Real-world Inspirations

[Bren]

Just now, Kloster said:

Romans had similar traditions, but their view of the end of the battle was not the same.

Did the Romans routinely apply those traditions to their non-Roman enemies? I don't know the answer. Though some of Caesar's campaigns against fellow Romans had quite low casualties. I seem to recall fighting in Hispania against Pompey's troops that were a war of maneuver with few casualties for the defeated. (Probably in part so that big Julie could recruit the survivors into his armies.)

It seems to me, that the Greek city states considered other Greeks to be part of a category of we Greeks, rather than being an other. That may have contributed to the much higher ratio of Persian casualties at Marathon.

The Romans initially seemed to divide the world into Romans and others. Now once Rome started acquiring allied states, they had three categories: Romans, allies, and others. Fighting others, usually makes it easier to inflict heavy casualties. In addition, for various reasons of tradition and superstition, the Romans contrived to interpret all of their wars as defensive wars. I think that their defensive claim probably encouraged infliction of higher casualties on the vanquished.

[svensson]

Mianshan [Mt. Mian] Temple, near Ji-Xiu, Shan-xi Province, PRC

[Kloster]

11 hours ago, Bren said:

Though some of Caesar's campaigns against fellow Romans had quite low casualties. I seem to recall fighting in Hispania against Pompey's troops that were a war of maneuver with few casualties for the defeated. (Probably in part so that big Julie could recruit the survivors into his armies.)

Yes, some of them had very low losses, but some were more ... bloody: In Munda (Caesar vs Gnaeus Pompey, the optimates led by Pompey lost half of their men. In Ruspina (still between Caesar and Optimates), Caesar lost over 30% of his men. I am not speaking of naval battles, where most of the dead drowned, and losses were unsurpassed.

11 hours ago, Bren said:

It seems to me, that the Greek city states considered other Greeks to be part of a category of we Greeks, rather than being an other.

Correct.

11 hours ago, Bren said:

That may have contributed to the much higher ratio of Persian casualties at Marathon.

I think the very high Persian losses were caused by the impossibility to flee, being blocked by the sea.

11 hours ago, Bren said:

The Romans initially seemed to divide the world into Romans and others. Now once Rome started acquiring allied states, they had three categories: Romans, allies, and others.

Correct.

11 hours ago, Bren said:

Fighting others, usually makes it easier to inflict heavy casualties.

This, I don't know.

11 hours ago, Bren said:

In addition, for various reasons of tradition and superstition, the Romans contrived to interpret all of their wars as defensive wars.

Very true.

11 hours ago, Bren said:

I think that their defensive claim probably encouraged infliction of higher casualties on the vanquished.

This, I don't know.

[Kloster]

7 minutes ago, Kloster said:

I am not speaking of naval battles, where most of the dead drowned, and losses were unsurpassed.

Just for the record, Greek trireme had a crew of around 200 men (including 170 rowers, according to Herodotus). In Artemisium, Greek lost around 100 ships of a fleet of 271 (around 35%) meaning around 20 000 dead, and the Persian lost around 400 ships of a fleet of 1200 (still around 35%) and around 80 000 dead. As it was not too far from the shore, the number of death may have been lower.

In Salamis, the Greek lost 40 ships of a fleet of 370 (10% losses), meaning 8 000 death and the Persian lost 200 to 300 ships of a fleet of 1200 according Herodotus (25% losses), meaning between 40 000 to 60 000 death.

[Bren]

Yes, drowning makes naval battles very costly once a ship is lost. However, the Athenians condemnation of their fleet's failure to rescue sailors from their lost ships at Arginusae indicates that complete loss of a ship's complement was unusual.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arginusae

[Squaredeal Sten]

Rammed triremes, being mostly wood, appear to have floated.  The victors evidently routinely salvaged them, at least if the tow to a friendly port or beach was not too far.  (I suspect they might capsize and so lose their ballast, which would make both floating and salvage easier.)  At any rate, men might cling to the wreck for a considerable time, even in the water since the Mediterranean is relatively warm, not like the Atlantic.  So the failure to rescue friendly sailors was gross negligence.

[Bren]

To be fair, a storm did interfere with any rescue. But the Athenians back home were definitely not happy. They executed 6 of the 8 generals who commanded the fleet. 

[Sheliak]

I can see a powerful Uralda priestess wearing something like this.

[svensson]

15 minutes ago, Sheliak said:

I can see a powerful Uralda priestess wearing something like this.

That just went into my Atlantis file. THANKS!!

 

[svensson]

So, something as prosaic as roads...

How Roman Vias were constructed.

 

[Joerg]

9 hours ago, svensson said:

So, something as prosaic as roads...

How Roman Vias were constructed.

 

that's fairly close to how the Sartarite royal roads are constructed, at least iMG.

The only perhaps somewhat more sophisticated roads nearby would be the Daugher's Road (which is or has a viaduct for much of its length) and the (now defunct) rainbow bridges of Belintar.

(The ephemeral dragonewt roads might count, too.)

[svensson]

3 hours ago, Joerg said:

that's fairly close to how the Sartarite royal roads are constructed, at least iMG.

The only perhaps somewhat more sophisticated roads nearby would be the Daugher's Road (which is or has a viaduct for much of its length) and the (now defunct) rainbow bridges of Belintar.

(The ephemeral dragonewt roads might count, too.)

Well, the Daughters roads have a specifically mentioned magical effect, though I don't believe it's been described in detail.

What I appreciated about the Roman roads construction is that they weren't paved along their entire length, which is something I wasn't aware of.

[Bren]

On 4/6/2023 at 12:44 PM, svensson said:

What I appreciated about the Roman roads construction is that they weren't paved along their entire length, which is something I wasn't aware of.

That would make it easier on the animal's hooves. But sand and light gravel washes and blows away, so having those as a top layer would require annual maintenance.

 

On 4/5/2023 at 10:48 PM, svensson said:

How Roman Vias were constructed.

That was interesting. Thanks!

I am wondering at the source of their claim regarding the purposes of the side ditches. Those depicted wouldn't have done much of anything to increase visibility, stop highway bandits, or prevent people from entering the road. The ditches would be easily climbed or jumped by wild animals, wouldn't have stopped highway outlaws, and one would only need to lay a pair of thick boards over the ditch so a cart or wagon could cross.

 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Bren

[Squaredeal Sten]

A Mostali toy:  

 

 

 

 

[mfbrandi]

I am not sure if this quite fits here, but an article about Mary Renault by Miranda Carter.

Quote

She also discovered the Ashmolean’s collection of copies of Greek antiquities, recently acquired by its keeper, Sir Arthur Evans, excavator of the palace of Knossos. Several objects, including a fragment of a mural showing a wasp-waisted Minoan jumping over the horns of a bull, she revisited again and again. ‘He seemed not to leap, but to hang above the bull, like a dragonfly over the reeds,’ she wrote in The King Must Die (1958). She was inspired to write that book after seeing the original on a visit to Evans’s fanciful but thrillingly evocative reconstruction of the House of the Axe at Knossos in 1954.

[Squaredeal Sten]

13 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

I am not sure if this quite fits here, but an article about Mary Renault by Miranda Carter.

Oh,  it fits here.   I think Mary Rensult's books are one of my own inspirations for imagining the Bronze Age and my view of legends in general.  I read my mother's copy of The King Must Die when I was pretty young.

 

13 minutes ago, mfbrandi said:

 

[svensson]

Some more images from my Atalan files.

The first is from the BBC's series on the Minoans.

The second artist is unknown, but is a Sims game mod.

Third is the wonderful Angus McBride.

The fourth artist is unknown.

[svensson]

Achmaemenid bas reliefs, ruins of Persepolis, by Tachar

[mfbrandi]

An old thing by Jonathan Barnes (LRB, 4 July 1985) on Walter Burkert on Greek religion and its contrasts with Christianity:

————————————————————————————

• First, as Burkert stresses, Greek religion had no creed, no sacred texts, no revelation; there was no profession or caste of priests; there was no orthodoxy, and in consequence no heresy. It was a religion without articles and without dogma …
• Secondly, Greek religion had no particular attachment to an eschatology. After death nothing much was threatened or promised, and post-mortem hopes and fears played little part in normal Greek religion …
• Lastly, Greek religion had little to do with morality … The Olympians are not, and were not thought to be, moral exemplars or moral instructors … If there was such a thing as Greek popular morality – a set of shared ethical values and beliefs – it was only loosely connected to Greek popular religion.

————————————————————————————

This is not to say impiety could not be a capital offence, nor that breaking oaths sworn by the gods was not savagely punished. That is, by some measures, the classical Athenians took religion seriously.

(Clearly, not all religion in the ancient world was like the Greeks’, but they weren’t unique in having deadbeat gods — the gods of Sumer were too lazy to provide their own food, so created us to do it, then one of them tried to wipe us out for making too much noise. But the Sumerians weren’t in believing this irreligious.)

So where did it all go wrong for Gloranthan religion? Pick a side that is supposed to be a phase in a cycle, then munchkin toward apocalypse.

Edited April 29, 2023 by mfbrandi
format

[svensson]

2 hours ago, mfbrandi said:

An old thing by Jonathan Barnes (LRB, 4 July 1985) on Walter Burkert on Greek religion and its contrasts with Christianity:

————————————————————————————

• First, as Burkert stresses, Greek religion had no creed, no sacred texts, no revelation; there was no profession or caste of priests; there was no orthodoxy, and in consequence no heresy. It was a religion without articles and without dogma …
• Secondly, Greek religion had no particular attachment to an eschatology. After death nothing much was threatened or promised, and post-mortem hopes and fears played little part in normal Greek religion …
• Lastly, Greek religion had little to do with morality … The Olympians are not, and were not thought to be, moral exemplars or moral instructors … If there was such a thing as Greek popular morality – a set of shared ethical values and beliefs – it was only loosely connected to Greek popular religion.

————————————————————————————

This is not to say impiety could not be a capital offence, nor that breaking oaths sworn by the gods was not savagely punished. That is, by some measures, the classical Athenians took religion seriously.

(Clearly, not all religion in the ancient world was like the Greeks’, but they weren’t unique in having deadbeat gods — the gods of Sumer were too lazy to provide their own food, so created us to do it, then one of them tried to wipe us out for making too much noise. But the Sumerians weren’t in believing this irreligious.)

So where did it all go wrong for Gloranthan religion? Pick a side that is supposed to be a phase in a cycle, then munchkin toward apocalypse.

It all 'went wrong' in the Godtime with the advent of competing gods of different Runic associations and pantheons.

This led to competition and competition led to worshipers taking sides.

The came in the incursion of Chaos and everything went even more 'wrong'.

Greek mythology developed in a relatively small region with smaller cultural groups, where a 'culture' was 5000 people at most. Remember, Greece is a country very poor in natural resources, with poor, rocky soil. It takes a lot of area to feed one city /cultural grouping. AND the area was known for its regionalism... In the Bronze Age a Delphian was completely different from a Theban, even if they shared the same language.

What's more, what most of us know as 'Greek mythology' is the distilled and abridged version given to us by Edith Hamilton and her Athenian sensibilities ['Athenian' meaning city not necessarily goddess]. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Sparta, Delphi, Thebes and the rest of Hellenic world had highly localized myths and legends that trivialized Hercules in favor of a local hero and marginalized the myths of Zeus in favor of those of Poseidon.

Edited April 30, 2023 by svensson

[moonwolf8]

On 3/27/2023 at 12:42 AM, svensson said:

Groups of Humans are not all that different from the monkey troops we are descended from... we divide the world in to Us [my people] and Them [whoever the Hell those people are over there] and it is out instinct to compete with and dominate them, just as they are driven to dominate us. 

That pretty much describes politics in a nutshell.

On 3/27/2023 at 12:42 AM, svensson said:

And your vote counts for precisely the same amount that mine does.

Which is precisely why politicians try so very hard to restrict voting access. 

[svensson]

1 hour ago, moonwolf8 said:

That pretty much describes politics in a nutshell.

Which is precisely why politicians try so very hard to restrict voting access. 

Well, don't forget the part where there are limited resources of everything for everyone... And the more I have, the less you get.

This is also a major source of trouble for humanity. Remember, the corporate masters at Nestle don't belief that clean fresh water is a human right.... HOWEVER, in the spirit of full disclosure, they ARE correct that the world wastes most of its water and water is become more scarce by the year.

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by svensson

[hemulaformis]

This is a pretty cool reconstruction of some ancient Greek music. Unfortunately, this video is embedded in a tweet and I don't see a link to any other source - I was able to view it without an account, however.

 

 

[Shiningbrow]

3 hours ago, hemulaformis said:

This is a pretty cool reconstruction of some ancient Greek music. Unfortunately, this video is embedded in a tweet and I don't see a link to any other source - I was able to view it without an account, however.

 

 

 

[DrGoth]

https://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/CityPlan.html

And you should also check the little video on the wikipedia page for Persepolis