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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2638 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 31, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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To mirror Scott's ACX survey: In the past 24 hours, have you thought about the Roman Empire? If so, what was the context of that thought?

Yeah.

My girlfriend and I were watching the MST3K episode Werewolf. At the end, the bots are singing along to make fun of the dramatic credits music. One of the punchlines was "Tusk!"

When I played the original song for her, the music video apparently involved a 70s marching band in centurion uniforms.

Yes, and it's a stupid context because it's meta. Apparently I missed that there's some meme of "men spend a lot of time thinking about the Roman Empire", so last night when I mentioned to my girlfriend that there's this ramen place across the city that I keep thinking about daily, she said "so it's like your Roman Empire?" So I got the quick rundown on the meme from her, said she missed a great Ramen Empire pun, and said that if she actually asked me the Roman Empire question, my answer would be around once a week. Which is apparently the exact stereotype, heh.

She said she never bothered to ask it because she's seen my bookshelf with How Rome Fell on it. I might be a little basic.

Yes, because of Easter. Also, I saw an argument about the moral impact of Christianity somewhere and that got me thinking about things like slavery and infanticide in the Roman Empire. Being a Christian and that playing an important role in my daily life pretty much makes sure I think about it in passing pretty much every day.

Easter so Roman governance (Pilate vs Harold), Roman army organization and titles, and Pax Romana are all pretty central to the day's activities, lessons, and meditations.

But also with the ship wreck in Baltimore, wondering how much of maritime law traces back to Rome.

How often Rome/Fall of Rome proxies show up in strategy game lore (Wh40k, battletech, etc).

And whenever I look up something in various languages how the Romance languages are just corrupted Latin.

Oh and I saw some wine at the store and thought of how much Rome changed Europe with wine vs beer drinking.

It's Easter. People talk about Jesus. Most of his life occurred in the Roman Empire.

This is the main reason why I find the question rather silly. The Roman Empire could have accomplished absolutely nothing of note other than been where Jesus lived and the prevalence of Christianity in the West alone would make it reasonable to think about them in passing at least once a day.

Interestingly, it's arguable if the Christianity or the West would both exist without Roman empire.

I was reading a little on the letters they found from the Bar Khokba revolt (insane that they just found his letters in a cave). I was looking at some renaissance paintings of the resurrection which featured Roman soldiers guarding the tomb. Actually a very cave-filled day, I guess.

I started watching The Passion of the Christ, so yes.

Planning a trip to Italy and realizing I might be one of the last few generations who can see it once its lows birth rates lead to population collapse. Got me thinking about how the Romans and Byzantines would have felt knowing their descendants would be rich beyond their wildest dreams and simply not reproduce enough to replace themselves.

On a happier note, any travel recommendations? It will be on a cruise but we’ll get 12 hrs a day in a few major cities.

I did a double-take when I scrolled past this; it felt like I was getting a window into an alternate universe. I genuinely do not understand how you could come to this conclusion.

Forget birth rates--imagine that Corona II kills 50% of the population. The government collapses. Survivors are left scavenging a wasteland of empty houses; surely no one is wasting time mopping the Colosseum. How long do you think it would take to start getting tourists again?

Within 50 years of being depopulated by the Black Death, Florence was firmly established as a cultural center. The Papal States in general were flourishing. Unbelievable wealth and power was flowing into the region as the Renaissance was in full swing. In addition to the arts, this was a time of enthusiastic study of the classics, including the Greek and Roman artifacts which suffused the region.

The world is smaller today. Denser. It's also more resilient to catastrophes and to political shifts. If the legacy of the Romans survived the tumult of European history, it'll survive whatever puny year-over-year decline arises from a generation or two having fewer kids. Maybe the next generation will actually be able to afford a house.

More doomerism; it is common in passionate online spaces, many people are afflicted with it. It allows the doomer to extrapolate their ideology into a world ending catastrophic "I told you so", while also allowing the fantasy of rising from the ashes in the aftermath. It is the perfect ego trip. Unassailable in the future, but always right around the corner.

In Rome there are a bunch of obvious sights to see if you are interested in history. In twelve hours you probably struggle seeing all the main attractions already, but if you have some time left for some reason: the Basilica of San Clemente is itself a monumental church, although there are many more impressive ones in Rome, but you can enter excavations of a 4th century church below that, and then you can enter even lower excavations of a 1st century house that was used for a Mithras cult below the 4th century church. A Medieval church, built on top of a church from antiquity, built on top of effectively a Mithras temple and you can enter all those buildings. I thought that was a pretty cool place to visit. Another interesting church to visit in Rome is the Sant'Ignatio. While building it they ran out of funds to build a dome and then the painter managed to make a painting on the ceiling which very convincingly produces the illusion of a dome from the perspective when you enter the church. It's a fun gimmick to see if you happen to be close to it.
In Napoli, the Vesuvius and Pompei are obvious attractions. I haven't been to the Vesuvius, because somehow both times I was there the weather was terrible and they closed off the mountain due to safety reasons (that's what I get for avoiding tourist crowds in the winter I guess). Pompei I thought was very impressive to see. Another slightly lesser known one that is also very impressive is Herculaneum (or Ercolano in Italian). It is a town buried under lava from a Vesuvius eruption just like Pompei and while it is much smaller and lesser known than Pompei, it is actually for the most part better preserved. Some difference in how it was covered by the eruption means that there is more organic material, like paint and wood, that was preserved and survives until the present.

Today it's mostly around nailing people to trees and poking them with spears -- other times I probably don't think about them as much as I should.

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