While shopping in Walmart, you suddenly realize that you are, without a doubt, going to be transported to Rome, circa 200 AD, in one hour. What do you bring? What will you do once you're there?
HARD MODE: Walmart doesn't have any books.
For me it would be:
1. Salt and Spices, I need capital to start out with, and that was worth a lot.
2. Potatoes, since I'll likely be needing food to grow for my new life as a peasant farmer, and potatoes don't kill your teeth, unlike stone milled wheat.
3. Rifle, and a pile of ammo. I'll be needing protein, and home defense.
4. All sorts of water purifiers. I'll be damned if I die of dysentery.
What will I do? I'll sell my salt and spices, use that to accrue land and equipment to farm, preferably something seashore, and then proceed to grow potatoes. With basic sustenance figured out, I might sell my knowledge of modern technology, like black powder, or something.
While shopping in Walmart, you suddenly realize that you are, without a doubt, going to be transported to Rome...
I'd spend all my money on rifles and amo. On arrival I would demonstrate their terrible power, and then sell them as "magic sticks of death" for exorbitant prices. I would teach my scant knowledge of modern science and philosophical developments and be considered the wisest living man.
You have to set a price limit - or else I'd take everything.
This. I guess I could overdraft my card and not give a shit because in an hour ill be in Rome. Does whats in my shopping cart count or do I need to have officially purchased it?
It's useless anyways I know not Latin
>can only tell people pluribus unum and veni vidi vici
All the records I can take with me. The phonograph wouldn't be hard for them to make: a nubby needle and a steam-driven turntable would be all you need to give them modern music. Without books, I'd be raiding the garden department for new world crop seeds. Bicycle, because if they can work out a rough equivalent with period technology that would be an enormous boost to personal mobility. Spices, as mentioned, and maps from the poster aisle. Actuqlly, tons of shit from the poster/art aisle, I want to showcase new aesthetics they might like. Imagine a Soviet-constructivist rome.
I'd see what I could do about fine glassware and stuff, any steel tools I could get my hands on, and tons of plastics.
Carthago delenda est, Romani ite domum, Caecilius est in Horto
Fuck Hard Mode. I'm going to incite a communist revolution in ancient Rome and no one is going to stop be. The plebeian proletariat needs me.
So are we just going to ignore the fact that potatoes alone would revolutionize agriculture in Afro-Eurasia?
>Proletariat
>In Ancient Rome.
Maybe you should actually read Marx.
Was there a commons in Italy during the Roman Empire? If so, you could just grab some unused land and start growing there, right?
Maybe you should shut up!
Anyways, there was unfathomable exploitation of the working class during the Roman Empire. I believe communism could have saved the Roman Empire.
"I'm going to go back to the greatest empire that ever was, and my goal is to make it fall *faster*"
>the working class
Lel
>I believe communism could have saved the Roman Empire.
Sweet historical idealism bro.
Yeah... Which is why unfathomable exploitation of the working class *increased* in the feudal interregnum between Rome and the Rennaissance. So your point is to destabilize and weaken an empire already having a hard enough time maintaining its borders?
How would you even structure your communist utopia? How do you intend on not having to fight the entire rest of the empire who see you as threatening their way of life? Enthrall me with your acumen.
ahaha oh man. thank you, sir, that gave me heart kek indeed.
Rome initially had an unshakable resolve. The citizenry felt like they were part of something bigger, a national identity. If Rome lost its legions it didn't simply roll over and give up its treasury. It put together a NEW legion out of whatever able bodied men were left and kept fighting. It was that resolve that won Rome the Punic Wars.
But as time went on the upper classes accumulated all the wealth. Poor land owners would join the legion, spend a decade fighting in Germania sending back slaves, and when they got back they would find a nearby patrician had taken his land and is now working it with the very slaves you sent back to Rome. The only choice left to such people was to move into the heart of Rome and begin working in some sweatshop for some other patrician. It got to the point that the average Roman didn't give a damn about Rome. Any invader couldn't be that much worse than the current rulers.
Redistributing the wealth would have given Rome a few more centuries at least.
>Redistributing the wealth would have given Rome a few more centuries at least.
oh god, you historical materialists are so damn embarrassing. you literally have no conception of the role values and culture play into human history
oh right lol they're just a product of the material conditions at the time hurr durr
>Walmart
>grocery store
>walk out with guns and ammunition
And how do you propose to wrest control of assets from people who can literally buy personal armies? Also, communism occurs when workers own the means of production. By removing any industrial capacity the Patricians had (slaves), you have to redistribute the slaves to the population, elsewise abolish slavery entirely. Or make the government the sole owner of all slaves and provide citizens with a stipend?
There is no way for communism to work in Rome without it degenerating into anarchy. How would you solve housing inequality? Demolish villas and make everyone live in block apartments? How about trade? What is the point of controlling vassal kingdoms of they're not trading with the wealthy? What possible motivation would there to be for eypt to ship grain to Rome and Iberia if they weren't being paid for it, and instead it was just considered their communistic duty?
You need to think about how wrong you are.
Walmart isn't a grocery store it's in its own category. It's Walmart.
i take ten thousand bushels of black peppercorns, a solar generator, an extension cord, a stereo, and the best of dire straits, and a pair of shades
i spend the rest of my days writing play adaptions of seinfeld episodes.
its a department store
You can buy fucking anything anything in Walmart. You can also walk out with a line of credit, golf clubs, an engagement ring, see a doctor while you're there, a new wardrobe, a laptop, and just about anything else you want.
1. Hunting Knife
2. Something more like a machete
3. Bow and quiver of arrows
4. A couple weeks worth of beef jerky
5. Water purifiers as well, can never go wrong with clean water.
6. The nicer spices
What will I do? Attempt to un-derail this thread .w.
Hey spicefags, when you get to the past how do you make contact with affluent people willing to buy (not outright rob/take) spices from some random dude?
Genuinely curious because I fell for the spices are valuable meme. I think I'd go to church and ask if he could help me sell the delicious spices.
Christianity is still outlawed. If you mean the temple, sure.
But it's not like you're flaunting your wares, you can keep your stuff outside the city. That said, Romans really fucking liked keeping the peace so there would be centurions in the marketplace making sure no violence occurred.
I'd only buy one thing and I'd be set for life.
walmart.com
Good thinking. I forgot to mention to pick up all the purple shit you can find, as real purple is fabulously expensive. Also, any silk garnment you can find will net you thousands of denari
Imagine how sick a communist Rome would be.
I'm having orgasms just from thinking about it
"Quid dicit liber, user? Verba non intellego."
Can you explain what communism would look like in the ancient world?
Like Incas, but Roman and with Ak-47's and Delphic Commissars.
Warhammer 40k mixed with Roma.
You idiots would be shanked to death in your first hour in Rome
If it is only what I can carry then:
>Backpack to carry my shit
>Cooking pot
>Fire starter
>Warm clothes
>Non-perishable food (bags of lentils mostly)
>Machete
>Crossbow (reusable ammo)
>Waterproof tarp
>Rope
>Tools to make modern wooden furniture with so I can make a living
>Bring along any modern item
>Get singled out because you have magical itsm, surely you must be a sorcerer
>Rumor spreads like wildfire that there is a wizard with magical artifacts living somewhere just outside of town
>Get murdered and your stuff stolen within 24 hours.
Yea ok, the cucks who believe their are God's are responsible for pretty much everything. All I would have to do is bring back a bic lighter and blow their minds. "I am blessed by Vulcan" they will be shitting themselves in their hut. Although bringing back some basic fireworks and saltpeter and gunpowder and showing them how to blow shit up real good. I would advance western technology 1500 years in under 50. Oh yea I'd also bring back a ton of purple.like that one user said. Another thing definitely some bitching steel knives and fishing poles, a fuckton of toilet paper too. I rly like modern toilet paper
If I somehow had roman citizenship and language knowledge after arriving, I would take as much modern medicine as possible. Worth something as well to be the one healer that actually can do shit.
>What will I do? I'll sell my salt and spices, use that to accrue land and equipment to farm, preferably something seashore, and then proceed to grow potatoes.
What makes you think you will be able to do that without roman citizenship, and even more importantly, without speaking fucking latin/ koine greek fluently... ?
Rome was a slave economy, in which the main
contradiction was between slave owner and slaves, not capital and proletariat. You cannot create communism without the proletariat and modern industrialization. At best you could help feudalism being born early. - You never read your Marx and Engels, did you?
>But as time went on the upper classes accumulated all the wealth. Poor land owners would join the legion, spend a decade fighting in Germania sending back slaves, and when they got back they would find a nearby patrician had taken his land and is now working it with the very slaves you sent back to Rome. The only choice left to such people was to move into the heart of Rome and begin working in some sweatshop for some other patrician.
-_-
>Implying that were true.
>Implying you didn't GET land for working in the legion once dismissed.
He's not a historical materialst though. He thinks you can get to communism just by wanting it.
He has no conception of the role economic and material conditions play in human history. Patterns in land ownership aren't the product of an inherent economic logic, they're a result of people being greedy, and a general moral decline.
This isn't a materialist history of Rome, it's Gibbon warmed over.
As much guns and ammo that the store has in stock. I can use that to take anything I need when I get there.
>Implying they wouldn't just see through the lighter being technology. (One they had never seen but technology none the less).
When the first whites arrived in new sealand on ship, the maori attacked it with one of their own despite being fired at with canons which they had never encountered before, and even chased the intruders away the very first time.
Stainless steel utensils.
Add Sturdy knife, sturdy waterbottle, pack of lighters
Not necessary. You could very well simply rely on hands for food and it'll be fine.
A solar battery charger kit along with your own smartphone.
A compass.
shitloads of books concerning roman history and society, post-roman history, philosophy, science, medicine and engineering, especially non-flashy engineering shit like how to make better quality steel than the time period allows
several laptops, download a roman latin translation program/book
as large and as many solar panels as I can
as big of a printer as I can find and a metric fuckload of printer paper
a fuckloads of guns, some for protection, some to impress people and to be given as gifts
a fuckload of clothing dyes, and lots of purple clothing
a metric assload of potatoes and other futuristic crops (including instructions on how to grow them)
a camera
camping supplies and food
a big wagon, possibly something motorized, to carry all my shit
lots of maps, especially mediterranean nautical charts (I just hope they're valid 2000 years back)
lots of items of limited use but major spectacle, to be used as gifts (walkie-talkies, telescopes binoculars, candy,
general medicines
probably some stupid book with a title like "so you've traveled back in time..."
I pose myself as an envoy from the distant land of america and try to gain favor with the emperor or at least some powerful patrician
i'd probably try to gain contact by showing the purple clothing/dyes to roman soldiers or something and to be redirected to an official who could probably take me to the emperor or at least an higher official, when they see something like a laptop or a gun
if I meet the emperor I'd probably try to explain my situation and offer my services in exchange for food, board and protection
fuck becoming a goddamn peasant in a foreign culture, I wouldn't even be roman, they'd eventually shit on me unless I died from starvation first
Better get antique greek language software as well. Latin wasn't always spoken in the roman empire much. Depending on WHEN you end up, you'd be totally shit on speaking only latin.
I just got shivers imagining is some retard brought a koran along with them and turned the empire in to a Islamic one
1. Solar panels.
2. Laptop and a few external harddrives filled with the most important knowledge in the world.
3. Body armor, only a rechargable stun gun, no real guns, because some cunts are going to steal it and kill me for it and the ammo would run out anyway.
4. Learn Latin. Tell them I'm Jupiter incarnated and come to Make Rome Great Again™.
5. Become Emperor's sidekick and let the scribes learn English and study the knowledge I brought. Take over the world and warn future generations for Muhammed and communism.
6. My sons and daughters will continue my legacy and by 2016 probably colonized our solar system.
>religions are distributed by books and not by peoples
all these fantasies of turning the empire christian/communist/islamic from a single book and a single time-traveler are ridiculous
>Tell them I'm Jupiter incarnated and come to Make Rome Great Again™.
>get stabbed in dick
time travel power fantasies are fucking dumb
How could you possibly go about setting up a socialist/communist state in a pre-industrial society...?
>didn't read number 3
>don't realize how tall and good looking user is and that he also has a winning personality
>Not taking penicillin
Mfw
stun guns suck dick and can't be used on more than one person
My goal would be to advance them as much as possible and teach them useful shit in general.
1. A mechanical machine of some kind, something they can replicate.
2. Compass and maps
3. Encyclopedia, I don't know nearly enough to instruct them on everything.
4. Mechanical watch
After that I don't know. I would probably get killed by someone before I could do anything anyway.
I'd grab a gun, some armour, an axe and hope I don't die from a raiding bandit or sacking. Pretty sure Gaul sacked Rome around then, would probably help the Gualish because I fucking hate the romance languages
pic related
You do not speak Latin.
TOBACCO
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A
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I am not from the US so sorry in advance of some items aren't available at Walmart.
1) Kill myself because i forgot all the Latin i learned in school. I assume from now on that the time travel will refresh my memories/grants me the ability to speak the language.
2) Full check up at the doctor and stock up with general meds (antiobiotics and the like)
3) Ebin guns with tons of ammo and a crossbow
4) Spices and salt
5)Sweets (i bet the patricians will sell their soul for it)
6) Enough high quality clothing to last me for a lifetime
7) General survival shit ( a tent, Water purifier etc.)
It's technically a hypermarket
What's the most powerful technology you could give the roman empire in terms of conquest and stability? Guns? Motors? Telecommunications? Potatoes?
Salt, spices, a fuck ton of fenugreek seeds/plants, a pot, lighters, a portable solar genwrator, camping supplies, seed potatoes, a crate of MREs, water purification device, a nice sturdy knife and multitool, purple dyes and stuff, some way to learn Koine Greek and Latin and a painting of Diogenes. And farming information and games and shit preloaded onto a hard drive and a laptop. And several waterproof crates to store everything.
I will fucking teach them to farm the fenugreek because of its contraceptive properties. They fucking know about it and the cousin they literally fucked to death for by consumung or uaing so much of.
And then I hope I can find Diogenes. Probably the wrong time period but it doesn't hurt to try.
*fennel
Of course I fuck up the contraceptive plant the Greeks farmed to extinction.
you're about 500 years too late for diomemes
>And farming information and games and shit preloaded onto a hard drive and a laptop.
>not bringing several laptops so you can have LAN parties with roman emperors in 200 AD
A laptop with as much info as you can download with some solar panels and a battery to power it. The problem seems like it would be getting that info to the right person, which would be exceptionally hard because you are a foreigner in weird clothing that can't speak any ancient languages. You'd probably be enslaved. If you could at least get the info to an important person, they could sponsor you while you feed them and other capable people information about things. Then maybe you could get some goodies or something. Some land or some slaves of your own. You teach some scribes english or something and they can study the information. Maybe by then you are useless in terms of your utility since they can just use the laptop themselves, but hopefully you got some assets and made some friends and maybe you won't be a slave.
But you can give them all kinds of information about where resources are located, accurate maps of the surrounding area, what nations exist, what they are doing right at that moment, etc. along with obvious technology stuff.
I meant more in the sense of what the romans could best put to use if they knew how to make it(or periodically received as gifts from a time portal to the USA so you don't have tech tree inconsistencies), not really what you could bring, as then obviously knowledge is the most important. Obviously a technology is a pretty diffuse thing, there's no saying where the family of rockets end and engines begin, but still.
Except a lot of people already had land and/or didn't get land.
It sounds like you are just arguing against communism. It's not about Marxist communism specifically. It's about putting the plight of the common people into words such that they can act for their collective benefit.
See above.
As much medicine and porn as I can hold in my hands.
>What makes you think you will be able to do that without roman citizenship, and even more importantly, without speaking fucking latin/ koine greek fluently... ?
Everyone speaks money and language comes with time. Granted it would take some time. Until then you will be paying people in salt to sleep in their barn I guess and hope no one calls the police or whatever Rome had to put the crazy foreigner in prison.
>It's about putting the plight of the common people into words such that they can act for their collective benefit.
Ah yes, communism is simply people working for their collective benefit. All we need to do is instill a sense of civic responsibility towards the legislature which looks after our welfare, and the people themselves. Let's just call it SPQR for short!
Once people act for the collective will of the SPQR, Rome will achieve communism!
Again, I think you are just railing against dem dam commies. And again, it's not about specifically Marxist communism.
The average Roman was exploited as fuck as time went on and no one really put that plight into words at the time. It was that growing disillusionment that ultimately contributed to the fall of Rome. The only way the citizenry took the reigns of their plight was by keeping the emperor's in power with the threat of rounding up and killing any senators that assassinated popular emperors. It was a very crude means of taking back an iota of power from the upper class and Rome would have benefited from a more complex understanding and reaction to their plight.
>Again, I think you are just railing against dem dam commies.
I'm afraid it's you who's railing against dem dam commies. Rome already achieved communism. It wasn't marxist communism, but it meets your criteria.
Rome had one of the greatest disparities of wealth between classes of any other civilization in history before the collapse. Obviously the people didn't recognize that because no one put the situation into words.
isn't that just because it was so big?
That you thought communism is possible in the slave society era shows you know fuck all about communism.
>my new life as a peasant farmer
user was starved after an month's
I'm guessing everyone in this thread is fluent in the language of the time which is impressive. Why not go back with a bunch of three liter bottles of soda and sell a cup for an insane amount?
To be fair they might inquire about where you come from and how you acquired all those spices, but hopefully your queer clothes and garbled latin will convince them you're not some random thief.
my post mentioned a roman latin dictionary actually
if you could come into custody of some powerful person learning the actual language should be somewhat manageable, which is why all these people becoming random peasants or merchants is ridiculous, because relying entirely on yourself is bound to get you fucked over
They sell rifles at Walmart?
All of the above, but I'd also pillage their pharmacy (if they have one) for antibiotics and whatever meds for roman plagues that I can google.
You should legitimately kill yourselves. You're retardation is off the charts and could be contagious.
Whatever the fuck you call it, it sells guns.
>3. Rifle, and a pile of ammo. I'll be needing protein, and home defense.
i don't know how to break it to you user, but bullets are not actually food and neither are they full of protein.
t. Gracchus
this made me kek, thank you OP
Shockingly though they are effective for murdering things that provide protein.
>unironically playing farming games
You people are the worst
Do you even know what hunting is
It wasn't just slaves. It was the citizenry. Over time the upper classes took all the wealth in the empire for their own until the commoners were forced to work in sweatshops and subsist off of grain given to them by the government, their only source of happiness the gladiatorial games.
The same as regular Rome but with more universality of Romanness and less concentration of wealth in the upper class.
It wasn't just an excess of wealth that caused the disparity. It was the gradual taking away of the standard of living of the average Roman citizen as well. They went from a relatively egalitarian society where many people owned land to a society wear the average Roman citizen worked in sweatshops and all the farms were owned by the rich and worked by slaves.
Condoms.
As much salt and spice as I can carry, particularly east asian ones so I can bandy them as having mystical properties
Maize seed and potatoes.
Also I don't need a book to revolutionize Roman technology (if anyone will listen to me or fund me) but a Latin book would be helpful.