By popular request, a thread for discussing the enduring influence of ancient Rome
Patience, Please
This site is under reconstruction and will look strange for a while. We regret the inconvenience.
By popular request, a thread for discussing the enduring influence of ancient Rome
I dislike Rome because they remade the god system- but I feel a certain sense of companionship (yes, with an empire) because I feel like we’re similar. We both take things other people have started and make them better.
-A
I understand your museings. I prefere greece and their make of the gods. It just seems more real somehow.
“I agree” (thunder rumbles)
-Zeus
1 – I love studying about ancient Rome (It’s one of the main parts of the curriculum of the Latin class that I take.) and the god system, although I do agree with gradster – I don’t like how they basically remade it off of Greece. But mythology is always very fun for me, in particular the gods system.
Agreed about the companionship part though – our whole country is so connected to Rome in so many ways, especially when you look at the Constitution. A lot of the patriotism/citizenship…that’s all coming from Rome, which I think is sort of cool.
Well, there are the two-house legislature and the three branches.
Rome is insanely interesting to learn about. I disagree with their violence obsession, though.
What obsession?
Does anyone else do Certamen? It’s a sort of jeopardy-style team competition, only it’s all about ancient Rome. Most excellent. The only bad thing about it is that the meets, as we call them, are few and far between. There’s only one left this year!
I know nothing about ancient Rome’s influence! Except they had those cool bathing thingies…we should have those today. Mmm, sauna.
Rome was a fairly impressive empire in many ways, but all I can remember off the top of my head (I haven’t read anything about Rome in a while) was that it had the most powerful army in the world at its zenith. I asked the teacher who told us if any of the other empires (like, say the Chinese empire) were being included in this comparison. Apparently they weren’t. Since then, I’ve always felt that ‘most powerful army of the world’ should be changed to ‘most powerful army in the region’.
2-There are a lot of things that we didn’t pick up from Roman culture that I’m glad we didn’t. Like equality–arguably the US took a while in getting there, but we never had a formal class system where only members of a certain class could serve in the government. (race and gender barriers, yes. Arguably, the cost of running for office limits the pursuit to the wealthy. But nothing formal)
This is giving me the desire to watch Axis Powers Hetalia…
Rome Shome. They steal all of the credit just because they were so powerful for so long. But really, they owe all of their smartness to the Etruscans and the Greeks.
Totaly Right!!!
6- Ah yes, the thermae; the public Roman baths. The laconicum is the dry steam bath you’re talking about. *please disregard my spouting of random facts*
The ancient Romans had the following games/toys:
hide-and-seek
tag
hopscotch
dolls with moving arms and legs
leapfrog
kites
building blocks
swings
Cool, huh?
9- Rotten Romans?
I’m doing latin poetry in latin class, but one of the poets was Martial, who practically dissed people through his poetry. My personal favorite is the following:
Cras te victurum, cras dicis, Postume, semper.
Dic mihi, cras istud, Postume, quando venit?
Quam longe cras istud, ubi est, aut unde petendum?
Numquid apud Parthos Armeniosque latet?
Iam cras istud habet Priami vel Nestoris annos.
Cras istud quanti, dic mihi, possit emi?
Cras vives? Hodie iam vivere, Postume, serum est:
ille sapit quisquis, Postume, vixit heri.
Here´s a rough translation (we never finished translating it in class, so the last bit is probably a bit off, and we were translating latin to german, not to english):
Tomorrow you will start to live, Postumus, you always say tomorrow.
Tell me, this tomorrow, Postumus, when will it come/be?
How long must that tomorrow be sought after, where is it, or where can it be looked for?
Is it hidden by the Parthers and the Armenians (i.e. very far away, at the end of the world)?
That tomorrow is already as old (has as many years) as Priamus or Nestorus.
Tell me, for how much (money) can this tomorrow be bought?
Tomorrow you’ll live? It’s already to late to live today, Postumus:
the person is wise, who also always/already lived yesterday, Postumus.
Basically, “get a life”. The translation isn’t great, but it’s got the main idea.
Yup. Rotten Romans is one of my favorite Roman history books.
Interesting poem. Is it me, or is the “post” in the name Postumus some sort of joke, “post” meaning “after” in Latin, from which we derive words like postpone, playing on Postumus’s procrastination?
Probably. I wonder about the “humus” part…
Perhaps he invented a tasty dip for carrots?
I just realized it: post humous. As in after death. duh. Never mind that…
What about the Colosseum? That was pretty major. It could’ve given rise to sports arenas…
I almost powered a question in Scholar’s Bowl on that… ‘It could be flooded with water for mock naval battles…’ – and then I rang in, but someone got there before me.
-A
Scholar’s Bowl? That sounds suspiciously like a question I had in a Masterminds quiz bowl.
Same thing, different name?….
Could be. Does the acronym NAQT mean anything to you?
-A
Ya! the Colosseum was great exept for the minor detail that the romans would hold fights to the death in their! Gosh!
TreeCafe, are you a neophyte? Or am I just dense?
Someday I would like to go to the Colosseum and paint on the walls. Well, that might be illegal…anyway, I would also love to go to Athena’s temple.
Well, yes, but that was what the Romans did. If you grow up with something disgusting, it seems normal. What if aliens came and said, “Oh, you go to the bathroom in there?! Gross!” but that would just be because they’re not used to toilets.
((Personally, I still think it’s gross.))
10- I LOVE Horrible Histories!
I also take Latin. My favorite parts of Roman culture are probably mythology and architecture, although my brother’s in First Year Latin and he’s becoming something of an expert on the legions.
Hm… Well, I’m doing awful at latin (by my standards). I have a more liberal approach to translation, so… yeah. But I love the poetry, except when I hate it.
There is a brand of amplifier called Valvetronix, often shortened to VOX, which means “voice” in Latin. I like that…
One of my favorite quotes from my mom as we were discussing various languages:
“I can go to Italy and talk to Italian people,
N___ [my brother] can go to France and talk to French people,
and L___ [that would be me] can go to ancient Rome and talk to dead people.”
Speaking of dead things, this thread comes to mind. Let us revive it!