History enthusiasts

[Monkey King]

Sure. At least until the arabs came.

No after that too. The point where they really became moribund was after the Catholics came and smashed them to pieces for awhile.

During the great migration period it was West Rome that basically disintegrated into jack, so that's true. But in the middle ages, the population of Byzantine fluctuated greatly. Constantinople dropped from half a million to just over 50.000 inhabitants during the arabic wars and a lot of the nation would grow to be more ruralized and more reminiscent of the average east european nation than some antique, civilization built on marble.

Again you're defining Rome as "positive stereotypes of Rome". Talking about Rome as a romantic concept rather than an actual state(s).

If the point you're trying to make is about peoples romantic memories of Rome that still doesn't work.
Western Europeans still talk about the "fall of rome" and mean the dessicated corpse empire that got offed by Odaecer.
And Eastern (and yeah some Western even) Europeans talk about the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans as a big end, even to the extent as considering it one of the major points that ends the middle ages. Not any earlier point.

So either factual or romantical, it doesn't work.

I think a more sound analogy would be ''if the US split into two countries and one of these states would as time progressed change their style of government, change their customs, change their language, with the borders shrinking and growing left and right, could you still consider it to be the United States a thousand years later?

Half of that is change that occurred by just time passing, and that same half is entirely applicable to Ancient Rome. Especially the matter of government style.
Explain to me for instance why considering the Roman Republic and Roman Empire the same Coke Classic brand is sensible, but considering the basically the same government style of the Roman Empire pre-split and the two empires after that and yet they're different?

'' '' I mean, there are way too many things that are different about the Byzantine Empire than it was from the start,

That's...everything ever.

I think calling Byzantium a successor state makes for a fairer description, since that is what we tend to call other kingdoms that have broken off greater empires.

It is technically, Eastern Rome. And also Western Rome. But not on the basis of anything you're saying. But on the legal basis of a split of the empire into two entities.
This is also a silly argument because you're arguing against contemporary views on the matter. People actually saw the East as the true inheritor of the spirit, especially after the West died. The schism in the church accounts for much of the West's failure to recognize this.
The only way you're going to hold up this view by the way would be also admitting Western Rome was a successor state, not on "cultural" basis but as soon as the split became reality.

[Jameswuds]

No after that too. The point where they really became moribund was after the Catholics came and smashed them to pieces for awhile.

Not really, I mean sure, the byzantines would reclaim some lost land through the years, but never even close to what it was like under Justinian I. Every century of byzantine rule after that was extremely difficult and unpredictable with land lost and won, civil war and political reforms in a society that was highly unstable.

Again you're defining Rome as "positive stereotypes of Rome". Talking about Rome as a romantic concept rather than an actual state(s).

If the point you're trying to make is about peoples romantic memories of Rome that still doesn't work.
Western Europeans still talk about the "fall of rome" and mean the dessicated corpse empire that got offed by Odaecer.
And Eastern (and yeah some Western even) Europeans talk about the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans as a big end, even to the extent as considering it one of the major points that ends the middle ages. Not any earlier point.

So either factual or romantical, it doesn't work.

The initial point was to delve a bit into my own mind of why I don't think people in the west consider year 1453 the official fall of Rome. Then of course, there are other reasons, such as religious animosity between the catholic church and the patriarchs of the east, political strife between the east and west that have painted history the way it did. East Europe and orthodox christians seem to have a far more glorified view of them than we do (in the west).

Explain to me for instance why considering the Roman Republic and Roman Empire the same Coke Classic brand is sensible, but considering the basically the same government style of the Roman Empire pre-split and the two empires after that and yet they're different?

I'm a bit on the fence about this, there are many historical accounts to take into consideration and the sheer semantics about how we define states, cultures and so on and so forth. But I will try my best:

The difference is how we tend to speak about states and succession. If the kurds would break free from Turkey tomorrow morning, we wouldn't consider their new state a ''continuation'' of Turkey. Likewise, other empires that have broken into fragment states and established new dynasties, may have historically squabbled about who is the true successor, as was the case with Alexander's generals and The mongol empire. But we don't generally consider for instance The Seleucid Empire or Ptolemaois Egypt to be the Alexandrian empire. They were successor states though, despite being states that were created by people who Alexander rubbed shoulders with and was basically indistinguishable culturally. East Rome was quite distinguishable from West Rome however, since the people living there spoke greek.

Likewise, the Byzantine empire was a region in the roman empire, where the people were greeks and established themselves as a unique culture that was different from West Rome.

[Tijnn.]

Good thread.

My main interest has been the Ancient Near East up until Alexander's conquests (but mainly the early history of Mesopotamia, c.3400-1595 BC) since I was in high school, which is sadly a very underrepresented period in history classes. I think all we learned about the ANE was 'writing was invented there by the Sumerians and that the Persians had a big empire for a while but were defeated by Alexander, now on to three months of talking about the Greeks and Romans.' Thankfully I was already really interested in language back then and was intrigued by the invention of writing, so I bought a book about the Sumerians. I became completely fascinated by their history and culture and began looking up all sorts of things about the ANE. Reading about all these different cultures, kings, wars etc. blew my 15 y/o brain, and I've been completely hooked ever since. I'm currently studying Assyriology and focusing on the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112-2004 BC), though mainly the language.

[Monkey King]

Not really, I mean sure, the byzantines would reclaim some lost land through the years, but never even close to what it was like under Justinian I. Every century of byzantine rule after that was extremely difficult and unpredictable with land lost and won, civil war and political reforms in a society that was highly unstable.

What does any of this have to do with being Roman or not.

The initial point was to delve a bit into my own mind of why I don't think people in the west consider year 1453 the official fall of Rome. Then of course, there are other reasons, such as religious animosity between the catholic church and the patriarchs of the east, political strife between the east and west that have painted history the way it did. East Europe and orthodox christians seem to have a far more glorified view of them than we do (in the west).

Considering how much basis of their cultures and histories are tied to the Byzantines..

The difference is how we tend to speak about states and succession. If the kurds would break free from Turkey tomorrow morning, we wouldn't consider their new state a ''continuation'' of Turkey.

That's not in any way comparable to East/West Rome dividing up.

Likewise, other empires that have broken into fragment states and established new dynasties, may have historically squabbled about who is the true successor, as was the case with Alexander's generals and The mongol empire. But we don't generally consider for instance The Seleucid Empire or Ptolemaois Egypt to be the Alexandrian empire.

We do however often consider the Yuan Dynasty to be a continuation of the Mongol empire.

East Rome was quite distinguishable from West Rome however, since the people living there spoke greek.

I don't see why you think this is a big deal.
Those people spoke Greek before Rome, during Rome, during East Rome, and after Rome to this day.
Rome only linguistically changed regions that had weaker state systems (or no state systems). While those that had strong ongoing civilizational roots went on with their old linguistic ways.
Greeks kept speaking Greek. Levantines kept speaking Aramaic (most of them). And Egyptians kept speaking Coptic.
Meanwhile the disorganized bands and slightly more organized tribal federations of Celts, Ilyrians, Dacians, etc were much more susceptible to being made to speak Latin. Which is how we got Romance languages in France, Iberia, the whole of Italy, and various places in the Balkans that survived the Slavic/Magyar migrations that came later.

This was all as true during the height of unified Rome as it was at any point after.
The only difference was that while the East started out using Latin in formal places, eventually that practice died out over time.
It's not like Greek culture was some super alien creature to Rome anyway, they stole half their shit from the Greeks and constantly had a love/hate relationship with them based on an inferiority complex. They much more intertwined than Romans were with the toothless Gaulish spearchuckers they taught Latin.

Likewise, the Byzantine empire was a region in the roman empire, where the people were greeks and established themselves as a unique culture that was different from West Rome.

That's not how the split happened at all.
It was a political agreement by the Roman emperors meant to better manage the whole thing and keep it from collapsing.
Constantinople in the process was founded as "Rome 2" as a city.
Eventually one of the emperors straight up had his two sons inherit the title of emperor on different halves, and the split became essentially two separate entities from thereon.
It would be like if the USA figured it was getting too hard to control and split into East and West USA, with Sacramento becoming the Washington DC of the west.

And this was all way before the whole system of the east became explicitly hellenized. That was just an inevitable fact. Had the Arabs not kicked the Romans out of the Levant and North Africa perhaps that wouldn't have happened, given a more diverse basis with other poles of power (Egypt). But since that did happened, it left the remaining Empire heavily dominated by Greek lands.

[wolfwood]

Good thread.

My main interest has been the Ancient Near East up until Alexander's conquests (but mainly the early history of Mesopotamia, c.3400-1595 BC) since I was in high school, which is sadly a very underrepresented period in history classes. I think all we learned about the ANE was 'writing was invented there by the Sumerians and that the Persians had a big empire for a while but were defeated by Alexander, now on to three months of talking about the Greeks and Romans.' Thankfully I was already really interested in language back then and was intrigued by the invention of writing, so I bought a book about the Sumerians. I became completely fascinated by their history and culture and began looking up all sorts of things about the ANE. Reading about all these different cultures, kings, wars etc. blew my 15 y/o brain, and I've been completely hooked ever since. I'm currently studying Assyriology and focusing on the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112-2004 BC), though mainly the language.

That's some hardcore shit right there. I don't think i know anyone else who learned a whole new language for their history studies. I do know a gal who learned hebrew for religious studies, but that also fall into the massive respect category i'm throwing you into lol.

But i guess English only takes you so far. I really need to truly master a third and start on a fourth language already.

[Satsuki]

Oh, the Crusades are soooooo fun.

When my father took me on a father-daughter trip to Scotland, a lot of it involved finding old ruins and historical shit, which included crusader graves. Fun times. Well, not always. (No, I don't want to go trekking all over the fields, Dad. Can't I just go shopping in Edinburgh?)

[LegendarySSJ4]

Everyone loved studying the Tudor Dynasty.... /sarcasm.

Other than that, I do regard History as one of my favourite subjects to study about.

[C_uggs]

Didn't find a better place to ask this, so, sorry to revive this thread.


As a flag enthusiast as myself I came across this one and I noticed that nowadays it has a bad omen around it, much like the confederate flag, why is that ?

[Ubiq]

As a flag enthusiast as myself I came across this one and I noticed that nowadays it has a bad omen around it, much like the confederate flag, why is that ?

Tea Party and sovereign citizen groups have unfortunately appropriated it as a symbol of their "struggle" against the "tyranny" of the Federal Government.

[Cyan D. Funk]

Didn't find a better place to ask this, so, sorry to revive this thread.


As a flag enthusiast as myself I came across this one and I noticed that nowadays it has a bad omen around it, much like the confederate flag, why is that ?

In America, if you see that flag on a pickup truck's bumper sticker, it's a good chance that the driver is the kind of person who goes to Trump rallies, calls all Hispanics "Mexicans", and owns an NRA shirt. It's become one of the big symbols of the American conservative/small-government movement. It used to be a naval jack (and a variant is still used by the navy) and was using the rattlesnake symbolism that Benjamin Franklin made part of the revolutionary struggle with his famous JOIN OR DIE cartoon.

I had a professor in community college who wore it on a shirt every other day. He was...exhausting.

[Vectorkov]

In America, if you see that flag on a pickup truck's bumper sticker, it's a good chance that the driver is the kind of person who goes to Trump rallies, calls all Hispanics "Mexicans", and owns an NRA shirt.

I may have relatives with that sticker on their truck... and your assessment was very accurate. *sigh*

[KageKageKing]

More or less like these guys?

[Iggy]

I think I am a history enthusiast as well. :P Currently my favourite subjects the Great War (1.WW), the transition of Spaceflight from science fiction to science and are the origin of writing.

I'm been following a Youtube Channel that looks at the ongoings of the 1.WW on a week by week basis exacly 100 years after it happened: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...el=TheGreatWar Obviously the war has been going on for 85 weeks already. But I'm sure we will be home by Christmas!

I've heard multiple lectures on the spaceflight thing on the side in a past few years. The sources are not always easy to find. Luckly I know English, German and a bit of Russian so I can read most of them. I started out with Jule Verne and I'm now at the switch from private to state sponsored spaceflight in the year 1932. Basically the mirror point from where we might be today.

I've been interested in the origins of the concept of writing since I first heard that the idea to put the fleeting spoken word into a permanent form had only been developed independently three times in the history of mankind. Obviouly this is a very different kind of history as I have no chance to understand or even get any primary sources. So it's mostly a wikipedia and youtube kind of thing. If you are interested in ancient languages in general you might like this: https://www.youtube.com/user/Xidnaf/...channel=Xidnaf

[Femme]

Thought I'd share this interesting tidbit.

Hidden:

My husband has taken a sudden interest in coin collecting, and purchased an authentic dirham (silver coin) from the year 701 CE (82 AH), which was 71 years after the death of Muhammad (pbuh). It was minted during the caliphate of 'Abd al-Malik bin Marwan in Basra, present day Iraq.

It's an interesting thing to have since dirhams (silver coins) and dinars (gold coins) were the unit of currency during the time when the sayings of the books of Hadith were recorded (albeit minted under the name of the Persian King), and there's one or two mentions of them in the Quran as well.

Here's one such mention in a hadith:

Hidden:

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying:

Do you know who is poor? They (the Companions of the Holy Prophet) said: A poor man amongst us is one who has neither dirham with him nor wealth.
He (the Holy Prophet) said: The poor of my Ummah (nation) would be he who would come on the Day of Resurrection with prayers and fasts and Zakat but (he would find himself bankrupt on that day as he would have exhausted his funds of virtues) since he hurled abuses upon others, brought calumny against others and unlawfully consumed the wealth of others and shed the blood of others and beat others, and his virtues would be credited to the account of one (who suffered at his hand). And if his good deeds fall short to clear the account, then his sins would be entered in (his account) and he would be thrown in the Hell-Fire.

[TL;DR This is explaining that a poor person is one who outwardly prays, fasts, gives in charity but still causes harm to others, and they will be bankrupt of their good deeds on the day of judgement, as their good deeds will be given to those whom he or she abused.]

Main things written on the coin:


Obverse Center:
لا اله الا
الله وحده
لا شرك له
There is no deity except |
(the one) God alone |
He has no equal
.
Obverse Margin:
بسم الله ضرب هذا الدرهم بالبصرة في سنة ثنتين و ثمنين
In the name of God, This Dirham was struck in Basra the year Two and Eighty (82AH).

Other text is various statements of faith.

Dunno, I just think it's pretty cool owning such a piece of history that's pretty relevant to me :D

[Monkey King]

Thought I'd share this interesting tidbit.

Hidden:

My husband has taken a sudden interest in coin collecting, and purchased an authentic dirham (silver coin) from the year 701 CE (82 AH), which was 71 years after the death of Muhammad (pbuh). It was minted during the caliphate of 'Abd al-Malik bin Marwan in Basra, present day Iraq.

It's an interesting thing to have since dirhams (silver coins) and dinars (gold coins) were the unit of currency during the time when the sayings of the books of Hadith were recorded (albeit minted under the name of the Persian King), and there's one or two mentions of them in the Quran as well.

Here's one such mention in a hadith:

Hidden:

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying:

Do you know who is poor? They (the Companions of the Holy Prophet) said: A poor man amongst us is one who has neither dirham with him nor wealth.
He (the Holy Prophet) said: The poor of my Ummah (nation) would be he who would come on the Day of Resurrection with prayers and fasts and Zakat but (he would find himself bankrupt on that day as he would have exhausted his funds of virtues) since he hurled abuses upon others, brought calumny against others and unlawfully consumed the wealth of others and shed the blood of others and beat others, and his virtues would be credited to the account of one (who suffered at his hand). And if his good deeds fall short to clear the account, then his sins would be entered in (his account) and he would be thrown in the Hell-Fire.

[TL;DR This is explaining that a poor person is one who outwardly prays, fasts, gives in charity but still causes harm to others, and they will be bankrupt of their good deeds on the day of judgement, as their good deeds will be given to those whom he or she abused.]

http://s11.postimg.org/v3ucv4dpv/104...52266912_n.jpg

Main things written on the coin:


Obverse Center:
لا اله الا
الله وحده
لا شرك له
There is no deity except |
(the one) God alone |
He has no equal
.
Obverse Margin:
بسم الله ضرب هذا الدرهم بالبصرة في سنة ثنتين و ثمنين
In the name of God, This Dirham was struck in Basra the year Two and Eighty (82AH).

Other text is various statements of faith.

Dunno, I just think it's pretty cool owning such a piece of history that's pretty relevant to me :D

I'm confused. These are Sassanid Persia coins with Islamic sayings on them?? Do I have that right?

[Femme]

I'm confused. These are Sassanid Persia coins with Islamic sayings on them?? Do I have that right?

Nah, the Sassanian coins existed before and after this one. This one's from the Ummayyad period.

Here's the full list.

The "standing-caliph" coin was only minted for three years (74-77 AH / 693-697 CE) before giving way to a wholly aniconic form, that is, engraved only with words and no images at all;

Ref

So what I have is the aniconic coin.

[Chrior]

Nah, the Sassanian coins existed before and after this one. This one's from the Ummayyad period.

Here's the full list.



So what I have is the aniconic coin.

Damn, that's really cool. I really love that period of History, the Last Great Roman-Persian War and the subsequent Arab conquest and the transformation of society due to that. It's really great to explore those times, since the descriptions we mostly have today are a picture painted by Arab-Muslims of later times trying to project their own society into the past. Digging to find actual primary sources from those times and discovering who really were the first Arab conquerors and how things actually happened in those times is really fascinating! ^^

[LegendarySSJ4]

Going to recommend you guys the best historical drama series I've ever seen, called the '3 kingdom', which looks at the late Eastern-Han dynasty - Three kingdom era.
Here's all 95 episodes in a Youtube Playlist; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8rk...UI0phBmYmFposP
Enjoy.

[Monkey King]

Going to recommend you guys the best historical drama series I've ever seen, called the '3 kingdom', which looks at the late Eastern-Han dynasty - Three kingdom era.
Here's all 95 episodes in a Youtube Playlist; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8rk...UI0phBmYmFposP
Enjoy.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a famous bit of Chinese literature, so this is based off that.

But no I haven't taken any Chinese literature classes so I don't know much more than that :3
I've taken ancient Chinese philosophy though.

Obligatory repost:


-Confucianism is pretty good statecraft stuff, but lousy personal stuff for modern times (though it had a revival later that changed things which I'm not familiar with).
-The Art of War was boring to me though. Like it had good points...but like it was mostly kinda common sense stuff that was written about in yeah cool form I guess. But not really much to think about overall.
-Daoism in its basic philosophical form....actually is awesome (so not with the strange folksy magic crap that attaches later). Its all about getting the basic idea of it, then reading all the writings with that in mind. It owns hard. Like it can seem like meaningless jibber jabber real easy? Which is what they mock in the video? But its not written like a philosophical guidebook (in terms of the collected writings in the Dao De Jing). Its written in creative writing form, like poems and stuff like that. Like I said, grasp the basic idea and all the riddles actually work and serve their point. All them ancient Chinese philos were almost all about how to run a kingdom, written for rulers and stuff with personal morality thrown in that rulers could trickle down to average subjects. But Daoism ain't like that. Its real advice for real folks.

Of course probably none of those three guys actually existed lol. Sun Tzu maybe, but the other two almost definitely not. The writings are real and really from the Warring States period (475-221 BC), but its likely they're collected writings of various thinkers attributed through semi-legend to one guy who may or may not have been based on a real guy.

There's other major philosophies from the time not covered in the video.

-Mohism is the great forgotten one, like it was a peer to the others but you'll never hear about it unless you take a class like that. Like everyone's HEARD of Confucious, Daoism (Taoism), and the Art of War. And Legalists come up in basic Chinese history as being sort of nasty fuckers involved with Chinese Hitler (the first emperor).
But Mohism? lol. Kind of for good reason. Because it feels a bit hodgepodged of elements of others, but there's some cool aspects to it. Like if you just sort of think "Man those ritual and status obsessed East Asians amirite?" Well the Mohists hated that crap. Like the writings are all bitching about elaborate rituals and shit, and have these almost psuedo socialist type positions on helping people equally etc. Mostly though they come off as people who didn't like Confucians and so it has a more "We exist because of them" feel. Confucianism became the dominant philosophy in China, so you can see how these guys got kinda pushed under the rug.
-LEGALISTS. Hohoho. The authoritarian philosophy. I approached it knowing that description from basic Chinese history? And started thinking I might be treating them cartoonishly. And it was way more complex than just "EVIL BAD GUY PHILOSOPHY" obviously, they were still fuckers honestly. Fuckers of their time I suppose, since this was a crazy anarchic warzone period where everyone was desperately seeking order and peace at any means they could. These guys provided the Akainu approach for leaders to think about, absolute justice, absolute rule. And the regional lord who had them at his side did actually end up winning and uniting China under one ruler for the first time...but that lasted like a couple emperors before being toppled by a new dynasty. And these guys became demonized by the Confucian lovin' subsequent Chinese dynasties. And honestly while the writings aren't like "BE MEAN" exactly, they're soulless. Like the others are all writing about how to be a good ruler and good person, this is just straight up RULE AND BE PARANOID OF EVERYONE for the most part. Especially the deeper in you go. They're cynical fuckers. Authoritarians to the core. Because yeah everyone kind of was back then sure? But the other philosophies talked about how rulers should listen and pay attention to the needs and morals of the people. And they're usually holistic about society, ruler as part of the overall picture. Legalism doesn't have time for that shit. It's all ruler focused all the time.

[Hanz]

I'm interested in the second British empire and all of it's wars that it had in the middle east and Afghanistan. but i don't really feel like reading it's Wikipedia article, so if you some good documentaries about it please recommend them to me (if it doesn't exist in youtube just tell me it's name).