Although more Persian than Roman, Zoroastrianism has been around since 1500 BC, but it undoubtedly was practiced throughout the Roman Empire as were other cults and religions. And Zoroastrians still exist today... it is probably the world's oldest cult still in practice.
Mithras. Mithras is the constellation of Orion, killing the constellation of Taurus. A celebration of the precession of the equinox. Look at the sky, and Orion is facing Taurus, with his bow or axe about to strike Taurus. This is a celebration of the end of the Great Month of Taurus, in 1750 BC, so this cult was way out of date in Roman times. They should have been sIaying sheep, not bulls. R
Russia actually claims to be heir to Byzantine, specifically because Ivan III was married to Sophia Palaiologina, niece of Constantine XI Palaiologos. Now for outsiders it probably seems fairly tenuous, but not to Russians who consider Moscow to be the 3rd Rome and took many of their religious and cultural practices from Byztantine. You only have to look at a Russian church to see how far they took this idea! In fact they took it so seriously they made many attempts to annex Constantinople, which seems very out of character for Russia. So I guess you could try suing Putin I guess. I wouldn't, I really wouldn't. But you could.
The Ottoman Sultans also considered themselves to be Roman Emperors after the conquest of Constantinopel. And let's not forget about the Holy Roman Empire.
Re: classical paintings being less impressive than sculptures. Another thing to think about is that when we think of a realistic painting today, we are thinking of an oil painting. But oil paint is relatively new invention and wasn't widely used until the Renaissance. The rich hues and depth you see in an oil painting was simply not possible to achieve with egg tempera paint. Tempera has a "washed out" look because the egg can't hold as much pigment. So to our eyes, tempera paintings end up looking very flat because the contrast needed to model 3d forms isn't there.
Today, someone was puzzled when I used the term, dry wit. What does that even mean, he wondered. And could I give him an example. So I pointed him to this channel.
I just found your channel yesterday and got immediately hooked. I went to bed with this exact question and lo and behold it showed up in my recommended today! This is truly the greatest history channel I’ve ever had the pleasure of stumbling upon. Thank you!
Some of the facial paintings on Greek sarcophagi in Egypt were incredibly realistic especially compared to the comic book art of the European middle ages. Also when you travel and start to see literally thousands of Greco-Roman statues you start to see plenty of less than perfect out of proportion statues: big heads, little heads, hands a little too big for the arms, etc.
Yeah, its insane the level of detail the ancients were able to achieve with primitive tools and pure skill... Wouldn't be matched or surpassed until the Renaissance imo- and honestly I doubt there's many humans if any that could replicate such masterpieces with simplistic tools either.
@@WelcomeToDERPLAND The tools they were using in antiquity were pretty much the same they used in in Renaissance and to call them "primitive" or "simplistic" is so wrong. Hand tools like chisels, files, sandpaper and scrapers are still absolutely necessary to create fine sculptures today.
Most of the time we don't see ancient sculptures in their original settings, take for example the greatest statue of them all, Michelangelo's David, it was sculpted to be seen from underneath, that;s why the head is too big for the body, then there's intentional disproportion for symbolic purposes, like his right hand, also bigger, to symbolize power and intent. So, when judging ancient art and specially sculpture, keep that in mind, context makes all the difference.
When I first discovered this channel I thought the creator was like a student that started it as a school project and then got really into it and just ran with it.
I don't know if this is a topic you have discussed recently, but can you go a bit into what life was like for Romans after the fall of Rome/the Western Roman Empire?
Doc is great on answering question from viewers. Not a common practice at all on RU-vid. They usually ignore us, "regally". In fact Doc once emailed me so that I could send him some pictures of Roman ruins from like 500 years ago. That was the most impressive--and a credit to him for sure
Did Ancient Rome have stock markets? Or any kind of investment markets? Also did they have fine dining restaurants or exclusive clubs that only famous people could get into?
Roman law provided for primitive corporations -- multiple parties could invest in an enterprise. If memory serves, this was mainly shares in a trading vessel. There was no stock market as developed by the 1700s.
Nero does the darnest things! Question: Average pay was about 1000-1200 sestertie. With rents in the Roman Empire being 500 sestertie per annum, and in Rome up to 2000, how many people in a household worked, and what was an average income for a household?
The Malibu Getty Villa Museum has a great collection of Roman sculpture, frescos, and mosaics that range from what I assume were mass-produced stuff to very refined work. Some of the frescos were obviously done very quickly, and yet made with great skill, so that up close they look almost abstract, but from a distance are accurately representational.
Dear Dr Ryan, I greatly enjoy all of your videos, including your Q&A videos. I have a question that you might like to address in a future Q&A videos. What were the customs of inheritance within the Roman Empire, both inheritance of money, property etc. but also of social status, official roles and titles? For example, did all (or at least most) of the sons of Roman Senators become Senators themselves or was that only (or mostly) a privilege of eldest sons? Was money divided equally amongst sons? Or did eldest sons get the lion’s share? What if any provision was given for widows and unmarried daughters (or even married ones)? Were the grandchildren and great grandchildren of great men reliably still in high social status or did some fall a few social rungs over the generations? I realise there is far more to my question that you could answer in a single video, but I would still be fascinated to hear your thoughts on just one or two aspects of inheritance in the Roman Empire. Many Thanks, Fred
How did a general give out orders during battles? How would that message reach the rest of that army, especially if the legions were in the midst of battle?
Oh wow Professor Ryan, thank you so much for this separate channel! I am so impressed with your honest academic approach. This is like finally reading the footnotes to one of one's favourite books, or channels, respectively. Thank you and thumbs up!
after reading a radii article by matthew bosson, it seems that the syncretic manichaen-buddhist temple in fujian still exists. But actual followers of manichaenism are either elusive or nonexistent. The faith certainly existed later in the middle ages and possibly into the early modern.
Some Romance speaking and Roman-influenced peoples still have forms of Roman Gods in their mythology, even tho they don't worship them anymore. Diana for example is remembered by Asturians as Xana, by Romanians as Zâna bună or Sânziana, and by Albanians as Zana(all of these names do etymologically come form the name Diana - Xana, Zâna and Zana are just the natural evolution of the name, Sânziana comes from Sancta Diana - Holy Diana), and in Romanian stories she also frequently has the epithet "sora Soarelui", the sister of the Sun. It's also interesting that in all of these cases, the name can be either a proper name or just mean fairy.
One of my history texts mentioned that Greeks held painting to be the highest art, but unfortunately none of the paintings have survived. Kind of like Vonnegut's Rabo Karabekian.
I have 2 questions for the next Q&A: - What did Macedon look like in the Archaic and Hellenic periods and what were its relations with the 'more developped' city-states to the south? - What caused the Greek population to grow rapid enough to facilitate colonisation of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, and why did this not also happen in neighbouring regions like the ones that were colonised? Btw, great video. Love your channel!
I think a fun topic might be discussing one of the earliest societies in the Knossos and close to it the ancient laws written on a wall in Gortyn. What do they entail and how early were they written by the Minoans? Love these q&a type videos! Your book is great too, I'm recommending it to everyone I know that's interested in Roman history =)
I love your channel! Can you explain in another of your videos how the roman concept of state and nation differed from our modern understanding. I would be interesting to know what the romans and the people in rural regions of italy understood under this notion. Thx and much apreciation 🙏
Like this video, but the "McDonalds hot coffee" story is based on an intentionally misleading popular version. The victim suffered horrible burns (too disgusting to describe here) as a result of spilling coffee that McD's had kept undrinkablely hot (way more than most coffee) and only asked for her medical expenses to be paid, which the corporation refused to do and spend way more running a PR campaign against her.
the temperature was enough to melt skin I always want this mentioned, that it wasn't a dubious lawsuit but serious physical damage inflicted for cost cutting reasons
@@christopherneufelt8971 I agree with the former, but the latter seems false to me. At least some practitioners of native european religions make a great effort to understand the past and adhere to it as closely as possible. Keep in mind we have more original text teaching us about those religions than we do depicting the views of jesus christ. So they have at least as good a claim as the christians to be practicing a genuine heritage, if not stronger. Of course there are also wiccans and other neopagans who make only a token gesture of respect to historical religion and are otherwise purely modern invention.
wow, calling Christianity a cult, I know I could never possibly convince you because you are so sure but I just watched this today. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AHU3Kc8sKQ0.htmlsi=I8C_e83Ye3oGiSsG this man is a cold case detective for the LA police dept. He was a total atheist, until he started to actually look into it, investigate the actual evidence, or not, and he changed his mind. C.S. Lewis's "mere christianity" explains a lot also, he was also a hard nosed atheist until he looked into it. Sure you can point to certain catholic rituals and it looks paganistic, but that does not prove anything one way or another. Don't close your mind off to the possibility. C.S. Lewis famously said "Either the man was a lunatic and a liar, or he was who he said he was" and there is a lot of evidence out there for the latter.
How sympathetic this scholar is! I enjoy both his books and his three channels amd I wonder if he could answer a very simplw question: what is his personal conception of history?
Hi Garrett! If the Romans came out victorious in battle, how would they treat the dead of their enemies? Would they leave them on the field or would they bury/burn them? I’m curious how respectful or disrespectful they would treat the fallen.
That's a good question. I would like to think that they buried all of the bodies to reduce the chance of disease spreading. Who knows though. They might have let them rot to scare the local population.
Closest answer I know is how the Greeks did it: after a defeat, the losers would ask the victors (defined as those that held the field) if they could collect and bury their dead, in itself an admission of defeat. This was done after the victors had stripped the dead of their arms and armours, using those to build a monument (literally _trophy_ ) to commemorate their victory. The request was virtually never denied between Greeks, doing so would have been borderline sacrilegious, but might have been less common with barbarians. The ultimate sign of disrespect and hatred was to leave the bodies to be eaten by wild animals. I suspect the Romans followed more-or-less the same protocols, except that they normally took the captured arms to be displayed back in Rome (in temples or outside private houses) rather than erecting trophies.
@@QuantumHistorian I wonder if they continued doing this into Christianity, and if they would respect their pagan enemies such as the Sassanids, armies from the Steppe, or the Germanic tribes?
Someone alive today having a proven line of descent going back to ancient history, a "Descent from Antiquity", is generally regarded as having no good claimants. However, what are the last surviving and generally well-proven family lines that originated in antiquity, an "Ascent to Present"? In other words, at what point in history can it be said that a Descent from Antiquity finally breaks down?
Descent from antiquity is only an unprovable claim in the Western world. In the East there's hundreds of familial lines that go farther back than that. The 79th generation claimant to the line of Confucius, Kung Tsui-chang (and thus, from Confucius' descent from the Dukes of Song, a line of descent that goes all the way back through the Shang dynasty rulers, at least ~1000BC and likely centuries older) is a noteworthy example. In the West it was made difficult by the burning of the Roman archives. If that weren't the case, there would likely be hundreds of families that could trace origins to Roman gens.
There are claims by some French people that they are descended from Sidonius Apollinaris, the fifth century poet, letter writer and briefly urban prefect of Rome, but while we are of course all descended from ancient peoples, except for Russell Brand, who has monkeys as ancestors, nobody can prove from whom. The Sidonius claim is held as bogus. King Charles is descended from the fifth century British king Cerdic, but anything earlier is mythical. French kings can claim descent from Clovis, but very very obliquely.
Did any high ranking Roman Legionaries or officials carry gold swords similar to how some warlords and dictators have golden handguns (I.e. Hitler’s gold Walther PPK)
The cults change over large spans of time. However, freemasonry may be linked in some ways to Mithraism, the religion of the Praetorian Guard. But Mithraism itself is linked to Persia, Anatolia, and Egypt. Christianity absorbed the Egyptian cults, Roman cults, Platonic followers, many of the Jewish sects, and the Germanic pagans into itself. Christianity grew so large because it was able to absorb these groups through persuasion. This is why Christianity was all-encompassing in Europe. Many groups also claim Roman lineage, such as Turkic conquerors, the French, the Brits, and Russians too.
My neighbor is a pagan. Not sure why he went back to polytheism from monotheism, and not atheism after theism, or at least being an agnostic. But, he’s a nice guy nonetheless. I just have to keep it a secret, as being a pagan in the very bosom of Arabia, can be quite dangerous, I daresay. He and I did have a most interesting conversation about the Cult of Mithras once. Which I believe lasted for almost three hours. He also showed me a double-faced relief that he had built of Mithras. A copy of a 3rd century Roman original.
@@SputnikRXwell from a traditional Christian perspective, some or all of them were indeed real they were just demons, or in rare cases angels, depending on what they stood for and did Id imagine they do, is it really a religion if they don't believe in them?
I've talked to a number of neopagans. My impression is that they're less literal-minded than followers of mainstream religions. They're less likely to believe that Apollo or Isis actually exist, and more likely to see them as allegory, or to use them as focal points for ceremonies. Then again, neopagans are diverse, and some of them probably do believe in literal gods.
I always think it's weird how the Roman empire is associated with persecution of Christianity, while Christianity is the only Roman cult/religion that was NOT persecuted into extinction during the empire's existence. That shows how much it matters who is writing the history books.
Christian persecutions of polytheists was much more pervasive and institutional than anything polytheist Rome (save for Emperor Julian in reaction to Christianity’s ascendency) did to Christians. Pagan authorities saw them as offshoots of the peculiar Hebraic religion of the Levant, but beyond that, didn’t really care. Religious chauvinism and forced conversions weren’t widespread phenomena until Christianity and Islam came onto the scene - and that’s because such neurosis is necessarily built into Abrahamic/Yahwist religion.
A story about africans in africa enslaved by other africans the africans escape and go to another place in africa etc... And than some of christs life and final days were in rome there is a whole precursor that does not involve rome at all and even alot of the new testament does not concern rome to call christianity roman is like calling the islamic faith eurasian because of muhammeds connections to secret societies
Did Romans place any importance on individual fighting prowess, outside of gladiators? Was swordsmanship, in 1v1 duel type setting, a valuable skill to have? Or was Roman combat doctrine, outside of the arena, focused on the group unit, rather than the individual? Love ya Garrett! Ave Imperator!
How were intaglio gemstones incised in such exacting miniature detail in theory without the aide of any magnification. As they often served as verification of identification on wax seals on documents was perhaps the process of making them held as a trade secret?
Cool Video. I´d had a question if it would make sense. As a lot of people know does the pantheon not have a full closed roof and has a hole in the middle. Thats why I wonder if it would be "fixable" with the building standing there now. A lot of cathedrals do have a "lantern" on top of the dome? Would the dome of the pantheon be strong enough to hold up a lantern to cover the hole and to stop any rain to enter the building? I hope thate this question makes sense, wasnt answered before and that my english wasnt too bad. Thanks in advance.
Its so neat to hear that even back in day, kids loved sandcastles Question, though: Did roman money ever "expire"? For instance, did all coinage minted for one emporer lose value when another took throne? Or was it just "whatever money had an emperor went"? Or something else?
Well coins are not like our paper money today. They have valuable metal in them so they have some worth regardless who is in charge. At least that's my guess.
Roman coins remained in circulation for a long time, sometimes centuries. Occasionally, people would voluntarily pull coins out of circulation, e.g. when the currency was debased and they wanted to hang on to older coins with higher silver content. But otherwise, coins would retain their value when an emperor died (unless they had been minted by a usurper--and maybe even then).
I have a question. Did wealthy Romans use horse-drawn vehicles in urban areas to get around (ie, downtown Rome) or, were litters lugged around by slaves more the norm? Was it litters in town and carriages to get from town to town? In other words were horses kept in urban areas in significant numbers or did urban transportation depend on big, burly slaves?
The streets of Rome were too crowded for carriages. A fourth century guide to Rome refers to an area in the north east where carriages could be parked, but further in you had a litter, or walked.
@@Joanna-il2ur I did not know that! Just to be clear I wasn't referring to wagons or carts, which rumbled through the city at night, if I recall correctly. But a carriage park! Was it hourly or daily rates I wonder, lol.
@@cerberus6654 Seneca in a letter complains about the noise of people outside his window all day. There is a book called Senses of the Empire, which I haven’t read yet, but I know one of the authors. I’m guessing that sound and smell would feature in that. Jeff Veitch of the University of Kent writes about it in that book and his own book Soundscape of the Street, which uses Ostia rather than Rome, but it’s next door.
@@Joanna-il2ur Seneca complained about a lot of things it seems to me. But I will look in our library system for both books. I live in Atlantic Canada and the libraries of all three provinces share books, even from certain universities too. Thanks for the tip!
Fresco is a technique that doesn't allow for much in the way of retouching and refinement. The pigments bind immediately to the wet plaster so you can't blend it like modern oil paint and once the plaster is set that's that. Carving marble on the other hand is all about refinement and modelling in wax for a bronze is like playing with plasticine and has an undo button of sorts.
The question of Roman succession is more complicated than that. Conventional Western historiography considers the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, however, the Ottomans/Turks did not see it that way. The house of Osman acted as a legitimate successor of the Roman emperors and their state a direct continuation of Rome. We in the West see the introduction a Muslim dynasty as a big discontinuity but they saw it as a divinely ordained natural transition akin to the one from paganism to Christianity earlier in Roman history. The post-conquest Ottomans heavily based their political legitimacy on the idea of Roman succession in secular terms, the sultans titled themselves kayser-i Rûm (the Caesar of Rome) or basileos. This claim later started to fade and was deemphasized and the dynasty based their legitimacy on Islam more and more. But the title of kayser-i Rûm as well as basileos was claimed by the house of Osman until the very end of the imperial era, if only formally. Therefore, the current head of the Osman family, Harun Osman, should be on the hook.
At the ancient temples, what did they do with the meat from all the sacrifices? Did they sell it or eat it themselves? How did the temples make money and support themselves?
I have one question. After Rome conquered Greece, how difficult was it to the Athenians, Spartans, Macedonians, etc. to leave behind their traditional style of government and, most importantly, their martial traditions and equipment?
Hey Mr ToldinStone, I’ve been reading Gibbon’s Fall and Decline and the amount of time dedicated to describing ecclesiastical disputes and various schisms within the Christian Church (arianism, monophosytism, nestorianism, etc) is staggering. My question is if there were any comparable religious controversies or schisms when the the Greco-Roman religion was dominant?
There never was a single Greek or Roman religion and so no schisms, etc. People were free to worship in any way they liked. There were three banned cults. First Tanit, a Punic goddess, which some believed involved killing children (much disputed). Then they tried to ban Bacchus, as it was essentially a drug cult. Didn’t last long. Finally Christianity, which was thought to involve cannibalism, due to the Eucharist. Banning Christianity was hit and miss. The emperor Philip in the third century was a Christian and after his murder there was a brief flurry of murders and martyrdoms of Christians then a long period of tolerance followed by three years of persecution under Diocletian. But classical religions were entirely free of schisms and ideological disputes because there was no standard package.
Nope. The Romans, as polytheists, didn't consider they had the "right" way of doing things. It was more like "You worship crocodiles? Cool! That must be your version of . Just add an altar to the Divine over here and you're good to go."
I have a question. Do we know if there was a large emmigration of Greeks and Romans from Egypt and the Maghreb when it got conquered by Arabs? Or if it happened it's mostly unrecorded?
I enjoyed your detailed presentation. As for suing descendants of the ancient Romans, it sounds like today's reparations argument - Who to sue? The African slave kingdoms, or the U.S. Goverment, or individuals, or . . . . .etc.
Thanks, Dr. Ryan, fornyour so symphatetic approach to the ancient world. Now, I have a question: what is your conception of hiistory and who have been your guides both of style and schilarship?
I would sue the local government, or whichever entity is in charge of maintaining it. On the topic of cults, there's the London Mithraeum, located in the Bloomberg building in the heart of London. It's one of the few ancient exhibits in the city that wasn't "taken" from somewhere else, so it's worth a visit in my opinion.
I think that painting just played a secondary place. it was perceived as two dimensional, like for sketching and decoration. It was the Artistic evolution that found value and deep skill in Two dimensions. Like Graffitti in NYC in the 80s or comics books, later on started gain real artistic theft. Sculpucture and painting sculpture reigned supreme. Is the phenomenology of Art, we don't experience sculpture the same way no. Sculpture were HD Movies you could sit and watch all day.
I think he's correct about Roman cults existing as a continuity, although there are some folkloric customs that arguably survived. But I get the feeling he's not very familiar with different forms of neopaganism, especially the reconstructionist side. To be fair, he's a historian and not a religious studies professor.
I'd like to know more about what seems to be the last Roman rump state to fall. The Principality of Theodoro which seems to have fallen after even Trebizond and for which the ruling family was related to the Emperor of Trebizond and for whom the family continued down the ages with the Golitsyn and I can't recall the other house Russian noble families. Is the principality the last seemingly direct Roman rump state to fall?
If you get hurt by an ancient ruin, you better ask in which country this has happened, and if somebody was responsible to maintain it. If it has happened in an archaeological parc where you even had to pay an entry fee (and you didn't do anything wrong, like leaving the path) then the parc administration is responsible; if you happen to get hurt on open, not maintained field it may be considered as your own fault or "act of god".
They were "former" enemies because they'd been defeated in battle. The Romans could have killed all of them, or enslaved all of them, if they had wanted - such things were done at the time. So they were probably quite happy to join the winning side. (And the ones who wouldn't have liked it were mostly dead.)
I would think the Roman legal concept "caveat emptor" would extend to cover self-injury while walking also. A person is responsible for their own decisions ... whether buying something or walking around. If you fall and are hurt, or buy something and are hurt, there is no one responsible for it other than yourself.
Garrett - I wonder what it's like for you to read some of the names of the questioners. Did you have to practice 'Chris Eats Zombies' a couple of times before filming?
The theory of sculpture seems easier than the theory of painting. When you are trying to make a sculpture of something you just try to recreate the real thing as realistically as you can, with the right proportions and everything. If someone is trying to draw/paint something three dimensional they need to come up with all kinds of ways to represent that on a two dimensional surface. And if we look at history that is not very intuitive and many cultures just never figured out how to draw depth and things like that. And those that did, didnt always get it quite right. Making a sculpture is just way more intuitive. Also the paints used, the painting instruments as well as the surfaces that people painted on, may have made it harder to paint realistic pictures than it is for us today.
It's not always as simple as that. Sculptures and bronzes meant to be looked at from from far below were made with a distortion so that they would look all right from the preferred viewpoint but not face-to-face: a three-dimensional perspective that the maker could not see while he was at work.
Nero trying to sink his mother's boat. Ha ha, who among us hasn't tried to sink their mother's boat because she was trying to seize power over the empire? We've all been in that situation...
Hi, I get the impression from art that ancient Greeks and Romans wore less clothes than modern Greeks and Italians do today. Is that an accurate impression?
IDK but I'd be suspicious about the "from art" part. Art also gives the impression that lots of Romans were emperors, and that everyone had big muscles, and that no one picked their noses.
