Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

acoup.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 126 posts

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#81

Post by verve_rat »

henrikschroder wrote: post #52
swasheck wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my wife asked me and i said once per week. then she and my daughter cackled and asked me to repeat my answer and i knew i was about to become part of a trend so i refused. but isn't it fascinating how truly interested in the roman republic and emopire we are? people are coming up with theories about why this is the case but i'm not sure any of them resonate with me. i was always more of a greece person until i visite…

> but isn't it fascinating how truly interested in the roman republic and emopire we are? If you're in the US, how can you not be? It's everywhere! The fledgling US was desperately in need of authority and gravitas, so they essentially cosplayed as the inheritors of the ideals of Rome, and put that shit everywhere. Why does Washington DC look the way it does? Why are there pillars and obelisks and domes and white mar…

But everyone tries to wear the clothes of Rome. The Russians, the Ottomans, unified Germany all played Roman dress up.

Edit: also Catholicism.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#82

Post by TeMPOraL »

belval wrote: post #8
snowpid wrote: post #4

This is the reason I think about the Roman Empire at least once a week!

This has the be the funniest trend to come out of Tiktok. My SO point blank asked me how many times I thought about the roman empire and I replied "I don't know, once or twice a week". Little does she know we get a post from acoup every week! Reference (for those out of the loop): https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/09/18/how-ofte...

Maybe with all that sudden interest, we'll get some progress on the "Rome Sweet Rome" movie. For context, and going by my memory, circa 12 years ago somebody on Reddit asked who would win, a bunch of Marines or the army of the Roman Empire; in response, one redditor wrote a short story about Marines being thrown back through time into the Roman era - it became viral (for ~2011 levels of "viral"), and the author ended up making a movie deal with some producers. I've been waiting for over a decade now for said movie to happen...

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#83

Post by golem14 »

jiofj wrote: post #37
ulizzle wrote: post #17

I think I’m almost out of this illness. Still sweating the fever but no migraines Ive been reading a lot because that’s about the only thing I can do so I read the original Gallic wars from Julius Cesar and its funny because he’s painted like a bad guy today for becoming a dictator but the Senate was at that point so corrupt and inefficient and everyone hated it so he wasn’t the only one trying to get rid of democrac…

> At what point do people say to hell with it and bring back kingship? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin

I propose to instead use the system proposed by G.K. Chesterton in "The Napoleon of Notting Hill".

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#84

Post by verve_rat »

Jensson wrote: post #64
nullindividual wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might think that an individual who thinks about an empire that has been “dead” for nearly 1500 years is a bit strange. Why would anyone care about a dead empire, after all? The reason why it’s funny is because of how common people say they do think about the Roman empire (which for me is also quite often). It’s subverting expectations— you think no one thinks about the Empire— in reality, all of your family and n…

> Why would anyone care about a dead empire, after all? Because it isn't dead culturally. When you see a medieval castle you think about medieval things, when you see Roman architecture you think of Roman things, and since you see Roman architecture all the time in the news, like every time they show the white house etc, it makes sense your brain thinks about the Romans now and then.

See also: the Pope and the Catholic Church.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#85

Post by namaria »

thom wrote: post #28
throwawaycities wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one of the great ironies of the meme… Most people self-identifying that they think about the Roman Empire don’t seem to know the difference between the Roman Republic & Roman Empire (much less the period of Kings)…it’s all just the Roman Empire.

Well, the Roman Republic had an empire so you can see where it gets confusing.

If you want to get technical, the Roman Republic controlled provinces and ally states. Emperor was the title of a victorious general, and a notion of a "Roman Empire" is an artifact of modern scholarship.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#86

Post by Detrytus »

verve_rat wrote: post #81
henrikschroder wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but isn't it fascinating how truly interested in the roman republic and emopire we are? If you're in the US, how can you not be? It's everywhere! The fledgling US was desperately in need of authority and gravitas, so they essentially cosplayed as the inheritors of the ideals of Rome, and put that shit everywhere. Why does Washington DC look the way it does? Why are there pillars and obelisks and domes and white mar…

But everyone tries to wear the clothes of Rome. The Russians, the Ottomans, unified Germany all played Roman dress up. Edit: also Catholicism.

For Catholicism it wasn't a "dress up" - it was the official religion of Rome in the last couple centuries, and the Catholic Church was the only main institution of (Western) Roman Empire surviving its fall.

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#88

Post by ethbr1 »

swasheck wrote: post #26

bret devereaux is a great follow on twitter, uh ... X, as well. his thoughts on the ukraine/russia conflict are very interesting to me

His modern stuff is more... eh.

E.g. I thought there were a lot of flaws in his early-war "NATO can't supply X, because Russia will threaten nukes" positions, as he completed ignored the obvious opposite "Russia can't escalate, because NATO will threaten nukes"

110% love his Roman-period deep dives though.

There's probably a smarter quip than me out there to the effect of "Great people share their brilliance on many matters, while the greatest speak on but a few."

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#89

Post by bobthepanda »

ethbr1 wrote: post #88
swasheck wrote: post #26

bret devereaux is a great follow on twitter, uh ... X, as well. his thoughts on the ukraine/russia conflict are very interesting to me

His modern stuff is more... eh. E.g. I thought there were a lot of flaws in his early-war "NATO can't supply X, because Russia will threaten nukes" positions, as he completed ignored the obvious opposite "Russia can't escalate, because NATO will threaten nukes" 110% love his Roman-period deep dives though. There's probably a smarter quip than me out there to the effect of "Great people share their brilliance on many…

To be fair, it took a while for people to figure out how much MAD was still in play, since before the invasion most punditry thought Russia was bluffing and would never try to invade Kyiv with tanks, so what else had they gotten wrong?

Re: How to Roman Republic, Part IV: The Senate

#90

Post by kjkjadksj »

henrikschroder wrote: post #52
swasheck wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my wife asked me and i said once per week. then she and my daughter cackled and asked me to repeat my answer and i knew i was about to become part of a trend so i refused. but isn't it fascinating how truly interested in the roman republic and emopire we are? people are coming up with theories about why this is the case but i'm not sure any of them resonate with me. i was always more of a greece person until i visite…

> but isn't it fascinating how truly interested in the roman republic and emopire we are? If you're in the US, how can you not be? It's everywhere! The fledgling US was desperately in need of authority and gravitas, so they essentially cosplayed as the inheritors of the ideals of Rome, and put that shit everywhere. Why does Washington DC look the way it does? Why are there pillars and obelisks and domes and white mar…

What is sort of curious to think about is that all these monuments really shouldn’t be white. They should be painted many colors especially the friezes. There were never temples with big empty rooms with a white marble statue either. Done in proper roman tradition the Lincoln memorial would be this imposing giant, fully painted, with a pile of gold and other offerings right there in the room along with regular insence burning fronted by local patrons.

Of course by the time europeans got into the rennaisance all these temples had been pilfered and regular repainting had ceased for centuries. So because of this huge misunderstanding, neoclassical architecture is always boring and beige despite us knowing better today.

Post reply on HN