131–140 of 146 posts
I highly recommend the podcast The History Of Rome, which talks about this conflict in some detail. I binged the almost 80 hours of it. I couldn't get enough! Then, I got sucked in to the podcast The Fall Of Rome, which is equally fantastic. http://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/ https://fallofromepodcast.wordpress.com/
There is also "Normans" and "12 Byzantine Emperors".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the sad part for me, there was 0 "Framework" learning. It was 100% rote memorization, usually for a standardized test. (As I've said in other threads, it wasn't until college that I really "Learned how to learn.") A bare-bones framework, to my older eyes, would teach you to ask about incentives, to look at the zeitgeist of the times, to ask "what's the precedent," and might establish a motivation for this in s…
That would be a framework for thinking about history, which isn't what I meant. I'm not sure I was ready for that in tenth grade. (I suppose it might have opened the door to some new thoughts, but I don't think I would really have gotten it.) By "framework" I meant just the bare outlines of history: Egypt, the Fertile Crescent, then Greece, then Rome, then the Middle Ages, then the Renaissance, then the Industrial Re…
Now that should be interesting, since history is full of so many things that human beings find fascinating. Unfortunately, the educators generally manage to make it boring.
>After a few weeks of marching and countermarching by Philip and Flamininus in central Thessaly, battle was joined (almost by accident) at Cynoscephalae, hills known as The Dogs’ Heads. 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. One of the big factor…
I just watched a documentary about the franco-prussian war, and they said that 'lower rank initiative' was a factor in the outcome. French weren't really wanting to fight, Prussian were. They would try everything to make a difference, even if it meant disobeying orders somehow.
> 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.
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Greek history, like Roman history, is (part of) the history of the West. Is the OP talking specifically about the history of, say, the Germanic or Gaulish tribes before they were conquered by Cesar? It's difficult to know. The OP mentions the "Eeastern Mediterranean basin" as part of the Orient: >> the Orient (particularly the Eastern Mediterranean basin over to present-day India), not Europe, is the historic center…
I thought I was quite clear. Greece and Italy are, effectively, part of the Orient, due to their contiguous connection to the Mediterranean and easy shipping access. Greece is closer to Persia than it is to the British Isles! The straight-line cultural connection from northern Europe to classical Greece is mostly a myth, established to sell a sense of importance to the Johnny-come-lately imperialists of Britain, Holl…
Geographically, certainly. Culturally, not at all. The Persian wars (and even Alexander's campaign) were already portrayed as a clash of civilisation by their contemporaries. The difference between one big, monolithic empire vs many agile city-states (a few of them even democratic, to different degrees) was not easy to miss and it becamse a main theme of the interpretations of the Persians' failed campaigns that persists to this day (e.g. - how the Greeks overwhelmed the Persian navy with their smaller, faster, more manoeuverable ships in Salamis etc).
>> "Europe" is a more modern concept.
A lot of this "myth" of continuity comes from the fact that the people who were originally subjugated by Rome ended up seeing themselves as Roman, and proclaimed their proto-nation states to be the legitimate heirs of Rome. Most prominent among them, the Holy Roman Empire (i.e. the origins of modern Germany) and even more so Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire, in other words- the Greeks.
Is there a straight-line connection between Rome and modern Greece that goes through Byzantium? A word for "Greek" in the Greek language is, even today, "Romios", which means - Roman. The Turks even called us "Rum".
Is there a straight-line connection between ancient and modern Greece? We call ourselves "Greek" (I'm one obviously) but we speak a significantly changed language, identify with a single nation-state and recognise a montheistic religion as the official state religion.
And yet, who has more of a claim to being "greek" than modern-day Greeks? Turks, maybe, who live in what used to be Ionia? Southern Italians, who live in Magna Grecia and often speak Greek dialects?
How about a connection with Rome? Who can claim to be a descendant of the Romans any more than the speakers of Romance languages? What about the inhabitants of the "land of the Romans" (Romania)?
What I'm trying to say is- modern nation-states are invariably based on a particular reading of ancient history, which, since we're talking about the Old World, is the history of Rome (and to a lesser extent, Greece). The influence of Rome on the identity and culture of the people of Europe, through those "myths" is of such undeniable magnitude that it really ends up constituting a straight-line cultural connection, even when the culture has changed significantly since ancient times (as of course it would). See "What did the Romans do for us".
"Europe" is a modern concept, sure- but it would not have taken off the ground if it hadn't been for the unifying influence of the Roman Empire.
Here’s a view on the ever popular Legion vs Phalanx debate, written from the Greek side by someone alive during the war: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
Anyone have any good articles/books on why Greece has never reached greatness or similar status to other EU powers since the middle ages? Especially given their influence on the enlightenment, mathematics, philosophy, and Roman culture itself - which spread throughout the western world. I've always been curious why they have stagnated so much since and been so... mediocre. I guess you could say the same about Macedon…
Isn't that somewhat the whole story of today's southern europe? The benefits of modernity probably means they live better than they ever did, but most southern european states are to some varying extent living in the shadow of former glory. Perhaps a lesson in the gap between economics and worthiness or merit.
I wasn't just talking about the modern era though but the last few centuries including the modern century plus...
Anyone have any good articles/books on why Greece has never reached greatness or similar status to other EU powers since the middle ages? Especially given their influence on the enlightenment, mathematics, philosophy, and Roman culture itself - which spread throughout the western world. I've always been curious why they have stagnated so much since and been so... mediocre. I guess you could say the same about Macedon…
The answer is simple, and sad. We (I am Greek) missed out on the Renaissance and the Enlightenment because we were under the boot of the Ottoman empire for 400 years. By the time we achieved freedom, we were a backwater too far behind everyone else in Europe to be competitive.
Anyone have any good articles/books on why Greece has never reached greatness or similar status to other EU powers since the middle ages? Especially given their influence on the enlightenment, mathematics, philosophy, and Roman culture itself - which spread throughout the western world. I've always been curious why they have stagnated so much since and been so... mediocre. I guess you could say the same about Macedon…
> I guess you could say the same about Macedonia and maybe some middle eastern areas if we're looking purely at past greatness, but those two seem to be easier to explain. Greece's impact was more wider, longer, and stronger. Just a correction - Macedonia was (and is) part of Greece: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/6265/was-alexand...