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I thought almost everyone had a mild obsession with Romans
I prefer to romanticize the three kingdoms period of China.
Turns out the mild obsession was really with tits.
I mean, they're kinda neat but I don't consider them all that important to modern day life.
I think they were evil. They kind of invented the idea of conquering other civilizations, and were not cool about it at all
The world would probably be a much better place without them
I don't disagree with you on the evilness that is involved with pretty much all conquering imperial powers (whether it's an empire or republic backing it), but Rome didn't invent that. They made some advancements in military tactics, strategies, and logistics. But conquest was done before them.
Alexander the great had an empire that rivaled Rome's side when he died (and there are other example in recorded history of it being done earlier, like in Egypt, Gilgamesh, and many others). And even the whole "you can keep your culture as long as you join the empire" was done by Persia before Rome did it.
I, uh, got some really bad news for you about the pre-Roman world
No one really did conquering - they would take land, take slaves, occasionally take buildings
But Vikings were Vikings, even if they occupy a settlement, the people of the settlement do not become Vikings
When Rome conquered a place, they'd levy most of the men into the legion, and when they finished their service they became Roman
... that's what conquest is.
... only because the Vikings were typically small numbers of warriors? And post-Roman, for that matter.
That's... not how it works.
First, the Legions were for citizens only. Non-citizens were not permitted to enlist.
Second, the Auxiliaries, what you're probably thinking of, were partly conscripted, but mostly volunteer, and very selective about their recruits. In no reality would they have taken most of the men of a region.
Third, the process of Romanization was gradual and largely unenforced - the Romans did not care if the native provincials became Romans or kept their native culture. The Romans, in fact, held a worldview wherein other peoples were better at certain things than the Romans, and that this was a good thing, because it meant Rome could organize their superior efforts for the greater good of the Republic.
Fourth, most regions after Roman conquest retained a great deal of self-government, as the Romans did not want the trouble of overturning local practices, unless they interfered with something like collecting taxes.
Fifth, Roman conquest was rarely so simple as "The Romans have conquered this place now" - there were often many graduations of Roman control which regions went through, and few regions had the same journey. The moment of conquest you're imagining, where the Legions march through after putting the enemy's armies and leaders to the sword, is not very common.
Sixth, the process of ethnic cleansing and assimilation are both widely attested to in the pre-Roman world, by peoples much more brutal about it than the Romans.
You're describing what I said with more words
The difference between Vikings (or wherever else, they're just an example) and Romans is the assimilation. That's why there were so many more Romans, because they constantly expanded what it meant to be Roman. There were concentric circles of Roman-ness starting with just the city inhabitants down to the newly conquered territory at the fringes
Also, Rome was around for a long time. Their practices changed drastically during that time. It ranged from much worse than what I described to completely peaceful assimilation.
But my real problem wasn't the violence, it's the wealth extraction... That model lived on through the holy Roman empire, then "the West". There's so many horrible knock on effects to this, ones we're living through now
"Romans were the first to do conquest."
"No, they weren't."
"You're just saying what I said."
????????
... do... do you think pre-Roman peoples didn't practice assimilation?
By the time that people on the fringes of the Empire were considered Romans, Romans had lost the cultural hegemony necessary for assimilation, which makes this a very dubious claim.
I can honestly think of no period of Roman history in which the scenario you described was the norm.
...
... do you think wealth extraction doesn't predate the Romans? For that matter, you think the HRE is more rooted in Roman practice than Germanic practice? For that matter, you think the West demonstrates the most horrific form of wealth extraction in the modern day?
Yes! That's my whole point. Not literally - you seem caught up on the word conquest too - but the kind of institutional pattern of expansion and assimilation is what was different about Rome
There was war, there were other empires. People intermingled and intermixed, sometimes under rule from another group. There was assimilation, but in an organic process
Rome industrialized the process. They turned it into a mechanical process that has never stopped. It didn't stop when the empire split, it didn't stop when power shifted to the aristocracy of Europe, it didn't stop as America rose as the latest empire after WW2
I do think the HRE was more Rome than Germanic - what language did they speak? Not Greek, Aramaic, or any Germanic language - it was Latin. And in the East you had the Byzantine empire doing the same damn thing, spreading soft influence to Eastern Europe
Christianity became a tool of Rome under Constantine. Jesus said we don't need temples or coin. Jesus was born in the summer. Jews keep the Sabbath on Saturday. Jesus was represented by a fish, and died on the cross so that he could not be used as a tool of control against his people
Sol Invictus was born on December 25, Constantine declared the day of the sun as the day of rest. Sol Invictus is associated with gold. The cross is a symbol of Roman order
Constantine rebranded the Roman religion under Jesus's name, and carefully picked it's practices to control the people
The HRE kept control over the aristocracy through marriage, ceremony, and through relatives in the clergy. They let the kings have their kingdom while controlling the secret little club of European royalty. They held the legitimacy of all of them in Rome.
They also controlled the people directly. They were a parallel power structure. They had a ton of direct power until the 19th century, when things started shifting to mercantilism then capitol
And even now, a few family lines always seem to be the ones in power. The meeting places and the titles change, but each rising and falling empire goes back to Rome
And... what part of the process was less organic about Roman assimilation?
Are you fucking kidding me right now?
The HRE was overwhelmingly a German-speaking state.
This... this the same Byzantine Empire whose cultural footprint outside of religion is negligible outside of the Greek heartland it clung to?
That is a profound misunderstanding of early Christianity.
... except the practices and values of Nicaean Christianity differ radically from traditional Roman religion, traditional Hellenic religion, and the Neoplatonism of the 3rd century AD.
Fucking what.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Okay, this is just objectively how the holy Roman empire worked. That's not even a slightly controversial statement
How do you think the Pope was able to dictate terms to royalty? They controlled coronations, marriages, and pacified the people. The nobility tolerated this because there was a give and take, their relatives were given high rank... It's the origin of the term nepotism
This is also very basic European history.
A lot of this I can excuse as you being a too literal and uncharitable, but there's no two interpretations on this one
I don't know if you have a hard on for Rome or what, but I don't think you're being serious
The HRE was one player in European politics in the Medieval period and Early Modern period. There was no 'secret club' of European royalty; dynasties ruling European polities rose and fell all the goddamn time. The HRE in particular was infamous for being unable to control its aristocracy, or its bourgeois, for that matter.
Legitimacy of other European royalty was not significantly connected to the HRE or to Rome.
Jesus fucking Christ.
The only coronation the Pope nominally controlled was that of the Holy Roman Emperor himself. And that only nominally. The Pope was involved in royal marriages only insofar as issues of consanguinity or dissolving marriages was concerned. The Pope's control over the common people was fucking marginal, considering how many kings were excommunicated and considered it only a minor annoyance.
The Pope didn't 'dictate terms' to royalty. Fuck, the Pope was literally imprisoned and overthrown by royals numerous times throughout the Medieval period, including by the Holy Roman Emperor.
The origin of the term nepotism is from Popes appointing their own nephews as cardinals. Nepos.
Nothing about this discussion, regarding the Medieval period and the HRE, has anything to do with the Roman Empire. This is purely over some really bizarre Da Vinci Code level perception of the Catholic Church and Medieval period that you have.
Jesus... They're the same damn group! Yes the power of the Pope waxed and waned. The church and the nobility were intertwined! The Pope doesn't matter, the institution does!
And every coronation was done by at least an arch bishop. Who were a compromise between the church and the king.
And do you have any idea how incestuous the royal families of all of Europe were? Not just individually, but between each other
Your don't seem to understand the difference between hard and soft power. And my whole point is people in power flowed from Rome, to the church, to the aristocracy of Europe, to capitol
The same Catholic Church whose dictates were repeatedly ignored by both the common people and the nobility?
That's not even close to true. In many coronations in many kingdoms, bishops presided, or even no clergy at all. You really don't have the slightest clue about what you're talking about.
For most of the Medieval period, not very. The intensified incest was largely a product of consolidated royal families and increased international travel in the Early Modern Period.
No, my point is that your perception of the soft power of the Church and of Rome is utterly bizarre conspiracy shite with an extremely modern view of how society functioned at a basic level during the Medieval period, and thus having no fucking relation to the reality of the Medieval period.
Hard and soft power. You really don't get it. Well, better than you just being a troll
I'll try to be as literal as possible for you. Rome split. The pieces continued to act like Rome behaviorally. The remaining institution of Rome, the Roman Catholic church, had incredible power over many of these pieces, even growing power for a time, then later soft influence, over most of Europe known as the holy Roman empire. The soft power of the church faded with the rise of capitalism.
We still act like Rome. The behaviors never ended. That's the through line
Hard power is the ability to impose one's will by force; soft power is the ability to impose one's will by persuasion or subtlety. In no case does it mean "Utterly failing to push an objective forward". That is a lack of soft power.
In what sense? Your entire bizarre view of Rome is based around an idea that their assimilative institutions were somehow more rigid and formalized than previous ones. European polities after the fall of the Western Empire not only lacked any rigid assimilative institutions, they often rejected assimilation altogether, and numerous ethnicities were born of the lack of institutions capable of assimilating or even maintaining cultural hegemonies in the post-Roman polities.
No.
The hard power of the Papal States was minimal and regional at best, quarreling with other Italian states and sometimes the borders of the HRE; the only Europe-wide power the Catholic Church had was always soft power.
...
The HRE was not most of Europe, even at its height as the Carolingian Empire.
The soft power of the Church died in the Thirty Years' War, as increasingly centralized states began to deal with issues of pluralism and national unity; itself derived from the Protestant Reformation. The soft power of the Church was dead in the most backwards states of Europe even before the bourgeoisie became ascendant.
Your core objection to the unique influence of Rome was that it 'conquered'; you defined conquest by assimilative processes, but your points have absolutely nothing to do with cultural assimilation or, for that matter, reality.
It's like you understand every era by the definition at the end of it. And soft power is soft because it can be denied - it's just influence.
Let's go back to the source then... Who had institutionalized assimilation before the Romans? I don't just mean there was assimilation...I mean a group comes in and converts others into becoming them in a systematic fashion
Okay cool, so your argument is now nothing more than "soft power exists", not "The Catholic Church had any serious amount of soft power", fan-fucking-tastic, glad you've spent all this time to say absolutely nothing.
The Ancient Hebrews, for one, whose process of assimilation was far more ritualized and rigid, and mandatory for existence in the polity, than Rome's. The Assyrians. Han China in the Warring States period.
Yeah ok bro. These are totally the same things.
How about we say you win, since my goal was to be understood and we're never getting there
Bruh, you're thinking about Fallout, not Ancient Rome
Bruh, where do you think fiction cames from? It's like 99% shit that has already happened, exaggerated and twisted in new ways
That's not true about Danish colonization that happened to huge swaths of English and France, the whole Norman conquest of England was due to a Danish man having technically had a claim to the English throne because his dad was a Danish colonize of England.
Ok? When did the English become Danish? And the French?
Nobility was totally interrelated in Europe. This is just a thing that happened, it's not the machinery of empire
... do you know where the term 'English' comes from?
Can you point to me on a map where the Anglo-Saxons came from?
Do you know what a 'Briton' is?
Easy.
Notice how they displaced the original population. The British are the resulting mix. They did not become Dutch or proto-German, but they did use Roman roads and still have Roman structures
You have a very Euro-centric view of the world.
We're literally talking about "the West" right now... The whole damn conversation is euro-central
Don't say that in front of the Shahansha