). Probably one of the biggest differences is that Germanics were not in strong contact with Meditteranean and/or Greco-Roman culture. Celts were, throughout their history - either as neighbours (eg Alpine Celts, Celts along the Danube, Gauls of southern France, Celtiberians, etc) or through the tin trade (eg Britons), or even via Greek or Carthaginian colonies established in Celtic lands, such as the Carthaginian colonies in Spain or the Greek colony at Massalia. The Italic languages - including Latin - are most closely related in origin to Celtic. It's thought the Etruscans are not actually native to Italy, but entered from the north as a proto-Celtic peoples around 1500 BC. This, of course, influenced alot of things - Celts were quick to take to Romanization after conquest, because they were closer culturally. Even before conquest, Celts seem to have taken to Roman or Meditteranean ways at times - coins of southern Britain start showing Hellenic motifs even before Caesar arrives, and at very large oppidum like Bibracte, the wealthy Celts were building homes in a Greco-Roman style long before the conquest of Gaul.

Essentially, its true that Caesar's division is more or less arbitrary. Even Caesar gets confused when he talks about the Belgae; he can't decide if they're German or Celtic. You've also got things like the Gundestrup Cauldron, which places very Celtic imagery and concepts right in the heart of Denmark, home of the Cimbri and Teutones (if the Romans were at all accurate about the origins of that group, which is definately less than certain - they just wouldn't know the geography in that area at the date they met the Cimbri and Teutones). But it's not to say that the tribes in the Germanic territory weren't different. They really only shared a material culture. Even if it's difficult to fix precise borders and there are "twilight cultures" along the shared frontier, a gradual change rather than an abrupt one, the Germans were still unique from their neighbours. They were not so different as they're often made out to be, but, they had a different language and much different origins, different religious traditions, and behaved very differently. Even their material culture was only similar - it wasn't identical. Germanics didn't wear dyed tartans or woolen twill, both universal hallmarks of Celtic dress. They seem to have worn very drab-coloured textiles, and skins/furs. No hill-forts in the Celtic style, either. Differences in style too: the Suebian topknot, for instance.

True ... the difference is, with the exception of a handful of remarkable sites like Ur, one of only a few centuries and a gap that is closed very rapidly by the Egyptians. By about 3100BC they are neck and neck in terms of development, and this is before either of them have begun building pyramids or ziggurats. Both develop writing around the same time, both begin monumental construction around the same time, and Egypt is the first to achieve lasting political unity in the form of a stable state, under Narmer (c. 3000BC). Mesopotamia doesn't get there until Sargon's unification under the Akkadian Empire (c. 2300BC) and that doesn't last long. The only real difference is that the first cities sprung up in and around Mesopotamia, and there are really only a handful of those in 4000BC.