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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

#61

Post by asveikau »

barrkel wrote: post #44
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.

Probably because the 'r' of peninsular is not pronounced in a non rhotic accent.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#62

Post by emodendroket »

kuraudo wrote: post #60
emodendroket wrote: post #2

I don't know about little-known.

I had no idea; most history taught in the states appears to focus on non-european events until, suddenly, holocaust.

Well I'd argue it's the opposite -- that it is an excessively Euro-centric view of the world we mostly learn.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#63

Post by Ralfp »

paganel wrote: post #43
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 centur…

> The Poles were a little bit more courageous than us and that attitude saw their country split into three.

This is very simplistic way to describe reasons behind partitioning of Poland, which was by then standards very large multiethnic country with borders from Baltic to Black Sea and ability to raise considerable military power to defend its borders in times of need.

Commonwealth's dissolution came from the inside. There was no centralization of power in Poland. King was de-facto figurehead with real power being divided between hundreds of nobles. Everybody else was professionalizing their military, but that was impossible to do in Poland because we were 18th century country that relied on King rallying nobles rallying their bannermen for military. There was no chain of command, grand strategy or even unified arsenal. That was ridiculous but nobles wanted it to stay that way so king or congress could never contest their power. What happened instead was country being partitioned and nobility getting the boot from new rulers that did not tolerate private kingdoms, private armies or having to negotiate with every single noble if they wanted to change something.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#64

Post by swombat »

sorokod wrote: post #51
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 likely that Alexander would have taken over Italy had he lived a couple more decades. He definitely could have done it. Italy was a back water in 300 bc. with the great political and cultural centres to the east of Greece. What would attract Alexander to Italy?

Maybe some roads might have led there...

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#65

Post by muse900 »

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.…

> Rome kind of became Greece v2.

Can't agree more on that. Also digging more into history you can see the Byzantine Empire which was sort of a merge of those 2 civilizations.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#66

Post by thaumasiotes »

sorokod wrote: post #51
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 likely that Alexander would have taken over Italy had he lived a couple more decades. He definitely could have done it. Italy was a back water in 300 bc. with the great political and cultural centres to the east of Greece. What would attract Alexander to Italy?

Presumably the many Greek colonies there.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#67

Post by thaumasiotes »

pdonis wrote: post #52
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)

> Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit (once defeated, Greece conquered its savage captor) A better translation would be "captured Greece has conquered its savage captor", since that better captures (pun intended) the intended parallel between capta and cepit --both are forms of the same verb. (Also cepit is perfect tense, hence "has conquered".)

> Also cepit is perfect tense, hence "has conquered".

The Latin perfect is the equivalent of the English perfect. It's also the equivalent of the English simple past; whether "Greece captured her conquerors" or "Greece has captured her conquerors" is the right translation depends on whether Horace was writing about the past or the present (that is, his past or his present), not on the form of the Latin verb.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#68

Post by HarryHirsch »

sorokod wrote: post #51
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 likely that Alexander would have taken over Italy had he lived a couple more decades. He definitely could have done it. Italy was a back water in 300 bc. with the great political and cultural centres to the east of Greece. What would attract Alexander to Italy?

Before Rome there was Magna Graecia, the Greek colonies in Southern Italy. Further west: the great trading port of Massilia.

Re: Rome vs Greece: a clash of empires

#69

Post by thaumasiotes »

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…

Any persistent Hellenism in the Persian empire is really more likely to be attributable to Seleucus than Alexander. Alexander was king for 6 years, during all of which he was out on military campaigns.
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