Who,why,what and how?

[varistus]

The Romans owe much to the Greeks of course. They attempted to mimic and 'improve' much of Greek culture and military. However, the Romans did expand on this throughout Europe, so they get the credit.
Any consolation however, the Greeks looked infinitely better looking.

[Magnus]

I'm curious...have you done any collective study of art history in comparison to either modern reproductive photography or life models? Look at renaissance art for example. Cherubic faces, almost cartoonish in character...is that how you would describe the people of Europe, Britain or the early US?

Art is representative of life, it's not a replication. If you're basing all of your conclusions based on paintings (and what paintings btw?), then you're results are going to be very inaccurate. The same way that someone 2000 years from now, would hypothetically base N. American society's looks on comic book characters. Not exactly legit is it?

Secondly, you need to ask yourself...are these paintings representative of the demographics of the roman empire? What and who was the artist trying to portray? What was his style? What is the intent of the painting? Then a very important question...how many paintings do we have versus the total population of the Roman citizenry? What would that ratio be...1 painting to every 10,000 total citizens? Not very representative of the population over the expanse of the centuries it was in existence is it?

Pictoral and sculptural art can't simply be looked at in a black and white fashion and interpreted at face value, especially in the context of real life. However, you can do this with photographs...but not art.

You really need to define the parameters in which you are working in so that you don't draw the wrong conclusions based on misinformation or more importantly in this case, misinterpretation.

And it's proven that early man indeed originated in Afica, then spread out from there. However, that's well over 2 million years ago, more than enough time to develop into seperate and physically different sub-races within the species. That's why we have the cultural diversity we have today. But a roman could be as easily distinguished from a numidian, as an italian can be from an african in the modern context. Again, if you're having difficulty finding this distinction in art, then again you need to educate yourself on the finer points of artistic interpretation.

[adamparsons]

Its nowt to do with ugliness, its little people syndrome. (sorry all you shorties out there :wink: )

The were pretty small people compared with the "barbarians", and small things have a complex about it- look at small dogs (jack russel, pommeranians etc- twice as noisy as you alsation etc) its always little blokes who start fights in pubs- imagine a whole nation of these!!

They conquer the world to prove they ain't small but in doing so gradually mix and inbreed with the big beefy "barbarians", until they become big themselves, then their empire goes to crap 'cos they don't have a complex anymore!

Leaving it to the French to start (Normans-100years-Napoleon), but thats a whole other syndrome.. :roll:

Sorry

[varistus]

I have looked at portraits in Rome, Pompeii and Herculaneum in homes and funerary works but as stated I am not an expert in art as apparently you are. However, Dr.Dr. W. Neuwirth, author of "Loetz, Austria 1900" and "Loetz, Austria 1905-1918 is and states that the ancient Romans did an excellent job of copying faces with reality to a high degree. 'A portrait is an accurate portrayal of the subject's anatomic and physiognomic features conferring recognition to the observer. Implicit in this definition is the artist's ability to elicit the subject's 'inner presence' or 'character.' This definition, which has evolved over the ages, would not have been understood by the ancient Greeks, whose full-length portrait statues (of which we have very few examples) were idealized and depicted subjects as scholars, statesmen, warriors, high priests etc., but not as individuals with unique facial features. In contrast, the Romans produced portrait head busts and coins with a familial likeness of emperors and their relatives. Roman painters were capable of producing life like portraits as evidenced by funeral and wall painting from Pompeii (although we have no way of knowing if these renditions accurately reflected the individuals depicted).'
Well, perhaps you are right but just perhaps you are wrong and these are accurate renditions of Roman citizenry.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

by the way.... Troy lies in Turkey, not Africa.

M.VIB.M.

[Magnus]

But it still doesn't answer my point about whether or not they are representative of the entire roman citizenry as a whole. Ever seen modern rulers who are/were ugly? Jean Chretian and Stephen Harper, PM's of Canada didn't get voted in on their looks believe me.

I also don't agree with Roman Sculpture being able to capture "beauty" in a face...not to say the overall statue itself isn't a wondrous work of art, and certainly both the Greeks and Romans paid remarkable attention to anatomical detail and proportion. However, I've seen Roman paintings myself and like most stylistic portrayals, I really wouldn't consider them to be accurate as opposed to say a life drawing still of a person.

But then, it is ART and is therefore subject to our own personal opinions of it. There is no right or wrong, only like and dislike. Another important distinction to make.

Not to mention labeling a culture or society, even if it's no longer in existence as being something negative is a bit...politically incorrect in the modern context, wouldn't you think? :wink:

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

the ugly soul of modern day man is depicted in this:



M.VIB.M.

[Magnus]

Is that even art? lol

[Mark Headlee]

Sir,

I do agree, Greece has played a GREAT part in world history, but Rome also. For example..

Most of the "holidays" celebrated in the US are just re-named Roman holidays..Christmas, Easter, ect...

Our months of the calender....January, ect....

Our Government...The US is NOT a democracy. We were founded on certain principles of democracy..but in reality the US is a Representative Republic and in many ways an "Empire" in a political sense...depending on your political point of view.

We have Senators who govern in the SENATE...

I could go on and on...but I digress...

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Sadly, Hadrian bears a great resemblence to one of my older brothers, and also one of my nephews! So, I too am terribly obsessed with my family's terrible ugliness! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: hock:

[Ioannis]

Mark,

Most of the Christian holidays derive from both ancient Greek and Roman festivals. Christmas for instance, is celebrated in late December because the Roman festival of Saturnalia was celebrated in that time of the year. However, Saturnalia itself derived from the Lesser Dionysia, a Greek festival in honour of Dionysos.

In a previous message you mentioned medicine. As far as medical terminology is concerned, again the majority is based on Greek and not on Latin. Some examples: physiology, psychology, osteoporosis, to name only three (actually most scientific terminologies are based on Greek). For more on Greek words in the modern English medical vocabulary, see: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/greek/greek_words.html (U.S. National Library of Medicine).

By the way, even today doctors give the Hippocratic oath ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1103798 ) in honour of the great Greek doctor Hippocrates. Other famous Greek physicians were Galen, Aretaeus of Cappadocia, and Pedanios Dioscorides.

[Mark Headlee]

Dr.Georganas,

Sir,

I was not thinking about the names of the disciplines, but the lesser terms used in Nursing (such as body parts, medicines, ect....)

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/co ... vanni2.htm

But regardless, it is interesting to see how much of the ancient world, both Rome and Greece, still plays an important part in the modern age...

I guess that it why it is still so fascinating to all of involved in the RAT...

And since this started as a discussion on the physical looks of Romans..can I say their modern female descendants, both Italian and Greek, are some of the worlds most beautiful women... :wink:

[Robert Vermaat]

Roman painters were capable of producing life like portraits as evidenced by funeral and wall painting from Pompeii (although we have no way of knowing if these renditions accurately reflected the individuals depicted).'
Well, perhaps you are right but just perhaps you are wrong and these are accurate renditions of Roman citizenry.

Ralph, I agree totally with you there - these portraits are very lifelike.
However, you nor me nor anybody can tell who was depicted. Italians? Greeks? Others? You call them Romans but you failed to pick up what I told you, that 'Roman' is not an ethnic entity. A 'Roman' would be a) a citizen from the city of Rome (as applies today) or a citizen of the Roman Empire. And that could include anybody from Scotland to Egypt and Armenia to Marocco.
Sure, these did not all live in that area that saw paintings from, but I can assure you that that same area was not closed of to the world either.

Did you even limit the timeframe in to which these portraits are dates? Are they all from, say, 100 BC to 100 AD? Or from the whole period of the existance of the Empire?
Pompeii and Herculaneum fit a small timeframe, but anybody here can tell you that southern Italy was a hotspot of migration, by no menas populated by folks similar to Rome or the 'Roman' heartlands.

Rome itself, even worse, had attracted literally people from all the know world. I've read somewhere a comment that Greek was spoken more in Rome than Latin.

So may I ask you, on what grounds do you consider that your database of portraits can be considered a true representation for the physical appearance of 'The Romans'? Scientifically, I see no grounds at all.

[Bhuark]

Indeed, Troy does/did lay off the coast of Turkey.
I think where the confusion lies is traced back to the Aeneid, written by Virgil, as some would say for the purposes of establishing some Roman nationalism. Verge writes that Aeneas, only surviving member of the house of Troy, escapes the sack of Ilium, spends some time wandering in an Odyssey-like voyage ( minus Polythemus and Cerces and other supernatural effects ),goes to Carthage ( prophecies ensue ) winds up in Italy, defeats some the local Latins and ( presumeably ) starts the Roman race.
So, yeah, that's where that confusion might have come from. Bear in mind, this was written by a Roman around 20 BC and may have been trying to justify a Roman nation under a single ruler, only 30 odd years after the end of the republic.

[Tarbicus]

I don't really see much point in going all the way back to Troy, as Rome was established by some bandits, who at one point kidnapped the women of a nearby city to "have their way with them". Immediately, the gene pool is half latin. But the probable reality is the gene pool was mostly latin in the first place, surely? There were also plenty of Greek and Gallic genes in Italy at that time.

As for the Romans being ugly, it's just a subjective opinion from 2000 years later. I am quite confident that if the Romans were viewed as ugly as a race during their time by other civilisations, we'd have read about it from other contemporary sources.