It's fascinating that aside from being Latin, most of that ancient graffiti could have just as easily been scribbled on a modern toilet stall. Dick jokes are fundamental to what it means to be human.
Romans... Slavers who washed their mouths and clothes with urine, and shat on the streets. They really weren't into this "treating people humanely" thing. Most of their lives were quite brutal: https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2016/05/arthriti...
> The average ancient Roman worker was riddled with arthritis, suffered broken bones and was dead by 30 thanks to a diet
of rotting grains and a lifetime of hard labour, a new study has found
What does any of this have to do with the article?
And I'm not positive, but maybe the average lifespan in Rome was 30(considering all the newborn deaths), but I really doubt adult workers were keeling over at 30 on average.
In the city of Rome, I think many adults did actually die young, in addition to infant mortality. And they were replaced by imports from the countryside.
In fact I think no large city was self-sustaining, perhaps until London, c 1800? Having that many people in proximity simply wasn't healthy. For much the same reason, very few wars before WWI (perhaps none?) had more men killed by the enemy than by disease.
I'm probably too squeamish to wash my mouth with it (did Romans really do that?) but washing clothes with publicly collected urine is generally considered to be a pretty impressive bit of urban engineering, not to mention very environmentally friendly. Wouldn't knock it till you've tried it.
Urine is recorded to being used for whitening teeth since at least ancient Egypt. I always thought they used something like a swab for it though, but you can be sure someone out there had the idea to use it as mouthwash lol.
Not in my experience. I saw a tree that was half dead come back to life from being peed on regularly for months.
Furthermore, the idea I had was not that urine would be the only fluid the tree would get, but that peeing on a tree would mean flushing the toilet one less time per day. Most toilets use premium tap water, not grey water, and water shortages have been a big global issue.
Plus tree were dying from drought in California by the millions when I had the idea. I'm sure peeing on them would have been less deadly for most of them than extreme drought.
Not all, but Romans do stand out. While Greeks were discussing philosophy and building mechanisms like Antikythera, Romans were slaves to the rich, building roads and aqueducts with arthritis and broken bones, and rotten grain for food.
Sparta was enemy of city Socrates lived in. And rich peoples livestyle and philosophy was possible only due to having those lower classes. Which matters.
"The Greeks" were a diverse group of peoples spanning three continents over the course of most of a millennium with varied cultures and social structures. Many of them, including some of the most iconic Greek societies like Athens and Sparta, were comprised of 40-60% slaves with treatment on par with that of Roman slaves or worse (e.g. Helots in Sparta).
Alexander the Great was the greatest general in ancient history (Hannibal is up there though), and also Greek. Greeks wielded power just like the Romans, there were a few hundred years of Greek hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean after Alexander died.
What the heck do you have against the Roman people? Making value judgements about long dead ancient cultures is really strange, they saw the world much different than us.
Speaking of cruelty and Alexander, he was also a bloodthirsty, paranoid, alcoholic lunatic. Apart from the standard sackings and such inherent in ancient conquest, he executed many around him on shaky suspicions and killed his close friend Cleitus in a drunken rage.
If he were a more recent figure he would be most comparable to Stalin or Hitler.
Yes, it was his cognomen. The cognomen is what you as a modern Westerner would think of as a name -- it is the only part of a Roman name that identifies the person. The nomen identifies the person's family, and the praenomen identifies nothing at all -- there are so few praenomina that they are conventionally abbreviated by just their first letter. (Or in the case of a couple that begin with the same letter, two letters.) Imagine if "J. K. Rowling" was, by itself, sufficient information for you to know that the first name was Joanne.
The cognomen is unlike the concept referred to by the English word "nickname". It is part of the full formal name. It is fixed. It is like a nickname in that it is not assigned at birth and in that you have the option of referring to someone by cognomen or not.
Most of the historical greats are fairly comparable to Stalin and Hitler; winners write the histories. The main novelty of Stalin and Hitler was modern technology and communications let them do a lot more damage.
At the time, Hitler probably assumed that history would see him in a similar light to Napoleon.
Hitler was so convinced that the Third Reich would be viewed as a great historical civilization he became absorbed with Speer's ideas on 'ruin value' and mandated that all state buildings were to be built with designs and materials that would lead to attractive, classical-style ruins
A federal judge in Arizona ruled yesterday that the US Customs and Border Protection can’t continue forcing immigrants to sleep on the floor in toilet stalls (that are being simultaneously used of course):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/20/arizona-det...
Yes, human culture was different in the past. Judging an ancient culture by our standards doesn’t make for a strong argument, their way of looking at the world would be completely alien to us.
The ancient Assyrian empire would allegedly make corpse piles and skull pyramids after putting entires towns to the sword, humans are and always have been cruel to each other.
> Enslaved men and women most often staffed ancient brothels ... like all enslaved persons, their bodies were also vulnerable to sexual assault, rape
What? If they were enslaved people compelled to engage in sexual services, that was just straight up rape/assault, not vulnerability to rape/assault. An enslaved person can't give consent.
The fact your only contribution to the argument is a personal attack reveals more about you.
People are discussing the tediousness (and value) of applying specific 'modern' language to a historic piece. Nobody denies that a slave being forced to have sex is being raped.
That is legal construct to make rape prosecution and corruption prosecution remotely possible. Plus, generally institutions don't want prisoners to have consensual sex or relationships with guards either.
To the prisoner having that sex, there is difference between when he/she wants that sex, is willing to barter sex for something and is forced to have sex without wanting it.
> while at the same time being expected to provide emotional services to clients through small talk or writing flattering boasts about them. Like all enslaved persons, their bodies were also vulnerable to sexual assault, rape, beatings and even torture.
It makes more sense in context of "emotional services" as "writing flattering boasts" and "beatings and even torture" which are closer to the vulnerability.
I don't understand why your comment is downvoted. It has - at time of me writing this - got 4 people who are trying to 'explain' it away. I guess Silicon Valley has a consent issue, and its' misogyny is coming out in disturbing ways
Of course they can give consent. What you mean is they cannot refuse giving consent when whomever owns them (God, that is even hard to type, it’s so wrong it feels grammatically incorrect!) instructs them to engage in sexual relations with somebody.
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I guess they had shit-bandits back then too.
Twain is probably not the first name that pops to mind when erotica is mentioned but he was quite into it. His posthumous 1601 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1601_(Mark_Twain)) was an early example of "pornography" in America; scare quotes since the content is quite tame by today's standards (you can judge for yourself: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3190/3190-h/3190-h.htm)
His sex toys were in the news about a decade ago (https://www.thedailybeast.com/mark-twains-sex-toys, but see for a less hysterical writeup)
See where? Did you miss including another link here?
> The average ancient Roman worker was riddled with arthritis, suffered broken bones and was dead by 30 thanks to a diet of rotting grains and a lifetime of hard labour, a new study has found
And I'm not positive, but maybe the average lifespan in Rome was 30(considering all the newborn deaths), but I really doubt adult workers were keeling over at 30 on average.
In fact I think no large city was self-sustaining, perhaps until London, c 1800? Having that many people in proximity simply wasn't healthy. For much the same reason, very few wars before WWI (perhaps none?) had more men killed by the enemy than by disease.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome#Demo...
There's a Catullus poem that suggested they did, but clearly it wasn't all Romans, and some of the others even derided them for it.
http://rudy.negenborn.net/catullus/text2/e39.htm
(I briefly tried to figure out how to promote that, but I know nothing about starting campaigns of that sort. shrug)
if you want to kill them that is. Pee need to be diluted with water before being used as a fertilizer.
Furthermore, the idea I had was not that urine would be the only fluid the tree would get, but that peeing on a tree would mean flushing the toilet one less time per day. Most toilets use premium tap water, not grey water, and water shortages have been a big global issue.
Plus tree were dying from drought in California by the millions when I had the idea. I'm sure peeing on them would have been less deadly for most of them than extreme drought.
It was summer but no drought though. I guess it depends on the trees.
As opposed to all the other ancient empires who were.
What the heck do you have against the Roman people? Making value judgements about long dead ancient cultures is really strange, they saw the world much different than us.
If he were a more recent figure he would be most comparable to Stalin or Hitler.
The cognomen is unlike the concept referred to by the English word "nickname". It is part of the full formal name. It is fixed. It is like a nickname in that it is not assigned at birth and in that you have the option of referring to someone by cognomen or not.
At the time, Hitler probably assumed that history would see him in a similar light to Napoleon.
A federal judge in Arizona ruled yesterday that the US Customs and Border Protection can’t continue forcing immigrants to sleep on the floor in toilet stalls (that are being simultaneously used of course): https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/02/20/arizona-det...
The ancient Assyrian empire would allegedly make corpse piles and skull pyramids after putting entires towns to the sword, humans are and always have been cruel to each other.
A particular example:
> Enslaved men and women most often staffed ancient brothels ... like all enslaved persons, their bodies were also vulnerable to sexual assault, rape
What? If they were enslaved people compelled to engage in sexual services, that was just straight up rape/assault, not vulnerability to rape/assault. An enslaved person can't give consent.
It must be tiring to read everything so trigger happy.
People are discussing the tediousness (and value) of applying specific 'modern' language to a historic piece. Nobody denies that a slave being forced to have sex is being raped.
That's not a personal attack? Hypocrite.
Stop being a fool.
Yes they can. Consent means you agree to do something: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/consent
Prisoners are effectively slaves and they frequently consent to have sex with each other.
To the prisoner having that sex, there is difference between when he/she wants that sex, is willing to barter sex for something and is forced to have sex without wanting it.
It makes more sense in context of "emotional services" as "writing flattering boasts" and "beatings and even torture" which are closer to the vulnerability.
The paragraph is not only about sex.