guidoLaMoto

Tullus Hostillius made Jupiter mad 2600 yrs ago, so he fried him with a lightning bolt....I wonder who made him mad now?

I've frequently seen that picture in reading on the history, but I never thought about it before-- the clients are wearing colored &/or dirty clothes (streets were filthy) while the "baker" is wearing a white (candida) toga- commonly worn by those standing for election....hence our word "candidate." Even today, each region of Italy has it's more or less characteristic style of bread. In Rome, it's still the round loaf. I haven't been to Italy in 50 years. Maybe things have changed, but back then it was common to see porcetta vendors on the streets, equivalent to American hot dog stands/carts. One could get a quick pork sandwich on bread sliced from those big, round loaves.

Amazing how new tech is making things easier for archeologists. In regards the weather, it was "The Roman Warm Period."...Caesar was quite attentive to including elements of the natural history of his meanderings thru Transalpine Gaul in his Commentaries.... and crossed back and forth to Cisalpine Gaul several times during those years, get never once mentioned snow or ice.....while 200 yrs earlier, Hannibal lost half his men and all but one of his elephants to the cold, snowy conditions as they crossed the Alps.....So much for "Global Warming." Maybe the Romans delayed in subduing the Helvetia area because it was so sparsely inhabited. Thirteen hundred years later, the Knights Templar may have retreated there to avoid persecution for that very reason.

No big mystery or amazing new discovery here.....Increased seismic activity is well known to accompany volcanic activity https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/stromboli-earthquakes.html. And pyroclastic flow produces winds over 80km/hr up to 300km/hr capable of throwing small boulders against walls and roofs to knock them down. https://www.usgs.gov/programs/VHP/pyroclastic-flows-move-fast-and-destroy-everything-their-path#:~:text=With rock fragments ranging in,and structures in their pat Note in the one article you reffed with a skeleton supposedly crushed-- the amphora right next to it has only one small hole but is otherwise intact and standing upright after 2000 years.......??? The only question is how much destruction & death was due to earthquake vs pyroclastic flow vs asphyxiation in those unable to find adequate shelter or to flee?

Sherlock was always deducing occupations by observing anatomical changes induced by repetitive actions. We call it Over-use Syndrome these days. There was an anthropological report published in the med lit 30y/a about the high number of vertebral compression fractures found in ancient skeletal remains of indigenous people of the Pacific NW, presumably from the stresses of driving dog sleds-- a rate comparable today of that seen only among rodeo riders.

This is actually old news, but it is fascinating to compare what was going on in different parts of the world while famous historical events were taking place. When Newton was inventing Calculus, most of the world was still living a Stone Age lifestyle. When the Chinese were wearing fancy silk robes, writing poetry and printing them with moveable type, our north European ancestors were still draped in animal skins and hunting with crude wooden spears, not much advanced from the Neandertals. I don't know how they came up with the "300 generations" figure, but that in itself would be amazing. The math of population dynamics suggests that a population of less than 500 for species with low litter size will go extinct in just a few generations. About 200 species of large animals have gone extinct during historical times-- almost all of them among island inhabitants.

-- doesn't seem to be a Reply tab on Guy's post and can't find the OP on this topic. ..BUT-- According to Suetonius-- as Caesar sat down before the assembled Senate, several conspirators approached him as if to pay respects. The lictors were probably behind or off to the side and not positioned to defend Caesar from the attack which began suddenly and unexpectedly. https://www.livius.org/sources/content/suetonius/suetonius-on-the-death-of-caesar/ (ch 82) Maybe the better question is what did they do in the immediate aftermath of the attack? Maybe they just scrammed realizing that they had just failed their mission?

I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous.-- Yogi Berra A couple problems with this article-- Almost nobody is truly left handed, ie- right brain dominant/right brain center of language processing-- proved by injection of drugs or MRI studies. ,..For a beast developing skills requiring dexterity, having one side dominant was more efficient. It just happened to be the right (left brain dominant) by chance- the same reason the L isomer of biochemicals are the biological norm. Once the pattern was established by chance, it was perpetuated by genetics......BTW-- there is also the problem of situs inversus-- all the organs are on the "wrong" side. Also very rare. Also a pattern established way back in evolution and continue because it was effective & efficient. Subclavian steal syndrome is very uncommon. The left aortic arch/carotid junction is more likely to develop obstructive placque than the right due to hemodynamic considerstions-- just like sand bars are formed at the far side of curves in the river, not the near side. The right side is a "straight shot" up the aorta and into the right carotid....This makes little difference in perfusion of the brain unless there is also extensive narrowing of arteries to obstruct flow thru the Circle of Willis.....Because this is a problem related to aging, it doesn't appear until well after the reproductive years, thus has virtually no nfluence on genetic selection or evolutionary trends. Another example of pseudoscientific tripe that never should have made it past the editor or peer review-- a huge problem in science over the past 2-3 decades. Caveat lector.

Welcome Hydro- I should think the period around The Founding thru the Early Republic would hold interest for you.....what with The Forum being located in a swamp with the central Lacus Curtius eventually drained by the Cloaca Maxima, and then Appius Claudius building the first aquaduct, the Tiber having been so fouled by the Cloaca.

Amazing....After two thousand yrs, had the fish sauce gone bad?.....How could they tell?...I bet there weren't very many fat Romans. Very interesting discussion of the evolution of the terms & products garum and liquamen. Thanks for the references.

Obviously beautiful and the painstaking effort to produce such a detailed, elaborate, large design is amazing....but more amazing is it's position placed in a windowless, grotto like room. How did they light it for viewing?....Often an unappreciated fact, activities in ancient times were limited mostly to daylight hours.

Amazing bit of archeological work. Better living thru chemistry, as the saying goes....It's a common and wise survival strategy for a pathogen to have at least two host species to infect-- kill off one and hide in the other until the population of the first recovers. Squirrels are just rats with bushy tails....Those of us who live where hardwoods are the norm are accustomed to seeing squirrels fill the niche living in the canopy and eating nuts... In southern California (where the nuts live in mansions & sea side villas) the trees are palms and the common rat has taken over the niche of living in the canopy and eating the date nuts-- big problem in some neighborhoods in LA.

Nice dissertation....But, like Marlowe. I know little Latin and less Greek, so I'll have to take your word for it. Good effort outlining the linguistic evidence of the evolution there. According to Dionysius of Halocanarsus, a Greek writing for Greeks, all of the western Mediterranean was settled by Greek colonists- even the Trojans were originally Greeks....kinda reminiscent of old Soviet propaganda history.

Ingenious..... ....but given the large number discovered there must have been huge number actually in use.....One has to wonder how many goldsmiths there were? OTOH-- there were huge numbers of lorica hamata in use for at least 600 yrs by the mi!itary. How was that chain mail manufactured?...by tedious hammering one link at a time, or by quickly weaving iron wire like this?... ...used in making chain mail, this would also help to explain the geographic distribution...iron more common to the north vs gold more common to the south. --just cogitating.

The ancients named the prevailing winds. The Weather Channel thinks we need ned to name every stinking thunderstorm. Hannibal unwisely tried to cross the Alps, losing half his men and all but one of his elephants to the cold and snow, yet still vandalized the Italian peninsula for fifteen years. I took the Romans another generation or two to recover from that activity. One has to wonder "What if..." had Hannibal his full army & menagerie?

Granite & quartz are well known to be sources of radiation but the amount is too small to be of concern compared to other common environmental sources although risks could be higher in poorly ventilated spaces like tombs. We would expect lung cancer to be a bigger risk than blood problems...Leukemia/lymphoma are well known to be associated with a significantly increased risk of those blood dyscrasias after exposure to benzene.... Do archeologists often use that as a solvent in cleaning artifacts?

Welcome back, Neil. I can't remember you because I've only been amember here for a short time. I'm looking forward to what will probably be interesting contributions from you. That's quite an eclectic little curriculum (would that make it a curriculum-ulum?) vitae you've outlined. (Have you considered seeking counseling?) I see we share an Interest in 2-wheeling. My screen name is a play on words in Italian.

More amazing to me is how technology can allow us to read the carbonized scrolls, and the episode about slavery adds significantly to the richness of the history. Pin-pointing Plato's grave brings to mind the story of how they finally located the exact position of Mozart's grave. He was buried in a mass grave for paupers....It seems one day not long ago a groundskeeper heard music coming up out of the ground. Experts realized it was Eine Kleine Nachtmusik being played backwards.....They figured it was Mozart de-composing.

65% for worms!! Wow....and these mummies were presumably the well to do class. Imagine the rates among the poor with more crowded living conditions. Malnutrition both from lack of adequate meat intake as well as nearly universal parasitic disease is probably a problem under appreciated by modern historians. It's been suggested that Caesar's "falling sickness" was anything from primary epilepsy or CVAs (both unlikely in a non-diabetic, non-smoker in his 50s) to cystocicersis from eating pork in Egypt (also less likely given the intermittency of his attacks). Tertiary syphylis may be the best fit of his symptoms.

Interesting etymologies you've presented. Thanks... In regards transiliterations & changes in pronunciation as words evolve from one language to another, consider, for example, how the word Yankee derives from the way the American Indians pronounced the word English. One small detail-- Carthago is the nominative case for Carthage; Carthaginis is the genitive and the root for the other case declensions. And a caveat-- translations of ancient poetry put into rhyming jingle in English are often not very true to the original but just give a general idea of what's going on.

I was referrkng to D of Halacanarssus. His Roman Antiquities was published in 7 BC.

In regards the Pillars, did not Plato claim they were mountains at Gibraltar, and did he not pre-date the other authors cited above? In regards religion, don't forget we're not talking verifiable science/history but figments of human imagination (When you talk to God, you're praying. When He talks to you, you're schizophrenic.)...Notice how St Nick morphed over the years from a nice old priest leaving apples on doorsteps to the fat guy in red velvet invented by a Cocoa Cola advertising guy, eventually flying thru the air with reindeer, acquiring elves and a North Pole toy shop. Dionysus emphasized the Greek origins of the Italians. They no doubt evolved different details in the religion originally carried to Italy. Cf-- an early 20th century prayer meeting in Appalachia to High Mass by The Pope in Rome.

It looks like modern biker chicks descended from Scythian women....Tattoos were of course a customary practice from the earliest times. Otzti the Bolzano Ice Man had them 5000 yrs ago....Internalizing a vanquished foe by drinking his blood or eating his heart also is more ancient than the Scythians. It was a practice still in vogue among the Amerindians when first encountered by Europeans. We moderns should avoid judging the ancients by our own standards of morals and conduct.

I thought the common wisdom was that the Carthaginians were Phoenicians (poenus or punicus in Latin, hence Punic Wars). I should think that Dido was a poetic invention of Vergil. That whole dalliance was not mentioned by Dionysus of Halicanarssus in his history of the origins of Rome. Vergil meant the story to be a romantic explanation of the continued competition between the two cities.... He was probably looking forward to selling the movie rights to The Aeneid and figured it needed a love interest to spice it up for improved box office appeal. You know how that goes. Carthago delenda est!

Decimation was far more brutal than that. Started by Appius Claudius Sabinus in 471 BC in the Volscian War when troops exhibited cowardice, a cohort was selected and every tenth man, selected by casting lots, was condemned to being beaten to death with clubs wielded by his nine comrades....I guess old Appius never heard of the phrase "verbum sapienti sufficit." Indivuals found to exhibit cowardice were scouraged in front of their comrades and then beheaded. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0160%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D59