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Here's an attack on Greenblatt from the LA Review of Books that takes on Kermit (the man looks like the frog) for his "Renaissance" view of the Renaissance.
My impression is that the view is current among a set of cranky senior scholars who think that the elevating of the Medieval and the depreciation of the Medieval/Modern gap has gone too far. It probably has in certain circles, but Greenblatt oversells it badly.
This movie exists, it's called Fetih 1453 (Conquest 1453) and was just released in 2012. It hasn't been released in the States or on Region 1 DVD yet.
Fetih 1453 Trailer - Youtube
On a general history note, my second draft today was met with mixed, but generally positive reactions. Looks like a finish date before this summer is in the works, huzzah!
I assume snapper is referring to the "medieval industrial revolution" of the 12th century.
All this talk of medieval/renaissance (plus the fact that I'm been drinking Angostura for about 4 hours now) makes me want to re-watch James Burke's "Connections".
EDIT: Though perhaps "The Day the Universe Changed" is more apt in this case.
I'll be honest, if it doesn't have a scene where Constantine XI sees that the Theodosian Walls are breached and that it's hopeless, strips off his imperial regalia, and follows his cousin headlong into the battle lines, it won't meet all of my needs. That said, I was pretty excited at the bit in that trailer where the Ottomans were dragging ships overland into the Golden Horn.
(Bad machine translation for "Holy crap, is this the PETCO thread?")
A quick google search confirms...the rum and the bitters are made by the same company. I wish I could endorse the rum and say it is as wothty of notoriety as the bitters...but I know next to nothing abou rum. It has successfully made me pleasanty drunk, that is the best I can say for it.
That was a black bear.
Here's a Youtube clip of a white rhino ramming the snot out of a cape buffalo. The poor bastard, he had 5 buddies with him and none of them had the cherries to get involved (and after watching the clip, you'll note they felt that way not without good reason):
Rhino Kills African Buffalo
As there were no rhinos in Europe during the Middle Ages, I take back my claims that it was not a backwards and ignorant period.
Yes, there were also Irish monasteries that preserved and copied classical texts, although my understanding this was a distant third behind the Byzantine and Arab sources.
naw, the irish are gonna go ahead and take credit for it.
Manuscripts in libraries in Ireland or Britain would have been Latin; Byzantine libraries, largely Greek. That's a big distinction, because there are really two quite separate literatures being preserved through the separate "dark ages." As noted upthread, there's an unbroken tradition of reading and copying the Aeneid in the Latin West, while Homer was basically unknown there at first-hand for many centuries.
When DID the classical era end? that is highly debatable too, there's no argument that after the rise of Islam it was certainly done for, but the point before that up to say... the fall of the WRE is certainly debatable. that's a span of nearly 200 years.
The middle ages certainly had some innovation, especially in the later half and in agriculture / metallurgy / husbandry , but proportionality speaking it was no where near the breakthroughs in antiquity, of course one must also note that most classical era innovation was done by the time the Roman Empire was formed, there wasn't much technological difference between Augustus to the end of the Western Empire, and in fact one could easily argue that there was already a decline by then. (one can look at the quality of marble bust of emperors for example, there was a noticable decline after the Crisis of the 3rd century, of course it was still eons better than anything else Europe had for the next 1000 years.
From Archaeological survey we see that shipping in the Med was essentially a strait downward fall from late Republic time with some very mild bounce backs here and there, and it hit rock bottom by around Justinian (who saw the last dead cat bounce) until something like the 10th century.
It is a complex thing, but one can argue that one possible / probable cause was that once the empire was formed, social mobility began to stagnate and then fall backwards, this shouldn't be surprising as the lack of big wars meant that wealthy family are unlikely to die off while less well off once have much reduced chances of improving their prospect (as the biggest way of doing it was through military ranks). This began a ugly cycle that gained momentum until it threw everyone off the cliff.
For example, as the wealth divide widen, the middle class decline and it becomes a clear divide, the poor keep getting poorer and the rich relatively speaking gets richer, this turns into a ugly cycle as the poor no longer can afford imported grain (Rome's population in it's hey day was largely supported by grains from Tunisia and Egypt) and thus move out of the city, the rich eventually realized that it's kinda hard to live in a city without servants also moved out. all this in turn destroyed trade as now only high luxury goods would be of any real worth in long distance trade. quantity decline eventually lead to all out decline,
meanwhile, without the imported grain, obviously population will take a downward spiral, which in turn gives the Empire a huge headach in maintaining it's vast borders. or even maintaining proper contact with far off land. as trade decline previously profitable colonies cease to be so, and also loses the incentive to stay politically united to Rome.
the spiral effect from those point on isn't hard to imagine.
One should note that a climate change theory is acceptable to an extend, for example, the Han dynasty of China also collapsed in the 3rd Century AD, leading to an extended period of crap, but they had recovered by the late 6th century and saw another huge peak. of course, part of the reason is that China had a lot of room to go south, part of the reason for the revival by then was that they shifted economic center southward big time, though that effect wasn't fully evident until after the 7th century peak.
I think certainly by 546, when Totila and the Ostrogoths sacked and depopulated Rome. Many historians would put it earlier than that, somewhere in the mid-400s, I think, around the Vandal sacking.
It's more reliable then later medieval figures to be sure, we're pretty confident that on average a Roman army was much bigger than anything the west saw until early modern time. an general look into logistics of the period should easily lead us to that conclusion anyway.
Speaking of Red Dawn, did anyone see the remake?
A more interesting question might be: when did the classical period (for the Romans, at least) begin? The standard answer is the late third century (i.e. 210-200BC) with Q. Fabius Pictor, the first Roman to write a history of Rome, but I feel the fact that he wrote in Greek -- and cast his work within a framework of Greek gods and Greek culture -- is a major argument against citing him as the first major author of the classical period. Plautus (who flourished ca. 205-184BC) is a better answer, but his plays were so imitative of their Greek models that they are more like Hellenic classicism translated into Latin.
The proper answer, IMO, is therefore Cato the Elder, who wrote exclusively in Latin (the Origines were the first history of Rome to be written in the native tongue) and pioneered a specific and ideologically-based effort to develop a style that distinguished Latin prosody from its Greek counterparts. Cato represents the beginning of the Roman classical era, at least as far as literature is concerned, while Boethius is its terminus.
Also, if anyone is unaware of one of the great gems of the internet, AskHistorians is a great place to waste time: reddit.com/r/askhistorians
"The sun set is unlimited in it's beauty, except that dusk is right on it's heel."
Speaking with the prejudices of a mathematician, I find that there's a lot to say for Hellenistic rather than Hellenic culture. That is, a world in which Alexandria is a far more important city than Athens. Within mathematics, Apollonius was more interesting and significant than Zeno; Archimedes more profound than Plato. That Hellenistic culture continued for centuries under the political domination of Rome, even to such late-Roman times figures as Diophantus or Pappus.
Angostura bitters in soda water is the among the best things for a hangover in the world....
...and gentlemen - this is a very fine thread, but if we could adjust the Roman/Rhino ratio perhaps 5% more towards the Rhinos, it would be about perfect.
Oh yeah, and you get the Hannukah story thrown in there to boot.
I haven't seen the remakes of either, but I suspect that Red Dawn is the worst movie ever to be remade, losing to the Wicker Man by a wriggling Britt Eklund.
charge, gore, trample
For every situation.
Come to think of it though. A lot of meetings would go much more smoothly with a black rhino. And they would cut down the number of irritating calls to support.
Ivailo the Cabbage
Wladyslaw the Elbow High
Michael Minus-a-Quarter
In fact, I am currently going through my cost center budget to see if I can slot 'black rhino' under anything... Do you think I could get away with categorizing it as 'hardware'?
Well, currently I'm using it to pay for hookers...
EDIT: In one of Lois Bujold's books (Memory) the head of Imperial Security talks about what motivates agents.
"Money, power, sex ... and elephants."
"I see a rhinoceros!" from Midnight in Paris. One of the high points of Adrian Brody's career.
I've always liked Ethelred the Unready.
Of course, the Old English "Un-Raed" really means "poorly counciled," and was meant as a slight against his Witan.
Ivailo the Cabbage
Wladyslaw the Elbow High
Michael Minus-a-Quarter
Anything would be better than being "The Gouty" or "the Little Impaler"
As far as the Hellenistic Period goes, the sculpture is also much more impressive than Hellenic sculpture. They weren't making stuff like Laocoön in the 5th century. Really, that whole idea of Classical Athens as the greatest time in human history doesn't really line up with the actual artistic, literary, and philosophical output of the time. A surprising amount of the stuff we think of as the glories of Ancient Greece were later or done elsewhere. The politics of the Hellenistic Period are incredibly tedious, but everything else was banging on all cylinders.
You have to admit they weren't bad at playwriting, though :)
how about the roman emperor who appointed a rhino as a senator?
wait, that was a horse. oh well, i tried.
Alp Arslan = Heroic Lion
Malik Shah = King King (Malik is Turkish for King and Shah is Persian for King)
Kilij Arslan = Lion Sword
Barkiyaruq = unwavering light
Sanjar = he who thrust
Aladin Jahansuz : Aladin the world burner
Oh come on. Here's a quote from Bertrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy:
The achievements of Athens in the time of Pericles are perhaps the most astonishing thing in all history. Until that time, Athens had lagged behind other Greek cities; neither in art nor in literature had it produced any great man (except Solon, who was primarily a lawgiver). Suddenly, under the stimulus of victory and wealth, and the need of reconstruction, architects, sculptors and dramatists, who remain unsurpassed to the present day, produced works which dominated the future down to modern times. This is the more surprising when we consider the smallness of the population involved. Athens at its maximum, about 430 B.C., is estimated to have numbered about 230,000 (including slaves) and the surrounding territory of rural Attica probably contained a smaller population. Never before or since has anything approaching the same proportion of inhabitants of any area shown itself capable of work of the highest excellence.
Hmm, what was the population of Liverpool around 1960?
How about a honey badger video, sort of the drug-crazed cousin african savanna version of the wolverine, getting bit by a king cobra and shaking it off like he drank too much bad whiskey:
The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger (original narration by Randall)
Reminds me of one of my favorite political one-liners:
Chief Justice William Rehnquist, upon being told that President-Elect Bill Clinton was considering appointing Hillary as Attorney General, remarks, "they say Caligula appointed his horse consul of Rome."
I can't help but be skeptical about a statement like this.
It's like they're straight-up trolling residents of the Bronx.
Rehnquist is very far from the first person to make such a comment. It's such an old line that these days, in order to impress anyone, you have to know the name of the horse. (Incitatus)
Hannibal must have gotten a chuckle from that beyond the grave.
The proper response to that would be "and they say that Nixon appointed his horse's ass to the Supreme Court"
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