Why does Classical Rome feel so extremely alien compared to what came afterwards?
>Liberal attitudes to sex vs Repression >Flowing robes vs Full body clothing >Freedom of religion vs Inquisition >Globalized world vs Localized >Society-wide philosophical debate vs Knowledge in hands of priests >Emphasis on culture over ethnicity vs Emphasis on ethnicity and nationhood over culture >Imperial Laws vs Feudal naked power >Respect for strong individuals and some minor social mobility vs Respect for class and nobility above all else >Animal sacrifice and orgiastic festivals vs Piety, fasting and prayer >Slavery vs Serfdom >Loyalty to the State vs Loyalty to the Lord or Prince >One Pan-European language and lots of minor dialects vs. Dozens of different languages from the same family
It blows my mind how Western culture could change so radically in so little time.
Was there really such a structural break and sudden cultural shift?
Or was it a more gradual change with a transition period that isn't properly taught?
What caused it? How could civilization collapse so rapidly? How could culture change so much?
It's like two completely alien cultures separated by little more than a hundred years.
Joseph Evans
Sex wasn't any more liberal in ancient Rome than in the Middle Ages.
Flowing robes are fully body clothing.
Religious ceased to be free because Christianity is dogmatically exclusivist.
"Globalization" did not exist then. If you mean "cosmopolitanism" vs. localized, it's because of the break down of centralization.
Society-wide debate continued very much into the Middle Ages. The Monophysites vs. the Chalcedonians is a good example, there were popular riots about it, and chariot team colors were even associated with it.
There no distinction between ethnicity and culture.
Feudal laws weren't any more naked than imperial laws. In fact, less so, since they required a much more reciprocal relationship with serfs, than imperial laws did with slaves.
I don't know what the next one is supposed to mean, the Plebeians lost their Tribunes with the Caesars.
Christian feasts were extremely festive, they just didn't have nudity and sex. Christ was seen as the only needed sacrifice, so the Eucharist replaced animal sacrifice.
The Church sort of frowned on slavery.
"Loyalty to the state," in Imperial Times, meant loyalty to the Emperor, not in the modernist sense of loyalty to the state.
There were plenty of local languages in the Roman Empire, just only one legal language. This way of things persisted through most of the Middle Ages as well, with Latin being the sole legal, scholastic and ecclesiastical language (in the West--in the East it was Greek).
Joshua Brown
>Liberal attitudes to sex vs Repression this is just a meme. The only people who had liberal attitudes were the children of aristocrats >Flowing robes vs Full body clothing Romans abandoned the toga because over time they became ridiculous and huge and it's really not comfortable wearing a giant wool blanket in the middle of summer. >Freedom of religion vs Inquisition Romans did NOT have freedom of religion. They were expected to pay taxes at the temple of Jupiter, and getting your trade license means making a sacrifice at an appropriate temple. They tolerated the presence of other religions as long as they kept the peace and paid their taxes, which at times could be repressive >Globalized Their economy was built on constant infusions of capital from conquered nations. When they ran out of people to conquer, the economy gradually broke down >Society-wide philosophical debate vs Knowledge in hands of priests Their society was incredibly superstitious and only the wealthy could afford education. Knowledge was jealously horded >Emphasis on culture over ethnicity their society was continuously plagued with uprisings from people who resented them for treating them like second class citizens >Imperial Laws vs Feudal naked power Roman justice was pay-to-play >Respect for strong individuals social unrest, civil wars, and later chronic problems with usurpers. >Animal sacrifice and orgiastic festivals vs Piety, fasting and prayer tawdry superstition verses activity designed to refine the spirit >Slavery vs Serfdom Christianity forbade Christians from owning each other as slaves >Loyalty to the State vs Loyalty to the Lord or Prince Romans were only loyal to the aristocrat putting his name on their paychecks. >One Pan-European language and lots of minor dialects Latin was only really spoken in Italy. They mostly spoke Greek or Aramaic in the east and Celtic in western Europe
Logan Murphy
Maybe because you're falsely dichotomising two memes separated by hundreds of years as if they were a discreet thing.
Rather, you have to follow the evolution of these concepts as they changed through the centuries.
Jaxson Davis
Sex wasn't repressed until the Renaissance and Reformation. Communal baths were commonplace through the late Middle Ages and women had fairly high positions in society.
Zachary Rodriguez
italic-etrusian inbreeding circle maxed
Cooper Wright
After Rome collapsed, the Church was the only institution in Europe strong enough to keep the lights on.
Tough times meant they wanted/needed people to stick to what was important.
Once Europe was back up and running at full steam, the enlightenment came along.
Imagine you live in a cool city. It's economy tanks and it goes to utter shit with chaos and violence everywhere.
The only authority left in town is a police force of grumpy, angry old bastards.
They keep things civilized and barely functioning - but you aren't going to be having many block parties or festivals. You have to go around and fix everything and get the trains running again - And the old bastards aren't particularly polite about how they get you to pull your weight.
>Or was it a more gradual change with a transition period that isn't properly taught?
I can't remember if it was Dan Carlin or someone else, but I remember hearing it explained in a sense like losing radio communication.
One day you're chilling in Britain and the next day the guy who brings the reports from the coast doesn't show up.
You send someone out to the coast, and he explains no boats having been coming in for a few weeks.
Maybe the odd traveler shows up here and there over the next few months to tell you no one is running France at the moment, and they haven't heard from Rome in months either.
Just shit like that.
Mason Young
Its not that alien if you are able to see how progressed. The Roman dress in your picture is of a republican era quality. Later Roman clothing was very much like medieval dress, evident in the fashion of the Fayum portraits and paintings at pompeii
Brayden Long
Roman sexual morality was Judaized by Christianity.
Christopher Barnes
>Christianity forbade Christians from owning each other as slaves eventually, but that didn't stop the slave trade among christians in europe
>and Celtic in western Europe by the end of th roman empire celtic languages were more or less dead. Latin was the language of the west, even in urban north africa. it was also spoken in the balkans north of the jirecek line
>tawdry superstition verses activity designed to refine the spirit come on
both you and OP are assuming there was a greater transition than there was. OP is naive about Rome, and you're obviously biased against it.
Juan Lopez
Anyone got pictures of late Roman attire and military clothing?
Angel Price
You got many different times from both Roman and Medieval Europe messed up. The time of Charlemagne and Vikings was nothing like the Late Middle Ages and the Late Roman era was nothing like Republican or early Imperial Rome.
Isaac Wilson
>It blows my mind how Western culture could change so radically in so little time. I think it's more that your image of Rome is romanticised.
Adrian Baker
>Liberal attitudes to sex vs Repression Roman elite was not their entire society >Flowing robes vs Full body clothing Roman fashion changed a lot and was different all throughout the empire, Medieval fashion certainly can't be grouped into a single type, given geographic and chronological variety. >Freedom of religion vs Inquisition Romans had persecution in some areas, you had to worship the emperor too. Also the Medievals had inquisition sometimes, sometimes not. >Globalized world vs Localized Medieval society was globalized - look at the pope, a universal figure to all Christians from around the world. Arguably the early Roman world, with its heavy focus on local elites, was highly localized. >Society-wide philosophical debate vs Knowledge in hands of priests The only people who had such command over knowledge were the elite and wealthy land-owning classes, who were a few percent of the Empire's population. >Emphasis on culture over ethnicity vs Emphasis on ethnicity and nationhood over culture This is just bizarre, ethnicity and nationhood only became linked well millennia after the Roman empire fell. "culture" in the form of religion and social ties was far more important in the medieval period, arguably ethnicity would be more important in the Roman empire >Imperial Laws vs Feudal naked power The Romans contradicted their laws in their constant civil wars, and the Medieval systems had common law and other systems that formed similar purposes; generally the Romans are the ones who get ascribed to the "orientalist despotism" tropes.
Jaxson Allen
>Respect for strong individuals and some minor social mobility vs Respect for class and nobility above all else "Class" in the way that we understand it, didn't really come into its own until Marx; Medievals would probably see individual social relationships. Besides, the Romans weren't a perfect egalitarian society; the after mentioned landowners were the ones with huge power, and the late empire had essentially seen them become semi-feudal. The chaos of the medieval period would have encouraged a lot of social mobility. >Animal sacrifice and orgiastic festivals vs Piety, fasting and prayer I'm sure there were plenty of pious Romans, and plenty of Medievals who had their equivalent of orgiastic festivals - just think of the trope of the drunken medieval banquets. >Slavery vs Serfdom There was slavery in the medieval era, and serfdom in the Roman era; the Romans continuously evolved to more serfdom. >Loyalty to the State vs Loyalty to the Lord or Prince Because the Romans never fought civil wars constantly which were based on loyalty to a commander happened to be in command of the local legions… >One Pan-European language and lots of minor dialects vs. Dozens of different languages from the same family Latin (and Greek) was the Roman lingua franca, Latin was the Medieval lingua franca, and on the ground a ton of different vernaculars were spoken.
Mason Morales
There is a pretty big gap since the Dark Age till the Classic Rome.
Camden Campbell
>One day you're chilling in Britain and the next day the guy who brings the reports from the coast doesn't show up. Stop. The idea that Roman central organisation just up and died one day is absurd. The process was a very slow trend towards greater localisation that started with the 3rd century crisis.
Jayden Hall
This happened with some military outposts on the frontier though. One day they just didn't get paid, so they bunkered down.
Jaxon Mitchell
>dark ages top historical revisionism
Zachary Perry
>eventually, but that didn't stop the slave trade among christians in europe of course serfdom was effectively slavery and people really didn't start becoming emancipated until the enlightenment, but what it did do was dispense with the old way of thinking that slavery was a natural aspect of human existence that would always exist >by the end of th roman empire celtic languages were more or less dead. But by then most of its inhabitants were speaking Germanic. My point is that it's not like Latin was spoken universally >come on It's not blatant pro-Christian bias, the same phenomena happened in China after the widespread adoption of Confucianism, a marked shift in the way people approach ethics and morality > you're obviously biased against it. Nonsense! Rome was much better than anything which came before it, and at its height you'd much rather live under the protection of the Romans than in some barbarian hellhole where people still actively hunted each other for sport. The thing is, it was in turn supplanted by superior models, ones that were fairer and more efficient and allowed for a greater range of human expression, and its important for us to understand why people adopted, and then abandoned, the Roman model, rather than romanticize a vision of the past which is one part wishful thinking and one part unwarranted glamorization
Leo Martin
>>One Pan-European language and lots of minor dialects vs. Dozens of different languages from the same family Do you mean Latin, the language of an empire that only replaced Celtic languages + Dacia, leaving Germanic and Slavic untouched and letting Hellenic survive?
>>Emphasis on culture over ethnicity vs Emphasis on ethnicity and nationhood over culture I don't know what you mean here, but culture is inherent to ethnicity.
William Bennett
Culture isn't inherent to ethnicity I could tomorrow, travel to Germany, learn German, act in a German way, learn to "think" as a German might think, effectively become German.
I would never be an ethnic German - well, I would to an extent since I have German ancestry - and so the Germans who have an ethnic based conception of nation would never accept me, but I could easily become culturally German.
So too, I could kidnap a German child, bring them to France, and have them grow up speaking French, thinking French, acting French, be culturally French, and they would still be ethnically German. There need be no link between ethnicity and culture, and ethnicity itself can change over time too, it isn't set in stone.
We could apply this to any other nation too, but the Germans are the best example because they're the ones who are the most autistic concerning the idea of culture and ethnicity being tied together. In their case, the Germans used to claim that there used to be two cultures in Northern Europe when the Romans invaded; the "celtic culture", and the "germanic culture", who had certain social and technological differences. But we now know that there were places where the "german" ethnicity was, like Switzerland, that had the "culture" of the "celtic" ethnicity. There rarely is a strict match between "ethnicity" and "culture", which are fluid and to some extent imaginary terms.
Jack Torres
>Liberal attitudes to sex vs Repression Christanity >Flowing robes vs Full body clothing Germanics >Freedom of religion vs Inquisition Christanity >Globalized world vs Localized Germanics >Society-wide philosophical debate vs Knowledge in hands of priests Christanity >Emphasis on culture over ethnicity vs Emphasis on ethnicity and nationhood over culture Germanics >Imperial Laws vs Feudal naked power Germanics >Respect for strong individuals and some minor social mobility vs Respect for class and nobility above all else Germanics >Animal sacrifice and orgiastic festivals vs Piety, fasting and prayer Christanity >Slavery vs Serfdom Christianity >Loyalty to the State vs Loyalty to the Lord or Prince Germanics >One Pan-European language and lots of minor dialects vs. Dozens of different languages from the same family This would have happened no matter what.
Easton Walker
>Emphasis on culture over ethnicity vs Emphasis on ethnicity and nationhood over culture This is literally Secular Europe's fault. Christianity was pretty cultutal and did not mind people of other races being Christians.
Meanwhile the "rationalism" and "enlightenment" thinkers of the 18th to 19th century came up with bullshit as wacky as religious myths with their obsession towards race and nationalism.
Anthony Myers
>>Culture isn't inherent to ethnicity >I could tomorrow, travel to Germany, learn German, act in a German way, learn to "think" as a German might think, effectively become German. >I would never be an ethnic German - well, I would to an extent since I have German ancestry - and so the Germans who have an ethnic based conception of nation would never accept me, but I could easily become culturally German. >So too, I could kidnap a German child, bring them to France, and have them grow up speaking French, thinking French, acting French, be culturally French, and they would still be ethnically German. There need be no link between ethnicity and culture, and ethnicity itself can change over time too, it isn't set in stone. I think you put the cart before the horse. The reason we call Germans are a distinct ethnic group is by their language, religion, and other such things like writing, folklore, and law systems. It is the only reason that these ethnic groups exist, that they have these traits. Remove those traits, and it's an empty meaning, and should be done away with.
>We could apply this to any other nation too, but the Germans are the best example because they're the ones who are the most autistic concerning the idea of culture and ethnicity being tied together. In their case, the Germans used to claim that there used to be two cultures in Northern Europe when the Romans invaded; the "celtic culture", and the "germanic culture", who had certain social and technological differences. But we now know that there were places where the "german" ethnicity was, like Switzerland, that had the "culture" of the "celtic" ethnicity. There rarely is a strict match between "ethnicity" and "culture", which are fluid and to some extent imaginary terms. While I agree overall that there are areas where the lines become blurred, I'd warm you against taking society to mean the same as culture. You can have a X way of doing things while having a Y culture.
Nathaniel Bailey
>But by then most of its inhabitants were speaking Germanic. Not quite, Germanic invaders were usually a ruling elite rather than replacing the majority Romanized locals.
Caleb Sanchez
>One Pan-European language and lots of minor dialects vs. Dozens of different languages from the same family
There were several regional differences in Roman times already. Latin was still used until the late middle ages. Only then people generally started making up ways of writing the vernacular. Latin still remained as the academic/ecclesiastical language for long after.
Being literate in the Middle Ages meant being able to read and write Latin.
Carter Price
>Culture isn't inherent to ethnicity Of course it is.
>I would never be an ethnic German Yes you would
>they would still be ethnically German. no they wouldn't
Jeremiah Williams
>Not quite, Germanic invaders were usually a ruling elite rather than replacing the majority Romanized locals. But over time those Romanized locals "Germanized" as the locals were gradually displaced by the descendants of aristocrats
John Reed
City that pays wages go rogue Sudden no wages show up in spring Local garrison defects or takes over the area
You are right this isn't "over night", but its over a year or two. Especially when its a top down infrastructure chain: Once a link or two of the chain go missing, the entire chain is now lost
