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You're [History], Like A Beat Up Car

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Posts

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    What's a good proper history of rome.

    And greece, come to think of it.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • That_GuyThat_Guy I don't wanna be that guy Registered User regular
    What's a good proper history of rome.

    And greece, come to think of it.

    I really liked a show called "Engineering an Empire" hosted by Robocop.

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    That is not the answer I was expecting.

    I thought I'd get a massive tome.

    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    I mean, you are asking a question that covers around 3,000 years of history, and has been extensively studied many times over the past 2,000 years. There is no single definitive source 'here is the actual factual,'

    I rather like the youtube channel 'Tasting History' because of the contemporary historical information tje host includes, and has several dishes from various eras of the Rome and Greece.

    Gabriel_Pitt on
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    What's a good proper history of rome.

    And greece, come to think of it.

    That may be a lot to cover in one bite? I mean theres like 800 years of history in just the western republic/empire, and an equivalent amount of greek poleis era and macedonian history, then 1000 years of Byzantine history after that.

    I could give a lot of stuff I thought interesting dealing with specific topics but it might be hard to really give an overall history that went into any depth at all.


    That said I liked a few of Dan Carlins Rome stuff:

    Dan Carlin Hardcore History:

    Death Throes of the Republic - A good overview of the events leading up to the fall of the republic

    Punic Nightmares - Same covering the Punic wars


    These are older and unfortunately out of the free rotations. Punic nightmares is $6 and death throes is $12 but there is a lot of material


    Edit: also a few shorter things from Dan Carlin:

    Glimpses of Olympias - a bit of discussion on Alexander’s mom
    Macedonian soap opera - the immediate post Alexander era
    Shield of the West - Greek-Persians war

    And not exactly what you were asking for, but the King of Kings series is a good overview of the Achemeinid Empire that gives context on the Greeks archnemesis (spoiler: they probably were a lot more pleasant to live under and deal with than the Greek sources might want us to thing).

    Jealous Deva on
  • That_GuyThat_Guy I don't wanna be that guy Registered User regular
    That is not the answer I was expecting.

    I thought I'd get a massive tome.

    Edward Gibbons wrote a 6 volume series called "THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE." The 1946 Edition is considered the definitive release. That may be more of what you are looking for.

  • HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular
    What's a good proper history of rome.

    And greece, come to think of it.

    Your local public library!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oShTJ90fC34

    No but for real... yeah, your local public library actually is the advice I'd give

    There's literally thousands of books covering those histories

  • That_GuyThat_Guy I don't wanna be that guy Registered User regular
    Oh and actual Ancient Romans writing about their history, Plinney, Livey, Dio, etc are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable. Tacitus and Suetonius are still pretty bias but seem to stick mostly to the facts.

  • Kane Red RobeKane Red Robe Master of Magic ArcanusRegistered User regular
    What's a good proper history of rome.

    And greece, come to think of it.

    Mike Duncan did a pretty okay podcast about it before moving on to a much better podcast.

    https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    That_Guy wrote: »
    That is not the answer I was expecting.

    I thought I'd get a massive tome.

    Edward Gibbons wrote a 6 volume series called "THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE." The 1946 Edition is considered the definitive release. That may be more of what you are looking for.

    IIRC a lot of Gibbon is considered pretty outdated at this point. The events are accurate but a lot of his explanations and reasoning should be taken with a grain of salt.

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    That_Guy wrote: »
    Oh and actual Ancient Romans writing about their history, Plinney, Livey, Dio, etc are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable. Tacitus and Suetonius are still pretty bias but seem to stick mostly to the facts.

    Its an interesting dichotomy because the farther back and closer to the time you get the more direct information the writers had but also the more likely they were to be pushing an agenda.

    Primary sources are interesting and fascinating and relevant but you always have to keep in the back of your mind that you may very well be reading the ancient version of Fox News.

  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    That is kind of the.thing - a lot of primary sources from tje ages of Rome exist to this day. However both those sources and the scholarship drawing on them over the centuries have a whole lot of bias, baggage, and a whole lot of other Bs to them as well.

  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    That_Guy wrote: »
    Oh and actual Ancient Romans writing about their history, Plinney, Livey, Dio, etc are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable. Tacitus and Suetonius are still pretty bias but seem to stick mostly to the facts.

    Ye old historians didn't think about history like we do. Plus a lot of it was biased and a hit piece to justify their own favorites or the current ruler.

    Okay, maybe it hasn't changed that much...

  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    What's a good proper history of rome.

    And greece, come to think of it.

    Mike Duncan did a pretty okay podcast about it before moving on to a much better podcast.

    https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

    I've listened through the whole podcast multiple times and really like it

    It definitely starts a bit dry but after a while he really finds his voice

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    edited November 2021
    I mean, you are asking a question that covers around 3,000 years of history, and has been extensively studied many times over the past 2,000 years. There is no single definitive source 'here is the actual factual,'

    I rather like the youtube channel 'Tasting History' because of the contemporary historical information tje host includes, and has several dishes from various eras of the Rome and Greece.

    Though, if you specifically just want Roman dishes and some culinary history of Rome, there's the much more obscure but very relaxing channel Historical Italian Cooking with a playlist of 67 dishes (not even counting the separate Greek and Byzantine playlists).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpNorvQYHug&list=PL1oLijmQLeB5jcMBfVpQSsUIc8UMeBGzR


    In modern book form, classicist Mary Beard has written a whole bunch about Rome and Roman times, including the lives of ordinary folk as best we can figure it out.

    Mayabird on
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    That_Guy wrote: »
    Oh and actual Ancient Romans writing about their history, Plinney, Livey, Dio, etc are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable. Tacitus and Suetonius are still pretty bias but seem to stick mostly to the facts.

    Ye old historians didn't think about history like we do. Plus a lot of it was biased and a hit piece to justify their own favorites or the current ruler.

    Okay, maybe it hasn't changed that much...

    One of my favorite explanations of this is this series of articles about sparta:

    https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/

    Which explains how a Poleis that was powerful militarily but by no means dominant (IE nowhere near the level of a Macedon or Rome), and was otherwise a total shitshow was built up by a series of ancient writers as a way to push their own agenda (and in some ways continues to be done so to this day).

  • VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    edited November 2021
    That_Guy wrote: »
    Oh and actual Ancient Romans writing about their history, Plinney, Livey, Dio, etc are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable. Tacitus and Suetonius are still pretty bias but seem to stick mostly to the facts.

    Ye old historians didn't think about history like we do. Plus a lot of it was biased and a hit piece to justify their own favorites or the current ruler.

    Okay, maybe it hasn't changed that much...

    One of my favorite explanations of this is this series of articles about sparta:

    https://acoup.blog/2019/08/16/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-i-spartan-school/

    Which explains how a Poleis that was powerful militarily but by no means dominant (IE nowhere near the level of a Macedon or Rome), and was otherwise a total shitshow was built up by a series of ancient writers as a way to push their own agenda (and in some ways continues to be done so to this day).

    TL;DR Greeks alive during Sparta's "height" would gawk from a distance at the backwardness of Sparta, similar to the stereotypical "northerners gawking at the backwardness of southerners" today. Except that Sparta deserved every bit of scorn it got. Sparta was a hellish place to be anyone, and it sustained itself on a diet of pure, unfiltered violent trauma.

    Highly recommend reading through that linked series of articles. They're really good.

    Veevee on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    I am perfectly ok with a lack of depth. What I want is an understanding of the whole thing from the beginning to the end, that outlines the broad strokes and gives me enough information to contextualise deeper diving into specific time periods/people/situations/etc that catch my attention.

    I learn best by stuffing my head with the whole thing in broad strokes, which gives me the reference points to remember actual detail later.

    I am in no way under the illusion I'll be able to understand 800 years of history from a single book/author etc.

    Gibbons does sound like a good start, although I have no idea where I'll find that. Certainly not at my local library.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • KanaKana Registered User regular
    I'd really anti-recommend Gibbons. He's a pretty foundational text as far as the field of roman history goes, but he's also just flatout wrong about tons of stuff, he's chock full of those typical western european imperialist/racist/sexist/etc assumptions of his time, and also he just lacks the benefit of lots of modern work that's happened since he wrote.

    The askhistorians subreddit has a nice list of alternative reading sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/books/europe#wiki_ancient_rome

    A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
  • MuzzmuzzMuzzmuzz Registered User regular
    For Ancient Greek podcasts I DO NOT recommend Ryan Stitt’s podcast. Not because it’s bad content, but the creator was outed as a big sex pest, and is now ostracized (heh) by the historical history podcast community.

  • RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    If you feel you have a good narrative of Rome and early Byzantium in your head, I like to recommend The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper, a look at the environmental factors that first aided then hindered Rome, mainly plagues and climate shifts. He also discusses how this impacted Roman attitudes to religion, and also how it laid the seeds for the rise of Islam.

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    Yeah Gibbon falls victim to Herodotus’ mirror, in that he was writing a history of ancient Rome, but at the same time he was an eighteenth century British man writing to other eighteenth century British and was using Rome to make points about the British empire as much as he was trying to accurately describe the Roman Empire itself.


    Edit: I know its a very pedestrian answer but if you are just looking for a broad cliff notes overview to narrow down your interest of study wikipedia’s ancient rome article honestly isn’t terrible.

    Jealous Deva on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    I looked through that ask historian wiki and settled on this.

    SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    I looked through that ask historian wiki and settled on this.

    SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

    Good choice.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
  • BlackDragon480BlackDragon480 Bluster Kerfuffle Master of Windy ImportRegistered User regular
    I looked through that ask historian wiki and settled on this.

    SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

    Good choice.

    Yep. Quite readable, very broad pool of sources, and for once informative footnotes and a bibliography that doesn't suck.

    No matter where you go...there you are.
    ~ Buckaroo Banzai
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    Ok I shall purchase it.

    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    One thing it might be good to go over say, the wiki article or something like that if you don’t have a survey level knowledge of Roman history as I think that book assumes it. (Not on a detailed level but just broad things like who important people are and a general sense of what happened when.)

    I don’t think she really explains things from a totally introductory level and if you know absolutely zilch about Rome in general you may get a bit lost at parts.

    Edit: also it stops at the beginning of the crisis of the third century - which is a good place to stop, but just be aware.

    I feel like the usual division of the eras of the empire into the unified empire and the eastern empire as presented in history classes and is thought of in the popular consciousness is a bit off.

    IMHO, the empire of Augustus functionally ended with the crisis of the third century, in the same way that, say the Han dynasty of China functionally ended with the war of the Three Kingdoms. Like China, Rome reunified after the crisis, but the reunified empire (especially under and after Diocletian and Constantine) was a much different state than the pre-Crisis empire and had more in common with with the later early-Byzantine-era empire than the pre-crisis one.

    Putting the date at the fall of the city of Rome is especially odd when you consider that Justinian reconquered it 60 years later and the Byzantine Empire held it for 200 years after.

    Jealous Deva on
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    I have read some wikipedia articles, don't worry. It's my primary source of information, but I want to get someone who really knows this to tell me the story of rome, instead of skimming through hard to digest facts.

    Atm I have a somewhat better understanding of the fall of rome than the start and middle parts, so this book sounds about right?

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • NineNine Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    One thing it might be good to go over say, the wiki article or something like that if you don’t have a survey level knowledge of Roman history as I think that book assumes it. (Not on a detailed level but just broad things like who important people are and a general sense of what happened when.)

    I don’t think she really explains things from a totally introductory level and if you know absolutely zilch about Rome in general you may get a bit lost at parts.

    Edit: also it stops at the beginning of the crisis of the third century - which is a good place to stop, but just be aware.

    I feel like the usual division of the eras of the empire into the unified empire and the eastern empire as presented in history classes and is thought of in the popular consciousness is a bit off.

    IMHO, the empire of Augustus functionally ended with the crisis of the third century, in the same way that, say the Han dynasty of China functionally ended with the war of the Three Kingdoms. Like China, Rome reunified after the crisis, but the reunified empire (especially under and after Diocletian and Constantine) was a much different state than the pre-Crisis empire and had more in common with with the later early-Byzantine-era empire than the pre-crisis one.

    Putting the date at the fall of the city of Rome is especially odd when you consider that Justinian reconquered it 60 years later and the Byzantine Empire held it for 200 years after.

    It was a chronicler in the Eastern Roman Court, Marcellinus Comes, that first put the date for Rome's fall at 476. He was writing during Justinian's reign or shortly before it. Useful for someone interested in starting a war and cloaking it in the guise of restoration.

    Nine on
  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    I have read some wikipedia articles, don't worry. It's my primary source of information, but I want to get someone who really knows this to tell me the story of rome, instead of skimming through hard to digest facts.

    Atm I have a somewhat better understanding of the fall of rome than the start and middle parts, so this book sounds about right?

    Mike Duncan did a pretty okay podcast about it before moving on to a much better podcast.

    https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

    Any podcast is just going to give you a bare skeleton of the history of something, but a skeleton is great for building on later. I knew a lot about Roman history but not in any good orderly way until I listened to The History of Rome and got it all mostly chronological in my head, and that helped put a lot of what I knew in some context.

    Also the podcast is free, so you can listen to that and read SPQR for the price of the book.

  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular

    This day in history:
    oybCkg7.jpg

    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    Yeah Gibbon falls victim to Herodotus’ mirror, in that he was writing a history of ancient Rome, but at the same time he was an eighteenth century British man writing to other eighteenth century British and was using Rome to make points about the British empire as much as he was trying to accurately describe the Roman Empire itself.

    Certainly we are immune to that today and lots of podcasts are absolutely not making points about America when talking about Rome.

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    Yeah Gibbon falls victim to Herodotus’ mirror, in that he was writing a history of ancient Rome, but at the same time he was an eighteenth century British man writing to other eighteenth century British and was using Rome to make points about the British empire as much as he was trying to accurately describe the Roman Empire itself.

    Certainly we are immune to that today and lots of podcasts are absolutely not making points about America when talking about Rome.

    Certainly but we at least have some idea of scientific, evidence based study of history (including vast amounts of archeological data) and the like to support things now, wheras in the 1700s the best anyone could do was say “well I read some books by people of the time and this is what I think happened and why it happened”.

    At least in academic circles now stuff that is way out there (like the borderline neonazi racial stuff, outright nationalist bullshit, or various genocide denialism) gets smacked down pretty quickly. (Though of course there’s a lot of pushback in places with nationalist authoritarian governments like Hungary, Russia, China, or Texas).

    Jealous Deva on
  • FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    This day in history:
    oybCkg7.jpg

    Good to know that the Daily Mirror has always been tabloid trash.

    Fiendishrabbit on
    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    It’s honestly one of the most readable newspapers on the British Newspaper Archive. I’ve been following along the Timeghost WWII in real time series by also reading various dailies, and the Mirror and the Herald are my favourites. Every so often one of the stories piques my curiously, and I go down a rabbit hole. For example, on November 2, I saw this on the front page of the Daily Herald:

    hf4bii7swufr.jpeg

    I thought “huh, that’s interesting. I wonder whatever happened to them?”

    It turned out that Tanya Matthews led a darn interesting life before and after the marriage! She wrote some of the first books about what it was really like living in Stalinist Russia. She and her husband ended up living in Tunisia, and after he died in 1966 she picked up the job of reporting to the BBC, and was apparently a pretty good reporter - or at least one who was very good about getting access. She also wrote at least one article for the New York Times. She was made a MBE in 1997, and died in 1999.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-tanya-matthews-1080921.html

    Her life has a more interesting plot line to it than most movies. I’d have never heard of her except for that brief inch among the news of battles.

    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • TraceTrace GNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam We Registered User regular
    https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/sun-temple-egypt-0016073
    In a thrilling new find, archaeologists have found the remains of what they believe is one of six sun temples ever built by the Fifth Dynasty pharaohs. The discovery made in Abu Gorab, south of Cairo and north of the archaeology site of Abusir, is being hailed as one of the most important in several decades. Two of the six sun temples have already been found, and the latest discovery makes three. It has been 50 years or more since the second Egyptian sun temple was discovered, and the latest find is causing much excitement.


    THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN

  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    So only 3 more temples to go and then we can finally summon the Avatar of Ra to stomp all over the enemy base.

    Thats how that works, right?

    Jealous Deva on
  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    @Morninglord if you have an Audible account, check out the Great Courses lecture series called “Greece and Rome: An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean” by Robert Garland. It’s a great survey course and will teach you a lot of introductory level stuff with a few deep dives as well.

  • NineNine Registered User regular
    edited November 2021
    A day late with this but the US Marines twitter account tweeted this:


    #OTD in 1915, Maj Smedley Butler received his second Medal of Honor for his heroic actions leading his Marines at the Battle of Fort Riviere, Haiti. He is one of only two Marines to have twice received our nation’s highest decoration for battlefield valor.

    An impressive feat but Butler was more interesting than that. An idiosyncratic and outspoken personality, he was nearly court martialed after accusing Mussolini of a hit-and-run. His politics trended leftward following his retirement. It was Butler who blew the whistle on the Business Plot against FDR and coined the phrase "war is a racket." Speaking to a socialist magazine he said:
    I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

    I'm sure the Marine Corp. would have mentioned all of this if not for twitter's character limit.

    FYI, there's a new biography of Butler due out early next year.

    Nine on
  • BlackDragon480BlackDragon480 Bluster Kerfuffle Master of Windy ImportRegistered User regular
    spool32 wrote: »
    if you have an Audible account, check out the Great Courses lecture series called “Greece and Rome: An Integrated History of the Ancient Mediterranean” by Robert Garland. It’s a great survey course and will teach you a lot of introductory level stuff with a few deep dives as well.

    I haven't checked Audible's Great Courses catalog much, but if they have it, the History of Ancient Rome series by Garrett Fagan (who I had the opportunity to chat with a couple of times when I traveled to conferences as an aide to my main prof at UMKC when I was finishing my BA. Sadly he died a few years ago from pancreatic cancer) is fantastic as a more focused follow up that also gets into the nitty-gritty of historiography and critiquing of pseudoarcheology. He does have a slight stammer in his speech, but a fantastic sense of humor and is almost never boring or overly dry.

    No matter where you go...there you are.
    ~ Buckaroo Banzai
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