What is your opinion about the Roman Empire?

[Selene Gregoire]

4 hours ago, Conifer Dada said:

I have no opinions on the Roman Empire except for one thing.  No matter how good or bad a historical situation or event was at the time, we are all beneficiaries of that history simply because we were born, which we might not have been if history had been different.

It wouldn't have had any impact on my ancestors. None of them ever lived on that side of the pond. 

 

Oops. I meant to quote Scylla not Conifer. 

 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Selene Gregoire

[Selene Gregoire]

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It's a pretty nonsensical question. It's a bit like asking one's opinion of the Black Death:

"Yeah, that made things a bit rough for people, didn't it?"

"Sure, but it helped end serfdom! Yay for the Bubonic Plague!"

This one!! 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Selene Gregoire

[Scylla Rhiadra]

28 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

None of them ever lived on that side of the pond.

I don't think they were missing much. ?

[Conifer Dada]

Quote

It wouldn't have had any impact on my ancestors. None of them ever lived on that side of the pond.

What?  None of them?  Not even one single great-great-great-great-great etc. grandparent during the last 2000 years?

Anyway, had the Roman Empire not existed, the history of America over 1000 years later, when it was colonised by Europeans, might have been very different. 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Conifer Dada

[Spin Barbosa]

On ‎10‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 1:46 PM, ChinRey said:

 

Edit: I think I'll add another example of the Great Roman Civilization here:

At one boint during the battle of Alesia, the deciding battle of Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, had a brilliant idea to demoralize his opponents. He gathered all the Gallic women and children he had managed to capture, drove them into no man's land and let the Gallic warriors watch as their mothers, wives and children slowly starved to death. Caesar was quite proud of that idea, he brags about it in his memoirs.

Um, that's not how I remember it. The version I know, Vercingetorix decided he couldn't afford to keep the women and children around, because they were eating all the food his warriors needed. So he drove them out of Alesia into no-man's land, assuming the Romans would let them through. Caesar realized they were a drain on the Gauls, so he refused to allow them passage. Vercingetorix didn't let them back into the city, and they were forced to stay between the lines and starve.

So yeah, Caesar was okay with the women and children of the Gauls starving to death so he could successfully finish his siege of the city. But at the same time, the leader of the Gauls let them - his own people - starve to death so his warriors could eat.

Dick moves on both sides.

[ChinRey]

3 minutes ago, Spin Barbosa said:

Um, that's not how I remember it. The version I know, Vercingetorix decided he couldn't afford to keep the women and children around, because they were eating all the food his warriors needed. So he drove them out of Alesia into no-man's land, assuming the Romans would let them through. Caesar realized they were a drain on the Gauls, so he refused to allow them passage. Vercingetorix didn't let them back into the city, and they were forced to stay between the lines and starve.

So yeah, Caesar was okay with the women and children of the Gauls starving to death so he could successfully finish his siege of the city. But at the same time, the leader of the Gauls let them - his own people - starve to death so his warriors could eat.

Dick moves on both sides.

Hmm, you're right actually. Well, as I said earlier, it was a brutal and ruthless world.

[Spin Barbosa]

2 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Hmm, you're right actually. Well, as I said earlier, it was a brutal and ruthless world.

That is so true. In many ways, the Romans were the best of a bad lot. I like what they built - a community made up of many nations that they brought into the fold (okay, true, some of them were brought in kicking and screaming....) You could be born a Scythian, for example, but could become a Roman.

[Klytyna]

1 hour ago, Spin Barbosa said:

You could be born a Scythian, for example, but could become a Roman.

Generally it would be more accurate to say you could be born a [whatever] and become LIKE a Roman...

Ways to actually become a "Roman" were rather limited...

You could...

1. Serve for 20 years in an auxilliary Cohort, and receive your "Roman Green Card" with your discharge papers, a bronze plate with your citizenship stamped into it, worn around the neck on a cord.

2. Perform some service for somebody really important, say, an emperor, who would then GRANT you citizenship. That's how the captured Jewish Rebel, Joseph ben Mathias became the Roman citizen Flavius Josephus.

3. You could be a citizen of a non-Roman city to which the Roman franchise was extended by decree of the Senate, this is how most of the allied Italian cities became "Romans".

4. You could BUY a green card, originally this was illegal (see the conversation between St Saul the Liar of Tarsus and the Peoples Tribune, in jail, in the New Testament of the Holey Buybull) but later it was legalised, but it wasn't cheap.

...

Never make the modern mistake of assuming that people born in and living in the roman empire were "roman citizens" because the vast majority of them were not and never would be...

This also goes for people living in the Hellenistic cities prior to Imperial takovers.

Jews for example, were generally considered "Resident Aliens" in most Hellenistic cities.

Alexandria made an exception for some Jews, because they had ancestors who formed their own Volunteer Defence Battalion during a siege of the City, in return for which citizenship was awarded to them and their families.

Most places NEVER did this.
 

[Selene Gregoire]

6 hours ago, Conifer Dada said:

What?  None of them?  Not even one single great-great-great-great-great etc. grandparent during the last 2000 years?

Anyway, had the Roman Empire not existed, the history of America over 1000 years later, when it was colonised by Europeans, might have been very different. 

Nope. Not a one. And yes, history would have been different. How different we'll never know.

[Madelaine McMasters]

7 hours ago, Conifer Dada said:

Anyway, had the Roman Empire not existed, the history of America over 1000 years later, when it was colonised by Europeans, might have been very different. 

No doubt it would be different. Do you think alternate histories of America (the place, under whatever name it assumed) would be worse?

[Love Zhaoying]

6 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

No doubt it would be different. Do you think alternate histories of America (the place, under whatever name it assumed) would be worse?

There’s a great alternate history where it is called “Oceania”. The novel is, “Pas*****ch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus” by Orson Scott Card. The Europeans don’t get to conquer the “new land” after all, but neither are they slaughtered. A well thought out story.

[Spin Barbosa]

2 hours ago, Klytyna said:

 

Most places NEVER did this.
 

That's actually the point I was going for. No, most people didn't become Roman citizens. But there was a path to citizenship, which was not normally the case. "I've been living in Hibernia for 50 yeas, and I'm still a f***ing Gaul to these people." "Aww, a pity. I was a Gaul, but when I was discharged I became a Roman citizen. "

It's one of the things about the Romans that I like. It speaks to a different way of viewing the world, I think.

[EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte]

On 10/13/2018 at 9:08 AM, Klytyna said:

One? There have been several...

... Including at least ONE Corsican...

 

 

Me? Are you calling me out because of my nationality? What's wrong with that? XD

[EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte]

On 10/10/2018 at 3:15 AM, Fionalein said:

I wonder of we can still save this thread by rerailing it into the "make friends" topic:

So, what Rome sims do you think are best to meet some history buffs?

I've been to some of the Second Life historical places, but they're usually empty with barely any people at all.

Edited October 16, 2018 by EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte

[Phorumities]

5 hours ago, Spin Barbosa said:

That is so true. In many ways, the Romans were the best of a bad lot. I like what they built - a community made up of many nations that they brought into the fold (okay, true, some of them were brought in kicking and screaming....) You could be born a Scythian, for example, but could become a Roman.

kind of sounds like all the peoples swallowed up by soviet expansion.

nice

[EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte]

On 10/10/2018 at 3:15 AM, Fionalein said:

I wonder of we can still save this thread by rerailing it into the "make friends" topic:

So, what Rome sims do you think are best to meet some history buffs?

I found out that some have some people, but they banned me for no reason. I'm not going back to Second Life anymore because I visited here to explore. This keeps happening whenever I get curious and only want to look around.

 

Edited October 16, 2018 by EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte

[Selene Gregoire]

1 hour ago, EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte said:

I found out that some have some people, but they banned me for no reason. I'm not going back to Second Life anymore because I visited here to explore. This keeps happening whenever I get curious and only want to look around.

 

If it is an RP sim and you are not dressed appropriately for the theme, you usually will get banned if you refuse to dress appropriately. Most RP sims will have freebies you can wear at the landing point, so no excuses.

Edited October 16, 2018 by Selene Gregoire

[Cindy Evanier]

43 minutes ago, EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte said:

I found out that some have some people, but they banned me for no reason. I'm not going back to Second Life anymore because I visited here to explore. This keeps happening whenever I get curious and only want to look around.

 

You need to edit out the name of the person.  You can't name and shame people here on the forums

Edited October 16, 2018 by Cindy Evanier

[EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte]

26 minutes ago, Cindy Evanier said:

You need to edit out the name of the person.  You can't name and shame people here on the forums

Oops! I'll edit the names out.

[EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte]

37 minutes ago, Selene Gregoire said:

If it is an RP sim and you are not dressed appropriately for the theme, you usually will get banned if you refuse to dress appropriately. Most RP sims will have freebies you can wear at the landing point, so no excuses.

Oh, but is there a way to make your own avatar invisible? I'll have to learn a quicker way to change clothes.

[ChinRey]

13 minutes ago, EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte said:

I'll have to learn a quicker way to change clothes.

Be prepared is probably the best advice. Read the land description before you tp in and see if you can come up wth something suitable.

I have a couple of generic ethnic/medieval, fantasy and urban otufits ready in my outfits list. They work for most rp sims and it only takes a second to switch to one of them.

As for cost and where to find it, unless you're so attached to your mesh body you can't Second Live without it even for a few minutes, collect all the old freebies you can find. There is so much of that and in so much variety of styles, it won't take logn before you are spoilt for choices.

Edited October 16, 2018 by ChinRey

[EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte]

2 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

Be prepared is probably the best advice. Read the land description before you tp in and see if you can come up wth something suitable.

I have a couple of generic ethnic/medieval, fantasy and urban otufits ready in my outfits list. They work for most rp sims and it only takes a second to switch to one of them.

As for cost and where to find it, unless you're so attached to your mesh body you can't Second Live without it even for a few minutes, collect all the old freebies you can find. There is so much of that and in so much variety of styles, it won't take logn before you are spoilt for choices.

That's good. Then I'll leave the clothes unmodified. I'm not sure if that's ok for the clothes to not fit on the body.

[EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte]

On 10/14/2018 at 10:46 AM, ChinRey said:

They conquered the whole world, didn't they?

There was also a country named Dacia In Europe:

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

The Romans didn't actually exterminate the entire Dacian population of course, they just bragged about it. As usual, "ordinary people" didn't really count either way. They just kept on struggling under new oppressors without noticing much difference. And of course, there were quite a few more prominent citizens who realized in time which side their bread was buttered on.

The bottom line is that it was a brutal, ruthless world. For centuries, the Roman top dogs were the most brutal and ruthless ones so they were able to dominate everybody else. History is written by the victors and the romantic (that word says a lot itself actually) image we tend to have of them is very much based on their propaganda. Once you start to examine the inconsistencies in the stories, you get a very different picture fast.

Edit: I think I'll add another example of the Great Roman Civilization here:

At one boint during the battle of Alesia, the deciding battle of Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul, had a brilliant idea to demoralize his opponents. He gathered all the Gallic women and children he had managed to capture, drove them into no man's land and let the Gallic warriors watch as their mothers, wives and children slowly starved to death. Caesar was quite proud of that idea, he brags about it in his memoirs.

Indeed, that happens with every dominant country. They brag about their kills and make it a good thing when it's actually bad.

[Selene Gregoire]

1 hour ago, EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte said:

Oh, but is there a way to make your own avatar invisible? I'll have to learn a quicker way to change clothes.

Making your av invisible won't do you any good. You can still be seen on the minimap and your name tag will still show so they will know you are there. Have the clothing in a folder and right click the folder, then select Replace current outfit. No nudity required.

[ChinRey]

32 minutes ago, EmpereurNapoleonBonaparte said:

I'm not sure if that's ok for the clothes to not fit on the body.

System clothing always fits. As for attachments, judge by yourself how much adjustments are needed.

The idea both  for how you look and how you behave, is always not to disurb the role play or ruin the immersion for the role players. If you can amange that, all is well.