Do you want historians 500 years from now to remember your rule kindly? Here's a plan for getting future historians to like you.
Your most important goal as a ruler is to build as many cool-looking buildings and structures as possible, whether they be palaces for you or your family, tombs for you or your family, fortresses, thousand-mile walls, temples, or huge monuments. To achieve this, use as much of your country's resources as you need. Tax your people heavily, force them to work on your architectural projects without pay, and have the workers go at it even during the dead of winter. If your people end up freezing to death, starving to death, or living in total poverty, don't worry. None of that matters if you complete your architecture and make it look pretty. In the centuries to come, your architecture will remain while the suffering of your people will be long forgotten. Historians don't care much about ordinary people, but they are quite fond of buildings. Even if your contemporaries view your lavish palaces and tombs as symbols of greed, ego, and general kleptocracy, historians in the future will see your buildings as "symbols of the wealth and grandeur of past civilizations."
Your second most important goal: conquer, conquer, conquer! Conquerers and tacticians are historians' favorite kind of people. Any flaw in your character can be overlooked if you're a military genius. No one in the future will care how many civilians are killed, raped, or enslaved by your soldiers; what matters is how clever your tactics are, how many battles you win, and how large your empire stretches on a map. It also doesn't matter how well you control your empire. Just build a fortress somewhere (remember, buildings are important), put some soldiers in it, and turn the surrounding 20 miles yellow on the map.
Just don't kill your family! Your family members, unlike the civilians your soldiers are slaughtering, may actually be remembered by historians. They might not look highly upon you if you come to power by killing your father. You might get away with killing one of your palace slaves, concubines, or messengers, though. The good news is that even if you kill a family member, you can still redeem yourself in the eyes of historians by conquering more people and spending more of your money and workers' lives on those "symbols of the wealth and grandeur of past civilizations."
So an ancient bronze age ship wreck was found off the coast of Turkey recently https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00310328.2019.1579467
It's dated to around 1500-1600 BCE, so is seriously old. They don't specifically mention where the ship was from, but I'd guess it could be Minoan or Phoenician. Some of the ingots could be from Cilicia or Egypt, but that doesn't mean the ship was from there, just that it traded good from those places.
I love the pics of the old ingots they used. Sometimes they were even used as currency, because they were so valuable at the time. I can't believe how old the wreck is, that's like 500 years before the events depicted in The Iliad, even. I hope they can find enough of the ship itself to put together a model of it.
Thought I'd revive this thread since I've been reading the Plutarch again.
After participating in the assassination of Julius Caesar, Brutus didn't just disappear into history. He hooked up with the remnants of Pompey's army, in Greece and started taking tribute and raiding in Anatolia. It wasn't until the massive battle with Cassius against Octavian and Marcus Antonius where he was defeated, that committed suicide.
Not sure if I mentioned this one here before, or not, but the Xiongnu might be the Huns that attacked The Roman Empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Huns It's thought by a lot of historians that during a period of strength, the Han empire bumped them out of Mongolia and pushed them Westward. It's like a game of billiards where the Han bump the Xiongnu, the Xiongnu/Huns bump the Goths and the Vandals, who bump Rome. There isn't a full consensus of this for the origin of the Huns, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence for it, quite a lot of Eastern civilizations referred to them as Hun or something similar like Hunna. It's also known that the Huns were Turkish speaking, which would fit with the Xiongnu. BTW, Turkish speaking peoples originated in what is today, Mongolia. While descended from those Turkish speakers, the people living in Turkey have intermingled with the numerous peoples that lived in Anatolia, Thrace and Hungaria over the years.
I guess it's my turn to contribute... Sorry I don't have any fun facts but...
Henry Ossawa Tanner is the first African American to gain acclaim as a international master painter.
His father doesn't want him to take the path of the painter so he apprenticed him under his friend who was a miller but Henry's health proved the work was too strenuous causing him to fall very ill which lead to him staying home the next year where he only drew and painted.
Ancient Egypt changed a lot over the years, but was still was governed by pharaohs for over three millennia. From the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 BC until it became a Roman province in 30 BC. That's around 170 pharaohs all in all, including Alexander the Great (told you things changed around a bit).
Though Egyptians considered the Roman emperors to basically be pharaohs (what's the difference after all?), the last "true" pharaoh of Egypt was Ptolemy XV. Better known as Caesarion, the son of Cleopatra VII and possibly/probably Julius Caesar.
Cleopatra, Caesarion's mother, had her reputation for promiscuity way overblown. There's only evidence of her having 2 lovers, Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. Even after his death, she considered Caesar her husband. When she married Marcus Antonius (AKA Marc Antony), she made sure that her son Caesarion would inherit the throne.
Awhile back, I posted some pictures of coins with her image on them. She wasn't a looker by today's standards, but I think the reason men like Caesar and Marc Antony found her so intriguing was that she was well educated. She was completely abreast of the political situation of pretty much the entire Mediterranean and spoke numerous languages. The Romans weren't in the habit of educating their women, so to them a learned woman was quite a novelty. Throw in the cosmetics, perfumes, clothes and jewelry and she must have been pretty spectacular.
Cleopatra, Caesarion's mother, had her reputation for promiscuity way overblown. There's only evidence of her having 2 lovers, Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. Even after his death, she considered Caesar her husband. When she married Marcus Antonius (AKA Marc Antony), she made sure that her son Caesarion would inherit the throne.
Awhile back, I posted some pictures of coins with her image on them. She wasn't a looker by today's standards, but I think the reason men like Caesar and Marc Antony found her so intriguing was that she was well educated. She was completely abreast of the political situation of pretty much the entire Mediterranean and spoke numerous languages. The Romans weren't in the habit of educating their women, so to them a learned woman was quite a novelty. Throw in the cosmetics, perfumes, clothes and jewelry and she must have been pretty spectacular.
Note, the Romans were by and large very strict moralists, and they were as disturbed by female sexuality as most cultures, so 2 would be notable, and they were pretty public.
I've heard several historians who were pretty clear that Cleopatra's appeal was mostly mental, and she was considered not just educated, but exceptionally intelligent, and her charms were said to appeal to bright men especially, rather than the horny masses.
Note, Ms Cleo was notorious for taking good care of what looks she did have, and a lot of beauty is contrivance anyways!
Cleopatra, Caesarion's mother, had her reputation for promiscuity way overblown. There's only evidence of her having 2 lovers, Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. Even after his death, she considered Caesar her husband. When she married Marcus Antonius (AKA Marc Antony), she made sure that her son Caesarion would inherit the throne.
Awhile back, I posted some pictures of coins with her image on them. She wasn't a looker by today's standards, but I think the reason men like Caesar and Marc Antony found her so intriguing was that she was well educated. She was completely abreast of the political situation of pretty much the entire Mediterranean and spoke numerous languages. The Romans weren't in the habit of educating their women, so to them a learned woman was quite a novelty. Throw in the cosmetics, perfumes, clothes and jewelry and she must have been pretty spectacular.
Note, the Romans were by and large very strict moralists, and they were as disturbed by female sexuality as most cultures, so 2 would be notable, and they were pretty public.
I've heard several historians who were pretty clear that Cleopatra's appeal was mostly mental, and she was considered not just educated, but exceptionally intelligent, and her charms were said to appeal to bright men especially, rather than the horny masses.
Note, Ms Cleo was notorious for taking good care of what looks she did have, and a lot of beauty is contrivance anyways!
It wasn't uncommon for women to remarry in Rome when their husbands died. Even an older widow might have many suitors who were after her lands or other holdings. But this is for the nobility, the lower classes would take what they could get. Even in the middle ages it wasn't uncommon for a noble woman to remarry. Eleanor of Aquataine was married twice.
Some of the temples during the pagan era (especially Venus) had sacred prostitutes. This was a practice the Greeks, Phoenicians and the Mesopotamian city states all upheld, too. I know less about this in Rome than Greece, but in Greece, after their time as a temple prostitute, they could either stay with the temple and help train others, or get married and be completely accepted by the community. It was considered an honorable position with no shame.
It's not so much that they were worried about female sexuality so much as they were worried about giving their inheritance to a son that wasn't theirs.
I was reading Plutarch's life of Pericles and came across this
On seeing certain wealthy foreigners in Rome carrying puppies and young monkeys about in their bosoms and fondling them, Caesar asked, we are told, if the women in their country did not bear children, thus in right princely fashion rebuking those who squander on animals that proneness to love and loving affection which is ours by nature, and which is due only to our fellow-men.
In this context it's Augustus Caesar, not Julius, BTW.
It's interesting to see that there were people in Rome who thought that loving animals was shameful and their love should be reserved for people.
I was reading Plutarch's life of Pericles and came across this
On seeing certain wealthy foreigners in Rome carrying puppies and young monkeys about in their bosoms and fondling them, Caesar asked, we are told, if the women in their country did not bear children, thus in right princely fashion rebuking those who squander on animals that proneness to love and loving affection which is ours by nature, and which is due only to our fellow-men.
In this context it's Augustus Caesar, not Julius, BTW.
It's interesting to see that there were people in Rome who thought that loving animals was shameful and their love should be reserved for people.
Well, it still happens nowadays, at least where I live. If someone is single or childless and has a dog or cat they love, people talk about substitutes for real relationships.
That's illogical because I know people with spouse and 4 children who still love their dog as part of the family .
Few things make me connect with ancient people quite as much as the epitaphs ancient Greeks and Romans wrote to their pets. Like this one that was apparently inscribed on a Roman gravestone for a dog:
"I am in tears, while carrying you to your last resting place as much as I rejoiced when bringing you home in my own hands fifteen years ago" (Source)
Although it still happens, I just found Augustus' position on it to be to the extreme. I like to think of the Odyssey and Odysseus' relationship with his dog for the opposite viewpoint.
Every now and then, you remember that people really haven't changed all that much.
People haven't changed at all.I'm convinced the only thing that changed on Earth these last 7000 years was technology. Humanity is still the same.
It's mostly true, but there are things that have changed. Throughout most of history slavery was universally accepted as a way of life and necessary to run a society. Clearly, we know that's not the case today and the vast majority of people around today are opposed to the institution. Most people also don't live in the extended family situations that existed throughout most of history, too. There have been societies that after a certain age, kids were taken away from their parents to be raised in a barracks or creche. Social mobility was also nearly impossible in a lot of societies. It's still actually really hard to get out of the class you're born into and most people aren't able to pull it off, but at least it's allowed. The idea of prison as a punishment is also relatively recent, most of the time it was just a place to keep someone while they awaited judgement or punishment. Once debt slavery was abolished, it became a spot to keep people to get them to pay up. Eventually it became a punishment in of itself for a lot of crimes. Virtually nobody believes in human sacrifice and even animal sacrifice is pretty uncommon. It's true there's a few cultures that still practice animal sacrifice, but the vast majority of people don't believe in it.
So the old Persians actually had full plate armor. Don't get me wrong, the stuff was super rare and expensive. Plutarch's life of Cimon references his expeditions to Anatolia and mentions Persian cavalry that the Greek cavlary's spears just bounced off of, as well as a Persian noble commander that was so heavily armored that the Greeks couldn't kill him even after dismounting him and beating on him. Eventually somebody rammed a spear tip into the eye slit and managed to kill the guy.
There term "dunce" was at first used to refer to disciples of the theologian, academic, and philosopher Duns-Scotus, at first used merely as a descriptive term, and later as a pejorative centuries after his death when the Dunces opposed the spread of humanism.
Early academics always interest me. Their work almost always spreads across a wide variety of fields, sometimes working on routine scientific matters, sometimes writing broad philosophical works about the nature of various things, and sometimes writing religious treatises.
The writing system we use today is based off of Carolingian Miniscule with clean defined letters, spaces and capital letters to denote new sentences making it easy to read. It was created during the 8th century under the patronage of Charlamagne, hence the name Carolingian Miniscule.
During the late middle ages, a newer Gothic script became popular with tall and skinny letters placed very close together. With parchment (typically made from sheep skin) being so expensive, it was worthwhile to save space. It also was easier to write, since most of the strokes were vertical. It's rather difficult for our modern eyes to read.
When the Renaissance came along, the scholars thought very poorly of the middle ages and anything that was invented during that period. The scribes and scholars assumed the Carolingian Miniscule (they weren't sure of the name of the style then) was an invention of the Romans, since it was very clean and legible, so they adopted it thinking it was from the classical era and not the early medieval period.
I don't know how lesser known this may or may not be, but Iearned about it recently.
Familiar with the Atomic Soldiers? During the extensive US testing of the atom bomb, they intentionally exposed soldiers to radiation by DROPPING BOMBS JUST FAR ENOUGH AWAY THAT IT DIDN'T DIRECTLY HARM THEM. The soldiers were kept ignorant of the danger. In an interview, surviving soldiers said that when the flash hit, they could see their own skeletons and the skeletons of the guys next to them.
The term Equestrian, to mean someone who deals with horses, traces its origins back to the Roman era. The Equestrian class were wealthy and part of high society, just below the Senators themselves, and were expected to fight in wars as equites, cavalry units to assist the infantry legions.
As Rome expanded into the Middle East, they also had camel-riding cavalry units known as Dromedarii, apparently effective against horse riders.
Historians think the Bactrian camel was the most often used, and it's a cute hairy boy that shouldn't be fighting in wars.
Camel cavalry has quite a history in the Middle East, actually, and is still used by modern forces today.
Fun fact: Camel cavalry is also called camelry, and elephant cavalry is called elephantry.
On another note, Pool of Radiance was released in 1988, which is one year before the publication of the 2nd edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This being so, Pool of Radiance was not only the first D&D video game, it is also the first video game to use 1st edition rules. Playing it gives you a good idea of what a 1st edition D&D video game is like (it's brutal, but incredibly addicting).
A Camel and a Dromedary produce fertile offspring. It seems the single humped animals are used more for warfare than the dual humped animals. Maybe sitting between the humps hinders movement?
Comments
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/74702/discuss-evolution
by OlvynChuru
Do you want historians 500 years from now to remember your rule kindly? Here's a plan for getting future historians to like you.
Your most important goal as a ruler is to build as many cool-looking buildings and structures as possible, whether they be palaces for you or your family, tombs for you or your family, fortresses, thousand-mile walls, temples, or huge monuments. To achieve this, use as much of your country's resources as you need. Tax your people heavily, force them to work on your architectural projects without pay, and have the workers go at it even during the dead of winter. If your people end up freezing to death, starving to death, or living in total poverty, don't worry. None of that matters if you complete your architecture and make it look pretty. In the centuries to come, your architecture will remain while the suffering of your people will be long forgotten. Historians don't care much about ordinary people, but they are quite fond of buildings. Even if your contemporaries view your lavish palaces and tombs as symbols of greed, ego, and general kleptocracy, historians in the future will see your buildings as "symbols of the wealth and grandeur of past civilizations."
Your second most important goal: conquer, conquer, conquer! Conquerers and tacticians are historians' favorite kind of people. Any flaw in your character can be overlooked if you're a military genius. No one in the future will care how many civilians are killed, raped, or enslaved by your soldiers; what matters is how clever your tactics are, how many battles you win, and how large your empire stretches on a map. It also doesn't matter how well you control your empire. Just build a fortress somewhere (remember, buildings are important), put some soldiers in it, and turn the surrounding 20 miles yellow on the map.
Just don't kill your family! Your family members, unlike the civilians your soldiers are slaughtering, may actually be remembered by historians. They might not look highly upon you if you come to power by killing your father. You might get away with killing one of your palace slaves, concubines, or messengers, though. The good news is that even if you kill a family member, you can still redeem yourself in the eyes of historians by conquering more people and spending more of your money and workers' lives on those "symbols of the wealth and grandeur of past civilizations."
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00310328.2019.1579467
It's dated to around 1500-1600 BCE, so is seriously old. They don't specifically mention where the ship was from, but I'd guess it could be Minoan or Phoenician. Some of the ingots could be from Cilicia or Egypt, but that doesn't mean the ship was from there, just that it traded good from those places.
I love the pics of the old ingots they used. Sometimes they were even used as currency, because they were so valuable at the time. I can't believe how old the wreck is, that's like 500 years before the events depicted in The Iliad, even. I hope they can find enough of the ship itself to put together a model of it.
After participating in the assassination of Julius Caesar, Brutus didn't just disappear into history. He hooked up with the remnants of Pompey's army, in Greece and started taking tribute and raiding in Anatolia. It wasn't until the massive battle with Cassius against Octavian and Marcus Antonius where he was defeated, that committed suicide.
Not sure if I mentioned this one here before, or not, but the Xiongnu might be the Huns that attacked The Roman Empire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Huns It's thought by a lot of historians that during a period of strength, the Han empire bumped them out of Mongolia and pushed them Westward. It's like a game of billiards where the Han bump the Xiongnu, the Xiongnu/Huns bump the Goths and the Vandals, who bump Rome. There isn't a full consensus of this for the origin of the Huns, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence for it, quite a lot of Eastern civilizations referred to them as Hun or something similar like Hunna. It's also known that the Huns were Turkish speaking, which would fit with the Xiongnu. BTW, Turkish speaking peoples originated in what is today, Mongolia. While descended from those Turkish speakers, the people living in Turkey have intermingled with the numerous peoples that lived in Anatolia, Thrace and Hungaria over the years.
Henry Ossawa Tanner is the first African American to gain acclaim as a international master painter.
His father doesn't want him to take the path of the painter so he apprenticed him under his friend who was a miller but Henry's health proved the work was too strenuous causing him to fall very ill which lead to him staying home the next year where he only drew and painted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_V
Though Egyptians considered the Roman emperors to basically be pharaohs (what's the difference after all?), the last "true" pharaoh of Egypt was Ptolemy XV. Better known as Caesarion, the son of Cleopatra VII and possibly/probably Julius Caesar.
Awhile back, I posted some pictures of coins with her image on them. She wasn't a looker by today's standards, but I think the reason men like Caesar and Marc Antony found her so intriguing was that she was well educated. She was completely abreast of the political situation of pretty much the entire Mediterranean and spoke numerous languages. The Romans weren't in the habit of educating their women, so to them a learned woman was quite a novelty. Throw in the cosmetics, perfumes, clothes and jewelry and she must have been pretty spectacular.
Note, the Romans were by and large very strict moralists, and they were as disturbed by female sexuality as most cultures, so 2 would be notable, and they were pretty public.
I've heard several historians who were pretty clear that Cleopatra's appeal was mostly mental, and she was considered not just educated, but exceptionally intelligent, and her charms were said to appeal to bright men especially, rather than the horny masses.
Note, Ms Cleo was notorious for taking good care of what looks she did have, and a lot of beauty is contrivance anyways!
It wasn't uncommon for women to remarry in Rome when their husbands died. Even an older widow might have many suitors who were after her lands or other holdings. But this is for the nobility, the lower classes would take what they could get. Even in the middle ages it wasn't uncommon for a noble woman to remarry. Eleanor of Aquataine was married twice.
Some of the temples during the pagan era (especially Venus) had sacred prostitutes. This was a practice the Greeks, Phoenicians and the Mesopotamian city states all upheld, too. I know less about this in Rome than Greece, but in Greece, after their time as a temple prostitute, they could either stay with the temple and help train others, or get married and be completely accepted by the community. It was considered an honorable position with no shame.
It's not so much that they were worried about female sexuality so much as they were worried about giving their inheritance to a son that wasn't theirs.
It's interesting to see that there were people in Rome who thought that loving animals was shameful and their love should be reserved for people.
Well, it still happens nowadays, at least where I live. If someone is single or childless and has a dog or cat they love, people talk about substitutes for real relationships.
That's illogical because I know people with spouse and 4 children who still love their dog as part of the family .
"I am in tears, while carrying you to your last resting place as much as I rejoiced when bringing you home in my own hands fifteen years ago" (Source)
People haven't changed at all.I'm convinced the only thing that changed on Earth these last 7000 years was technology. Humanity is still the same.
It's mostly true, but there are things that have changed. Throughout most of history slavery was universally accepted as a way of life and necessary to run a society. Clearly, we know that's not the case today and the vast majority of people around today are opposed to the institution. Most people also don't live in the extended family situations that existed throughout most of history, too. There have been societies that after a certain age, kids were taken away from their parents to be raised in a barracks or creche. Social mobility was also nearly impossible in a lot of societies. It's still actually really hard to get out of the class you're born into and most people aren't able to pull it off, but at least it's allowed. The idea of prison as a punishment is also relatively recent, most of the time it was just a place to keep someone while they awaited judgement or punishment. Once debt slavery was abolished, it became a spot to keep people to get them to pay up. Eventually it became a punishment in of itself for a lot of crimes. Virtually nobody believes in human sacrifice and even animal sacrifice is pretty uncommon. It's true there's a few cultures that still practice animal sacrifice, but the vast majority of people don't believe in it.
Early academics always interest me. Their work almost always spreads across a wide variety of fields, sometimes working on routine scientific matters, sometimes writing broad philosophical works about the nature of various things, and sometimes writing religious treatises.
During the late middle ages, a newer Gothic script became popular with tall and skinny letters placed very close together. With parchment (typically made from sheep skin) being so expensive, it was worthwhile to save space. It also was easier to write, since most of the strokes were vertical. It's rather difficult for our modern eyes to read.
When the Renaissance came along, the scholars thought very poorly of the middle ages and anything that was invented during that period. The scribes and scholars assumed the Carolingian Miniscule (they weren't sure of the name of the style then) was an invention of the Romans, since it was very clean and legible, so they adopted it thinking it was from the classical era and not the early medieval period.
Familiar with the Atomic Soldiers? During the extensive US testing of the atom bomb, they intentionally exposed soldiers to radiation by DROPPING BOMBS JUST FAR ENOUGH AWAY THAT IT DIDN'T DIRECTLY HARM THEM. The soldiers were kept ignorant of the danger. In an interview, surviving soldiers said that when the flash hit, they could see their own skeletons and the skeletons of the guys next to them.
As Rome expanded into the Middle East, they also had camel-riding cavalry units known as Dromedarii, apparently effective against horse riders.
Historians think the Bactrian camel was the most often used, and it's a cute hairy boy that shouldn't be fighting in wars.
Camel cavalry has quite a history in the Middle East, actually, and is still used by modern forces today.
On another note, Pool of Radiance was released in 1988, which is one year before the publication of the 2nd edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. This being so, Pool of Radiance was not only the first D&D video game, it is also the first video game to use 1st edition rules. Playing it gives you a good idea of what a 1st edition D&D video game is like (it's brutal, but incredibly addicting).