Roman history is amazing. Everybody hears of Julius Caesar and maybe Trajan and Hadrian but then pretend that nothing happened after that. Like poof, it was dead, inevitable, Franks and Caliphates are now a thing.
Then when you realise how much Rome had to screw itself over to even get to that point while being struck by famines, massive migratory invasions, the huns while still being in a moderately good shape… That’s the good stuff. The story of the fall is a marble being chipped away slowly while telling a beautiful story until there is nothing left of the Western Roman Empire. If Rome had a favorite hobby it would be waging war on itself.
Eastern Roman Empire was alive and kicking until the 1450’s and if you think there’s not much there then look up Justinian’s restoration. They even had horseback archers like the mongols and huns for a while that had to train for many years. Hell, even look at a map that goes back some years pre-caliphate period.
Even as recently as 1912 there were people in the Aegean islands that identified as Roman. I wish there would be a series that would cover the history of Rome properly and not just “CaEsAr KiLlEd gAuLs aNd sExEd cLeOpAtRa” for the billionth time.
I’m interested in the subjects that I never learned in school, like Asian history or ancient Mesopotamian history. African empires seems interesting too, and I’m very curious about how the Polynesians came to be, seems wild.
The amount of times I heard about Babylon without actually learning anything about Babylon is completely wild to me.
For anyone curious:
- The Babylonian empire was located between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris in today’s Iraq.
- It looks they may have invented law.
- Their writing looked quite spiky
- The hanging gardens of Babylon probably never existed (despite being one of the 7 ancient world wonders)
- Nebuchadnezzar was apparently one noteworthy ruler
- mostly tho, the city of Babylon had nice architecture and was overall quite rich.
Feel free to correct me on anything, and go as far into detail as you want.
People call it mythology, but it was really Greek and Roman religion.
No, actually, it wasn’t. It is categorically called mythology and not religion for one very simple reason. A religion requires an overarcing system of formal beliefs or dogma that it teaches. Mythology establishes faith through stories and epics. There is no dogma or belief system that’s taught hand in hand with these Greek stories. You’re expected to gain basic lessons through the folly of others.
Religion and mythology are not the same. Things aren’t suddenly called mythology once they’re not believed by a lot of people. It is called mythology because that’s what it is.
Christian religion has metaphors that are taken too seriously. The stories in the Bible probably never happened.
One thing is just as made up as the other and some things in the NT are even allusions to Greek mythology.
Demons are turned into swine and then drowned. Something similar happened in the odyssey. Water into wine dyonisos etc.
As a history student I was really afraid that I would meet a ton of right wingers. But I must say the worst kind of people so far are history students that only study history to become teachers. They keep laughing at me saying that at least they have a future and that I will eventually switch sides and become a teacher too, I just don’t know it yet :(
