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The last Romans are still around

signoregalilei.com

71–80 of 245 posts

Re: The last Romans are still around

#71

No mention of the Romansch, that's quite disappointing. But learning more about Romania and Romanian culture still made for a wonderful read, kudos to the author.

REG: "All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" To me, what would suck the most is living in a place after the Romans where you can see signs of their civilization but you're living a rural peasant life.

The idea entered our collective subconscious and is still going strong:

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/my-father-in-law-is-a-builder...

Imagine growing up in Cairo.

Re: The last Romans are still around

#72
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when you see something histórical in Europe ask chatgpt if its something actually ancient that lasted until today or It was a xix century tourist marketing stunt made by the burgoisie

Of course the manhole covers aren't ancient, but they're a sign that Rome still sees itself in the tradition of the Roman Empire.

Although .. ancient Rome did have manhole covers -- of stone. I wonder if any are left; working or not.

Re: The last Romans are still around

#73
post #33

I bought a torrone (Italian nougat dessert) in local Auchan (French supermarket chain) today and while briefly researching the dessert history found out that it was popular in Ancient Rome named as cupedia and in some Southern parts of Italy it still called as cupeta. Just imagine to make recipe so good that it not just transferred across generations through 2000 years, but also evolved to come in supermarket in Russ…

Only loosely related, but on the topic of deep historical namings: Mayonnaise comes from, and derives its name, from Mahon on Menorca in the Spanish Balearic islands. That in turn is named after Mago Barca, the brother of Hannibal Barca, "the" Hannibal who almost destroyed Rome. Mago was also a Carthaginian general, fighting alongside Hannibal.

So whenever you dip your french fries in mayo, you are celebrating the epic struggles of Carthage and Rome from two millenia ago. Bon appétit.

Re: The last Romans are still around

#74
post #63

My name is Roman (father was Italian born in Rome and identifies as a Roman) and I always find it interesting that people try to speak something that sounds like Russian to me. Never thought about the fact they might think I’m Romanian and are speaking Romanian!

I don’t know, I do associate the name Roman with Russia just because the only Roman I can think of is Roman Abramovich.

Re: The last Romans are still around

#75
post #64

This is strictly about linguistic similarity and not genetic similarity. On a genetic map, a PCA plot, Romans and Romanians simply don't overlap. Romanians cluster with their Balkan neighbors, (1) on account of massive Slavic migration from around the 7th century AD, and (2) on account of strong historical and genetic evidence to suggest that the Roman colonists sent to Dacia were largely recruited from neighboring B…

I still find it somewhat fascinating that the Slavs arrived in Europe during recorded history.

The scale and distances of migrations throughout Europe in the 4th-5th centuries are hard to comprehend, as well as the rapid transformation of the societies of the groups that migrated. It has the same feel to me as a major geological event, like the breaking apart of Pangea.

Re: The last Romans are still around

#76
post #64

This is strictly about linguistic similarity and not genetic similarity. On a genetic map, a PCA plot, Romans and Romanians simply don't overlap. Romanians cluster with their Balkan neighbors, (1) on account of massive Slavic migration from around the 7th century AD, and (2) on account of strong historical and genetic evidence to suggest that the Roman colonists sent to Dacia were largely recruited from neighboring B…

I still find it somewhat fascinating that the Slavs arrived in Europe during recorded history.

The earliest Roman records of Slavs are of the Veneti, who lived in roughly western Ukraine, Belarus, south-east Poland.

Very much in Europe.

Then, like now, they were the people east of the German speakers.

Re: The last Romans are still around

#77

This is strictly about linguistic similarity and not genetic similarity. On a genetic map, a PCA plot, Romans and Romanians simply don't overlap. Romanians cluster with their Balkan neighbors, (1) on account of massive Slavic migration from around the 7th century AD, and (2) on account of strong historical and genetic evidence to suggest that the Roman colonists sent to Dacia were largely recruited from neighboring B…

Why is genetics more important than any other tie to the Roman empire?

Don't know why this was down voted. Most people ruled by the Roman empire weren't ethnic Romans. Even in the early days it started as a mix of Italic tribes like the Latins and Sabines. And in 212 AD the edict of Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to all free men throughout the empire.

I imagined this was sort of the whole point of the article.

Re: The last Romans are still around

#78
post #50

I'm a bit surprised that the "people from modern Rome" only got an honorable mention. After all, Rome still sees itself as the successor of the Roman Empire. When first visiting it, I was surprised to see the famous SPQR ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPQR ) acronym all over the place - on trash cans, manhole covers etc. etc.

I think the implication was a focus on the more strongly conserved folksy cultures and stuff. Whereas modern Romans are more... Italian. That having perhaps transformed to a great degree than others in the roughly two millennia.

Re: The last Romans are still around

#79

This is strictly about linguistic similarity and not genetic similarity. On a genetic map, a PCA plot, Romans and Romanians simply don't overlap. Romanians cluster with their Balkan neighbors, (1) on account of massive Slavic migration from around the 7th century AD, and (2) on account of strong historical and genetic evidence to suggest that the Roman colonists sent to Dacia were largely recruited from neighboring B…

Since PCA maps are fun to look at, here’s one for modern-day populations:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1n8xjl6/genome_anc...

Re: The last Romans are still around

#80

Don't glorify Rome too much. It was a slavery based society that progressed sciences, technology and civilization little from what they inherited from the Mesopotamian's/Greeks. Heck written Latin didn't even have punctuation marks, not even spaces. That's because it was only used by slave scribes. The nobility that could write, did so in Greek.

> Heck written Latin didn't even have punctuation marks, not even spaces.

Without spaces, Japanese could never develop a great civilization. Pfff

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