Ask A Historian

[Pyrrho]

Is this accurate (I mean the first part; I know the second part is)?

[Minimalist]

I have no idea but this seems to be a BDSM thing.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_prayer_position

[JuliaL]

The earliest mention of gladiatorial combat dates from 310 BC but it was the Romans' Campanian (Capua) allies who used gladiators to celebrate a triumph over the Samnites.  It is in Book IX of Livy's History. 

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Books 11-20 are lost but there is a recap, called a Periochae, of Book XVI which notes that it was Decimus Junius Brutus who was the first to organize gladiatorial games to honor his father in 264.  Again, the Romans were not loathe to borrow ideas from others.

Rome spent much of the rest of the 3d century at war with Carthage and given the hammer-and-tong nature of the fighting it is doubtful that they could have wasted much energy on public spectacles.  Until 207 they were seriously in danger of losing the 2d Punic War.  The Battle of the Metaurus turned that and in 202 was Zama and Carthage was done.  But, up to then, the Romans had gotten their asses kicked multiple times by Hannibal if not so much by the other Carthaginian commanders.

 

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So, if this was according to Livy (ca.60BCE-17CE), isn't he writing about what was to him old history?  Not calling bullshit here, IANAH, but isn't that like a current historian writing about the House of Hanover vs the Scots only without the intervening scholarship and dedication to historical fidelity?

[Minimalist]

Yes, although Livy does mention his sources. 

http://www.livius.org/li-ln/livy/livy4.html

[JuliaL]

Yes, although Livy does mention his sources. 

http://www.livius.org/li-ln/livy/livy4.html

I read the linked page.  Thank you for that and for your honest labor at a thankless and sisyphean task.
I likely will never fully believe history.  Worse yet, I question my ability to weight incoming information.
But it's the only game in town, so I play.  At least I don't think you're actively trying to scam the rest of us.

[Minimalist]

I likely will never fully believe history.

Nor should you.  Livy was, first and foremost, a moralist.  He lived in what he considered a time of gross immorality where the old virtues of the Roman Republic ( mythology dies hard ) had been junked.

If you read Livy at any length you begin to see certain patterns; such as, whenever the Romans win a battle he usually notes that the commander maintained good order among his army and avoided rash decisions.  Whenever the Romans lost a battle it was because the commander failed to restrain his men and they scattered in search of plunder or were lured into a trap.  Sometimes, defeat would be avoided when another commander arrived who had kept his men in proper control and so rescued the miscreants from their indiscipline!

Read enough of it and you'll see what I mean.


Livy also has no sense of scale.  Particularly early on he describes as "wars" what must have been little more than rock and stick swinging riots between miserable mud-hut villages.  There is a lot of horseshit in Livy.

[Cinjin]

Who was the "babushka lady"?

Kate Bush.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xckBwPdo1c

That has to be the least expensive music video ever made.......

Two outfits
One bright light
One dark room

Two takes with a rookie camera man and done:  one shitty song with a really shitty video.

[Minimalist]

Sad to say I have no idea who Kate Bush is.....except she obviously was not a relative of Dubya.

[Pyrrho]

Yes, although Livy does mention his sources. 

http://www.livius.org/li-ln/livy/livy4.html

I read the linked page.  Thank you for that and for your honest labor at a thankless and sisyphean task.
I likely will never fully believe history.  Worse yet, I question my ability to weight incoming information.
But it's the only game in town, so I play.  At least I don't think you're actively trying to scam the rest of us.

He gets trivial thanks, in terms of kudos here and reputation.  This thread, for example, is why I added to his reputation.  I wish he would say more in this thread, of whatever interests him, instead of waiting for questions.  I am enjoying this thread very much.

My guess is, he is a retired history teacher.  Which explains a certain testiness, as one cannot tell one's moronic students that they are asking stupid questions and are fucking hopeless idiots.  Not, that is, if one hopes to keep one's job and collect retirement.


Now, if he wants a really thankless task, he will read David Hume's History of England, and tell me what he thinks of it.  (I have read it, but I have never met anyone else who has, though I understand it was formerly regarded as excellent, when it was first written.)  Probably the best currently available edition is from Liberty Classics, though I do not have that edition.  My guess is, if he did, he would say that Hume's sources were not as good as are available today, and so some of his remarks are off.  But I would be interested in his thoughts regarding Hume's approach and attitude toward his sources.  If one wants a very quick idea of how Hume viewed history, Section X of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, "Of Miracles," would give one a glimpse.

[Minimalist]

My guess is, he is a retired history teacher.

Nope.  Although my degree is in Secondary Ed with a minor in History I never taught.