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Battle of Alesia

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Re: Battle of Alesia

#61

Post by senderista »

zozbot234 wrote: post #32
boudewijnrempt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You are not a descendent of "celts" who lived what is now "France". Your culture wasn't lost. Any Celtic culture that might have been present in France in pre-Roman times has nothing to do with you or your ancestry. It was not "your" culture. The Celtic culture in Brittany is not something that survived from pre-Roman times, it's a later re-import from the British isles. Stop making up silly, false, fake identiti…

> Stop making up silly, false, fake identities. The irony of course is that "Celtic" is a silly word to begin with. There's plenty of circumstantial evidence that the 'Celtic' culture of Gaul was reasonably similar (and quite close in cultural 'ancestry') to Roman culture anyway, making assimilation relatively painless. The British isles may have been a somewhat different case.

There’s no good reason to apply the word “Celtic” to the pre-Germanic inhabitants of the British Isles, other than some linguistic affinity. No ethnic affinity has been demonstrated. The word should be reserved for continental European cultures, as the Romans used it.

Re: Battle of Alesia

#62

Post by yazan94 »

cfsc wrote: post #17
nemo1618 wrote: post #11

Reading this made me realize how little Roman history I know. What's the best source for learning about the major people and events of that era? EDIT: I guess what I'm really looking for is a hierarchy of topics, starting extremely broad (e.g. Roman Republic vs. Roman Empire) and drilling down into individual people and events. In other words, I want to do a breadth-first traversal, rather than depth-first.

The history of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan is a great place to start.

I would second this route. Amazing and well researched podcast. Well worth it if you have the time

Re: Battle of Alesia

#63

Post by quotemstr »

PeterCorless wrote: post #40
arethuza wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus.

Who remains one of the world's great historians. Sometimes we read old books because we want to understand how these books influenced the course of thought. But sometimes, old books are just genuinely good in their own right and would be just as good if published today: Aristotle, Thucydides, Tacitus, Aeschylus, and a bunch of other authors fit this latter mold. I wish more people read them.

Re: Battle of Alesia

#64

Post by tripa »

the_af wrote: post #56
boudewijnrempt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting bit about that is that "Alesia, and nobody knows where it is" as a theme in Asterix is actually biting satire on Vichy France. Very little in Asterix, until Goscinny died, is about Gauls and Romans, it's pretty much all about taking the mickey out of contemporary France.

Absolutely. But this was a surprise to me. I don't speak French and I read Asterix in my native Spanish as a young kid, I loved it to bits, and of course all modern and French-related jokes flew way over my head. Add to this that the Spanish (mis)translation got most of the jokes wrong, especially the puns. Some jokes were rendered nonsensical because the translator gave up and simply provided a literal translation.…

Good translators manage to bring in jokes of their own.

Re: Battle of Alesia

#65

Post by the_af »

tripa wrote: post #64
the_af wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. But this was a surprise to me. I don't speak French and I read Asterix in my native Spanish as a young kid, I loved it to bits, and of course all modern and French-related jokes flew way over my head. Add to this that the Spanish (mis)translation got most of the jokes wrong, especially the puns. Some jokes were rendered nonsensical because the translator gave up and simply provided a literal translation.…

Good translators manage to bring in jokes of their own.

I know. I'm saying the Spanish translation of Asterix is known to be problematic, because the translator often made no effort (as in "this is too hard, I'll just translate this literally, even though it was a phonetic joke in French that gets lost in Spanish"). In recent years there was an attempt to provide a more idiomatic and careful translation to Latin American Spanish, but it was poorly received, because people like me who loved Asterix as kids were already used to the original nonsensical translations and were appalled when jokes and names of characters got "changed"! So it's a lose-lose situation at this point.

Re: Battle of Alesia

#66

Post by ceejayoz »

senderista wrote: post #54
srge wrote: post #3

In France, this event is well known and taught in class (at least it was in the 80's). As I remember it now, this was taught as a bittersweet moment in our history. We united, we were brave and fought a stronger army but still we were defeated and our chief was captured and killed by the enemy. As a result we were colonized and we lost almost all our Celtic culture (Celtic culture remains present notably in Bretagne…

Isn't Breton culture really rooted in ancient Cornish culture, not the historical continental Celtic culture?

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

> The six territories widely considered Celtic nations are Brittany (Breizh), Cornwall (Kernow), Wales (Cymru), Scotland (Alba), Ireland (Éire) and the Isle of Man (Mannin or Ellan Vannin).

Re: Battle of Alesia

#67

Post by LifeLiverTransp »

hrktb wrote: post #34
srge wrote: post #3

In France, this event is well known and taught in class (at least it was in the 80's). As I remember it now, this was taught as a bittersweet moment in our history. We united, we were brave and fought a stronger army but still we were defeated and our chief was captured and killed by the enemy. As a result we were colonized and we lost almost all our Celtic culture (Celtic culture remains present notably in Bretagne…

It’s always funny how the Franks are seens as “us”, when looking throught history France has been washed by waves of invasions that all left deep cultural mixes. Going to Normandy nowadays and looking at general public exposition it’s make pretty clear their ancestry is mostly from the Vikings and Nords. In the east it’s also clear that their frenchness is a fluctuating and partial attribute. All around the country,…

You become citoyen by having french values. Believing in the rule of law, about all rules of gods and tradition.

By ascribing to equality, and a certain egaliatarian ideal, that is ready to roast the elite on a stake, when it fails - under whatever propaganda presumptions, to uphold that ability to prosper for all.

Ecrasez l'infame

Re: Battle of Alesia

#68

Post by MLR »

nemo1618 wrote: post #11

Reading this made me realize how little Roman history I know. What's the best source for learning about the major people and events of that era? EDIT: I guess what I'm really looking for is a hierarchy of topics, starting extremely broad (e.g. Roman Republic vs. Roman Empire) and drilling down into individual people and events. In other words, I want to do a breadth-first traversal, rather than depth-first.

Hardcore History covers some important bits of the Roman Republic, including Caesar's conquest of Gaul, that episode is currently free too - https://www.dancarlin.com/hardcore-history-60-the-celtic-hol...

Punic Nightmares and Death Throes of the Republic cover other important bits of the Roman Republic, they're both incredibly good, but they aren't free anymore.

Re: Battle of Alesia

#69

Post by arrosenberg »

cfsc wrote: post #17
nemo1618 wrote: post #11

Reading this made me realize how little Roman history I know. What's the best source for learning about the major people and events of that era? EDIT: I guess what I'm really looking for is a hierarchy of topics, starting extremely broad (e.g. Roman Republic vs. Roman Empire) and drilling down into individual people and events. In other words, I want to do a breadth-first traversal, rather than depth-first.

The history of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan is a great place to start.

Highly recommend this as well. His audiobook for the Storm before the Storm is also very good for the Republican period between the Gracchi and Marius/Sulla.

Re: Battle of Alesia

#70

Post by Karto »

hrktb wrote: post #34
srge wrote: post #3

In France, this event is well known and taught in class (at least it was in the 80's). As I remember it now, this was taught as a bittersweet moment in our history. We united, we were brave and fought a stronger army but still we were defeated and our chief was captured and killed by the enemy. As a result we were colonized and we lost almost all our Celtic culture (Celtic culture remains present notably in Bretagne…

It’s always funny how the Franks are seens as “us”, when looking throught history France has been washed by waves of invasions that all left deep cultural mixes. Going to Normandy nowadays and looking at general public exposition it’s make pretty clear their ancestry is mostly from the Vikings and Nords. In the east it’s also clear that their frenchness is a fluctuating and partial attribute. All around the country,…

The battle of Alesia took place several centuries before anyone heard about the Franks. The "us" the OP is referring to, is the Gauls.

I won't argue with the essence of your point though, although, for what I know, much of the nobility up to the 1800's was of Frankish descent, while Gallo-roman blood dominated among the commoners. So some heritage was there indeed.

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