When did the Roman Empire end?

Deleted member 67076

I think Rome was awesome for many reasons, but one must never forget it was an ancient state, with all that implies.
Forgive my rudeness, but, oh please, our modern states can effortlessly outclass any atrocity or war crime Rome was capable of doing.

Modern soldiers can be just as bad, if not as worse as their Roman counterparts.
 
Forgive my rudeness, but, oh please, our modern states can effortlessly outclass any atrocity or war crime Rome was capable of doing.

Modern soldiers can be just as bad, if not as worse as their Roman counterparts.

That's because they have guns which make killing easy. I'd rather it was that than because they are looking for personal wealth in forms of captured slaves. Contemporary societies at least take away the profit motive. Imagine Romans with assault rifles.

And you know, very few modern states managed to pull off Rome-in-Gaul with you know, bladed weapons. The closest equivalent to what Rome did where it went in terms of the mechanics of it would be what, Rwanda? Think on that.
 

Sulemain

Banned
Forgive my rudeness, but, oh please, our modern states can effortlessly outclass any atrocity or war crime Rome was capable of doing.

Modern soldiers can be just as bad, if not as worse as their Roman counterparts.

I know that, but like I said, with the technology it had, Rome did a hell of lot of bad things. But it isn't just brutality I was thinking of. The Romans built great buildings, yes, and had a common currency area, but they didn't even have the stirrup, or the printing press, is what I was getting at.
 
but they didn't even have the stirrup, or the printing press, is what I was getting at.

Absence of stirrup didn't prevented romans to have heavy cavalry (the role of stirrup and the change it made is quite debated), and priting press...Well, is kind of overrated in the role of cultural diffusion, you need a society litterate enough first to have an impact, and outside cities, imperial society remained essentially illetrate in classical latin and using a provincial popular latin that had less and less to do with classical's.
 

Deleted member 67076

That's because they have guns which make killing easy. I'd rather it was that than because they are looking for personal wealth in forms of captured slaves. Contemporary societies at least take away the profit motive. Imagine Romans with assault rifles.

And you know, very few modern states managed to pull off Rome-in-Gaul with you know, bladed weapons. The closest equivalent to what Rome did where it went in terms of the mechanics of it would be what, Rwanda? Think on that.
This is going off topic, but contemporary societies often DO have a profit motive to war, generally in the form of acquiring resources or power.

Now I do agree that wars of aggression have declined and wars in general tend to be less brutal than the comparative scale of the Romans.

I know that, but like I said, with the technology it had, Rome did a hell of lot of bad things. But it isn't just brutality I was thinking of. The Romans built great buildings, yes, and had a common currency area, but they didn't even have the stirrup, or the printing press, is what I was getting at.
LSCatalina summed it up better than I could.
 

Sulemain

Banned
Absence of stirrup didn't prevented romans to have heavy cavalry (the role of stirrup and the change it made is quite debated), and priting press...Well, is kind of overrated in the role of cultural diffusion, you need a society litterate enough first to have an impact, and outside cities, imperial society remained essentially illetrate in classical latin and using a provincial popular latin that had less and less to do with classical's.

That is kinda missing the point (my fault) in that a lot of people degenerate alot of things in between the Romans and say, the 18th Century, without realising the social, technological, etc, limitations that the Romans faced.

I know it didn't prevent them having cavalry (thanks R2TW) but the Roman Army was, for most of it's existence, an infantry one. And I would say the sttrirup made a huge difference.
 
I know it didn't prevent them having cavalry (thanks R2TW) but the Roman Army was, for most of it's existence, an infantry one. And I would say the sttrirup made a huge difference.

A bit more digression from the original subject. It was possible to have extremely effective heavy cavalry, pre-stirrup era as witness the Cataphracts of Parthia and Sassanian Persia among many others. It is even questionable that the stirrup gave a decisive advantage in shock warfare (lancers charging, etc.). But it did keep a cavalryman on his saddle more effectively in close combat (with sword and mace, for example).
 
I know it didn't prevent them having cavalry (thanks R2TW) but the Roman Army was, for most of it's existence, an infantry one. And I would say the sttrirup made a huge difference.

Well, if we're talking of the length of Rome as a state (As I said earlier, I would consider the IX century as the main rupture), cataphractarii knew a maintained use since the III century. Six centuries (including the part when they seems to have been unused by Byzantium) doesn't look that short (the same time markers, giving something spawning on twelve or thriteen centuries), and the legion system wasn't used that much longer.

For the stirrup, there was a thing called "Great Stirrup Controversy" based on how influential the stirrup was, some arguing that it allowed the feudal society. Reconstitutions and analysis (as well antic sources) shows that heavy cavalry pre-existed largely this and that stirrup didn't really allowed a "shock" with cavalry while allowing the use of swords or maces in addition of spear and different tactics)
You have by and by people trying to pull a Frankenstein on this controversy's body, but it's mostly dead by now.
 

Sulemain

Banned
You study the Romans for more then 2 months at a top level uni, and then you find there is still more to know. Thanks guys :) .
 
You seems to mistake "hate" with historical background. The whole point is to mark that Rome wasn't a beacon of humanity and civilisation as some might hink even nowadays. Hell, even Romans themselves didn't tought of them like that.
Romans didn't invented plunder or slavery, but were the first on the Mediterranean basin to doing that at great scale, whatever in war or in peace (the managment of provinces being harsh)
But why are you making such a point on a thread that wasn't even discussing the morality of Rome before you came along? Raising negative points about Rome in a thread where that has nothing to do with the topic seems like bashing to me.

I for one would say that in some ways Rome is a beacon of things to be aspired to, and in others it is a lesson on things to avoid, but the fact remains that they were far more successful than most of their counterparts. A conservative estimate has Roman civilization lasting for a millenium, and being a dominant power in the western world for a similar amount of time. That is an unmatched success streak in the western world, so admiration seems fitting to me.


Nobody said that. But what's wrong it to be content with admiration without understanding how achievements were made in first place, and critically to use this legacy to claim some sort of legitimacy.
The same way you can admire the perseverance and achievements of european colonists in America without forgotting what made it possible, particularly for natives.


Do you really say that roman conquests were totally genuine, never driven by imperialism? Cause what they crushed, whatever nations or rebellions, seems to disagree.
What were the non-imperialist motives to crush Carthage? Gauls? Dacians?

You're welcome to think these conquests were benevolent but don't expect people to buy it.
Looking to a powerful past polity as a source of national legitimacy does indeed strike me as something that makes sense, so I don't see eye to eye with your aversion to it. I much prefer that to nationalism myself, as it tends to be a less ethnocentric claim.

I never, NEVER said anything even remotely close to this "Rome conquered benevolently" strawman that you created. I said they were not worse than their neighbors and predecessors, a statement I stand by. Their empire was made by conquering the Celts, Carthaginians, Greeks, Alexandrian successors, and Persians, primarily. All of these peoples practiced slavery, and I would say that by and large they had lower standards of living for non-slaves. My entire point here is that Rome comitted average level attrocities in exchange for their accomplishments, based on those comitted by their contemporaries.

Again, Rome did practiced it in large scale, not seen before in Mediterranean basin. While slavery was practiced, it differed often from what existed at Rome. Egyptian civilisation didn't knew productive slavery (while knowing domestic and penal one), Celts and Germans knew a form of domestic slavery that looked more the servile clients of Middle Ages (Islamic or Christian) than the slavery Rome had.

In mediterranean basin, I can think only of Greeks and Carthaginians (hard to say for them, as few sources were kept) that used to have enslaved "armies". And really, Rome put this at a new brand scale : regions that didn't had such (and more considered as "producing" slaves before) were "gifted" with slavery economy (Iberia being particularly interesting on this regard)

It's not only a matter of quantity, tough. Roman treatment of slaves was harsh, incredbibly harsh : Caton's opinion concerning how slaves should be treated is a good exemple.

Now, slaves were usually better treated relativly to rural ones (at the point it was a common threat to send them farming), but "magister" slaves, teacher or "familial" slaves well treated, were the minority. "Ministeri" were the majority, and less considered (prostitutes, lows works, etc.)

It went at the point that slaves revolts, that are always rare and limited in slavery societies, happened regularly and in huge numbers at the end of Republic.

So yeah, Romans created new standarts on this regard.

It doesn't mean we have to reject roman legacy (is such thing is possible) but for avoiding this to be used for more contenporary goals (colonialism and fascism are good exemples of that), whitewashing Roman history isn't going to be a wise move.
When did I say that Rome didn't practice slavery on a large scale, or that they were mostly domestic slaves? I didn't, nor do I believe such sentimental lies. Please stop putting words in my mouth, it does nothing to further the discussion.

I do not consider facism or colonialism to be representative of Roman ideals put into practice in modern times. There may be some overlap, but that can be said of almost any two ideologies. I would say that we have had very little in the way of states similar to Rome in the modern day, and that there is a way to adopt various more posetive aspects of their civilization without endorsing slavery or exploitation.
 
I would say that we have had very little in the way of states similar to Rome in the modern day, and that there is a way to adopt various more posetive aspects of their civilization without endorsing slavery or exploitation.

Except for the little problem that their civilization depended on slavery and the exploitation of the resources of conquered provinces.

The Imperial City didn't get to a million citizens by the 1st century when NO OTHER CITY ON EARTH was that size at that time by having excellent architecture, plumbing, and urban planning and the city itself literally ceased to exist as anything more than a set of sparsely inhabited ruins the moment they lost access to North African grain. That kind of spectacular implosion is not something you see in a city that has developed based on give and take with the surrounding regions.
 
Except for the little problem that their civilization depended on slavery and the exploitation of the resources of conquered provinces.

The Imperial City didn't get to a million citizens by the 1st century when NO OTHER CITY ON EARTH was that size at that time by having excellent architecture, plumbing, and urban planning and the city itself literally ceased to exist as anything more than a set of sparsely inhabited ruins the moment they lost access to North African grain. That kind of spectacular implosion is not something you see in a city that has developed based on give and take with the surrounding regions.
What exactly are you trying to say? I said, and I quote, "I would say that we have had very little in the way of states similar to Rome in the modern day, and that there is a way to adopt various more posetive aspects of their civilization without endorsing slavery or exploitation." What does that have to do with African grain or slave labor?
 
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