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Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

irishtimes.com

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Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#41

Post by dang »

cellis wrote: post #14

How is this little known? If anything, this is too known . What I wish, but is impossible, is that there were more documented stories of the conflicts of e.g. Native Americans or Native South Americans, before European Settlers; early wars in Africa; or wars in the extremes of the Artic between early tribes. I have listened to all of Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" ( which any student of history will fall in love wit…

Ok, we've taken 'little-known' out of the title above, to satisfy those who know more than a little. But let's please switch to something other than the title now.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#42

Post by digi_owl »

beat wrote: post #18

For an interesting coarse overview of this stuff, I've been reading The Silk Roads: A New History of the World , by Peter Frankopan. It's a sprawling world history, from earliest recorded history to the present (I'm currently between WWI and WWII), based on the idea that the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center of civilization. Northern/We…

The Great Game, anyone?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game

Honestly i can't shake the idea that said game has continued to the present day, only with various players tag teaming in and out over the years.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#43

Post by paganel »

staunch wrote: post #22

It's likely that Alexander would have taken over Italy had he lived a couple more decades. He definitely could have done it. Rome was not yet the powerhouse it became and he knew how to lead an army better than literally anyone in history. There were many Greek colonies in Italy but the whole peninsular might have become dominated by Greeks. By the time Rome got around to taking over Greece it wasn't even a contest.…

> It's a hard pill to swallow that "cowardly" surrender can often be objectively better than "stubborn" bravery

One old saying around these parts of the world (Romania) can be translated roughly like this: "The bowed head doesn't get cut by the sword", which explains like at least half of our history, seeing as we've never been a major regional power while being surrounded by 3 empires for at least a couple of centuries (the Ottomans, the Russians, the Habsburgs) and we still managed to keep a certain level of autonomy throughout the centuries. The Poles were a little bit more courageous than us and that attitude saw their country split into three.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#44

Post by barrkel »

staunch wrote: post #22

It's likely that Alexander would have taken over Italy had he lived a couple more decades. He definitely could have done it. Rome was not yet the powerhouse it became and he knew how to lead an army better than literally anyone in history. There were many Greek colonies in Italy but the whole peninsular might have become dominated by Greeks. By the time Rome got around to taking over Greece it wasn't even a contest.…

Peninsular: this is an adjective, the word you mean is peninsula.

This misspelling is surprisingly frequent with people with a regional UK accent.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#45

Post by rossdavidh »

lou1306 wrote: post #10

Irony 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)

Similar statements (which I am not historian enough to judge the accuracy of) regarding the Chinese and the Mongols. The Mongols won militarily, and were turned into a culturally Chinese empire, in the east at least. Again, I am not historian enough to say if this is accurate, but it is a common assertion.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#46

Post by Glyptodon »

jake-low wrote: post #5

My 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…

"Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum."

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#47

Post by digi_owl »

jandrese wrote: post #20
beat wrote: post #18

For an interesting coarse overview of this stuff, I've been reading The Silk Roads: A New History of the World , by Peter Frankopan. It's a sprawling world history, from earliest recorded history to the present (I'm currently between WWI and WWII), based on the idea that the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center of civilization. Northern/We…

Franz Ferdinand was a fall guy.

In a sense he was, as my impression is that his uncle, the emperor of Austria-Hungary, and government had been looking for a reason to stomp Serbia into submission for some time. One that they hoped would not get the Russian Tsar riled up...

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#48

Post by pm90 »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #19
lou1306 wrote: post #10

Irony 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)

> Greek culture, which was arguably far superior. The Romans put up a valiant rearguard action against cultural aggression, what with forbidding permanent theaters, favoring the native blood sports, etc.;-) Unfortunately, pretty soon all the aristocracy was hiring the pedagogues, watching the shows and reading greek, and that was that. Umm, reminds me of something. Can't quite put my finger on it. (Plus, that uncouth…

That Macedonian lout actually reached as far as India, and his successors in the Indian subcontinent embraced Buddhism forming a very unique Indo-Greek culture.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#49

Post by [deleted] »

jake-low wrote: post #5

My 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…

[deleted]

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#50

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

beat wrote: post #18

For an interesting coarse overview of this stuff, I've been reading The Silk Roads: A New History of the World , by Peter Frankopan. It's a sprawling world history, from earliest recorded history to the present (I'm currently between WWI and WWII), based on the idea that the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center of civilization. Northern/We…

>> Northern/Western Europe was an impoverished, uninteresting backwater until the discovery of the New World (...)

Ah, yes, an unintersting backwater ...that created objects like this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Also: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Thales of Melitus, Archimedes, Democritus, Ptolemy, Aristotle of course, etc etc.

It's true that the Orient and also Mesoamerica were also civlisational centers, a fact that is not acknowledged in Western history books. But to go from that ommission, to saying that the West (in fact, the entire Old World since it's impossible to separate Greek and Roman history from say Egyptian or Babylonian history) was a "backwater" before Columbus, is simply unhistorical.

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