Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
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Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
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Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#2I don't know about little-known.
Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#3World War One, the little known conflict that had a bigger impact on Europe than you may think... Sure, never heard of ww1. And never heard of the Roman Empire and it’s invasion of Greece, Egypt and Gaul.
Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#4> Invincible on flat ground as long as its flanks were protected, the phalanx was dangerously exposed on hillsides. Highly manoeuvrable, veterans of the Hannibalic war, the legionaries wreaked a terrible slaughter.
It's amazing how much terrain has affected the arc of history.
Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#5My public-school education (in the US) definitely never taught the subject. My history classes were divided into clearly-delineated "units" of study with no overlap. "First let's learn about Mesopotamia. Agriculture, Hammurabi, etc. Now recite what you learned on a test. Good, now we're moving on. Greece. City-states, marble statues, Olympics. Another test. Moving on. Rome..."
My "Earth Science" class was structured the same way. We learned about the formation of the solar system, then dinosaurs, then Cro-Magnon Man. Each unit of study was so completely separate from the others chronologically that it never occurred to me to ask "So did Greece and Rome ever have wars?" for the same reason it never did to ask "How did early homonids fight off dinosaurs?". It seemed so obvious at the time that there was no overlap.
Anyway, if I have a point, it's this: never underestimate the inadequacy of the US primary education system.
Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#6Rome Vs Greece is little known well I never :-) I suspect Mr keen was not educated by the Cristian brothers.
And I am not so sure that the manipular style was ineffective in a straight fight. Rome abandoned the phalanx for a reason.
Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#7Rome Vs Greece is little known well I never :-) I suspect Mr keen was not educated by the Cristian brothers. And I am not so sure that the manipular style was ineffective in a straight fight. Rome abandoned the phalanx for a reason.
And later picked up the cohort under the Marian reforms for reasons as well, especially once the Gauls began hitting them with frontal charges again.
Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#8My public-school education (in the US) definitely never taught the subject. My history classes were divided into clearly-delineated "units" of study with no overlap. "First let's learn about Mesopotamia. Agriculture, Hammurabi, etc. Now recite what you learned on a test. Good, now we're moving on. Greece. City-states, marble statues, Olympics. Another test. Moving on. Rome..." My "Earth Science" class was structured…
I normally try not to make low effort comments but this resonated so strongly with me I had to chime in with a "ME TOO."
I _LOVE_ history now. I collect antique history books, just to see how perceptions changed over time. Ken Burns tops hollywood in terms of "# of films watched" by many times over. However, this only started MUCH later in my life when I started to see history as a tool, a way of thinking, of reasoning about the world.
History as it was taught in my early schooling was not only useless, it was utterly counterproductive; As you say: memorizing slabs of rote dates and events not only removed any utility or holistic understanding from the facts (and related time periods), but convinced me that I "hated history" and should avoid the subject like the plague. Arrogantly, I was one of the better students in my high-school, so I can only imagine what the less advantaged crowd felt about those courses, and it doesn't leave me surprised with the "lack of historical context and appreciation" I feel to be pervasive in the American population.
To truncate this rant: History is _so fucking amazing_ when you start to consider it as an interplay of human pathologies, and as a tool for understanding our present. It's such a frustration that our education system doesn't do it justice.
Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#9My public-school education (in the US) definitely never taught the subject. My history classes were divided into clearly-delineated "units" of study with no overlap. "First let's learn about Mesopotamia. Agriculture, Hammurabi, etc. Now recite what you learned on a test. Good, now we're moving on. Greece. City-states, marble statues, Olympics. Another test. Moving on. Rome..." My "Earth Science" class was structured…
As an immigrant from the US to the UK, this isn't unique to the US. The reality is that there is so much history out there that it is very hard to get a solid overview of it which weaves together into a coherent narrative. There's just not enough time. Its why independent resources like youtube and video games which actually care about history are so important.
(Its still reasonable to be annoyed by the way. My personal annoyance is that my school taught a lesson about George Washington Carver which didn't include a discussion of the nitrogen cycle or nitrogen-fixing bacteria.)
Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires
#10Irony was a double-edged sword in this case. Sure, the Greek city-states were now subject to Rome. On the other hand, Roman civilization was deeply affected by Greek culture, which was arguably far superior. Horace said it best: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit (once defeated, Greece conquered its savage captor)