"...there's an old joke..."
Posted on 03/08/2020 9:53:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
That’s an old JERK...................
Romans used paid mercenaries to maintain the last few centuries. And I believe they paid Attila to stay away for a few years. The remarkable thing as you say was one city doing this for so long. But they had a network of help
They didn't have a network of help, they built one. Their use of selective trade (bribery) to co-opt neighboring tribes along its borders, and bringing non-Roman areas into the Roman economy worked very well until a series of depopulation events within the Empire that may have been the first big instance of the Black Plague. One reason Augustus cut the Roman regular army in half after the defeat and death of Antony was to right-size Roman forces and bring legions up to strength; a second reason was to free up Romans to get back to their regular lives and to cut the military budget; yet another reason was, the Empire had grown quickly and ruled many more non-Roman people.
The auxiliary legions were derived from conquered people who had their own traditional fighting styles and techniques, and they were deployed in parts of the Empire distant from their old homelands (making them cleave to their Roman commanders and regular legions); as Roman citizenship was continually expanded, Romanized people of non-Roman backgrounds increasingly made up the regular army.
The first non-Roman/provincial Emperor ascended to the big chair late in the 1st century (Trajan, born in Iberia but of non-Roman Umbrian stock) and he was a real ass-kicker. OTOH, Septimius Severus had Carthaginian roots, and his rule and those of his sons preceded what is generally called the Disaster of the Third Century (again, probably plague-induced).
One of my favorites, Aurelian, was born to a non-Roman family in Dacia; on his first outing he was defeated at first by barbarian invaders, who decided to split up to sack and plunder separately while Aurelian rode around and gathered his scattered troops; when Aurelian struck, he smashed the smaller groups of barbarians one by one until there were no more. He built the Aurelian Wall around Rome (parts are still visible today), knocked out the pretenders around the Empire, and put the whole works back together, just in time to be assassinated by an embezzler on his staff who thought he'd been found out. A ruled about five years.
of course. Roman law and the way they set up to local rule.
I’ve done a little reading. I started with Penguin Books and a Roman historian Livy. I read in chronological order. Livy was give access to the leading families of Rome who paid chroniclers to record the speeches of family senators and consuls. Much of Livy is gone after the second Punic War.
Some of the leading families gave him access to their histories. Many paid chronicolers (sp) to record speeches of their consuls and senators. Livy reconstructs many speeches given before battles or at key times in Roman history.
Then I read concurrent sources which took me to 669 the year of the 4 emperors. Then io burinedopuit Lots of dramas and documentaries on streaming. Love ed my two visits to Rome.
The Forum was a dumping ground for centuries. The road was above the forum and people would send their servants dump down the little berm. And there was time when it was afad amongst the rich in France, England, and Germany to have Roman statuary and other objects in their homes.
When Napolean came marched into Italy, he sent a message with list to the pope to provide 100 items of art. He transferred them to Paris, the beginning of the Louvre as a major museum. At the east end of the Champs Elysee’ is an obelisk he took from Egypt. In Italy, he had two archeologists with him and he left them there to begin the restoration of The Forum. This was the first decade of the 1800s. What we see today is the result of Napolean’s interest in antiquity
I appreciate your threads this morning. Thanx.
took me to AD 69
From Wiki (I know, I know, but would they lie about hamburgers, My God! what’s this world coming too?)
The Apicius cookbook, a collection of ancient Roman recipes that may date to the early 4th century, details a preparation of beef called isicia omentata; served as a baked patty in which beef is mixed with pine kernels, black and green peppercorns, and white wine, isicia omentata may be the earliest precursor to the hamburger.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_hamburger
Thanks.
thanx for 105. I’m weaker on 69-300 than other periods.
I see a lot of Livius (Livy) online for free. https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/livy/
I saw this on TV 30 minutes per week over a year in about 1990, from his lectures at UCLA. m Lots of paintings, maps, and illustrations.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYbocufkwRFAS80nLFShkXSblfcFTXwRH
The sandwich is not an “American” invention and never was. It was a Brit who invented it. Americans merely modified it, a great deal.
Thanks, definitely going to save that link.
Whoops -- what is generally called the Disaster of the Third Century is actually generally called the Crisis of the Third Century. :) [blush]
I am having a crisis of my first century. LOL
wiki
The modern concept of a sandwich using slices of bread as found within the West can arguably be traced to 18th-century Europe. However, the use of some kind of bread or bread-like substance to lie under (or under and over) some other food, or used to scoop up and enclose or wrap some other type of food, long predates the eighteenth century, and is found in numerous much older cultures worldwide.
The ancient Jewish sage Hillel the Elder is said to have wrapped meat from the Paschal lamb and bitter herbs in a soft matzah—flat, unleavened bread—during Passover in the manner of a modern wrap made with flatbread.[10] Flat breads of only slightly varying kinds have long been used to scoop or wrap small amounts of food en route from platter to mouth throughout Western Asia and northern Africa. From Morocco to Ethiopia to India, bread is baked in flat rounds, contrasting with the European loaf tradition.
During the Middle Ages in Europe, thick slabs of coarse and usually stale bread, called “trenchers”, were used as plates.[11] After a meal, the food-soaked trencher was fed to a dog or to beggars at the tables of the wealthy, and eaten by diners in more modest circumstances. The immediate culinary precursor with a direct connection to the English sandwich was to be found in the Netherlands of the seventeenth century, where the naturalist John Ray observed[12][13] that in the taverns beef hung from the rafters “which they cut into thin slices and eat with bread and butter laying the slices upon the butter”—explanatory specifications that reveal the Dutch belegde broodje, open-faced sandwich, was as yet unfamiliar in England.
Initially perceived as food that men shared while gaming and drinking at night, the sandwich slowly began appearing in polite society as a late-night meal among the aristocracy. The sandwich’s popularity in Spain and England increased dramatically during the nineteenth century, when the rise of industrial society and the working classes made fast, portable, and inexpensive meals essential.[14] In London, for example, at least seventy street vendors were selling ham sandwiches by 1850; during that decade sandwich bars also became an important form of eating establishment in western Holland, typically serving liver and salt beef sandwiches.[15]
In the United States, the sandwich was first promoted as an elaborate meal at supper. By the early twentieth century, as bread became a staple of the American diet, the sandwich became the same kind of popular, quick meal as was already widespread in the Mediterranean.[14]
Heh, yeah, that's familiar, ya just gotta get used to it...
wiki
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich
The sandwich:
The modern sandwich is named after Lord Sandwich, but the exact circumstances of its invention and original use are still the subject of debate. A rumour in a contemporaneous travel book called Tour to London by Pierre-Jean Grosley formed the popular myth that bread and meat sustained Lord Sandwich at the gambling table. But Sandwich was into many bad habits, including the Hellfire club, and any story may be a creation after the fact.[28] Lord Sandwich was a very conversant gambler, the story goes, and he did not take the time to have a meal during his long hours playing at the card table.
Consequently, he would ask his servants to bring him slices of meat between two slices of bread, a habit well-known among his gambling friends. Other people, according to this account, began to order “the same as Sandwich!”, and thus the “sandwich” was born.[29] The sober alternative to this account is provided by Sandwich’s biographer N. A. M. Rodger, who suggests that Sandwich’s commitments to the navy, to politics, and to the arts mean that the first sandwich was more likely to have been consumed at his work desk.
The original sandwich was a piece of salt beef between two slices of toasted bread.
Of course, John Montagu (or rather, his nameless cook) was hardly the first person to think of putting fillings between slices of bread. In fact, we know exactly where Montagu first got the idea for his creation.
Montagu traveled abroad to the Mediterranean, where Turkish and Greek mezze platters were served. Dips, cheeses, and meats were all “sandwiched” between and on layers of bread. In all likelihood Montagu took inspiration from these when he sat at that card table.
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