Recent comments in /f/history

cjboffoli t1_ixn831k wrote

That really is an excellent museum. I was so surprised when I looked closely at the boats there and noticed that the wood they used to build those ships appears to be quarter sawn. Had no idea the Vikings were so advanced.

I'm intrigued by the current renovations that they'll have when they reopen in 2026.

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Citizen_of_H t1_ixn7gs1 wrote

Viking shipwrecks are immensely scarce. At least big ships. The Viking Ship Museum in Oslo showcase three ships, and that museum is a major tourist attraction because it is so unusual

Having said that 1300 is quite a long time after the Viking area

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Regulai t1_ixn05xt wrote

Its a very indepth topic, but I chose field marshal because I feel it best captures the full intent of how the title was used.

Originally imperator was more of a mere description referring to anyone who holds imperium, but over time it started to be used as a specific title that would be acclaimed by high ranking men after great victories. And then under empire was highly restricted to essentially only the main leaders. Added note in roman society 'command' was a significant status with significant legal implications and not something to be viewed as just a "military leadership" role

The closest parable to this sense is the 5 star marshal rank, which is a supreme rank but is not a standard position but instead typically given as an honor after wars and victories to leaders of militaries. And in fact dictators often take field marshal as their key title for much of this reason.

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aphilsphan t1_ixmwb8x wrote

You run into the problem of differences in silver/gold/etc content, so in addition to the difference in price between gold and silver themselves, the weights and purity of coins varied. Rome was a very sophisticated place to have a monetized economy under those circumstances. A merchant had to have a keen eye and good scales. It’s should be no real surprise that the economy in the West reverted to barter eventually. Imagine having a bag of euro and dollars and kroner today without access to a computer to know their immediate value.

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Tiako t1_ixmt8bs wrote

It is worth pointing out that damnatio memoriae is not actually an ancient phrase, or even really an ancient concept. There are cases of emperors having public monuments defaced but it wasn't really the official, organized, act of rewriting history that it is sometimes portrayed as in popular imagination. Think more pulling down Saddam Hussein's statues in Iraq or changing the street names in Germany after the second world war than something out of 1984.

In this case this is probably less any deliberate act of disrespect and more that our sources for the so-called Third Century Crisis are somewhat poor, and Dacia is a somewhat poorly understood region of the empire.

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Nyonosudochan t1_ixmsktk wrote

The New Testament is Written in Greek because the Old Testament was Helenized with Plato's Teachings by Philo Judeas. "Christianity is Platonism for the people." (Nietzsche, Prologue to Beyond Good and Evil) If you want, I'll PM you some little known history, direct from the source snips from a book vetted by Princeton.

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