EB and the West

[Shigawire]

Thirded!

Great post Keravnos. About that African Supremacist, it's scary to think that he has a job.. He should be sacked with immediate effect. I find their method of argumentation equally as annoying and retarded as the White Supremacists'. Has anyone ever been to IMDB on the forum for Hannibal The Conqueror (upcoming movie trilogy)? There is a rife collection of these black supremacists in those forums, trying to promote the idea that Hannibal should be played by a black man.. Indeed, there were plans that Denzel Washington was going to play him for a while.

If they are that sloppy about ethnicity of famous characters, why don't we just make a movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Louis Armstrong? Makes an equal amount of sense to me it does.

Ok, rant mode off.

now that you have read it would you agree that it is a definition used uniquely by signifier 1?

Yes. Not to be condescending (it's hard), but it is precisely the kind of definition I expected of him to make. Just as certainly as he believes he can convince me, I equally believe he is perfectly capable of relapsing from his untenable and outdated position to the position of serious scholarship.

[Tellos Athenaios]

free government? yeah thats right. i would have expected more from an eb member than crass sinophilia.

As I already implied: 'free' government wasn't really threre. However.
1) By the Han dynasty (that is right in the midst of the EB time frame) political offices were open to all Chinese of whatever background provided that you were not a woman. Your were only required to pass exams - which indeed required a good deal of studying, hence the most offices wouldn't be filled by people without money to do so. But it is a fact that even relatively poor people could make it up till Prime Minister.
2) The Chinese had, pehaps the first, poweful unions, and with poweful I mean like the French unions but on a local scale- if we don't agree we'll simply not cooperate till the politician (the Magistrate) turns round. The idea was that the central government in Bejing would send a Censor to the region to investigate what's wrong. These Unions (mainly merchants) had connections all over the 'empire' by virtue of the fact that each district had unions and unionsmembers.
3) I do not think Signifer One meant his "free" to be taken so litterally.
Because if he did, there is no such place to be found.

In Rome political power was kept strictly in the hands of a few powerful clans, for example. Despite the offices of Tribune, and Tribunes were mostly puppets of the Senate anyways.

In the Greek world most cities were ruled by a Tyrannos, a petty king without King-title. That was the only difference. Oh, but there were ekklesia's were there not? Yes, and just how much power exactly did they have? They couldn't even pass their own laws, they merely could give advice on law - propose that something be done about something.

But there existed a democracy in Athens, now did it? Oh yeah, and that democracy has been ruled by influential politicians since the Persian Wars. In effect pretty much Tyrannoi, but without the title and with a wee bit more political responsibility. But if you didn't agree with them you were thrown out of the city all the same. Just like Aristeides who was a political enemy of Themistokles. But it was a democracy: so you would be thrown out of the city by fixed ballots... (And it wasn't even fraud, it was just like with the Roman Patronus-Cliens system in which it was custom obligatory that you, as a Cliens, voted as your Patronus wished you to.

I believe Singifer One has dismissed all other cultures as being non-Western. Hence my point: his list hardly applies to 'West' only. In fact it altogether applies better to far off countries such as China than to states in Europe back then. And that is what I tried to illustrate with my post you so conveniently brushed aside with one (mistaken) contemptuous remark. Never mind, that's why this is a debate - no?

[Tellos Athenaios]

as a belgium (if that is indeed what you are) are you not of mixed celtic/germainic roots?

No. Just like being Dutch doesn't mean that you're of mixed Celtic-Germanic roots. (Belgian tribes did live in the Netherlands, if you did not know.)

But the local Celts were all supplanted / wiped out by 'German' migrants.

[The Persian Cataphract]

I think Europa Barbarorum is clear with the intentions; We endeavour and dedicate ourselves accordingly to historical outlines within reasonable lines of esoterica, and "fill-in-the-blanks"-work. In other words, if there is a faction or a culture which has some "barbarous" or "antagonistic" innuendo, such as Roman mentality reminding of fascism (Which existed, to varying extent, among all cultures of this time), EB is not there to cater or censor history. History is a mixed bag of good, bad and the ugly; Sometimes almost predominantly the very ugly. Only by appreciating all aspects of history, while remaining intellectually honest could ever hope to understand history at the most rudimentary plane. EB does not accomodate itself to cultural relativism by any means, but we'd like to let historical evidence provide the pieces of the puzzle. We don't make any judgement by saying "this" or "that" is "barbaric" or "civilized", even if it sometimes is blatant. It's still all very much "Everyone is a barbarian to someone".

A pointer though, I loathe the terms "Islamic Science", "Islamic Art", and "Islamic Medicine"; Many of those achievements were accomplished by Iranian scholars and geniuses, and other works, among those of Averroës (Ibn Rushd) and the Iranian physician and philosopher Zakaria Ar-Razi were heretics, with the former discussing the "Omnipotence-paradox" very extensively and while the latter constantly made a mockery of the Qur'an by simple logical queries. Making use of the term "Islamic Science" equals cultural theft. It would be like calling Galileo's discoveries and support for the heliocentric worldly view a "Christian achievement" and that is a far cry from reality. Algebra, as formalized by Al-Khwarazmi, is a refined Iranian product based on previous Greek, Indian and Near Eastern mathematical influences. The Qur'an does not teach math, in fact in several instances it contains blatantly faulty math which fails basic addition and subtraction. Authorities such as the distinguished Iranologist Dr. Shojaedin Shafa (Formerly one of the Shah's historians and custodian of the royal libraries, on par with the late Prof. Shapur Shahbazi and the late Dr. Zarrinqub who wrote extensively on the fall of the Sassanian Iran in his "Two Centuries of Silence") have also lamented the usage of "Islamic Science".

The only reason why this concept formally exists is because Orientalists such as that sack of lard Bernard Lewis orgasm over the thought of a "Second Islamic Golden Age" in the Middle East in a most futile manner. They believe Islam was a catalyst and bolstered the progress. That alone is chauvinism. It implies that the Near East had no sophistication whatsoever when there is enough evidence proving the contrary. Conceptions such as the Parthian battery (Falsely dubbed the "Baghdad battery") pre-date the Voltaic pile by more than a thousand years. Yet by no means do we refer to Ancient Iranian science, non-religious literati (Or fragments rather) or architecture "Zoroastrian science".

So for the sake of everyone's sanity people, give credit where it is due. You may discuss "Anti-Westernism" until your throats go all dry, but I'm going to go all mad cataphract on people who rely on generalized designations. You have been warned.

Edit: I'm speaking in general terms here, not in any accusatory intent or manner. Point well taken, Oudysseos.

[oudysseos]

Persian Cataphract- Sorry if I wasn't clear, and I didn't mean to label anything as 'Islamic Science'.
In fact the point that I was trying to make is that such labels are meaningless: modern algebra derives from al-Kwarizmi, who built on previous Greek work, which itself built on Babylonian methods of calculation. To claim that algebra (or anything of that nature- the same argument applies to medicine, architecture, engineering etc) is a unique defining characteristic of western culture is plain pig ignorance. And I mentioned Avicenna and Averroes precisely because as non-westerners they (in The World According to SigniferOne) should not have been involved in things like medicine, philosophy, science etc. In fact they didn't seem to care that Aristotle was a westerner and they weren't, because of course the distinction (at least as Signifer puts it) is totally meaningless. Ideas, developments and culture flow back and forth across whatever invisible boundary between 'westernism' and 'easternism' Signifer has imagined to exist. Hell, it says in wikipedia that Averroes (not, I think, a westerner according to Signifer, even though he was born in Spain) is regarded as the founding father of secular thought in western europe.

Pre-empt number one: it would contradict his own criteria for Signifer to claim that Ibn Rushd, al-Kwarizmi and Ibn Sina are westerners and get out of the hole he dug himself into that way. To him that means Roman/Greek, and not just people who actually happen to live in western europe. See his (somewhat bizarre) comments on Celts and Germans.

Pre-empt number two: I do believe that 'Western Culture' does have meaning and value: it's just nothing like what Signifer thinks it is.

[KARTLOS]

Kartlos, for yourself's sake I hope that you were drunk when you wrote this. Saying that racists deserve to be shot is the same thing as saying that one "race" has to be entirely killed. The sole wish of killing somebody for his political intentions is a shame. Btw, if a policeman would read this, he would be forced by law to get as many information about your location and give it to the police. well, everyone here would be forced by law.
I do not want to defend racism, I hate it, but countering that with a murderous rage is simply the wrong way. Seriously, that Professor should be kicked out of the university, but surely nothing worse, as even to those subjects, human rights apply.

sense of humour bypass?

[KARTLOS]

Thirded!

Great post Keravnos. About that African Supremacist, it's scary to think that he has a job.. He should be sacked with immediate effect. I find their method of argumentation equally as annoying and retarded as the White Supremacists'.
.

he will never be sacked this kind of thing is actively encouraged in america. there should be no place for this kind of thing in academia. It is in effect creating a new kind of aparthied/segregation -whilst non-black students pass through academia studying repectable courses and acquining useful skills, a percentage of balcks get siphoned of into learning this nonsense and acquiring no useful skills in the process other than heightened paranioa that anything else they are taugh is "White Lies". it certainly is political correctness gone mad, and more to the point black america is really shotting itself in the foot.

further to your mention of hanibal. when there was a reconstruction of tutenkamun made and i believe exhibited in LA, their were shrieks of protest from the black community that he wasnt a black man! I wonder what they would make of the fact that several pharoahs (including ramsess the great) have been shown to have red hair.

they should really find something else to be pride in and not resort to stealing other people history.

[SigniferOne]

Hi Urnamma,

It's actually rather interesting to be thought of as anti-western, considering that I am often considered the opposite in professional circles (at least as regards philosophy).

Only insofar as Celtic or Germanic culture would be supported in opposition to Greek or Roman, much in the same way nascent Celtic movements in the West were anti-Western... I'm glad to hear about philosophy though, more on that in a second.

Granted, some things are over the top, and some posters can be as well. However, what is generally objected to is the theory that romans are somehow superior to everyone culturally and militarily. This is the opinion of many, and it is a rather unfortunate and dim one. I am no cultural relativist, but the Romans and Greeks do not need 95% of all things attributed to them, their cultural achievements stand out enough.

Well look, we're not comparing Rome to China, since that's not the context for this thread or for the mod. Heck we're not even comparing it to Armenia or Persia, though it could easily sustain that comparison. We're simply comparing Classical civilization, a civilization which Europe accepted through ideas, without any racial connection, to Celtic or Germanic cultures which Europe need only accept through race. I know the official aim of EB is only to "portray quote barbarian unquote cultures in an accurate manner", but in truth the aim seems to be to put those on equal footing with the Classical culture. If you care for the Greek philosophy, you should bewail what the Germanics did to it (indifferently abandoned it); or what happened to Hypatia, even in Late Rome, by Roman and Greek people who no longer cared for Classical culture. Should I refresh what happened to Hypatia?

That's one of my pet peeves with EB (after the contempt for Roman culture): pro-Celtic people here are not happy to say Celts had some proto-Western features; they want to say Celts were just as good as the best of them, and in fact even better. This argument works only on people of their own race, and destroys a common European culture of ideals which is mostly Roman and in large part Greek. That's how all of this is anti-Western, that's where I'm coming from.

I am not quite sure why it has to be an -ism, but I digress.

I was making a substantive from an adjective...

Grammar should not be up there, as it is a unique characteristic to every formal language. Semites had formalized grammar long before Romans or Greeks. Note that these languages based their alphabet on the Phoenician.

Right we're not talking about a language people just inherited or developed by inertia. I'm talking about a rational, conscious, explicit formalization of a language, which explicitly specifies grammar rules, morphology, derivations, syntax, precisely what the Roman and Greek grammarians were doing. They had an explicit grammar, not something Semites or Celts did. Even if there's a Semitic example, it's more than likely Hellenistic, with Semites learning from the Greek example, just like Egyptians learned from them how to write history in the person of Manetho. But the point is that Greece and Rome were the fountainheads of these ideas, the greatest exemplars.

I suppose the Architectural styles of the Near East and Egypt (formalized and updated for thousands of years) are not formal enough for you?

Not on the level of Vitruvius. Still, I don't want to carp on Egypt, even though it really hasn't shown much for development in its inconceivably long ancient existence. It was old, venerable, I'll leave it at that. Again, the primary comparison is with the Celts and Germanics.

Medicine, likewise, could more accurately be considered a Greek/Phoenician development, as each built off the achievements of the other.

Not on the level of Celsus. It could be argued that Greeks had greater developments in Medicine, but I don't see how you could place Semites anywhere near Hippocrates and Erasistratus. These men were giants. Romans were giants in another way, which puts light on why Celsus is so important. Here is a casual remark from an old Latin textbook (Kelsey and Meinecke) that I still have:

Roman medicine at this time consisted of three general branches (see Celsus, De Medicina, Introduction 9): dietics, pharmaceutics, and surgery. Intelligent Romans like Cicero, Pliny, and Horace show a remarkable familiarity with a proper regimen of living, a field to which Roman physicians devoted much attention. Celsus (De Medicina, Books 1 and 2) discusses the proper use of exercise, food and drink according to their nutritive value and digestibility, the dietic and therapeutic value of water for promoting health (hydrotherapy), massage and friction, various kinds of baths, among them even warm oil-baths, and recommends a vegetarian diet. Cicero’s acquaintance with the theory and practice of medicine is also proved by a remarkable anatomical survey of the human body (De Natura Deorum 2.54, et seq.), exhibiting a grasp of things medical the like of which is rarely found among laymen even today.

In other words, the Roman achievement was the vast dissemination of medical knowledge out of hands of arcane doctors into hands of laymen, so that in the 19th century people could say the average person still didn't know as much about medicine as an ancient Roman. Need I remind you that even Celsus was not an arcane doctor either, and his On Medicine is but a small portion of the overall work that went into detail about rhetoric, agriculture, law, and military. So in other words he was a polymath, knew everything about everything, like Varro, Cicero, Pliny, etc etc. That is a very important intellectual achievement, even the Greeks didn't have a phenomenon like this. There is a reason why Roman writers were the teachers of the West, while few people read Bede or history of the Crusades. It is only in the 19th century, again, that the medieval era again becomes admirable.

Anyhow, you've addressed grammar, architecture, and medicine. Are you willing to grant me formalized oratory, philosophy, engineering, algebra and geometry?

Wrong again on the second. Note that early Greek styles were borrowed from the established Egyptian technique.

You're right, I agree, but you yourself say that only the early Greek styles were imitated on the Egyptian, which was very impressive (Menkaure). But Greeks and Romans took sculpture to the degree that the Egyptians never dreamed of. As a more salacious example, you have the Barberini Faun. As an athletic example, you have the Two Wrestlers. As a statesmanly example, you have the Prima Porta.

Still, are you granting me the "fully formed ideal of man" in sculpture? Since you're part of the mainstream, that won't be controversial to admit.

Also, as you said you are granting me all of philosophy:

No real argument here, as I am fond of saying: 'the Greeks invented rational thought'.

But how many people on EB forum do you think will make that statement? To be honest, I was surprised (happily) that you did. Would you be willing along with me to explain to other members of EB the exceptional nature of Greek philosophy? Wait, wasn't it you who once put the Celtic druids on the level of Pythagoras? I hope not :( But this is the kind of thing I've come to expect here at least. :(

Ok... Have you ever seen frescoes and funerary portraits?

Just briefly about this, since it's not important to argue. But yes I've seen the funerary portraits and some still life, that's why I said some ancient painting could stand with modern; but they lacked perspective and full control over lighting, which is why I'm more than willing to say most of it was proto-Western, as I'm not a fanboy interested in according everything to my favorite with no regard for measure or standard. I'd be perfectly willing to acknowledge faults or lackings, of which painting and music are an example.

Anyhow, let's not delve too much on this side issue.

The first is certainly untrue, and begs the question 'what is free government?' Is it a government in which 51% can vote themselves the property and liberty of the other 49%? A national hatred of self-submission existed among Celts too.

Right, but only insofar as people in general don't like self-submission. Romans and archaic Greeks took no-submission to extreme, they almost formalized it and made it a book. Let's remember what happened to Alexander when he started demanding proskynesis. Let's remember what was Xenophon's highest show of respect to another man, in Anabasis -- to give another man your hand; a handshake, more trivialized nowadays but considered extremely important in those days. How did the Persians show faithlessness? They didn't care for the handshake, taking another man's hand but then betraying him the next day. I'm not taking about hatred of self-submission as it naturally exists in everyone, I'm talking about the highest extreme that it reached in Archaic Greece and in the Republic.

Incidentally, this is a pattern for my response to your post: you listed a number of things which existed, in principle, elsewhere; it's just that the Greeks and Romans took these to the highest extreme possible; that's why we call them the Classical culture, they're the epitome of those good values. Plus, some things you omitted challenging because they could not be found in other countries in any form. That is what forms the essence of the modern West, don't you see? All these classical values. That is why I'm writing all this.

A free government is one that is run by the people it governs; women didn't vote but they didn't have to die on the battlefield either. The point is, the Republic was the greatest example of free government until, momentarily, Florence, but more really until Glorious Revolution, and really not until American Republic. As I never tire saying, even in 1789 Americans would quote Polybius on proper government. Madison was unhappy with the constitutional convention because people wanted to implement the Roman Republic literally. That needs to be respected, and people who developed it, admired. None of the "oligarchy" nonsense popular in books today.

Which is why the legal systems of the United States and Great Britain (among others) are based on Germanic laws?

The situation for law is far from simple, and not so clear cut as in your quote. In the late 1700s, John Adams, studying to become a lawyer, complained in his diary that he had no social life being imprisoned in his room "with Roman lawyers, and Dutch commentators". Roman law had a vast influence on all of Europe, as you know, and still a significant influence on Common Law that came separately. Furthermore, Common law is not really ancient Germanic, in the way that Feudal system is not Germanic. Just because it developed in the same people does not mean it originated from some primordial Germanic standards. In fact, medieval Common law really is not what built modern Europe; what did it were the commentaries by Coke and Littleton which were of stupendous influence upon Common Law, along with that monumental Dutch commentator whose name escapes me now. These are the men who built Common Law into what we know it as, and they lived in 1500-1600's, post Renaissance. Frankly, much of their commentary was based on Justinian, as were Adams' legal studies in America, in 1700s. Nobody read Jordanes to try to fish out primordial Germanic customs that would have some relevance.

This is asinine to me. We're not pro-germanic, we're pro-'not making them into stereotypical slathering cavemen'.

I know. But do you see where I'm coming from, overall? I too don't desire slathering cavemen. But my stand is, if people don't know about one of the people, it's better they don't know about the Germanics than about the Romans. Even if I don't want Germanics to be misrepresented, I prefer Germanics turned into cavemen than Romans turned into cavemen. Don't you see? Because Romans had much more to teach the West than Brennus or Ariovistus did. And that's what this is all about, the continuity of a common Western culture in the West, when education about common classical facts is falling apart at the seams, and highly intelligent mods like EB are instead teaching people about true facts of Germanics and Celts. The priorities are inverted, see? People in EB are like, "oh someone else will teach them about Greece and Rome", while no one else does; and the very leaders of Roman faction in EB believe their own faction to have little good to teach anyway.

Being obsessed with everything western is interesting, and largely missing the point. One cannot be Aristotelean and Platonic at the same time (Despite Boethius' attempt). You've ignored the Judaic and Christian elements in Western culture as well, which I find rather fascinating.

well I haven't ignored them, it's merely that Christianity does not fall into the concept of Classical culture as it has existed in the West for 600 years. We can discuss its influence, both bad and good, but I think it would be missing the point. The point is about Classical education, about the struggle of ideas between cultural relativism and a cultural hierarchy; culture is nothing but a set of ideas, and knowing cultural hierarchy allows us to take in the ideas we deem the best, as the West has been doing since Petrarch, but is stopping to do today. I agree with you about Aristotle vs. Plato, having a degree in philosophy I'd be more than willing to discuss it too, in another thread. I didn't catch the relevance of it, though, to the current issue.

I think that perhaps we ought to discuss singular facets of what makes the Romans and Greeks so superior to everyone else in every way, rather than painting with broad brush strokes. I'm willing to discuss it with you, if we keep it civil.

Sorry about writing a lot. What you said would be a welcome prospect, although as you can see from all of the EB replies after yours, a platonic Ideal rather than Aristotelian Observation :)

[SigniferOne]

Well, really there's no way I am going to respond to all the other posters here, nor do I have an inclination to. But I picked out oudysseos's post to respond to, as it seemed to me the most philosophical of all the others.

I am going to try and be rational, but I found much of what Signifer had to say [...] full of cultural prejudice.

Thank you :)

The whole argument is ( by the standards of Western Classical Philosophy and Logical Thinking ) poorly structured and full of weird assertions not supported by scholarship. The argument fails totally if it can be demonstrated that Signifer's list is not original or unique to Western Culture, and Urnamma has already done an excellent job in doing just that. Not much to add there, but I do have to say that I had a huge laugh at algebra being attributed to the ancient classical west. Look it up. Even wikipedia gets that one right.

Alright well, what I had in mind were the algebraic developments in 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, such as by Diophantus. I am well aware that the word "algebra" comes from the Arabic textbook, but am referring to the actual mathematics involved. Quoting from your wiki, which "gets it right":

Those who support Diophantus point to the fact that the algebra found in Al-Jabr is more elementary than the algebra found in Arithmetica and that Arithmetica is syncopated while Al-Jabr is fully rhetorical. (emphasis mine)

Diophantus of Alexandria (Greek: Διόφαντος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς b. between 200 and 214, d. between 284 and 298 AD), sometimes called "the father of algebra", was a Greek mathematician of the Hellenistic period. He is the author of a series of classical mathematical books called Arithmetica and worked with equations which we now call Diophantine equations; the method to solve those problems is now called Diophantine analysis. The study of Diophantine equations is one of the central areas of number theory. The findings and works of Diophantus have influenced mathematics greatly and caused many other questions to arise. The most famous of these is Fermat's Last Theorem.

Refrain in the future from being rude and ordering me to look something up.

And that bit about music is pure ignorance and personal prejudice. He thinks music prior to JS Bach sounds 'semitic', 'oriental' or 'egyptian'

That's not what I said. Nor could I possibly have said it, since the polytonal music of which JS Bach was the champion took its actual origins in 1100s in Christian monasteries. I said ancient Roman or Greek music sounds semitic, which I defined as close similarity to music that was actually semitic or eastern. Nor did I say it can't be 'westernism', I said it does not have enough distinguishing characteristics to be specifically Western, specifically Greek and Roman. It doesn't matter what influence it had on good people. How many incorrect assumptions are you going to attribute to me, and then lecture me on proper presentation of logical arguments?

Besides music is music, and even before it became polytonal in the West (the supreme achievement), it could still be good and resonate with people's feelings in its earlier stages.

Actually, Signifer's ignorance about algebra is a perfect illustration of the wishful thinking that informs his definition of what it means to be western: he has picked out the things that he thinks are admirable or impressive and claims them for western culture, regardless of their actual origin. Anything else is non-western, regardless of where the Celts (f'r instance) actually lived and followed their highly developed material culture, or how much of that 'non-western' culture influenced the development of 'westernism'. But hey, don't believe me- ask Herodotus, who often attributes much of greek culture and science with oriental origins. And he was born in Turkey.

Let's not make a hyperbolic argument shall we? Herodotus doesn't attribute "much of greek culture and science" to oriental origins. He says the Babylonians had an astrolabe. The facts are that some of Eratosthenes' calculations were an improvement over old Babylonian observations. Herodotus doesn't say the drama came from the orient, it came from Aeschylus. He doesn't say history came from the orient; it came from Hellanicus. He doesn't say poetry came from the orient; it came from Homer. He doesn't say the Greek polis came from the orient; he says how the Greek polis defeated the orient. As you can see, I am no dolt; please produce a more intellectually sound response in the future, especially since I have not attacked you even once. As you might know, that is called ad hominem and is a logical fallacy, recommended for avoidance in the future.

(does he even know who Abu Musa Jabir or Ibn Rushd or al-Farabi or Ibn Sina were?)

Great men.

Gaah. Trying to keep calm. Trying not to resort to adhominem attacks.

I hope so.

[tk-421]

I know. But do you see where I'm coming from, overall? I too don't desire slathering cavemen. But my stand is, if people don't know about one of the people, it's better they don't know about the Germanics than about the Romans. Even if I don't want Germanics to be misrepresented, I prefer Germanics turned into cavemen than Romans turned into cavemen. Don't you see?

What are the specific things that you object to in EB's portrayal of of the Romans? How exactly have they been made into "cavemen"?

[The Persian Cataphract]

Right we're not talking about a language people just inherited or developed by inertia. I'm talking about a rational, conscious, explicit formalization of a language, which explicitly specifies grammar rules, morphology, derivations, syntax, precisely what the Roman and Greek grammarians were doing. They had an explicit grammar, not something Semites or Celts did. Even if there's a Semitic example, it's more than likely Hellenistic, with Semites learning from the Greek example, just like Egyptians learned from them how to write history in the person of Manetho. But the point is that Greece and Rome were the fountainheads of these ideas, the greatest exemplars.

*cough*Pâzhênd movement in Sassanian Êrânshahr*cough*

The Middle Persian language clearly has an explicit formalization:



“May you be immortal, these wines are all good and fine, the wine of Transoxania, when they prepare it well, the wine of Herat, the wine of Marw-Rud, the wine of Bust and the must of Hulwan, but no wine can ever compare with the Babylonian wine and the must of Bazrang.”

Taken from the fragment of "Xusrov i Kavatan ut Retak"

For an even earlier example to prove that the Middle Persian developed independently, here is an excerpt from the Gâthâ of Zardûsht:



"When, Wise One (Mazda), shall men desist from murdering?
when shall they fear the folly of that intoxicating drink (i.e., Haoma),
through the effects of which the Karpans (mumbling priests),
as well as the evil rulers of the lands torture our (good) intentions in an evil way?"

Additionally, here is a fragmented inventory dated Sassanian:



Here's a gift from me; A transliterated version of the Kârnâmag-î Ardeshîr-î Pâpakân for your reading pleasure:

http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/...rs/kap/kap.htm

The Bundâhîshn is equally a work of educational nature. If all these implications are not enough to put to death a Classicistic perception of allegedly "formalized" concepts (All of which ring true for Graeco-Romans but by no means in an exclusive nature) then quite frankly I do not know what does. All I know is that I've spent months trying to learn Pahlavî and by the gods I can safely conclude that it is the very basis of a number of Iranian languages spoken today.

Here you may read of the Pâzhênd movement that was intended to "cleanse" the language from foreign elements and updating the Pahlavî-Aramaic script:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pazend

That takes a great understanding of the language. I would expect no less from a civilization that dedicated an entire caste to secretaries and scribes.

[SigniferOne]

What are the specific things that you object to in EB's portrayal of of the Romans? How exactly have they been made into "cavemen"?

Post. Can he be expected to participate in a Roman faction and infuse into it all of the respect and admiration that, say, Petrarch would? Even if the sub-team might spend a lot of time researching cognomens, or making a sophisticated trait system of ethnicity. See my reference to Nazi Germany and somebody spending compendious amounts of time to research the Waffen SS and the Hitlerjungend. This person then continues with another post of brilliance: click.

He doesn't even know what the Circus Maximus is.

I refrained from pointing specific people out and making it personal to somebody, but you asked, and your sig seems to say you're in EB.



Persian Cataphract, thank you for an informative and reserved post. Allow me to take some time to read what you'd posted and get back to you. For now, let me just say that the explicit formalization of grammar I had in mind was different from what you'd posted. I had in mind something like Varro's Lingua Latina:

twenty-five books in three parts: etymology of Latin words (books 1–7); their inflexions and other changes (books 8–13); and syntax (books 14–25). [...] section (books 4–6) which applied etymology to words of time and place and to poetic expressions; the section (books 7–9) on analogy as it occurs in word formation; and the section (books 10–12) which applied analogy to word derivation.

[Foot]

This is an incredibly interesting debate, I really have enjoyed. Not that I have the wealth of knowledge that many of the other posters here have demonstrated, still I would like to make a small number of points concerning various statements made throughout this thread.

Firstly, SigniferOne, if I may be so bold as to dissect your tapestry of arguments into smaller portions and pick one, you seem to make the claim that the political, philosophical and aesthetic cultures of the "West" are mostly (and I only say mostly, because one can never say entirely) derived from the works of Roman and Greek authors and thinkers. Well for the most part I agree with you, yet your statement is hardly outstanding or particularly astute. Roman law and society continued through the Early Church, which was itself a cross between Greek, Iranian and Semitic traditions (as far as I understand it) - whether the great leaps in thought were made in one place or the other, the Early Church certainly had this ancestry. This entire state of affairs is hardly surprising given the supremity of the Roman Empire in the West and that the Roman Church was ... Roman. The complete suppression of other cultures (for the most part successful, though there were and still are pockets of resistance) within Christendom demanded that only Christianity, with its ancestery of thought, was practised.

This is where I conceptually run into problems with your argument, as put here:

Incidentally, this is a pattern for my response to your post: you listed a number of things which existed, in principle, elsewhere; it's just that the Greeks and Romans took these to the highest extreme possible; that's why we call them the Classical culture, they're the epitome of those good values. Plus, some things you omitted challenging because they could not be found in other countries in any form. That is what forms the essence of the modern West, don't you see? All these classical values. That is why I'm writing all this.

The reason we call them the Classical culture is, I would argue, far more closely related to the fact that, not only was our collective historical conciousness (which is a really bad way of putting things) born of this culture, but to be quite honest it was the only culture of that age that the West had any knowledge of (enough to disseminate and interpret their ideas and ideals). The entire library of all discovered works by every other culture in this period, pales in comparison to the collected works of the Greek and Roman cultures. When we first discussed and evaluated the ancient world we were hardly looking at it with the objectivity so praised by the later enlightenment project. Even now we fight against a tide of roman and greek finds to unearth one coin of another culture from this period. I feel that your approach to history is marred by past evaluations, rather than giving full concious effort to removing the prejudices of 2000 years (and these are prejudices, our intellectual upbringing could be nothing but given the history of Christianity against foreign thought).

But that's hardly a fantastic point, and no doubt there shall be counter-argument after counter-argument in defence of your own thought.

However, what I do find rather disturbing is your use of a false dilemma (among other things) in your argument. Namely:

I know. But do you see where I'm coming from, overall? I too don't desire slathering cavemen. But my stand is, if people don't know about one of the people, it's better they don't know about the Germanics than about the Romans. Even if I don't want Germanics to be misrepresented, I prefer Germanics turned into cavemen than Romans turned into cavemen. Don't you see? Because Romans had much more to teach the West than Brennus or Ariovistus did. And that's what this is all about, the continuity of a common Western culture in the West, when education about common classical facts is falling apart at the seams, and highly intelligent mods like EB are instead teaching people about true facts of Germanics and Celts. The priorities are inverted, see? People in EB are like, "oh someone else will teach them about Greece and Rome", while no one else does; and the very leaders of Roman faction in EB believe their own faction to have little good to teach anyway.

In this section you continually state that it is better to know about the Romans than about the Germans (excuse my awful use of the word German to refer to people existing before a German state). I don't think you make it explicit, but I would argue that it is implicit in your argument here, that we can have either the Romans represented properly or the Germans represented properly, but not both.

Furthermore, in the same section quoted above you attack our presentation of the Romans and Greeks as not teaching anything about these two cultures. Well certainly our focus is not on any one people or faction, but I can tell you for a fact that the Roman and Hellenic factions have more active members and more EB space (equally text and resources etc) individually than any other faction.

In a final addition you seem to imply that we are indeed representing false facts about the Roman and Greek cultures, possibly in an attempt to "big up" the "barbarian" factions. If you want to argue individual facts about Roman and Greek factions within this time period, I'm sure we will only be too happy to discuss (as long as you don't ask about lorica segmentata). But just because your intepretative faculties, impressed as they are with a certain philosophical view, have evaluated the Romans and Greeks in a certain way, does not make our own facts about them false.

Finally, we are making a game about history in its many myriad forms, we are not trying to teach the intellectual, moral and aesthetic history of western culture.

Foot

[keravnos]

OK, signifier, let me say this LOUD AND CLEAR...

We at EB, however proud we may be of certain qualities of the factions we each are trying to make in as realistic way as we can...

We have NO illusions. We don't consider them divinely "touched", and we certainly wouldn't like to make them all-dominating, even if they did dominate all.

Had Alexander the Great died in battle either up to or in Gaugamela would any of the Hellenistic factions exist? Nope.

Had Caesar or a great many of the Romani not done anything significant wouldn't the Republic still reign supreme? Quite possibly. I am not the one to diminish such men but what the man you are trying to belittle is saying, is that the Romani by having such organisation, ruggedness, bloodiness and just picking up the pieces of the others' infighting, they became lords and masters of their empire.

I for one AM MUCH MORE IN FAVOR of someone who doesn't portray the Romani as SUPERMEN, but as a people who despite their many, many faults, PREVAILED. This is what happened in history, this is what happens here, or at least this is what we try to portray.

[dezzerx]

OK, signifier, let me say this LOUD AND CLEAR...

We at EB, however proud we may be of certain qualities of the factions we each are trying to make in as realistic way as we can...

We have NO illusions. We don't consider them divinely "touched", and we certainly wouldn't like to make them all-dominating, even if they did dominate all.

Had Alexander the Great died in battle either up to or in Gaugamela would any of the Hellenistic factions exist? Nope.

Had Caesar or a great many of the Romani not done anything significant wouldn't the Republic still reign supreme? Quite possibly. I am not the one to diminish such men but what the man you are trying to belittle is saying, is that the Romani by having such organisation, bloodiness and just picking up the pieces of the others' infighting, they became lords and masters of their empire.

I for one AM MUCH MORE IN FAVOR of someone who doesn't portray the Romani as SUPERMEN, but as a people who despite their many, many faults, PREVAILED. This is what happened in history, this is what happens here, or at least this is what we try to portray.

With fear of coming off as a fanboy of sort I must say, Well Spoken!

[The Persian Cataphract]

Persian Cataphract, thank you for an informative and reserved post. Allow me to take some time to read what you'd posted and get back to you. For now, let me just say that the explicit formalization of grammar I had in mind was different from what you'd posted. I had in mind something like Varro's Lingua Latina:

Only my pleasure.

You will however not find any written corpus that has sustained from Sassanian, let alone Parthian era that extensively deals with grammar, or any other extensive analysis of the language. However implications are many that speak for such enterprises (With intended plural emphasis). The aforementioned Pâzhênd-movement must have required a significant corpus of literati, and a great understandinging of many different languages in order to "filter" foreign elements and to deliberately "Iranicize" the language. In fact beyond how easily we are able to track the development of the Iranian core language in the four great dynasties of the Iranian empires, our most important factor to how the scribe culture of Ancient Iran had a lasting legacy is perhaps not surprisingly the Shâhnâmêh or the national epic of Iran, written by Ferdôwsî of Tûs.

This was during an age where Iran had endured a huge cultural calamity directly caused by the Islamic onslaught; Oral tradition remained strong enough and fragments must have been plentiful for Ferdôwsî had a special endeavour with his magnum opus: To restore the Iranian language and to cleanse it from Arabic elements, a goal he accomplished with honours. In fact, it is not audacious to even claim that the Shâhnâmê is the very incarnation of the basis behind the modern Persian language spoken today. This is what we call the Pârsî language. Today Iranians do not quite speak it, the language has declined lately by having a disproportionate ratio of Arabic loanwords, however it is clear that the entire grammar-system finds inspiration from the narrative of the Shâhnâmêh. That work alone has a macro-historical importance to everything that pertains to Iranian languages, and without it Iranians may verily well have been stuck with the language of the occupying force and creed.

So I ask you to have these factors in mind; Just because no corpus of literati specifically dedicated to grammar has survived, does not necessarily mean that a culture that bolstered science, the arts and clearly through caste-dedication, written works had no system or lingual frame-work. Clearly, with all indications and historical factors, we'd normally conclude the contrary, and at the same time assess the gravity of damage caused to Iranian culture by the hands of certain transgressor. We speak of a language with more than 800 years of prolific usage. Without any written basis, maintaining a language of such size (In all possible meanings and definitions) for a single century is a challenge; Transition between Parthians and Sassanians was relatively smooth. The answer? Your initial postulate seems unlikely, mildly put.

[tk-421]

Post. Can he be expected to participate in a Roman faction and infuse into it all of the respect and admiration that, say, Petrarch would? Even if the sub-team might spend a lot of time researching cognomens, or making a sophisticated trait system of ethnicity. See my reference to Nazi Germany and somebody spending compendious amounts of time to research the Waffen SS and the Hitlerjungend. This person then continues with another post of brilliance: click.

You have already made clear that you disagree with the opinions of some of our members. But what exactly do you find wrong with their depiction in game? Which descriptions are historically incorrect? What traits and ethnicities are wrong? What's wrong with their UIs and and artwork etc? If you don't have specific examples of what is wrong with their portrayal in game, then basically what it seems like you are saying (even if you are not) is "EB depicts the Romans accuarately, but because I disagree with some developers' opinions of rather abstract philosophical ideas regarding the value of Roman culture and whatnot, EB is wrong in its depiction of the Romans."

[Shigawire]

Indeed, it is this vagueness which suicides your argument SigniferOne. You need to point to something in particular. For example, you still haven't pointed out to me personally what I said that was "anti-Western."
I'd be curious to know.

[Zaknafien]

I take alot of pride and happiness from my ability to teach people about Rome from my work in EB. I take offense to your statements, Signifer. The Roman faction workgroup is probably the most active of all our factions on the internal boards, and you can ask any EB member about how often I pester them with new ideas and features for the Roman faction.

[oudysseos]

SigniferOne, I regret the confrontational tone of my posts. I get carried away.

I was reacting to what I found to be serious errors of fact, arising, as I presumed, from willfull ignorance. I should not have been so quick to call you an eejit. I apologise.
I still find your argument to be founded on false premises, poor reasoning and serious errors of fact, but the biggest problem is that you explicitly accuse the EB project of being anti-western, yet have still to give one concrete example how the mod itself functions in that way.
I don't mean posts from Happy Cannae Day (say the last 2 words together quickly, eh?) as many of these come from people who are not members of the mod team. Are the devs responsible for the opinions of the people playing the mod? How, precisely and exactly, is the mod itself anti-roman or anti-greek?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Let's not make a hyperbolic argument shall we? Herodotus doesn't attribute "much of greek culture and science" to oriental origins. He says the Babylonians had an astrolabe. The facts are that some of Eratosthenes' calculations were an improvement over old Babylonian observations. Herodotus doesn't say the drama came from the orient, it came from Aeschylus. He doesn't say history came from the orient; it came from Hellanicus. He doesn't say poetry came from the orient; it came from Homer. He doesn't say the Greek polis came from the orient; he says how the Greek polis defeated the orient. As you can see, I am no dolt; please produce a more intellectually sound response in the future, especially since I have not attacked you even once. As you might know, that is called ad hominem and is a logical fallacy, recommended for avoidance in the future.

Hyperbolic? Hmm, might have to look it up for you but if anything becomes clear from Herodotos then it is his acknowledgement of foreign development - he even explains why in his opinion the Greeks had copied their entire Pantheon from Egytian examples. That is a rather large chunk of culture.

Also he specifically mentions the handles on shields being a foreign invention, IIRC a Lydian one to be precise. Also he attributes astrology & astronomy to Babylonians. IIRC he claims that they were the first to accurately measure time and date, and to incorporate it all into calendars.

While he certainly doesn't claim that all science comes from Greece, he certainly gives his audience the impression that Greek science is to a large extent based on "Barbarian" science. A rather audacious move, given the recently acquired bad blood between Greeks & Not-Greeks.

It is equally true, however, that in his vision other peoples often copied Greek inventions / designs and did some further thinkering with them.

As for history: according to Herodotos you best sources would be the local priesthood. He certainly doesn't claim that Hellenikos invented any such thing - anyone with even the slightest amount of education would've known better than that. Temples and Courts, that is where they expected to find sources on history.

Based on your last remark I think you either know jack of Herodotos' Historia or have a woefully wrong conception of the content of the books. He himself explicitly state what he is going to describe in his book in just one sentence - the very first one he makes.

Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δι᾽ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι.

Quick, raw translation:

[This is] the record of the research by Herodotos from Halikarnassos, in order that the [following] events [will] not become forgotten among people[s] because of [passing] time, and that the great and wonderous deeds perfomed among Greeks [on one side] and among Barbarians [on the other side] [will] not become unknown of either and especially the reasons why they [have] waged war against eachother.

Now one simply can't summarise his work any better than that. For those three topics are precisely the thing he discusses. He doesn't describe "how the Greeks won, and the Persians lost" - in fact that is how he describes the rise to power of Persia. "How did the Persians win, and how did everyone else lose." Read his 'chapter' on the war between Kyros and Kroissos for example, or read about the sieges of Babylon by the Persians.

Quite frankly you may point out that oudysseos isn't correct - eventhough one could have quite an argument over that statement - but you, yourself SigniferOne show an even more worrisome lack of knowledge of what you're talking about. (And with that I mean Herodotos' "Historia")

[oudysseos]

Although I was willing to admit that I was a little quick off the draw, attitude wise, with Signifer, and also guilty of a (very) little hyperbole in relation to the influence of Persian/Arabic/Moorish scholars on the renaissance, I am pretty confident that Herodotus was very candid about the many cultural, religious and scientific debts that the Greeks of his day thought they owed to others. Whether or not he was actually right is another issue. Here's a few quotes.

Book 2 ca. line 109

...This was the way in which geometry was invented, and passed afterwards into Greece- for knowledge of the sundial and the gnomon and the twelve divisions of the day came into Greece from Babylon

Book 2 ca. line 58

It was the Egyptians too who originated, and taught the Greeks to use ceremonial meetings, processions, and processional offerings.

Book 2 ca. line 49

Melampus, in my view, was an able man who acquired the art of divination and brought into Greece, with little change, a number of things which he had learned in Egypt... The names of nearly all the gods came to Greece from Egypt...

There's lots more but I think ye get my drift. Herodotus is not the only weak link in Signifer's chain so I don't want to spend all night on just that.


Not that I or Herodotus or anyone reasonable would ever claim that "The Greeks" (a worrisome generalization as it is) didn't develop and advance some of scientific and/or cultural memes (you might want to look up memes- but it's not an order) that they thought were good and useful, just as al-Kwarizmi, ibn Rushd and ibn Sina did, and just as the renaissance translators and scholars did, and just as we (at least, scientists and academics- I'm just a chef and parttime musician) do today.
That, in my view, is what makes it so silly to try and set 'westernism' apart based on characteristics with multiple contributions from many sources. Science is the child of many parents, and not exclusively western ones, and the same applies to medicine, architecture, engineering, sculpture, grammar, oratory, ethics, and everything else.
Why is so important to you to claim these things solely for the west? The achievements of Greece and Rome are substantial enough without this kind of thing, and an attempt (such as EB) to make people aware of the cultures of the non-Roman contemporaries of Scipio in no way detracts from Graeco-Roman preeminence at the time. Nothing can, as it's all history and has already happened.

The shelves of Waterstones are filled with popular books on Greece and Rome- more than a single person could reasonably ever expect to read. What do you care if there's one or two on the Persians? How is anyone harmed?

Finally, I intend to put my thoughts together in relation to your statements about music and painting, as I find them quite disturbing.
But I have to ask, isn't calling polytonal music 'The supreme achievement' a purely subjective expression of your musical tastes? Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, Copland, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrnae might disagree with you. Oh, and by the way, 'polytonality' is the use of more than one key simultaneously, and is not particularly common, so that's probably not exactly what you meant. You probably meant polyphony. It may sound pedantic, but if you're a musician (I am, semi-professionally) that's a pretty big mistake to make.

Gotta go. The kids wanna play EB, not talk about it.

[geala]

After reading the thread and the related threads it still remains a mystery to me what should be changed in EB. I would be with you if you would want to change some Greek units but in the whole I am stumped. Because this feeling of helplessness I allow myself a not so systematic approach in the following thoughts.

It also remains a mystery why you are insulted when the feats of other cultures are mentioned. The Romans themselves were always able and willing to take from other cultures. They took a lot from the Greeks who took a lot from the east. For example the Roman law is influenced by the Rhodian law. They took from the western "barbarians" also, f.e. agrarian machines or iron working etc..

I question myself what western culture you want to defend? The current one? If you name the Germanic culture anti-western, what western culture is in your mind? Of course the Germanic culture is anti-western if the modern western system is your focus. But the Roman culture in this sense is also anti-western in many aspects. Think of the human rights for example. Is it allowed to the EB team to mention gladiatorical games? Should they mention that the broad introduction of Roman law in the 13th c. AD was the starting point for inquisitional inquiries and torture also? Together of course with the ability to judge more complicated cases and to serve the growing power of the state.

In my opinion the most important Roman heritage to the western world is the idea of a state ruled by a law made by specialists. That is a rather boring fact, but with many surprising aftereffects. Many other aspects came from a Greek, Christian and Jewish (so eastern) tradition. Wether they were (late) Roman or not is debatable. And after the fall of the empire a lot of new "barbarian" influences were added to the western culture. Otherwise try to explain the quite different evolution of the areas once in the Roman empire.

[oudysseos]

To me, the most important defining feature of western culture is the corpus of literature, art and music, sometimes called the Canon, or the Great Books. Mostly Dead White Guys, I'm afraid.
Of course, other cultures have their own collections of lit, so it's not the existence of literature in general that define the west, but this specific example.
Every culture, by definition, has social norms, ethical values and traditional customs that differentiate it from others. This is hardly surprising. But it's a bit weird to claim that grammar (just for one example) is a unique contribution of Graeco-Roman culture to human history. A brief study of Sanskrit knocks that one on the head- the Greeks neither invented grammar nor were its greatest exemplars (although we use their word for it).
But of course Greek/Roman grammar had great influence on the world's second most successful language, the otherwise largely germanic English. And the Roman alphabet (though totally semitic in origin) is probably the world's most prevalent (tho I don't have any figures to back this up). Of course the reasons why these things are true are seriously open to debate and might not be anything to be proud of.

[mcantu]

After reading the thread and the related threads it still remains a mystery to me what should be changed in EB. I would be with you if you would want to change some Greek units but in the whole I am stumped. Because this feeling of helplessness I allow myself a not so systematic approach in the following thoughts.

If I take his comments correctly, he is not saying there is a problem with EB's representation of the Romans in the game...he is criticizing what he feels are dismissive comments by EB team members (some the Romanii team) towards the Romans, IMO

[The Celt]

If I take his comments correctly, he is not saying there is a problem with EB's representation of the Romans in the game...he is criticizing what he feels are dismissive comments by EB team members (some the Romanii team) towards the Romans, IMO

That and he doesn't like the fact that the Celtic and Germanic cultures(Awell as the Nomads, Iberians and the Getai)are being treated like actual human cultures rather than Roman inspired "Drooling Cavemen Whose Women We Are Free To Take". He even states that he'd prefer these so-called "Barbarians" be depicted as they are in Vanilla RTW then have the Romani get a similar treatment.(Which nobody sofar in the EB Team has made any sign of wanting to do!)

So sorry the Celts aren't the cowering mass of wussies you enjoyed slaughtering so much in RTW Siggy. This isn't the first time you've made outrageous claims on the Romans. And to you I say what I said to you at TWC:
IT IS JUST A BLOODY VIDEO GAME!
So what is so wrong about how EB and other mods depict the Gauls, Sweboz, Lusotanann, Getai, Casse, Gaels, and whatnot? What is it about how they show these peoples that upsets you? Since apparently there is nothing wrong with the Romans ATM. Or was it how they are discussed by the members of these boards that gets you riled up? Well sorry dude we ain't your Mommy we aren't gonna censor what we say so you can be happy and content. Also, like I said, were talking about a video game in the end here.
It's meant for entertainment rather than education.(Though EB does tend to do that on the side thankfully)And even then if you've got a problem with the fact that other people have different views then you do, then guess what? Your not going to believe this! But Everybody has a right to their opinion. Now, knowing you Siggy, you'll probably tell me that said opinions concerning Celts and Germans are wrong and should be stamped out of known memory. Well sure, fine, whatever, but don't expect all those archaeologists breaking their backs to prove the opposite to stand by you in your holy crusade for "Western Culture".

And lastly. If your going to get so worked up over how a bunch of guys you don't even know personally, depict cultures from way back when in a video game. Then I suggest you go see a bloody therapist.(Though make sure you see the right one. I can safely say that some of them might make your current "condition" worse. ) Because like I said, there isn't anything you can do about it.

That is all I'm gonna say in this topic. Flame me as you will. But I won't respond at all. As I have other things to do with my very precious time on this great green earth. Like you know, School, life, playing EB( ). See ya'll later.

Oh and one last thing "Quisque Est Barbarus Alio"

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

That was overly aggressive...

And watch the language.

[The Celt]

That was overly aggressive...

And watch the language.

*sigh* Alright, I may have gone of the handle with my phrasing. I'll edit it. But if you think that was "overly aggressive" well, to each their own.

[Rundownloser]

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news...ument-lose.php

[The Persian Cataphract]

When we thought the discussion was standing still, we find subjective absurdities such as this.

Well look, we're not comparing Rome to China, since that's not the context for this thread or for the mod. Heck we're not even comparing it to Armenia or Persia, though it could easily sustain that comparison.

Explain this. "Persia" as a whole, or more accurately the Greater Iran may not have had the great impact on general European culture like the Graeco-Romans, indeed, no man claims the contrary lest he be a fool. Nor do any of us in the team propagate for cultural relativism, but I'd say that given the miraculous survival of unsupported barrel vaults, the revolutionary application of a dome and other architectural feats, including giant citadels, circumvallation and castles of such impressive architectural qualities as the Dêzhbâr and the Arg-î Bam, the Hyrcanian defensive wall, and the peculiar Parthian battery... You must be joking me if you think Rome could "easily sustain comparison" with Persia. Even in spite of Islamic and Classicist attempts of downplaying the achievements and culture of Êrânshahr as an age and area of ignorants and barbarians, you will lose. Trajan's attempt at conquering Parthia is nothing compared to the crisis of the Byzantine empire when Shahrbarâz and Shâhîn of the Sûrên-Pahlavân had made themselves comfortable enough to sit firmly in Chalcedon, reaching as far as the backyard of Carthage. My enemies will not only lose, but their schools of thought will be crushed, and I will make sure of it.

I have not assumed the title Marzbân-î Jundîshâpûr for the sake of my own amusement.