5 ms·

One thing I don’t really have a sense for is how much did Roman culture change over the centuries of its existence? The article says there were estimated to ha

One thing I don’t really have a sense for is how much did Roman culture change over the centuries of its existence? The article says there were estimated to have been five of these general strikes over a two century period. That feels a bit like saying there were a handful of major upsets on /r/politics over the past couple hundred years — the timespan seems very long! Was Roman culture pretty static for a very long time?

edoceo 7y ago
It just takes the plebes a few generations to get riled up and protest. Boiling frogs and all that. And there are loads of books on Roman culture - interesting reading of you have the time - and the empire was vastly different across the whole area of influence. Edit: Start here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_a... It's !w about this long book(s) and it's fascinating.
- jimnotgym 7y ago
  I have not read it, but I believe that whilst a seminal work that modern scholars draw a great deal from, it is neither the entry point for the casual reader, nor is it the latest thinking on many parts. Can I recommend 'SPQR' by the wonderful Mary Beard as a better entry point.
  - edoceo 7y ago
    Yea, @svip is right, it's missing part of the story (which is coverd in part in SPQR) but it's like /The/ book. And you're right too - its a lot of work to read, SPQR is likely a better start with a more complete timeline. Link for the curious https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28789711-spqr https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28789711-spqr
  - gorgoiler 7y ago
    Thank you and the parent for recommendations. Every time I encounter Beard she seems amazing. (To be fair to the parent comment: I think they meant to literally read the Wikipedia article, rather than the volumes themselves!)
  - foobarian 7y ago
    While not a book, the History of Rome podcast[1] by Mike Duncan is excellent. [1] https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/the_history_of_rome/archives.html https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/the_history_of_rome/arc...
    - brians 7y ago
      He’s got a book now, too! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34184069-the-storm-before-the-storm https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34184069-the-storm-befor... But the ancients did not think like us—I like Lendon for explaining how and why: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1569074.Empire_of_Honour https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1569074.Empire_of_Honour
  - Amezarak 7y ago
    I actually did not like SPQR, though I concede it may be a better introduction to someone who otherwise knows nothing. I found it too informed by 21st century perspectives, too set on telling me what to think, and uninteresting for that reason. But, I know the subject material better than the average reader, and there is no single older work I can think of that covers the same time period. Gibbon's Decline and Fall is really much broader than Rome: he covers the Empire all the way to shortly after 1453, and not just Rome as such, but the broader theater of Europe and the East. But it does not cover the Republic or the early Empire. Gibbon surely is guilty of some anti-religious bias (which he confines, for the most part, to a single chapter), and there are a few things we have learned through later archeological research - but not much that would be of interest to a general reader - and a few things he did just get plain wrong. But as a whole, the work still stands tremendously, and for a non-academic historian, there's nothing wrong with it - except that in this case, you're not getting the whole history of Rome. I actually think its a great read for a casual reader, as long as they're looking for a history of the time period specified. It is long, not dry at all, and the style is very refreshing. But for the earlier history of Rome, I'd do what Gibbon did for his work: go to the primary sources. Read Livy, Plutarch, Caesar, and the like. Read the Romans as they presented themselves, without anyone else interpreting it for you, or putting any kind of lens in front of you. To be sure, all the Roman writers had biases too, and where history gets hazy, they are sometimes much more eager than a modern writer would be to plunge into myth - though they are usually willing to say so, and often present interpretations of what they think actually happened. To be sure, there will be a lot of things we never know, things there can never be any evidence for aside from stories. But if nothing else, it adds color. I've also found that modern academics are far too skeptical for my taste, and too ready to take absence of evidence as evidence of absence; generally too ready to deem myth as having no basis in reality whatever, improbable stories as impossible, unlikely ones as highly improbable, and even entirely plausible ones as exaggerated or unlikely, if any historian has lately, in need of making a career and publishing papers, an axe to grind against it. Half of any modern academic history nowadays seems dedicated to sneering at the gullibility of earlier historians. To be fair, maybe this isn't a new trend, only an old one refined to new heights - I recall a passage in Decline and Fall where contemporary writers were shocked at the numbers involved in the Goth migration, and suddenly realized that maybe accounts of army size in the Persian War weren't so crazy after all. I don't know. Maybe the best thing for someone unfamiliar altogether with it all is to read SPQR, then, if they are still interested, read Gibbon and the more popular and accessible primary sources.
- Svip 7y ago
  Edward Gibbon does not concern himself much with the republican era, when the secessio plebis occurred. As his title foretells, he concerns himself mostly with the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (not its rise). Thus he begins after the five good emperors, i.e. Commodus, as a pinpoint from whence the decline begins in earnest. He reflects on earlier terrible emperors, like Nero and Caligula, and contends that even though terrible, they were nowhere near as terrible as Commodus, nor did their behaviour have lasting influence on later emperors, hence the five good emperors following them. Gibbon suffers in perspective from the era he was writing in, late Renaissance Enlightenment era, where blaming the church was a recurring theme. He lays heavily blame on Christianity for the collapse of the Roman Empire, and downplays the church's official perspective on the persecution of Christians before the Empire became Christian. While I can heavily recommend his work, I also strongly advise people to view Gibbon through the lens of when he was writing. Gibbon's usage of original sources and footnotes makes him a founder of modern historical sciences. And in that regard, his work is incredible. But as another commenter said, we have learnt a lot about ancient Rome since the 1770s.
  - catominor 7y ago
    Well Said!
  - runawaybottle 7y ago
    Caesar’s dynasty had so many bad apples in it. I can see how one could bucket them into ‘psychologically rotten’ (even by Roman standards) and call it a day.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  >Boiling frogs and all that. This is a myth[1]. Not being true doesn't make the idea wrong, but it is not a metaphor rooted in reality. >While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, according to contemporary biologists the premise is false: a frog that is gradually heated will jump out. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
  - Jailbird 7y ago
    Thanks for the link. I had never looked into it but had always just assumed it was fiction in the first place.
deltaepsilon42 7y ago
It’s worth noting that we’re talking about very early days here— Rome was still just a regional power on the Italian peninsula, not the Mediterranean-spanning empire we think of today. Also bear in mind that most of these reported incidents happened before 387 BC, when Rome was sacked and most historical records were destroyed. Events before this date are often more legend than fact. Roman culture changed a great deal over its thousand-year span, but most of those (that we know of) came under the later empire, as foreign cultures got folded in. To later-day romans, this period is one they looked back at as the “brave days of old”, when all men were honourable, honest, hardworking, patriotic, that old refrain. Needless to say, history from this period tended to get embellished. The reason for so few successions is likely because it was a nuclear option. Getting an entire city of (very poor) middle and lower class citizens to close up shop and camp out on a hillside in solidarity is a massive undertaking, and even then it probably only worked because of Rome’s militaristic nature and then-lack of a professional army— when the citizens march off, well, that’s all your legions. Let’s hope the Etruscans don’t notice. A final thing to note is that these successions were usually resolved with landmark constitutional changes. These were huge concessions, like the creation of the powerful office of tribune, or the outlandish idea of requiring of Rome’s laws to be written down publicly (the horror!). Successions were a Big Deal.
- gorgoiler 7y ago
  Thanks for the detailed answer. HN would be pretty cluttered if everyone thanked everyone else for their contributions but I saw your account is only 3 hours old, so (1) thank you and also (2) Welcome!
mellow2020 7y ago
> That feels a bit like saying there were a handful of major upsets Only if you assume "general strike" is the only form "major upset" can take.
Svip 7y ago
Roman culture was initially just Greek culture, and Greek culture would remain a heavy influence on Rome throughout its existence. Hence why we refer to it as Greco-Roman in a historical context. These "general strikes" are but one way that the conflict between the plebeian and patrician classes manifested itself. A central pillar in Roman society, it persisted long into the imperial era, but since by the time of Augustus, the powers of the Senate and the Tribunes (which still existed) were evaporated, the conflicts weren't as dramatic as the republican ones. You can counter-argue your static culture question with since the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the rise of capitalism in the 18th century, Western Europe maintained the same economical structure (i.e. feudalism); was European culture pretty static for a very long time? History is a lot more complicated than that. If one only focuses on one aspect, then similar events may crop up occasionally, making one think people did not change much over long time spans. But sometimes re-introducing old protests can be a way of honouring one's ancestors as well as inspiration for a solution to one's new conflict.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  > Roman culture was initially just Greek culture, and Greek culture would remain a heavy influence on Rome throughout its existence. Hence why we refer to it as Greco-Roman in a historical context. This is about as accurate as describing the culture of the Abbasid Caliphate as Persian. They were Arabs whose high culture was deeply informed by Persian culture, not Persians. In the same way the Romans were not Greeks, any more than the Carthaginians and other Phoenicians were. Their language was different. Their political culture was somewhat outside of the Greek mainstream. They were more liberal in regards to women’s social role than the Greeks. Their cultural production was pitiful compared to the Greeks’. The Romans stand in a similar relation to the Greeks as the English to the Romance speaking Western Christian world. Nothing about them makes sense without reference to the other but they’re very different.
  - Svip 7y ago
    While a statement in the brief that certainly leaves a lot of details omitted, you are of course correct; as the main gist is the same as yours; their cultural production was pitiful. Romans admired the Greeks when it came to culture, and adopted as much as they could. Incorporating other culture's gods into their own pantheon was a common occurrence for Romans, they were not afraid of other cultures. There is still some historical debate over whether the Romans who founded Rome were actually Greeks (which they were according to their own legend), that simply adopted the local language from the local Latins, and then conquered them. Or whether they were their own unique tribe in central Italy, and not a foreign invader. I am honestly not sure what the historical consensus is these days.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
Rome was probably one of the most conservative societies that existed. Even when they did changes, they tried to cloak it in tradition. Part of why Augustus was so successful was that he pretended that he was restoring the Republic and he took no new titles for himself and “consulted” the Senate on everything.

edoceo 7y ago

It just takes the plebes a few generations to get riled up and protest. Boiling frogs and all that. And there are loads of books on Roman culture - interesting reading of you have the time - and the empire was vastly different across the whole area of influence. Edit: Start here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_a... It's !w about this long book(s) and it's fascinating.

jimnotgym 7y ago
I have not read it, but I believe that whilst a seminal work that modern scholars draw a great deal from, it is neither the entry point for the casual reader, nor is it the latest thinking on many parts. Can I recommend 'SPQR' by the wonderful Mary Beard as a better entry point.
- edoceo 7y ago
  Yea, @svip is right, it's missing part of the story (which is coverd in part in SPQR) but it's like /The/ book. And you're right too - its a lot of work to read, SPQR is likely a better start with a more complete timeline. Link for the curious https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28789711-spqr https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28789711-spqr
- gorgoiler 7y ago
  Thank you and the parent for recommendations. Every time I encounter Beard she seems amazing. (To be fair to the parent comment: I think they meant to literally read the Wikipedia article, rather than the volumes themselves!)
- foobarian 7y ago
  While not a book, the History of Rome podcast[1] by Mike Duncan is excellent. [1] https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/the_history_of_rome/archives.html https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/the_history_of_rome/arc...
  - brians 7y ago
    He’s got a book now, too! https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34184069-the-storm-before-the-storm https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34184069-the-storm-befor... But the ancients did not think like us—I like Lendon for explaining how and why: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1569074.Empire_of_Honour https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1569074.Empire_of_Honour
- Amezarak 7y ago
  I actually did not like SPQR, though I concede it may be a better introduction to someone who otherwise knows nothing. I found it too informed by 21st century perspectives, too set on telling me what to think, and uninteresting for that reason. But, I know the subject material better than the average reader, and there is no single older work I can think of that covers the same time period. Gibbon's Decline and Fall is really much broader than Rome: he covers the Empire all the way to shortly after 1453, and not just Rome as such, but the broader theater of Europe and the East. But it does not cover the Republic or the early Empire. Gibbon surely is guilty of some anti-religious bias (which he confines, for the most part, to a single chapter), and there are a few things we have learned through later archeological research - but not much that would be of interest to a general reader - and a few things he did just get plain wrong. But as a whole, the work still stands tremendously, and for a non-academic historian, there's nothing wrong with it - except that in this case, you're not getting the whole history of Rome. I actually think its a great read for a casual reader, as long as they're looking for a history of the time period specified. It is long, not dry at all, and the style is very refreshing. But for the earlier history of Rome, I'd do what Gibbon did for his work: go to the primary sources. Read Livy, Plutarch, Caesar, and the like. Read the Romans as they presented themselves, without anyone else interpreting it for you, or putting any kind of lens in front of you. To be sure, all the Roman writers had biases too, and where history gets hazy, they are sometimes much more eager than a modern writer would be to plunge into myth - though they are usually willing to say so, and often present interpretations of what they think actually happened. To be sure, there will be a lot of things we never know, things there can never be any evidence for aside from stories. But if nothing else, it adds color. I've also found that modern academics are far too skeptical for my taste, and too ready to take absence of evidence as evidence of absence; generally too ready to deem myth as having no basis in reality whatever, improbable stories as impossible, unlikely ones as highly improbable, and even entirely plausible ones as exaggerated or unlikely, if any historian has lately, in need of making a career and publishing papers, an axe to grind against it. Half of any modern academic history nowadays seems dedicated to sneering at the gullibility of earlier historians. To be fair, maybe this isn't a new trend, only an old one refined to new heights - I recall a passage in Decline and Fall where contemporary writers were shocked at the numbers involved in the Goth migration, and suddenly realized that maybe accounts of army size in the Persian War weren't so crazy after all. I don't know. Maybe the best thing for someone unfamiliar altogether with it all is to read SPQR, then, if they are still interested, read Gibbon and the more popular and accessible primary sources.
Svip 7y ago
Edward Gibbon does not concern himself much with the republican era, when the secessio plebis occurred. As his title foretells, he concerns himself mostly with the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (not its rise). Thus he begins after the five good emperors, i.e. Commodus, as a pinpoint from whence the decline begins in earnest. He reflects on earlier terrible emperors, like Nero and Caligula, and contends that even though terrible, they were nowhere near as terrible as Commodus, nor did their behaviour have lasting influence on later emperors, hence the five good emperors following them. Gibbon suffers in perspective from the era he was writing in, late Renaissance Enlightenment era, where blaming the church was a recurring theme. He lays heavily blame on Christianity for the collapse of the Roman Empire, and downplays the church's official perspective on the persecution of Christians before the Empire became Christian. While I can heavily recommend his work, I also strongly advise people to view Gibbon through the lens of when he was writing. Gibbon's usage of original sources and footnotes makes him a founder of modern historical sciences. And in that regard, his work is incredible. But as another commenter said, we have learnt a lot about ancient Rome since the 1770s.
- catominor 7y ago
  Well Said!
- runawaybottle 7y ago
  Caesar’s dynasty had so many bad apples in it. I can see how one could bucket them into ‘psychologically rotten’ (even by Roman standards) and call it a day.
toohotatopic 7y ago
>Boiling frogs and all that. This is a myth[1]. Not being true doesn't make the idea wrong, but it is not a metaphor rooted in reality. >While some 19th-century experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true if the heating is sufficiently gradual, according to contemporary biologists the premise is false: a frog that is gradually heated will jump out. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
- Jailbird 7y ago
  Thanks for the link. I had never looked into it but had always just assumed it was fiction in the first place.

deltaepsilon42 7y ago

It’s worth noting that we’re talking about very early days here— Rome was still just a regional power on the Italian peninsula, not the Mediterranean-spanning empire we think of today. Also bear in mind that most of these reported incidents happened before 387 BC, when Rome was sacked and most historical records were destroyed. Events before this date are often more legend than fact. Roman culture changed a great deal over its thousand-year span, but most of those (that we know of) came under the later empire, as foreign cultures got folded in. To later-day romans, this period is one they looked back at as the “brave days of old”, when all men were honourable, honest, hardworking, patriotic, that old refrain. Needless to say, history from this period tended to get embellished. The reason for so few successions is likely because it was a nuclear option. Getting an entire city of (very poor) middle and lower class citizens to close up shop and camp out on a hillside in solidarity is a massive undertaking, and even then it probably only worked because of Rome’s militaristic nature and then-lack of a professional army— when the citizens march off, well, that’s all your legions. Let’s hope the Etruscans don’t notice. A final thing to note is that these successions were usually resolved with landmark constitutional changes. These were huge concessions, like the creation of the powerful office of tribune, or the outlandish idea of requiring of Rome’s laws to be written down publicly (the horror!). Successions were a Big Deal.

gorgoiler 7y ago
Thanks for the detailed answer. HN would be pretty cluttered if everyone thanked everyone else for their contributions but I saw your account is only 3 hours old, so (1) thank you and also (2) Welcome!

mellow2020 7y ago

> That feels a bit like saying there were a handful of major upsets Only if you assume "general strike" is the only form "major upset" can take.

Svip 7y ago

Roman culture was initially just Greek culture, and Greek culture would remain a heavy influence on Rome throughout its existence. Hence why we refer to it as Greco-Roman in a historical context. These "general strikes" are but one way that the conflict between the plebeian and patrician classes manifested itself. A central pillar in Roman society, it persisted long into the imperial era, but since by the time of Augustus, the powers of the Senate and the Tribunes (which still existed) were evaporated, the conflicts weren't as dramatic as the republican ones. You can counter-argue your static culture question with since the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the rise of capitalism in the 18th century, Western Europe maintained the same economical structure (i.e. feudalism); was European culture pretty static for a very long time? History is a lot more complicated than that. If one only focuses on one aspect, then similar events may crop up occasionally, making one think people did not change much over long time spans. But sometimes re-introducing old protests can be a way of honouring one's ancestors as well as inspiration for a solution to one's new conflict.

barry-cotter 7y ago
> Roman culture was initially just Greek culture, and Greek culture would remain a heavy influence on Rome throughout its existence. Hence why we refer to it as Greco-Roman in a historical context. This is about as accurate as describing the culture of the Abbasid Caliphate as Persian. They were Arabs whose high culture was deeply informed by Persian culture, not Persians. In the same way the Romans were not Greeks, any more than the Carthaginians and other Phoenicians were. Their language was different. Their political culture was somewhat outside of the Greek mainstream. They were more liberal in regards to women’s social role than the Greeks. Their cultural production was pitiful compared to the Greeks’. The Romans stand in a similar relation to the Greeks as the English to the Romance speaking Western Christian world. Nothing about them makes sense without reference to the other but they’re very different.
- Svip 7y ago
  While a statement in the brief that certainly leaves a lot of details omitted, you are of course correct; as the main gist is the same as yours; their cultural production was pitiful. Romans admired the Greeks when it came to culture, and adopted as much as they could. Incorporating other culture's gods into their own pantheon was a common occurrence for Romans, they were not afraid of other cultures. There is still some historical debate over whether the Romans who founded Rome were actually Greeks (which they were according to their own legend), that simply adopted the local language from the local Latins, and then conquered them. Or whether they were their own unique tribe in central Italy, and not a foreign invader. I am honestly not sure what the historical consensus is these days.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago

Rome was probably one of the most conservative societies that existed. Even when they did changes, they tried to cloak it in tradition. Part of why Augustus was so successful was that he pretended that he was restoring the Republic and he took no new titles for himself and “consulted” the Senate on everything.