According to Plutarch, Julius Caesar was once captured by pirates(britannica.com)
britannica.com
According to Plutarch, Julius Caesar was once captured by pirates
https://www.britannica.com/story/the-time-julius-caesar-was-captured-by-pirates
170 comments
This account was originally written by Plutarch, who was more interested in telling a good moralistic story than sticking to the facts (of ~150 years before).
Plutarch is generally as reliable as his source material in the sense that things he wrote happened, but not necessarily in the way he tells them.
Plutarch selected the stories he told and modified them into moralistic narratives, but he didn't completely make them up. He is not reliable historian in modern sense, of course.
Plutarch selected the stories he told and modified them into moralistic narratives, but he didn't completely make them up. He is not reliable historian in modern sense, of course.
Sounds like today's "based on a true story"...
I have seen fiction outright stating, "This is a true story" - i.e. Fargo, or the rather-less-good "The Sleep Experiment". The former at least has great production values and is actually taking inspiration from real events. The latter is 110% made up.
In the case of Fargo the cohen brothers chose to make a movie in the “real crime story” genre, and that title card sets the tone. Any overlap with actual crimes is almost beside the point. (As a viewer this really bugs me — there is such a thing as truth!)
The show also heavily plays with fable.
UFO sightings were a real common thing in Minnesota, so in the show a real UFO comes, because it’s people telling the story as they saw it. The true part is that people truly tell the stories, and in that sense, since they told this story it truly is a true story.
UFO sightings were a real common thing in Minnesota, so in the show a real UFO comes, because it’s people telling the story as they saw it. The true part is that people truly tell the stories, and in that sense, since they told this story it truly is a true story.
Stupid show. I watched the entire first season waiting for the guy to turn out to be an alien and then I find out it's in the second season and it's just a UFO sighting.
Did you watch the whole first season since I made my comment? Or why did you think somebody was going to be an alien in S01?
I saw a screenshot that showed a UFO in a review of the show and I figured it must have aliens in it.
The original movie had Steve Buscemi. He kind of looks like an alien. Does that count?
There aren’t UFOs in season 1 though.
Did you somehow watch season 2 without watching season 1?
I’m also not sure if none of the characters being aliens really makes the show stupid. That analysis would apply to quite a few shows.
Did you somehow watch season 2 without watching season 1?
I’m also not sure if none of the characters being aliens really makes the show stupid. That analysis would apply to quite a few shows.
There's like a gradient of "truthiness" in movies that ranges from "This is a true story" to "inspired by real events" (which is the least reliable of all).
Well based on a true story has no real percentage of trueness. Cocaine Bear is based on a true story. It might be more correct to say inspired by a true story but it is based on a true story.
Based on a true story just means someone somewhere said something like this happened. Bloodsport is a great example of a movie that is based on a true story but that true story turned out to be entirely false.
Based on a true story just means someone somewhere said something like this happened. Bloodsport is a great example of a movie that is based on a true story but that true story turned out to be entirely false.
Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story”. Stories that were often too good to be true, because many of them weren’t.
Still puts him ahead of Herodotus. When Aristophanes takes the time to write a whole play to mock you, you done goofed.
He was like the original historian, though. Everyone's a critic.
The books of Samuel and Kings from the Hebrew Bible predate Herodotus' Histories by quite some time.
Herodotus is also a good read.
Great stories, but even in his day he was considered to be factually incorrect. I'll grant that he makes for a good read (his greek is certainly more engaging the Xenophon), but if you read what he has to say about Cyrus it's pretty obvious he's outright lying. This paragon of rulers, after many years of good administration, is suddenly going to act completely out of character and get himself killed stupidly. And incidentally, Herodotus is the ONLY ancient source that so much as mentions Tomyris, full stop.
> but even in his day he was considered to be factually incorrect
Some of what he said might have been and some parts probably weren't.
> Cyrus it's pretty obvious he's outright lying
He was telling a story from the perspective of the (or some of them) the Greeks might have seen. It's just as likely to have been hearsay as outright intentional lies.
> And incidentally, Herodotus is the ONLY ancient source that so much as mentions Tomyris, full stop
How many other ancient sources do we actually have on some of the periods (especially related to Persia) described by Herodotus? Also as far as we can tell the narrative history or even Mesopotamian/Asyrian/Babylonian style chronicles weren't really a thing in ancient Persia so it's not inconceivable that he just wrote down one of the oral stories coming from there (it probably wasn't that clear to the Persians themselves what might have happened to one of their previous rulers after a generation or two).
Overall by the standards of ancient historians Herodotus was probably above average.
Some of what he said might have been and some parts probably weren't.
> Cyrus it's pretty obvious he's outright lying
He was telling a story from the perspective of the (or some of them) the Greeks might have seen. It's just as likely to have been hearsay as outright intentional lies.
> And incidentally, Herodotus is the ONLY ancient source that so much as mentions Tomyris, full stop
How many other ancient sources do we actually have on some of the periods (especially related to Persia) described by Herodotus? Also as far as we can tell the narrative history or even Mesopotamian/Asyrian/Babylonian style chronicles weren't really a thing in ancient Persia so it's not inconceivable that he just wrote down one of the oral stories coming from there (it probably wasn't that clear to the Persians themselves what might have happened to one of their previous rulers after a generation or two).
Overall by the standards of ancient historians Herodotus was probably above average.
> (it probably wasn't that clear to the Persians themselves what might have happened to one of their previous rulers after a generation or two)
Let's see:
Persians of a generation or two after Cyrus are Dariush and Xerxes. These guys were running a multi-national empire, had invented the satrap system to administer foreign conquests, were in the process of taking over Egypt, digging canals, had a relay system mail network with a catchy motto (per Mr. H himself!) of "neither rain nor snow blah blah blah" (likely in Aramaic), taking the time to carve in a pretty tough to reach spot in a mountain face in western Iran the specifics of which uppity rebel was put down, and how. Did they really lose track of what happened to their grandparents' (generation)?
That specific dynasty maintained meticulous records in Persepolis. Those archive and whatever historic records they may have contained however went up in smoke with the rest of the complex when Alexander paid a visit.
So, that contemporary Greeks (or any other non-Persians in the greater empire) had little access to Persian empire records and thus relied on oral lore seems to be a given. But that has little bearing on whether Persians were generationally clueless about their grand parents as you allege, or not.
Let's see:
Persians of a generation or two after Cyrus are Dariush and Xerxes. These guys were running a multi-national empire, had invented the satrap system to administer foreign conquests, were in the process of taking over Egypt, digging canals, had a relay system mail network with a catchy motto (per Mr. H himself!) of "neither rain nor snow blah blah blah" (likely in Aramaic), taking the time to carve in a pretty tough to reach spot in a mountain face in western Iran the specifics of which uppity rebel was put down, and how. Did they really lose track of what happened to their grandparents' (generation)?
That specific dynasty maintained meticulous records in Persepolis. Those archive and whatever historic records they may have contained however went up in smoke with the rest of the complex when Alexander paid a visit.
So, that contemporary Greeks (or any other non-Persians in the greater empire) had little access to Persian empire records and thus relied on oral lore seems to be a given. But that has little bearing on whether Persians were generationally clueless about their grand parents as you allege, or not.
Didn't Alexander actually "preserve" the archives in Persepolis by burning it since they were mostly on clay tablets as was common in the region? IIRC they were mostly administrative tax documents and ordinary Persians probably didn't have any access to them anyway.
But yes, a generation or two was probably an exaggeration. It was likely closer to a 100 years or so. e.g. it seems that by the time of the Parthian empire the Greeks and Roman "knew" considerably more about the Achaemenid Persia than the Persian themselves.
But yes, a generation or two was probably an exaggeration. It was likely closer to a 100 years or so. e.g. it seems that by the time of the Parthian empire the Greeks and Roman "knew" considerably more about the Achaemenid Persia than the Persian themselves.
Financial or not, clearly the notion of maintaining records was not foreign matter to these Persians.
> It was likely closer to a 100 years or so. e.g. it seems that by the time of the Parthian empire the Greeks and Roman "knew" considerably more about the Achaemenid Persia than the Persian themselves.
That is a pretty ridiculous notion. First let's break down what you mean by Persians. Do you mean a Dehghaan (land owner / farmer) or a member of the ruling families or some random Persian cranking around somewhere? How about Greece? Did Greeks uniformly had access to the same knowledge about Greeks and Greece?
So we are talking about either what outsiders or national elite classes knew and maintained. And your 100 year limit is based on the ignorance of the foreigners and various bits of court gossip, (Greek) mercenaries, and whatever else passed for a "public space of discourse" back then. Correspondences, tavern songs, stuff like that.
Iran has suffered 3 cataclysmic invasions and each featured destruction of the state and intelligentsia. For this reason it is 100% true that quite a lot of Iran's history was "news" to latter day Iranians but to claim someone of a given cultural and educational background in Persia in say early years of Hellenic occupation had no clue what had happened does not seem reasonable. At all.
> It was likely closer to a 100 years or so. e.g. it seems that by the time of the Parthian empire the Greeks and Roman "knew" considerably more about the Achaemenid Persia than the Persian themselves.
That is a pretty ridiculous notion. First let's break down what you mean by Persians. Do you mean a Dehghaan (land owner / farmer) or a member of the ruling families or some random Persian cranking around somewhere? How about Greece? Did Greeks uniformly had access to the same knowledge about Greeks and Greece?
So we are talking about either what outsiders or national elite classes knew and maintained. And your 100 year limit is based on the ignorance of the foreigners and various bits of court gossip, (Greek) mercenaries, and whatever else passed for a "public space of discourse" back then. Correspondences, tavern songs, stuff like that.
Iran has suffered 3 cataclysmic invasions and each featured destruction of the state and intelligentsia. For this reason it is 100% true that quite a lot of Iran's history was "news" to latter day Iranians but to claim someone of a given cultural and educational background in Persia in say early years of Hellenic occupation had no clue what had happened does not seem reasonable. At all.
p.s. it appears (speaking as an Iranian) that there does seem to be a overall cultural element that has contributed to this matter: information is highly compartmentalized (and likely has always been) in Iranian society, down to the family unit with parents carefully curating what aspects of family history is discussed in front of adults or when children are present. Per this theory, the information was there but the channels for its dissemination were selective and regrettably all bound up with state structures that went belly up and not maintained in the larger collective oral lore in accurate form. So for example, Shahnameh clearly mismaps known historic figures for mythical ones so some form of preservation was maintained but this was couched in occult symbolism that is accessible to a much more limited readership.
Yeah. I mean he's not perfect but it does sound like he actually travelled places and asked people, even if he took local hearsay/anecdotes as fact.
plutarch admits when he’s propagating folklore, or unconfirmed history with moral tones. see for example his narration of the encounter between solon and croesus. that said let’s not forget that history as understood by the ancients were stories told for the purposes of education, not a disinterested recording of facts.
While this account comes from Plutarch, Suetonius also relates the same story. Suetonius, of course, was much more interested in a good story than any concept of truth and was writing in roughly the same period as Plutarch relating tales told and retold long after whatever original events there were transpired.
So, are we reading The Social Network of Caesar's life?
It's probable that the story had a basis in truth-otherwise, someone would have instantly used it against the young Caesar-but grew in the telling. Caesar, as his commentaries show, was no slouch at bolstering his own legend.
I bet it's more accurate than if Caesar wrote it. Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars is considered "prone to exaggeration" at best.
Plutarch's Parallel Lives is a great read though.
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What is history, but a fable agreed upon?
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> In 75 BCE a band of Cilician pirates in the Aegean Sea captured a 25-year-old Roman nobleman named Julius Caesar, who had been on his way to study oratory in Rhodes.
I'm pretty sure that nobleman was named Gaius Julius and that's how he introduced himself.
I'm pretty sure that nobleman was named Gaius Julius and that's how he introduced himself.
"Roman men were usually known by their praenomina to members of their family and household, clientes and close friends; but outside of this circle, they might be called by their nomen, cognomen, or any combination of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen that was sufficient to distinguish them from other men with similar names."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions
> or any combination of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen that was sufficient to distinguish them from other men with similar names.
Even Julius Caesar's full name including all three parts would not be helpful in distinguishing him from many of the other men in his family.
Even Julius Caesar's full name including all three parts would not be helpful in distinguishing him from many of the other men in his family.
'Caesar' was not then a title. It became a title because of him.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(title)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(title)
Ceasar is basically a family name though. I don't think there were that many Julii left at this point? So it might not have been that confusing. However if you were Publius/Lucius Cornelius on the other hand there were probably a dozen other Roman aristocrats with the same name at any given time.
He wasnt even the only Julius Caesar elected as Consul in that decade
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Julius_Caesar_(consul_6...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Julius_Caesar_(consul_6...
I can't help but think of these guys: https://americaexplained.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/asterix...
Just for reference a talent was worth about 20 years wages. So while comparing currency values across vast stretches of time is inaccurate, it wouldn’t be totally wrong to consider a talent about $1 million in today’s US dollars.
On the other hand you could buy about 1200 gallons of olive oil which is less than $50,000 or 750 sheep which is might be about $300,000.
Comparing modern/ancient prices get tricky.. To be fair though a worker earning 2 drachma per day would be closer to a modern person minimum wage worker (anyone back then who didn't own land, wasn't a merchant or at least a skilled craftsmen was dirt poor anyway). So if 1 drachma = $30 to $60 a talent would be closer to around $180-360k
Comparing modern/ancient prices get tricky.. To be fair though a worker earning 2 drachma per day would be closer to a modern person minimum wage worker (anyone back then who didn't own land, wasn't a merchant or at least a skilled craftsmen was dirt poor anyway). So if 1 drachma = $30 to $60 a talent would be closer to around $180-360k
I think it's fair to argue than using modern value for goods that you can produce more efficiently thanks to the availability of cheap energy and phosphate is not really fair.
750 sheeps or 1200 gallons of olive oil were certainly worth a fortune at the time, and owning that much would probably have made you a very weathly person when owning 300K USD today does not.
750 sheeps or 1200 gallons of olive oil were certainly worth a fortune at the time, and owning that much would probably have made you a very weathly person when owning 300K USD today does not.
It’s a bit of a tangent, but this reminds me of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist[1] which is a good example of food commodity wealth in modern times.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_H...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_H...
> and owning that much would probably have made you a very weathly person when owning 300K USD today does not.
I guess it depends on whether we want to measure relative wealth to the rest of the society or what can you actually buy with that money which would probably change the valuation 10-100+ times.
This applies to goods rather than labor to a much higher degree. Permanently owning the labour of 10 people working 16 hours per days is worth a lot more today than 10 slaves back then.
I guess it depends on whether we want to measure relative wealth to the rest of the society or what can you actually buy with that money which would probably change the valuation 10-100+ times.
This applies to goods rather than labor to a much higher degree. Permanently owning the labour of 10 people working 16 hours per days is worth a lot more today than 10 slaves back then.
> This applies to goods rather than labor to a much higher degree. Permanently owning the labour of 10 people working 16 hours per days is worth a lot more today than 10 slaves back then.
Yes, but that's also because of the productivity increase linked to the cheap energy and phosphate supply brought by fossil fuels.
If cheap energy stop being available and human labour become again the main driver of economic output, you can bet that slavery will soon come back in fashion...
Yes, but that's also because of the productivity increase linked to the cheap energy and phosphate supply brought by fossil fuels.
If cheap energy stop being available and human labour become again the main driver of economic output, you can bet that slavery will soon come back in fashion...
Talent is told to be about 33 kg (or something between 20-40 kg). So indeed a talent of gold will be over $1 million today.
It's silver though, so only about $26k (of course that's the least accurate way to compare modern and ancient prices).
Gold wasn't that commonly used in the west back then.
Gold wasn't that commonly used in the west back then.
Thank you for pointing out that it was silver.
But the gold and silver had more equal value at the time so direct comparison is not fair. In Roman times the silver was valued around 10 times less than gold but today it is around 100 times less valued.
From this perspective the better approach might be indeed through labor as GP proposed but again how labor has been valued over time has not been uniform and might not compare to today.
But the gold and silver had more equal value at the time so direct comparison is not fair. In Roman times the silver was valued around 10 times less than gold but today it is around 100 times less valued.
From this perspective the better approach might be indeed through labor as GP proposed but again how labor has been valued over time has not been uniform and might not compare to today.
A talent was a weight. Assuming it was of silver, a talent of silver would be worth about $19,500 today.
This is wild. I don't know about "great man" theory in general, but that does sound extraordinary.
Great man theory describes a real phenomena, it just gets the causality backwards. With lots of people doing lots of things, some are bound to do exceptional things. People who believe they need strong leaders gravitate towards the noteworthy ones, making it more likely that someone who has done exceptional things end up with more power. The more power someone has the more noteworthy acts they are likely to engage in. Then let history forget all but the most noteworthy details, and you have a history defined by great men.
The Roman Republic was steadily dying up to Caesar's reign. He really was just the straw that broke the camel's back in terms of its death, which was surely inevitable in the coming decades. However, without Caeser, the conquest of Gual may have been pushed back drastically?
Didn't Caesar die in 44 BC, while the Roman empire peaked in size in around 98 AD? i.e. it continued growing for 140 years after his death?
I think they meant that the "Republic" as a form of organization was dying, end being replaced by the "Empire", a different form of organization which flourished afterwards.
OP was referring to the Roman Republic, the system of government. The Roman Empire didn't begin until 27 BC, shortly after Caesar.
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GP was talking specifically about the republic, not about the empire that came after.
I think he means the Republic (Roman democracy). The non democratic Roman Empire would continue to on for some time after that
> democratic
Calling it a 'democracy' is a somewhat of a stretch though (both according to modern and ancient definitions). It was a weird (from a modern perspective) form of a flawed direct democracy (the people's assembly had absolute power in theory but passing any laws was very difficult due to a dozen or so public officials being able to effectively/directly veto any legislation). Mixed with an unambiguously oligarchical executive branch (all the top public official who controlled the army and the treasury were elected by a tiny proportion of the population).
It certainly wasn't democratic in the same sense as Athens and some other Greek cities were (and afterall Greek authors considered it to be a mixed system).
Calling it a 'democracy' is a somewhat of a stretch though (both according to modern and ancient definitions). It was a weird (from a modern perspective) form of a flawed direct democracy (the people's assembly had absolute power in theory but passing any laws was very difficult due to a dozen or so public officials being able to effectively/directly veto any legislation). Mixed with an unambiguously oligarchical executive branch (all the top public official who controlled the army and the treasury were elected by a tiny proportion of the population).
It certainly wasn't democratic in the same sense as Athens and some other Greek cities were (and afterall Greek authors considered it to be a mixed system).
That conquest was brutal btw, estimates are that Rome killed 1.5m combatants and 1m+ civilians enslaved / executed. There’s also that part where they just cut off the hands of any fighting age males they came across for a while.
Really was closer to a genocide.
Really was closer to a genocide.
"There’s also that part where they just cut off the hands of any fighting age males they came across for a while."
IIRC that was done in a single instance in order to try to pacify Gaul while Caesar was about to be away invading Britain.
IIRC that was done in a single instance in order to try to pacify Gaul while Caesar was about to be away invading Britain.
>Really was closer to a genocide.
Yes but that was a pretty ordinary occurrence in the ancient world.
I don't think the Celts were that much nicer when they invaded Greece a couple of hundred years earlier (or Rome/Italy itself prior to that).
The Romans supposedly murdered up to half a million people just during the siege of Carthage.
When Ceasar was ~12 the rebelling Greek kingdoms/cities basically exterminated almost all the Italians living in Asia Minor (~100k people). The amount of violence violence committed in Gaul seems to be only unperrendented in the sense that most generals weren't really successful enough to be in a position to murder that many people compared to Caesar.
Yes but that was a pretty ordinary occurrence in the ancient world.
I don't think the Celts were that much nicer when they invaded Greece a couple of hundred years earlier (or Rome/Italy itself prior to that).
The Romans supposedly murdered up to half a million people just during the siege of Carthage.
When Ceasar was ~12 the rebelling Greek kingdoms/cities basically exterminated almost all the Italians living in Asia Minor (~100k people). The amount of violence violence committed in Gaul seems to be only unperrendented in the sense that most generals weren't really successful enough to be in a position to murder that many people compared to Caesar.
I recently discovered that Dan Carlin has a series on this topic, "Hardcore History 60 - The Celtic Holocaust". I just listened through, and it's pretty solid. Based on the number of deaths and attitude, I think "genocide" is pretty fine, but he makes it clear that the Gauls actually had a fighting chance in their fights. In some timelines, the Romans get sent home with a bloody nose and no intention to return for a while.
A recent term for it is the Celtic genocide
As we've seen, genocide has become a recent term for almost any kind of warfare. It used to have a much more narrowly defined usage that was accordingly more meaningful.
Caesar's goal in Gaul was certainly not the extermination of its people or its culture. He wanted to pacify Gaul and Germany, for his own glory, but also for very legitimate self-defense reasons. And the Romans, as a rule, were famously tolerant of other people's national pride, customs, and religions.
And of course, the Gaul and German tribes were at least as brutal to each other as Caesar was to them. The entire region was filled with constantly warring tribes that would often commit something much closer to actual genocide. Caesar, and the later Romans, did a lot to reduce this internecine warfare.
The reality of these kinds of events is a lot more nuanced than a simple label like "genocide" will allow.
Caesar's goal in Gaul was certainly not the extermination of its people or its culture. He wanted to pacify Gaul and Germany, for his own glory, but also for very legitimate self-defense reasons. And the Romans, as a rule, were famously tolerant of other people's national pride, customs, and religions.
And of course, the Gaul and German tribes were at least as brutal to each other as Caesar was to them. The entire region was filled with constantly warring tribes that would often commit something much closer to actual genocide. Caesar, and the later Romans, did a lot to reduce this internecine warfare.
The reality of these kinds of events is a lot more nuanced than a simple label like "genocide" will allow.
> He wanted to pacify
I'm not sure pacify is the right word.
> but also for very legitimate self-defense reasons
Not really. By that point the Celts weren't as much of a threat as they were 50-100+ years ago. If his goals were primarily 'pacification' and 'self-defense' a much more limited and cheaper campaign would've been more than sufficient. In any case the Roman senate didn't really consider the war to be necessary in that sense.
> Caesar, and the later Romans, did a lot to reduce this internecine warfare. > commit something much closer to actual genocide
That's a massive a stretch. Even the Romans themselves understood that e.g. the "They Make a Desert and Call it Peace" quote Tacitus put into into the mouth leaders of one of the tribes subjugated by the Romans. The Roman empire was almost entirely built on slave labor and exhortation of the territories they subjugated.
It might have turned into something else in the later periods (by the 1st and 1nd centuries AD). But the Romans certainly did not really improve the lives of the people the conquered during the Republican period.
> The reality of these kinds of events is a lot more nuanced than a simple label like "genocide" will allow.
Well however you put it it was still an extremely violate imperialist war of conquest. Of course yes, technically it wasn't a genocide in the direct sense subjugating, enslaving and stealing their stuff rather than extermination were their primary goals.
I'm not sure pacify is the right word.
> but also for very legitimate self-defense reasons
Not really. By that point the Celts weren't as much of a threat as they were 50-100+ years ago. If his goals were primarily 'pacification' and 'self-defense' a much more limited and cheaper campaign would've been more than sufficient. In any case the Roman senate didn't really consider the war to be necessary in that sense.
> Caesar, and the later Romans, did a lot to reduce this internecine warfare. > commit something much closer to actual genocide
That's a massive a stretch. Even the Romans themselves understood that e.g. the "They Make a Desert and Call it Peace" quote Tacitus put into into the mouth leaders of one of the tribes subjugated by the Romans. The Roman empire was almost entirely built on slave labor and exhortation of the territories they subjugated.
It might have turned into something else in the later periods (by the 1st and 1nd centuries AD). But the Romans certainly did not really improve the lives of the people the conquered during the Republican period.
> The reality of these kinds of events is a lot more nuanced than a simple label like "genocide" will allow.
Well however you put it it was still an extremely violate imperialist war of conquest. Of course yes, technically it wasn't a genocide in the direct sense subjugating, enslaving and stealing their stuff rather than extermination were their primary goals.
> The Roman empire was almost entirely built on slave labor and exhortation of the territories they subjugated.
This is a description of virtually every ancient society in this region. The Romans were simply the most dominant. And as a rule, they were fairer and more tolerant than the entities they replaced.
> By that point the Celts weren't as much of a threat as they were 50-100+ years ago.
The argument that the Gauls were no longer a threat merely because it had been 40-something years since the last successful invasion of Roman territory doesn't make much sense.
Nothing fundamental had changed. The Romans were stronger by then but the territories bordering Gaul were still at risk. Vercingetorix himself attempted an invasion of the Roman province as a response Caesar's invasion.
> In any case the Roman senate didn't really consider the war to be necessary in that sense.
This is really accepting ancient propaganda at face value. It's more accurate to say that Caesar's opponents in the senate claimed it was unnecessary as a means of attacking him politically. Most of these same Roman senators used the Roman army in much the same way when serving at governors in the provinces.
This is a description of virtually every ancient society in this region. The Romans were simply the most dominant. And as a rule, they were fairer and more tolerant than the entities they replaced.
> By that point the Celts weren't as much of a threat as they were 50-100+ years ago.
The argument that the Gauls were no longer a threat merely because it had been 40-something years since the last successful invasion of Roman territory doesn't make much sense.
Nothing fundamental had changed. The Romans were stronger by then but the territories bordering Gaul were still at risk. Vercingetorix himself attempted an invasion of the Roman province as a response Caesar's invasion.
> In any case the Roman senate didn't really consider the war to be necessary in that sense.
This is really accepting ancient propaganda at face value. It's more accurate to say that Caesar's opponents in the senate claimed it was unnecessary as a means of attacking him politically. Most of these same Roman senators used the Roman army in much the same way when serving at governors in the provinces.
> This is a description of virtually every ancient society in this region.
Ok, I don't know why do I have to specify this but I meant the slave labor if hundreds of thousands (or millions) of foreigners they have subjugated (this was relatively unique in the Mediterranean).
> The Romans were simply the most dominant. And as a rule, they were fairer and more tolerant than the entities they replaced.
Except this wasn't really true. Certainly not in the Republican period. Extortive taxation, extreme levels of corruption and other issues weren't addressed until the imperial period.
e.g. the cities/states rebelling in Asia minor hated the Romans enough to murder every single Italian they could find in the region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_Vespers
> The argument that the Gauls were no longer a threat merely because it had been 40-something years since the last successful invasion of Roman territory doesn't make much sense.
I don't agree about 40 years.. Well it's tangential anyway and has little to do with Caesar's motivations.
> Most of these same Roman senators used the Roman army in much the same way when serving at governors in the provinces.
Maybe but certainly not to a such degree of course. However yes, the main thing that set him apart from all the other ambitious Roman aristocrats was how exceptionally successful he was.
Ok, I don't know why do I have to specify this but I meant the slave labor if hundreds of thousands (or millions) of foreigners they have subjugated (this was relatively unique in the Mediterranean).
> The Romans were simply the most dominant. And as a rule, they were fairer and more tolerant than the entities they replaced.
Except this wasn't really true. Certainly not in the Republican period. Extortive taxation, extreme levels of corruption and other issues weren't addressed until the imperial period.
e.g. the cities/states rebelling in Asia minor hated the Romans enough to murder every single Italian they could find in the region: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiatic_Vespers
> The argument that the Gauls were no longer a threat merely because it had been 40-something years since the last successful invasion of Roman territory doesn't make much sense.
I don't agree about 40 years.. Well it's tangential anyway and has little to do with Caesar's motivations.
> Most of these same Roman senators used the Roman army in much the same way when serving at governors in the provinces.
Maybe but certainly not to a such degree of course. However yes, the main thing that set him apart from all the other ambitious Roman aristocrats was how exceptionally successful he was.
"Ok, I don't know why do I have to specify this but I meant the slave labor if hundreds of thousands..."
Because they didn't do anything substantively different in this regard? Pointing out that the Romans had slaves as if it somehow differentiated them seems misleading.
The number of people living under slavery, or near-slavery, was probably quite similar before and after the Romans took over any given territory. In some cases, less, and other cases more.
"Well it's tangential anyway and has little to do with Caesar's motivations."
We can't read his mind but it seems very believable that he genuinely wanted to eliminate a threat to Rome, among other things. Most big things like this have more than one motivation. He could have chosen to go east to do his conquering, but he chose Gaul.
At one point he refers to the defeat and death of his father-in-law's grandfather, at the hands of the Gallic tribe he was engaged with. There's a good chance he sat at a dinner talking with his father-in-law about this. It wouldn't be surprising if they both agreed that it was time someone do something about the threat they posed.
Because they didn't do anything substantively different in this regard? Pointing out that the Romans had slaves as if it somehow differentiated them seems misleading.
The number of people living under slavery, or near-slavery, was probably quite similar before and after the Romans took over any given territory. In some cases, less, and other cases more.
"Well it's tangential anyway and has little to do with Caesar's motivations."
We can't read his mind but it seems very believable that he genuinely wanted to eliminate a threat to Rome, among other things. Most big things like this have more than one motivation. He could have chosen to go east to do his conquering, but he chose Gaul.
At one point he refers to the defeat and death of his father-in-law's grandfather, at the hands of the Gallic tribe he was engaged with. There's a good chance he sat at a dinner talking with his father-in-law about this. It wouldn't be surprising if they both agreed that it was time someone do something about the threat they posed.
> Pointing out that the Romans had slaves as if it somehow differentiated them seems misleading
I'm sorry are you being purposefully obtuse here?
>Because they didn't do anything substantively different in this regard?
Anyway that's tangential and semi-irrelevant to my point. The scale of slavery in Roman Italy was on a completely different level than anywhere else in the Mediterranean or the Hellenic world. As far as we can tell the level of exploitation the Roman aristocracy engaged in didn't really have any parallel in the ancient world (and it didn't benefit anyone but them especially not the lower class Roman citizens in the Italian countryside).
> n some cases, less, and other cases more.
I would assume it was usually less. Sometimes significantly. In part because of depopulation following the extreme atrocities inflicted by the Romans and because most of the newly captured slaves were transported to Italy. You might have a point though for instance the Romans basically slavery in Carthage which was quite and an achievement by ancient standards...
> He could have chosen to go east to do his conquering
I don't think he could've chosen that at all considering the political situation in the Roman empire at the time.
> It wouldn't be surprising if they both agreed that it was time someone do something about the threat they posed.
Everything you're saying is almost purely conjecture. In any case reducing/removing the Gaulic threat to Rome you keep talking about (which again wasn't really an issue on the Italian side of the alps anymore anyway). Anyway the exact justification are hardly relevant when Ceasar's conquest was mainly driven by personal ambition and greed (which doesn't make him special compared to most other Roman, Celtic or Greek warlords he was just extremely effective at it).
I'm sorry are you being purposefully obtuse here?
>Because they didn't do anything substantively different in this regard?
Anyway that's tangential and semi-irrelevant to my point. The scale of slavery in Roman Italy was on a completely different level than anywhere else in the Mediterranean or the Hellenic world. As far as we can tell the level of exploitation the Roman aristocracy engaged in didn't really have any parallel in the ancient world (and it didn't benefit anyone but them especially not the lower class Roman citizens in the Italian countryside).
> n some cases, less, and other cases more.
I would assume it was usually less. Sometimes significantly. In part because of depopulation following the extreme atrocities inflicted by the Romans and because most of the newly captured slaves were transported to Italy. You might have a point though for instance the Romans basically slavery in Carthage which was quite and an achievement by ancient standards...
> He could have chosen to go east to do his conquering
I don't think he could've chosen that at all considering the political situation in the Roman empire at the time.
> It wouldn't be surprising if they both agreed that it was time someone do something about the threat they posed.
Everything you're saying is almost purely conjecture. In any case reducing/removing the Gaulic threat to Rome you keep talking about (which again wasn't really an issue on the Italian side of the alps anymore anyway). Anyway the exact justification are hardly relevant when Ceasar's conquest was mainly driven by personal ambition and greed (which doesn't make him special compared to most other Roman, Celtic or Greek warlords he was just extremely effective at it).
"I don't think he could've chosen that at all considering the political situation in the Roman empire at the time."
You're mixing up the timeline. He chose Gaul when him and two dudes controlled the entire Roman empire. One of those dudes went East and died fighting there.
"Everything you're saying is almost purely conjecture"
Almost all historical analysis like this is conjecture. Some of it is just well reasoned and others is not.
It's a fact that he cited my reason in his commentaries and so is who is father-in-law is. He was related, through his wife, to someone that the Gauls killed in recent history.
Anyway, you're not really adding any information here and you're resorting to personal attacks, so I'm done here. Later!
You're mixing up the timeline. He chose Gaul when him and two dudes controlled the entire Roman empire. One of those dudes went East and died fighting there.
"Everything you're saying is almost purely conjecture"
Almost all historical analysis like this is conjecture. Some of it is just well reasoned and others is not.
It's a fact that he cited my reason in his commentaries and so is who is father-in-law is. He was related, through his wife, to someone that the Gauls killed in recent history.
Anyway, you're not really adding any information here and you're resorting to personal attacks, so I'm done here. Later!
Caesar was brutal in Gaul, a mere part of the vast Celtic-speaking world, and his campaign probably impacted a decent amount of Proto-Basque or Para-Basque speakers as well. Many historians and linguists prefer to see “Celtic” as a linguistic distinction only and therefore are reluctant to speak of “the Celtic people”. If you ever see anyone online write of “Celtic genocide”, you can be pretty sure that the person has little formal training in this field and is going off of low-quality pop-sci publications or pure internet amateurism.
Caesar was mostly following through with prior norm breaking.
That's why it is important to rebuke politicians in the mold of Trump. You don't know who will follow him.
That's why it is important to rebuke politicians in the mold of Trump. You don't know who will follow him.
The US has been gently crumbling under its own weight since approximately 1970. You'd get more out of rebuking the politicians who took the wealth of a pre-eminent superpower then flubbed it. You might not like Trump. But the generation of politicians that are being rebuked by the voters who gave Trump power were outdone by literal communists when it comes to creating wealth. The lion's share of real growth from the last 30 years seems to have been in Asia.
It is easier to follow "norms" when they don't involve blowing a lot of money on foreign wars and with limited results to show for it. It says a lot about how people rate the last few decades that figureheads of that generation of political leadership like Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden are struggling mightily to outpoll Donald Trump. My read is almost anyone with a record in office is unelectable. How norms will survive that sort of failure is anyone's guess (as is whether they should survive).
It is easier to follow "norms" when they don't involve blowing a lot of money on foreign wars and with limited results to show for it. It says a lot about how people rate the last few decades that figureheads of that generation of political leadership like Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden are struggling mightily to outpoll Donald Trump. My read is almost anyone with a record in office is unelectable. How norms will survive that sort of failure is anyone's guess (as is whether they should survive).
> easier to follow "norms" when they don't involve blowing a lot of money on foreign wars
Ironic complaint on a Rome thread :).
Conquest is the history of civilisation. It took the Industrial Revolution to make the “war a lot more destructive (thus lowering returns to successful warfare) while at the same time massively raising returns to capital investment in things like infrastructure, factories and tractors. It suddenly made more sense, if you coveted your neighbors resources, to build more factories and buy those resources than to try to seize them by force” [1]. Instead, “states no longer ask if they can profit through a war of conquest, but rather if they’d spend less managing the disaster that a local failed state is by invading versus trying to manage the problem via aid or controlling refugee flows.” To the extent we engage in foreign wars, it’s in that failed-state management mode. (Iraq, what would have been the geopolitical blunder of the century were it not for Ukraine and Brexit, is the notable exception.)
> lion's share of real growth from the last 30 years seems to have been in Asia
In relative terms, yes. In aggregate terms, it’s surprisingly balanced—the U.S. growing at 3% and China at 10% in 1990 roughly maintained their relative economies. And since Xi, China’s relative economic growth has stalled (assuming official data are true) [2].
[1] https://acoup.blog/2023/06/09/fireside-friday-june-9-2023/
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/c10bd71b-e418-48d7-ad89-74c5783c5...
Ironic complaint on a Rome thread :).
Conquest is the history of civilisation. It took the Industrial Revolution to make the “war a lot more destructive (thus lowering returns to successful warfare) while at the same time massively raising returns to capital investment in things like infrastructure, factories and tractors. It suddenly made more sense, if you coveted your neighbors resources, to build more factories and buy those resources than to try to seize them by force” [1]. Instead, “states no longer ask if they can profit through a war of conquest, but rather if they’d spend less managing the disaster that a local failed state is by invading versus trying to manage the problem via aid or controlling refugee flows.” To the extent we engage in foreign wars, it’s in that failed-state management mode. (Iraq, what would have been the geopolitical blunder of the century were it not for Ukraine and Brexit, is the notable exception.)
> lion's share of real growth from the last 30 years seems to have been in Asia
In relative terms, yes. In aggregate terms, it’s surprisingly balanced—the U.S. growing at 3% and China at 10% in 1990 roughly maintained their relative economies. And since Xi, China’s relative economic growth has stalled (assuming official data are true) [2].
[1] https://acoup.blog/2023/06/09/fireside-friday-june-9-2023/
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/c10bd71b-e418-48d7-ad89-74c5783c5...
I wouldnt call an increasing GDP coupled with deindustrialization "growth".
Growth in GDP for a country with a well respected currency is trivial - increase government spending. Of course, in the limit, that destroys your currency's reputation... but then nominal GDP will grow at the inflation rate at constant real GDP.
Growth in GDP for a country with a well respected currency is trivial - increase government spending. Of course, in the limit, that destroys your currency's reputation... but then nominal GDP will grow at the inflation rate at constant real GDP.
> Ironic complaint on a Rome thread :).
The Romans were primitives. Individually very impressive and for their time the society was incredible. But they didn't have access to the level of knowledge we do these days on how to create wealth and live comfortably. If they'd spent less time on pointless wars and more time on cheap energy, they too would have achieved better results.
Turns out, amazingly, that at no point in history was killing people and breaking stuff the path to long, happy, comfortable and prosperous living. I can see why nobody figured it out before the 1800s, but the fact is we're looking back on the works of Adam Smith and modern US politicians should know better. They do know better, in fact. They persist with the waste, death and destruction despite knowing better. And that is likely a factor in the Trump phenomenon. The norms they've been championing have had terrible consequences. China has humiliated the west, an actual we-should-be-red-faced-with-shame humiliation, by thriving peacefully. Why can't the US manage that, hm? At least the Trump rhetoric is consistent with the idea than the current political norms.
The Romans were primitives. Individually very impressive and for their time the society was incredible. But they didn't have access to the level of knowledge we do these days on how to create wealth and live comfortably. If they'd spent less time on pointless wars and more time on cheap energy, they too would have achieved better results.
Turns out, amazingly, that at no point in history was killing people and breaking stuff the path to long, happy, comfortable and prosperous living. I can see why nobody figured it out before the 1800s, but the fact is we're looking back on the works of Adam Smith and modern US politicians should know better. They do know better, in fact. They persist with the waste, death and destruction despite knowing better. And that is likely a factor in the Trump phenomenon. The norms they've been championing have had terrible consequences. China has humiliated the west, an actual we-should-be-red-faced-with-shame humiliation, by thriving peacefully. Why can't the US manage that, hm? At least the Trump rhetoric is consistent with the idea than the current political norms.
Isn't the USA being in the position it's in a counterpoint to your argument that:
'Turns out, amazingly, that at no point in history was killing people and breaking stuff the path to long, happy, comfortable and prosperous living.'
Surely it can be argued that the USA choosing to enter WW2 when it did and help secure victory for the allies placed the US government in an incredibly powerful position when reconfiguring the global economy (in its favor). The US dollar is still the world's reserve currency and post war generations have lived incredibly prosperously compared to their peers before the war (perhaps this is now reversing).
'Turns out, amazingly, that at no point in history was killing people and breaking stuff the path to long, happy, comfortable and prosperous living.'
Surely it can be argued that the USA choosing to enter WW2 when it did and help secure victory for the allies placed the US government in an incredibly powerful position when reconfiguring the global economy (in its favor). The US dollar is still the world's reserve currency and post war generations have lived incredibly prosperously compared to their peers before the war (perhaps this is now reversing).
WWII was everyone destroying each other and the US came out on top because it still had an economy afterwards. That is a great example of the only winners being people who were an ocean away on a mostly peaceful continent.
The US has spent the last 50 years fighting wars. China has not. China has grown by approximately 1 US economy (a bit less accounting for the fact that their figures are bogus). What was the point of the last 50 years of war? Where is the upside from all the US's killing? Because as far as I can see, most of the upside seems to have been in Asia.
The US has spent the last 50 years fighting wars. China has not. China has grown by approximately 1 US economy (a bit less accounting for the fact that their figures are bogus). What was the point of the last 50 years of war? Where is the upside from all the US's killing? Because as far as I can see, most of the upside seems to have been in Asia.
> Turns out, amazingly, that at no point in history was killing people and breaking stuff the path to long, happy, comfortable and prosperous living
Well to be fair for the upper class Romans it was exactly that.
Well to be fair for the upper class Romans it was exactly that.
> The lion's share of real growth from the last 30 years seems to have been in Asia.
There was far more opportunity for growth in China than in the U.S. Rather, compare the U.S. to Europe, Japan, and South Korea.
There was far more opportunity for growth in China than in the U.S. Rather, compare the U.S. to Europe, Japan, and South Korea.
> But the generation of politicians that are being rebuked by the voters who gave Trump power were outdone by literal communists when it comes to creating wealth.
The US has created more wealth over the past 10 or 20 years than China has.
US households have added roughly $72 trillion in net wealth over just ten years (and that's just counting households; excluding non-profits and corporations). It's the greatest net wealth creation in human history for one nation, surpassing anything China has done in a ten year span.
Read that one more time. $72 trillion. Ten years.
US household wealth is at an extraordinary level at present and holding despite very high interest rates. Meanwhile China's housing market is a disaster and their stock market hasn't net moved in 16 years (it's still stuck where it was in eg 2007 and 2009).
Yeah but the US middle class is doing horribly and isn't getting a share of that $72 trillion. The US median individual wealth figure is now over $100,000. It's higher than either Germany or Sweden. That's the median, in a nation of 335 million people.
China will continue to wilt under Xi and the US and its allies will continue to redirect their capital investment.
The US has created more wealth over the past 10 or 20 years than China has.
US households have added roughly $72 trillion in net wealth over just ten years (and that's just counting households; excluding non-profits and corporations). It's the greatest net wealth creation in human history for one nation, surpassing anything China has done in a ten year span.
Read that one more time. $72 trillion. Ten years.
US household wealth is at an extraordinary level at present and holding despite very high interest rates. Meanwhile China's housing market is a disaster and their stock market hasn't net moved in 16 years (it's still stuck where it was in eg 2007 and 2009).
Yeah but the US middle class is doing horribly and isn't getting a share of that $72 trillion. The US median individual wealth figure is now over $100,000. It's higher than either Germany or Sweden. That's the median, in a nation of 335 million people.
China will continue to wilt under Xi and the US and its allies will continue to redirect their capital investment.
Obviously "wealth" went up by trillions of dollars. we flooded the system with said trillions of dollars
But its all junk, fake wealth [1]. We cant even make artillery shells for f^*^'s sake. Interest rates are high, inflation is being tamed by selling the oil reserves and collapsing demand.
[1] actually its not entirely fake. No matter how pathetic a currency is, it's the metric of wealth. When you pour printed banknotes onto a favored constituent said constituent gets proportionally more money than the rest of society.
But its all junk, fake wealth [1]. We cant even make artillery shells for f^*^'s sake. Interest rates are high, inflation is being tamed by selling the oil reserves and collapsing demand.
[1] actually its not entirely fake. No matter how pathetic a currency is, it's the metric of wealth. When you pour printed banknotes onto a favored constituent said constituent gets proportionally more money than the rest of society.
> The US median individual wealth figure is now over $100,000. It's higher than either Germany or Sweden
To be fair you did pick some of the poorest "rich" West European countries. A median French person is about 25% richer than an America, a Briton by 40% and a Belgian by about 240%.
Of course all of those wealth metrics come down to home-ownership and inequality. Sweden for instance has one of the highest levels of wealth inequality in the world and even quite a bit higher than the US.
To be fair you did pick some of the poorest "rich" West European countries. A median French person is about 25% richer than an America, a Briton by 40% and a Belgian by about 240%.
Of course all of those wealth metrics come down to home-ownership and inequality. Sweden for instance has one of the highest levels of wealth inequality in the world and even quite a bit higher than the US.
> It says a lot about how people rate the last few decades that figureheads of that generation of political leadership like Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden are struggling mightily to outpoll Donald Trump.
It has more to do with the calcification of most of the electorate behind one or the other party.
It has more to do with the calcification of most of the electorate behind one or the other party.
I find the denialism around the great man theory somewhat baffling. Does anyone really believe, just for one example, that Apple computer would be what it is today without Steve Jobs?
The issue with the "Great Man" idea of history is that it doesn't take into account that people are created by history more than they create history. the microcomputer revolution was already going before Jobs and Wozniak showed up at the Homebrew Computer Club. Somebody was going to turn this hobby into a big business. If not them, somebody else.
The "if not them, then somebody else" premise is a fallacy of guaranteed progress, when history overwhelmingly demonstrates that progress is anything but guaranteed.
The computer revolution happened because a string of great men and women made it happen. Unix and Linux very clearly didn't have to happen (as they have) for example, and certainly didn't have to happen in a way that was so dramatically beneficial to the open source community.
The computer revolution happened because a string of great men and women made it happen. Unix and Linux very clearly didn't have to happen (as they have) for example, and certainly didn't have to happen in a way that was so dramatically beneficial to the open source community.
Well, maybe. We just don't know how things would have played out.
The safest assumption seems to be that people like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak very significantly accelerated progress.
But because of the way acceleration seems to kick of revolutionary changes, it does seem fair to say they were pretty 'Great' in terms of their impact.
For example, without them, maybe we would be in the 1990s era of personal computing now, thirty years later. Or maybe someone else would have done even better than them, and we would be further along, but the latter is harder to believe.
We'll simply never know the answer to these questions because we can't run the counter-factual.
The safest assumption seems to be that people like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak very significantly accelerated progress.
But because of the way acceleration seems to kick of revolutionary changes, it does seem fair to say they were pretty 'Great' in terms of their impact.
For example, without them, maybe we would be in the 1990s era of personal computing now, thirty years later. Or maybe someone else would have done even better than them, and we would be further along, but the latter is harder to believe.
We'll simply never know the answer to these questions because we can't run the counter-factual.
The problem with this theory is that all of the “somebody elses” were also there at the time, so if “somebody else” was going to do it, why didn’t they?
Well, they kind of did. We don't think much about Commodore these days because it died in the early 1990s (mostly from competition with IBM PC and compatibles, not so much Apple), but the Commodore 64 was the best-selling computer of the 1980s. And in Britain (and in many parts of Continental Europe) Sinclair and Amstrad were huge but people from the US hardly recognize the names.
Commodore is probably the closest analog to Apple because they tried to follow up the 64 with the Amiga. It didn’t work out for them (hell, it barely worked out for Apple) but some people absolutely loved the Amiga.
Do you think in a world without Apple, the founders of these companies would have ended up doing what Steve Jobs ended up doing? If so, what stopped them?
Do you think in a world without Apple, the founders of these companies would have ended up doing what Steve Jobs ended up doing? If so, what stopped them?
No, but I bet we would still have personal computers and smart phones without Steve Jobs.
That's the argument against the "great man" idea. Sure, specific events would not have happened without that person, but the overall state of the world would not be drastically different.
That's the argument against the "great man" idea. Sure, specific events would not have happened without that person, but the overall state of the world would not be drastically different.
I think it can depend a lot. Political figures can have long lasting impact. Consider Jesus. Or Napoleon, without him Europe may have looked entirely different today. But for general scientific progress I agree. Scientific breakthroughs are bound to happen if enough people work on them.
The introduction of the potato and the invention of the steam engine changed Europe several orders of magnitude more than Napoleon or any other great man.
Yes sure, but that is not a counter argument. If James Watt et al did not invent the steam engine, someone else would
Didn't someone invent the telephone at roughly the same time as A. G. Bell? For another example, in Japan Soddy's Hexlet was described in 1822, while in the West it was introduced in England in 1937.
The French were thrashing the coalition forces for 2 years before Napoleon led a major campaign. Napoleon was a military genius, but what shifted the revolutionary wars in the favour of the French was the revolutionary goverments' innovation of total war - directing the entire economy and population of the nation towards the war with mass conscription and modern organisation. That would have happened with or without Napolean, and it was the social forces of the Revolution that made it possible for a Corsican nobody to even become a general in the first place.
Honestly the biggest argument for great man theory in the French Revolution is Louis XVI - if he hadn't been quite so indecisive and incompetent maybe the revolution would have fizzled out or been crushed instead of spiralling out of control.
Honestly the biggest argument for great man theory in the French Revolution is Louis XVI - if he hadn't been quite so indecisive and incompetent maybe the revolution would have fizzled out or been crushed instead of spiralling out of control.
I've heard talk of the great idiot theory of history, and I think it has merit. As many have pointed out, the great men of history more often than not are channeling the historical momentum of the time period, where there are many chases of a extremely stable status quote being shattered to pieces because one idiot couldn't keep it running.
> That would have happened with or without Napolean
I am not convinced
I am not convinced
It’s pretty hard to dispute that it happened before Napoleon.
The leveé en masse was implemented in 1793. Napoleon only rose to prominence in 1796, by which point France had already conquered the Low Countries and the Rhineland. Napoleon wasn’t running the show until 1799.
Revolutionary France was smashing the armies of the monarchies of Europe for years before Napoleon seized power.
The leveé en masse was implemented in 1793. Napoleon only rose to prominence in 1796, by which point France had already conquered the Low Countries and the Rhineland. Napoleon wasn’t running the show until 1799.
Revolutionary France was smashing the armies of the monarchies of Europe for years before Napoleon seized power.
I agree that most technological innovations, scientific discoveries, and broad historical events associated with a "great man" would have happened anyway if that person did not exist.
Even Napoleon was very much a product of the times he lived through as a young man.
But one specific person that in my opinion personally changed world history in a drastic way was Lenin.
The history of the Bolsheviks rise to power is pretty insane. Nobody thought they could seize power, and once they got it, which was pretty much solely because of Lenin browbeating them to commit at the moment they committed, nobody thought they could hold on to it. And for good reason.
If just a few things had gone slightly differently Russia would have been governed by groups with different belief systems than the communists.
Disclaimer: 100% armchair historian who's knowledge mostly comes from a handful of podcasts. Hopefully someone will correct me :)
Even Napoleon was very much a product of the times he lived through as a young man.
But one specific person that in my opinion personally changed world history in a drastic way was Lenin.
The history of the Bolsheviks rise to power is pretty insane. Nobody thought they could seize power, and once they got it, which was pretty much solely because of Lenin browbeating them to commit at the moment they committed, nobody thought they could hold on to it. And for good reason.
If just a few things had gone slightly differently Russia would have been governed by groups with different belief systems than the communists.
Disclaimer: 100% armchair historian who's knowledge mostly comes from a handful of podcasts. Hopefully someone will correct me :)
Trying to "what if" Russian history without Lenin is impossible, but I doubt Russia's overall century would be drastically different without a Leninist government. Even if you view the system as completely bad, spending 70 years under it still saw them develop at a similar rate to the rest of Europe.
> would be drastically different without a Leninist government
It probably would've been drastically different had the socialist-liberal coalition held on to power. It likely would've been overthrown in a couple of years politically/socially it would have still played out quite differently (bolsheviks were pretty unique amongst socialist group in their single mindedness, hatred of democracy and support of totalitarianism and mass terror).
> develop at a similar rate to the rest of Europe
Unless you were one of the subjugated Central/Eastern European countries. Economically the gap between Czechoslovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia etc. and Western European countries considerably wider in 1990 than it was in the 1930s.
It probably would've been drastically different had the socialist-liberal coalition held on to power. It likely would've been overthrown in a couple of years politically/socially it would have still played out quite differently (bolsheviks were pretty unique amongst socialist group in their single mindedness, hatred of democracy and support of totalitarianism and mass terror).
> develop at a similar rate to the rest of Europe
Unless you were one of the subjugated Central/Eastern European countries. Economically the gap between Czechoslovakia, Poland, Estonia, Latvia etc. and Western European countries considerably wider in 1990 than it was in the 1930s.
Apple wouldn't exist, but what of it? They didn't really invent very much did they? They just implemented it very well for a price point.
[deleted]
No, only someone so narcissistic and divorced from reality could have come up with the Fisher-Price computers they make.
The Historia Civilis series on Youtube has some excellent videos on Roman history:
https://www.youtube.com/@HistoriaCivilis
https://www.youtube.com/@HistoriaCivilis
Are there any ... non Ceasar sources for this event?
This is the product of writing your own history ... The irony is this is still going on today.
And then replaced by someone who rewrites the history of his predecessor.. result a mad reign of madmen..
> In the 1st century BCE the Mediterranean Sea had a crime problem. Specifically, it had a pirate problem.
The only thing that changed is that instead of capturing hostages the pirates are smuggling people.
The only thing that changed is that instead of capturing hostages the pirates are smuggling people.
That's a lot of silver. 50 talents could be up to 1800kg in silver.
That would be ~0.17 m3 of volume, ~ 6 ft3, or about a 45 gallon drum.
A picture of such a drum: http://joslebel.com/en/catalog/plastic-drums/plastic-drums-t...
That's ... actually a lot of silver.
A picture of such a drum: http://joslebel.com/en/catalog/plastic-drums/plastic-drums-t...
That's ... actually a lot of silver.
According to Wikipedia its more likely they were enslaved than crucified
This reads like a true adventure story. I'd be curious to know how much is true and how much was added to the facts.
His entire biography is well worth a read.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Rome is an enjoyable fictionalised account.
It's fascinating to see him through the eyes of Cicero's slave Marcus Tullius Tiro in Robert Harris's Cicero Trilogy.
Yeah, I found it very interesting how McCullough (Masters of Rome) idolizes Caesar and holds Cicero in contempt, and Harris is exactly the opposite.
It’s funny how political figures from over two thousand years ago can remain as divisive now as they were at the time.
+1 for anyone who hasn't read it. Get that fix asap.
Roberts wife completed the last novel based on his drafts and notes, as he died before finishing it.
Roberts wife completed the last novel based on his drafts and notes, as he died before finishing it.
Sorry, I'm confused here! Who died before finishing what?
lol, brain fart: I was talking about Troy series with David Gemmell:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/43788-troy
https://www.goodreads.com/series/43788-troy
Are you thinking of Robert Jordan / The Wheel of Time? Robert Harris is alive and writing
I was talking about Troy series with David Gemmell:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/43788-troy
https://www.goodreads.com/series/43788-troy
Love that series. Enjoy any easy historical fiction.
Came to the comments to make sure someone was recommending these books. An incredibly enjoyable read.
as retold in Suetonius's history of the Caesars. Pretty accurate especially when it agrees with commentary.
Expected that's he'd mercy pirates as he had a good time with them
Sounds like fantasy
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar:
> While travelling, he was intercepted and ransomed by pirates in a story that was later much embellished. According to Plutarch and Suetonius, he was freed after paying a ransom of fifty talents and responded by returning with a fleet to capture and execute the pirates. The recorded sum for the ransom is literary embellishment and it is more likely that the pirates were sold into slavery per Velleius Paterculus.
> While travelling, he was intercepted and ransomed by pirates in a story that was later much embellished. According to Plutarch and Suetonius, he was freed after paying a ransom of fifty talents and responded by returning with a fleet to capture and execute the pirates. The recorded sum for the ransom is literary embellishment and it is more likely that the pirates were sold into slavery per Velleius Paterculus.
Something seems wrong there. The Paterculus reference seems to specifically say that they weren't sold into slavery: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Velleius_...
> Well satisfied with the success of his [Julius Caesar] night expedition he returned [p143] to his friends and, after handing his prisoners into custody, went straight to Bithynia to Juncus, the proconsul — for the same man was governor of Bithynia as well as of Asia — and demanded his sanction for the execution of his captives. When Juncus, whose former inactivity had now given way to jealousy, refused, and said that he would sell the captives as slaves, Caesar returned to the coast with incredible speed and crucified all his prisoners before anyone had had time to receive a dispatch from the consul in regard to the matter.
> Well satisfied with the success of his [Julius Caesar] night expedition he returned [p143] to his friends and, after handing his prisoners into custody, went straight to Bithynia to Juncus, the proconsul — for the same man was governor of Bithynia as well as of Asia — and demanded his sanction for the execution of his captives. When Juncus, whose former inactivity had now given way to jealousy, refused, and said that he would sell the captives as slaves, Caesar returned to the coast with incredible speed and crucified all his prisoners before anyone had had time to receive a dispatch from the consul in regard to the matter.
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I find it fascinating that even when one manages to spend a whole day without thinking of the Roman Empire, somehow "HiroProtagonist on HN" finds a way to slip you a quick reference onto the homepage. Just to make sure.
He has time to post about the Roman empire on him but not time to deliver my pizza apparently
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gentleman11(7)
There's something otherworldy to me about the psychology of a violent criminal. To do violent crime is to make a lot of people very angry, and yet the majority of violent criminals seem not to run very far away as soon as they've committed a violent crime.
In some cases there has been recorded evidence of physiological differences (like a growth in the brain or a lack of development in some brain regions, reduced grey matter - as compared to non violent criminals) that have been found in some violent criminals.