Can we think like Romans?

[Kegluneq]

I agree, I can’t think of any reason why the Romans would not form sentences in their head. And do we indeed know that they only read aloud? Must’ve been ‘nice’ to go to bed and hear your husband read aloud from his scroll…

I think it might be more the case that people habitually moved their lips whilst reading, but that is rather difficult to ascertain. Certainly some forms of text would lend themselves to being read aloud in both the act of reading and composition - letters, plays, speeches etc. Certain factors may also have encouraged reading out loud which we can readily sympathise with, such as poor spelling, handwriting or grammar on the part of the author. For reference works I think it must have been rather wearisome to read out the entire thing as you progressed however.

A further consideration could be the extent to which text (particularly epigraphy) was meant to be vocalised, which is clear on many tombstones certainly.

I think the Romans had a pretty good idea of their surroundings, but only close to home. Let’s not forget that not many people travelled, and that those who did, did not travel all the time. Perhaps we should compare this to ourselves, being children. When young you think the world is immense, the world beyond the next tree line is distant, travel to the next town seems (at first) long and distant (I still recall such travels) until you grow up and the world seems to shrink. Your ideas about what lies where grows with your mobility. Now, I’d like to suggest that for the most Romans this did not change.

I think that's a good point, and one which certainly held true for most people until the advent of mass transit in the past few centuries. Of course, this could make the first experience of travel for fresh military or naval recruits all the more dramatic a life experience. For a fiction writer's point of view that would be an interesting perspective to follow.

Agreed. But let’s face it, do we today have still an exclusive Judeo-Christian mindset?

Fair point. Arguably a lot of what we would argue to be Christian moral philosophy (golden rule, natural law etc.) has its stem in earlier Classical belief systems as much as in Judaism, but we also live in a society with a wide range of cultural influences affecting how we think and what belief systems we live within. Certainly there's something to be said for not simply imprinting our own preconceptions onto the past of course.

However, I would say that Romans had a different view on the value of life itself. Society was harder, people died faster and more often. Children weren’t named at birth because they might die and the concept of slavery also tells us much. The Romans would never understand our preoccupation with saving every life, for instance.

In all fairness I don't think that preoccupation is a universal constant now either. We are far more shaken by tragedies that occur to people we identify with than to those affecting distant Others. We are however far more egalitarian within our own societies, so there is that.

I think it's only with modern medicine that the emphasis on the newborn being fully alive has really come to the forefront. Even within the last few centuries, high infant mortality rates were an accepted part of life and the loss of a newborn wasn't necessarily treated with the same degree of grief that it would be today. (There were exceptions to this of course, but then there are also Roman tombstones to named children only a few days old.)

I see no need for a camera when you have painters, but no mirrors? Of course the Romans had mirrors! And if you wanted to see how you looked there was always a pool of water, right?

I think there is a degree of scepticism over exactly how effective smoothly polished bronze mirrors could actually be. They almost certainly wouldn't have been as effective or convenient as modern mirrored glass, but would have been at least functional if slightly distorting.

Why? No crayons but enough material to express themselves, right? Romans scribble everywhere, so they must’ve been used to doing that from a certain age onwards.

I have heard of this phenomenon before, in that people who are aware of the names of difficult colours are better able to distinguish them. Access to particular colours in the forms of paint or dye could affect broader understandings of colour, so that whether a red strip were newly printed or somewhat faded, the significance of the colour itself wouldn't change for the viewer. (Homer's 'wine-dark sea' may be another example of differing associations made with a colour. I personally like the association based on hue.) It's not really an area I can say much on, but I think it would be a very interesting consideration.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Can we think like Romans?

Of course we can! I'm doing it right now...... ;-)

[Alexand96]

Can we think like Romans?

Of course we can! I'm doing it right now...... ;-)

+ 1 Byron. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm only in a meeting...not at the forefront of an army invading Gaul :twisted:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

:evil:

[Narukami]

Can we think like Romans?

Of course we can! I'm doing it right now...... ;-)

+ 1 Byron. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm only in a meeting...not at the forefront of an army invading Gaul :twisted:

Interesting, because I have to keep reminding myself that I am at the forefront of an army invading Gaul and not in a meeting ... :dizzy:

:wink:

Narukami

[Lepidina]

This is my 2 denarii on the "No crayons" bit:

No crayons" - "Children in Western society have kindergartens full of crayons dividing the spectrum into bite-sized colours. The Romans didn’t. So did they even see the world differently?" The Romans painted the crap out of everything!! All the white marble we see today would have been a riot of color. Houses were covered in painted walls and artwork. The exterior of buildings were covered in graffiti, paint, and art. They could get any color they wanted to out of natural dyes. They wore colored socks so that the colors would show through the cut-outs in their shoes. The ONLY color which was off-limits was a particular shade of purple extracted from one type of sea snail. The Romans were also surrounded by nature either by living in it out in the countryside, traveling through it, or at least having parks and gardens in the cities. Of COURSE they are going to associate colors with natural objects.

In contrast, modern children with their legions of crayons, spend most of their lives in white-washed rooms with some art, being driven around in cars which are 1 of 5 basic colors on black asphalt street, walk around on grey concrete sidewalks passing by even more unpainted concrete or brick buildings. Sure we have more colorful books and TV and billboards on the street but it is different than if you spend your whole life literally being surrounded by color, either natural color or in a colorful environment. Most modern people do not live in an environment that is a fraction as colorful as the ancient Romans. Heck, many modern city kids probably couldn't tell a daisy from a sunflower, let alone have seen one actually growing in a garden. I'd rather have my kids experience the garden than color one in a book even if they had a million crayons.

[Kegluneq]

Lepidina: That's a really good point. The TV show Rome actually did a very good job of showing the Roman world as a riot of colour (white statues notwithstanding) but it is an aspect that is apparently easily forgotten. Of course the issue then is of differences in taste. As you say, in the modern west we've gotten used to muted tones and bright colours in internal rooms, whilst the Romans seem to have favoured the opposite. This isn't so much of an issue for novel writers, but it should be an important consideration for film makers.

[Epictetus]

No satellites.
Romans had no idea where they were on the map.

I don’t know. If you put together a map using Ptolemey’s Geography, you come up with a pretty good map. The itinerary and ‘subway style’ maps people have been mentioning make a lot of sense, but they were made for the specific purpose of travelling, typically by road. If you wanted a good physical representation of the world, you could do so with Ptolemey, at least around the areas where he had good information, like Europe, the Mediterranean and Mid-east.

Division by gender not by age.

The Roman society was extremely stratified. Not only were people divided by gender and if they were free or slave, but there were many more divisions. Stoic philosophy continually stressed that a person should fulfil the exact role in which one was born, and this was determined by relationships. This was not only a personal good – good for the soul, if you will – but it was also necessary for the proper functioning of society.

In Epictetus II.10, he discusses ‘social roles as a guide to conduct,’ starting with being a human, next a citizen, son, brother, and profession.

Each of our titles, when reflected upon, suggests the acts appropriate to it.

If you read Marcus Aurelius, sometimes you get the impression that the guy really didn’t want to be emperor. But he was chosen for it, so it was his role. He was divided from the rest of society because of something outside of his control, so it was necessary both for him and the state for him to be the best emperor possible.

In modern Western society we don’t think this way. We think that any person can do anything he or she wants. The Romans considered societal divisions much differently, and I would suggest that gender divisions were only one among many, and perhaps not even the most important.

[Agricola]

When it comes to colour in the Roman world, I've come across two conflicting views:

1. Rome was a riot of colour, with painted houses, statues etc.
2. Colour was for the elite, it was a sign of wealth.

For instance, Mary Beard discussed this very topic in her BBC series Meet the Romans. She argued that Rome was a rather drab place, and that the aristocrats would have colourful frescoes painted on the walls of their houses as a sign of their wealth. It was almost a boast to show how much colour you could display. When it comes to clothing the Romans may have been used to simple colour schemes (at least in the Republic) as they were surprised by the colourful clothing worn by the Gauls.

[john m roberts]

Everyone has a cultural mindset that defines who/what/when/where we are in relation to the cosmos. One glaring factor that differentiates us from ancient people is our sense of progress. Ancient people lacked this. We feel that we are progressing from a lower to a higher stage, from something more primitive to something advanced. Changing technology within a lifetime intensifies this. We live after gaslight but before interstellar space travel (manned, anyway). My grandmother was born before the first aircraft. My parents were adults before the first jets. I was born before the first artificial satellite and so on. Romans and other ancients had no such sense. There was a vague concept of a mythical Golden Age and Age of Heroes, but there was no sense that they lived very differently than their ancestors and that their descendants would likewise have very different lives.

[Lepidina]

When it comes to colour in the Roman world, I've come across two conflicting views:

1. Rome was a riot of colour, with painted houses, statues etc.
2. Colour was for the elite, it was a sign of wealth.

For instance, Mary Beard discussed this very topic in her BBC series Meet the Romans. She argued that Rome was a rather drab place, and that the aristocrats would have colourful frescoes painted on the walls of their houses as a sign of their wealth. It was almost a boast to show how much colour you could display. When it comes to clothing the Romans may have been used to simple colour schemes (at least in the Republic) as they were surprised by the colourful clothing worn by the Gauls.

Certainly the small apartments in which most people lived were not decorated or painted bright colors. The Romans also didn't not wear plaids and wild twills and stripes like the Gauls. But I'd wager that the streets were far more colorful than our city streets today. The shops certainly had murals and colorful graffiti in them as did the baths and other public buildings. Trajan's column was supposedly completely painted as well. I bet all the statues in the Colosseum were also painted too. That's a heck of a lot of color and certainly not drab.

[Lepidina]

And reading through it again, this little ditty stuck out:


"Could they even count beyond the number of fingers and toes doubled?"

How did they count all those legions? I guess that's why they needed so many slaves - to use their fingers and toes for counting.

"You, come over here and take off your sandals. Hold up your hands like this with all of your fingers apart. 931, 932, 933, 934...what happened to your other little finger? Dammit, now my counting is all off!! Someone get me a slave with all his fingers and toes!! I have to start all over."

[Marja]

Of course, thanks to binary numbers, most of us can count to 1,023 on our fingers and 1,048,575 on our fingers and toes, which does give us an advantage over the Romans if they could only count to 10 on their fingers and 20 on their fingers and toes.

Somehow Traianus managed to count to 30. But most Emperors preferred to have several I legiones than to add a XXII or XXX legio.

[Narukami]

Certainly the small apartments in which most people lived were not decorated or painted bright colors. The Romans also didn't not wear plaids and wild twills and stripes like the Gauls. But I'd wager that the streets were far more colorful than our city streets today. The shops certainly had murals and colorful graffiti in them as did the baths and other public buildings. Trajan's column was supposedly completely painted as well. I bet all the statues in the Colosseum were also painted too. That's a heck of a lot of color and certainly not drab.

Some of our streets are pretty colorful by any standard. Of course, it may well be that Hollywood is anything but a typical city street.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5q9gT0SqRZc/T9...lvd_la.jpg



:wink:

Narukami

[Narukami]

Well, this has been a lively and, at times, amusing discussion, but before we become too certain about what we know and do not know about ancient Rome ...

"Naturally, it is a hazardous and quixotic enterprise to attempt to enter the mindset of a long-vanished age. As it happens, the last twenty years of the Republic are the best documented in Roman history, with what is, for the classicist, a wealth of evidence -- speeches, memoirs, even private correspondence. Yet even these gleam as riches only for being set against such darkness. One day perhaps, when the records of the twentieth century AD have grown as fragmentary as those of ancient Rome, a history of the Second World War will be written that relies solely upon the broadcasts of Hitler and the memoirs of Churchill. It will be one cut off from whole dimensions of experience: no letters from the front, no combatants' dairies. The silence will be one with which the ancient historian is all too familiar, for, to twist the words of Shakespeare's Fluellen, "There is no tiddle taddle nor pibble pabble in Pompey's camp." Nor in the peasant's hut, nor the slum dweller's shanty, nor in the field slave's barracks. Women, it is true, can sometimes be overheard, but only the very noblest, and even those invariably when quoted --or misquoted-- by men. In Roman history to search for details of anyone outside the ruling class is to pan for gold.

The Romans themselves had always dreaded that this might be their destiny. As Sallust, their first great historian, put it, "There can be no doubting that Fortune is the mistress of all she surveys, the creature of her own caprices, choosing to broadcast the fame of one man while leaving that of another in darkness, without any regard for the scale of what they might both have achieved." ... No wonder that classists tend to be nervous of sounding overly dogmatic.."
-- Rubicon by Tom Holland, c2003, pages XIX -XX.

:wink:

Narukami