Hot answers tagged roman-empire
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Banking existed in the era of the Romans and earlier. In ancient Greece and Asia Minor temples served as a sanctuary where individuals could make deposits for safekeeping. This practice continued with the Romans (see this article titled "Temple Banking In Rome"). For instance, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was the largest depository in Asia and served as ...
22
To sum it up: The costs simply outweighed the benefits.
You have to consider that Germania at this time was essentially one huge forest, which was very, well empty. No cities to conquer, the first German cities were actually founded by the Romans, like e.g. Aachen, Cologne or Trier. The Germans were primitive tribesmen and had little too offer to the Roman ...
18
They were not supermen by any means :)
But yes, temperatures were higher, by more than 1 degree (Kent and Wales were famous for their wines, right now it's far too cold there for that for example).
And don't forget that in the Roman era, wars were fought in summer almost exclusively, later expanding into spring and autumn as the conscript army was replaced ...
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The answer to this question depends somewhat on the kingdom, geography, and era. The ancient Achamaemenid Empire of Persia (Iran) was arguably the first true empire in history, and spanned a sizeable amount of territory. It made use of regularly stationed outputs with stables always containing well-fed and well-rested horses, for messengers to quickly get ...
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See also my answer to the homosexuality question and the Wikipedia articles on Pederasty and Age of Consent.
[Disclaimer: I hate to sound unprofessional, but I do not wish to appear to be condoning paedophilia: I find the idea revolting. Nevertheless we must be able to talk about history in a scientific, distanced manner.]
[Edited:] The answer to your ...
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The ORIGINAL Roman Republic (prior to the Punic Wars) was a prosperous, self-sufficient economy based on affluent, independent, and relatively free yeoman farmers enjoying a steady rate of technological advances. Because of this, Rome had a relatively representative government (the "veto" was originally a device to protect the common people).
One can argue ...
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The biggest difference between the military threats of the Goths and the Huns compared to Persia was the migratory nature of the former versus the centralised (and thus spatially constrained) government of the latter.
Rome and Persia had sparred against each other in the mesopotamian region for centuries, but, though one or the other might gain ascendancy, ...
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The oldest human could still live to be over 100 just as they do today. This was of course much rarer. Here's some data from the University of Texas on the matter. Infant Mortality by that page was 31.9% considerably worse than even the worst of the world 60 years ago. This was skewed by infanticide and such.
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Usually the ruler would divide the kingdom up into smaller territorries and appoint someone to be the leader for that territory. This has historically been a pretty common practice. From the Zhou Dynasty in China to the Roman Empire we can see examples of this. In addition, when you look at medieval kingdoms in England, France, and Germany, the monarchs ...
9
There are some minor works that have been discovered over the past twenty years or so, but nothing of any major importance that I can recall. As to whether or not these other major works have been lost forever, the answer is that they most likely have indeed been lost. The great fire of Rome that Suetonius mentions was responsible for destroying a ...
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Throughout history this has proven to be a difficult task for a number of empires, including the Greeks, the Chinese, the Persians, and the Romans. The larger their territory, the more difficult it became to manage and control them. The real shortcoming was in the inability to communicate quickly and effectively.
In some instances, those who needed ...
9
No, they were not. The Ptolemys were the last dynasty to rule Egypt directly in the old fashion. When the Romans took over, they just treated it as another province in the empire.
In 30 BC, following the death of Cleopatra VII, the Roman Empire
declared that Egypt was a province (Aegyptus), and that it was to be
governed by a prefect selected by the ...
8
The concept of praying to the Roman Gods as well as to whatever local deity did mean that the Republic then Empire could assimilate a lot of cultures. After all, they were always worshuiping the same gods, and now they can have access to all the good things that Rome provides -- see Life of Brian's "What did the Romans ever do for us?" speech. Even when the ...
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If you heard that the pouring of wine was to kill bacteria, you know it's a fake. You have to wait till Louis Pasteur for bacteria. Also, unless there was a whole lot of wine/alcohol poured, it would have no effect whatsoever on the water in the well. Wine was very expensive in Roman times -- up to several slaves for a barrel in Gaul around 50BC as Caesar ...
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Josephus knew Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (which he must have learned when he was in the service of the the Roman Emperor Vespasian, if not earlier). A quick look on JSTOR turns up this article for reference.
In Tessa Rajak's book "Josephus" (Appendix 1), she considers whether Aramaic or Hebrew was his primary language. She concludes that, while we ...
8
This is an addition to Mike Rodney's answer. The Twelve Tables, traditionally written in 450 BC, were some of Rome's most ancient laws.
The majority of Table III deals with banking. In particular Law I says that bankers can't steal deposits; Law II forbids usury†; Laws V through X concern treatment of delinquent debtors.
So banking was common enough 2500 ...
8
A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875 covers custom duties in the Roman Empire at some length:
PORTO′RIUM was one branch of the regular revenues of the Roman state, consisting of the duties paid on imported and exported goods: sometimes, however, the name portorium is also applied to the duties raised upon goods for being ...
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It was financed by the emperors, and hence it's ultimate financing was from taxes and spoils of war. An article in Biblical Archeology review shows findings that suggest that the Colosseum primarily was financed by spoils or war, and in fact suggests it may be the sacking of Jerusalem that financed much of it, but that is conjecture.
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Roman taxes varied over time, but was generally a couple of percent on wealth, and sometimes also on sales. However, in the provinces they could not reliably tax in this way, and instead they put a levy on the whole province payable by the governor of the province, who in return got pretty much free reign in the province. So what he taxed and how much, was ...
7
Egypt remained "special" throughout the period of rule from Rome (through at least 395, in some respects through 640), and there is no indication that the Augustan restrictions were ever lifted.
Dio recounts in the Roman History 51.17 that
[Octavian] made Egypt tributary and gave it in charge of Cornelius Gallus. For in view of the populousness of both ...
6
The Roman Empire had the cursus publicus, which maintained an infrastructure of horses and way stations. The messenger himself was supplied by the one sending the message. It was used for transporting messages, magistrates, and some heavy goods too. Important messages typically travelled at roughly 50 miles per day.
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One way to determine this is to go to a translation of the source, which should provide you with all the Tacitus you can eat on the subject.
In short, Tacitus suggests that Nero may well have been the primary motivation for the fire starting where and when it did, although Nero himself was in Antium when the fire started (again, according to Tacitus).
As ...
6
Well one way to answer would be to just show you some Roman maps. While they are not a perfect as modern maps, I would say that, for Europe at least, they are not bad. Remember that until recent times It was not possible to gauge longitude accurately. So for example, on this map copied in the 15th century from Ptolemy's 150AD work, you can see allot of east ...
6
It's a misunderstanding. It was not pedophilia it was "pederasty" which basically mean teenage boys. This in a time where "teenage" didn't exist as a concept, notably. The connection with pedophilia comes mainly through modern sensibilities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty_in_ancient_Greece
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House numbering was introduced in Europe in the modern era, mainly
due to military-administrative reasons.
The Roman Empire had no official postal system. Letters and wares
were sent by slaves, servants or day labourers with sufficiently
exact instructions where to deliver.
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They probably didn't
They would tell anybody where they lived in the same way that anyone in a rural location still does today, above the bakery / opposite the fish shop, in whatever district.
Anybody who wasn't in the army or didn't have a villa probably didn't know many people who could write.
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Lars Brownworth discusses the survival of the Eastern Empire and by tangent the fall of the West in "Twelve Byzantine Rulers" in Episode 5: Zeno. His book by the same name presumably discusses the same. The podcast discusses the general situation at the time of the various emperors essentially being puppets of barbarian generals and the like. The fall of the ...
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Being that Britain had been exposed to Roman influence for close to a century - Caesar having made first contact with his invasion around 55bc. There was constant diplomatic and trade relations between the British and Romans following that.
As Caractacus was a member of the ruling class, it's entirely possible that he spoke Latin to some extent.
As ...
6
Josephus was able to read and write in several languages.
Obviously Greek as he wrote most of his books in it.
Aramaic, which was often called Syriac in his time.
Latin maybe. Even though he was associated with Vespasian, that would not necessitate knowing Latin. The Romans spoke Greek as it was the lingua franca of the day. Once Josephus was given a Latin ...
6
Octavian who would later become Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus:
My answer really focuses on the why as much as the who, because the reality may have been that in many ways he gave himself the title.
Octavian returned from Egypt with a wealth of treasure and a serious wealth of power. He was respected by his legions, of which he was commander of all sixty of ...
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