Novosedoff

Well, I think the topic starter has completely disregarded some of the contemporary trends, even as far as Germany alone is concerned. Germany has experienced a tremendous religious shift in the past century, the number of Protestant followers has dropped below the number of Catholics, although it used to be vice versa even back at the time of Adolf Hitler. The number of non-believers or atheists (who may be not dominant yet in some places, but still quite noticeable in all mentioned countries) has been ignored too. But this all brings about the diffusion and makes European religious history look even more irrelevant especially in the context of other new geographic locations, more abundant in human resources and economic power now. As to the question of the divisions, this aspect must be deeply inherent to the Christianity at the very basic level of its doctrines and beyond the scope of Roman wars. Most of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches seem to follow the dyophysite Chalcedonian type of beliefs, which make Jesus Christ look like that crazy lady Phyllis Church speaking to her Mr Doggie and suffering from mental disorder of multiple personalities 🙂

Are there any sources originally in Latin that have not yet been translated into other modern spoken languages? 🙂

Thanks for sharing this. I do believe that from historical and archeological perspective Turkey is probably the most interesting country in the world. A Russian guy who worked in Turkey made the below map on which he marked the known historical attractions of antiquity/ medieval / natural and modern periods: http://tur.egorl.ru/ There is also the Android version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.egorl.dostur With Google translate function enabled this may give some interesting information for anyone who is planning to pay a visit to Turkey

Well, I totally agree with caldrail. The discourse of the spear just like the discourse of the shroud of Turin seems nothing more but stupid Christian propaganda, pardon my words. What I find risible is that the name of Jesus killer-centurion Longin has become widely popular amongst Russian Orthodox clergy. The story of Longin who in his later life became a devoted Christian himself (perhaps like anybody who had ever had any connection to our all-mighty Lord Jesus) is now inspiring Russian young priesthood to change their last names to look more like Jesus killers. For reference below are a few examples: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longin_von_Klin https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhin_Jar

Right, the story of the short reign of that 16-years old emperor Romulus and his executed father Orestes kinda reminds me a typical cynical Russian joke. A heavily drinking man got sacked from his job, his son asks him: - Are you gonna drink less now, dad? - No, you'll be eating less, son ☺️ PS. I did say nothing about the influence of the Roman institutions on the daily life, which was tremendous beyond any doubt. Although I ain't sure how applicable they were as far as assertion of power is concerned.

Are there any examples of such "peaceful" removal in the whole Roman history (without murdering the removed emperor, which is supposedly meant by word "peaceful")? 🙂 I mean, we may certainly indulge in our imagination for as much as we want, get delusional about what the Roman world was like, but viewing the Roman political system as benign seems a little exaggeration. The very idea of "opposition clubs", even the very idea of independent business corporations were almost hostile to the Roman mentality. There is one Roman religious opposition club, of which we've kept some memories, and that one would have its gatherings in catacombs. Thanks to Rome, we've learnt of such things as "'barrack emperors" and how to counter-balance the powers of legions. Perhaps army is still viewed as the most powerful military club in any modern country, but there is also independent internal police with headcount often exceeding the army's. Even military warehouses are commonly guarded not by the army itself, but by the internal police, at least as far as we consider modern civilized states.

I can't imagine any modern civilized state having 3 or 5 consecutive presidents all murdered in one year, but Romans seemingly were accustomed to that game of power accession, in which their military took the major part. That's why the whole European world still learns at school about "the year of the 4 emperors" - 69 AD, "the year of the 5 emperors" - 193 and even "the year of the 6 emperors" - 238, which signals a little crazy level of violence. I mean, Russia is also a very brutal state with extremely wild history. Out of 24 Russian rulers, starting from Peter the Great and ending by Michael Gorbachev, 42% were overthrown, and half of overthrown actually were murdered. Military did play an important role in that sometimes, especially over the course of 18th century. Nonetheless, in terms of violence and brutality Russia is still out of comparison with Roman world. If I remember correctly, Rodney Stark shared some estimates, according to which only 25% of Roman emperors died by their own death, 75% actually died violently. In the Byzantine empire I think it was a little more mild in terms of numbers, out of 109 Byzantine emperors only 34 died by their own death while occupying the thrones. But such numbers may give wrong impression, especially when one recalls such excesses as when emperor Michael V ordered the castration of all male relatives in his line of succession.

Well, I think we've been over this on the other forum, caldrail 🙂 We may call Constantine whatever we like, but the facts give us a slightly different image The devoted Christian who fed his enemies to wild beasts in the arena (see attached screenshot) The same person who ordered to murder his own son and his own wife the very next year after the 1st Christian council of Nicaea was held. He promoted the Christianity only because he needed an excuse to rob the gold from pagan temples, after which the empty temples would be handed over to Christians

Some sources claim that the plague known as Justinian plague had been around the Byzantine empire for 2.5 centuries (see attached screenshot), it is also believed that the plague had contributed a lot as a factor to the Arab expansion due to the fact that the Arab world was isolated and so intact by the plague. Nonetheless one of Russian researchers recently compiled the time table by using the Arab sources, from which it could be seen that the plague also brought the devastation to the Arab world at least 14 times (sorry, I only have this page in Russian, but I attach it too in case someone would be interested to read)

So does this discovery bring us any closer to the construction of the Third Temple - what would be your guess? 🙂

Well, apparently the Roman empire had not yet been established at the time of Alexander the Great 🙂 However an interesting digression from the original topic would be to ask why Alexander went southward towards India rather than northward through Kashgar to China. There is a junction point in Balkh (Bactria), from where 2 ways lead, one to China and the other one - to India. The active Silk road trade had not yet fully started at the time of Alexander, and for Persians, who advised Alexander, historically India had been a more familiar destination since the time of Aryan migration.

My apologies. Movchan's estimate of Rome's own population in 1st century AD as 1.5 mln people was on the other page.. (see attached). The estimate is supplemented by multiple references to sources in English. I think, the lowest estimate I've seen so far in the literature for the population of Rome in 1st century AD was 400,000 people. The fourfold variance in estimates seems bizarre 🙂

Well, apart from making comparison with the living conditions of slaves in the US, on above screenshot Movchan also presents some estimates, which may seem arguable. Movchan is a non-professional historian, here is his profile: https://carnegie.ru/experts/1057 For instance, his estimate of the population of Rome of up to 1.5 mln in the 1st century AD is apparently way above what Rodney Stark has assigned to Rome circa 100 (see attached page). The other issue is how much slaves comprised in the total Roman population. Katasonov (another Russian not quite historian) provides an estimate of the maximum of 8% for the empire in 1st century AD and says that for Italy peninsula alone the maximum share of slaves had probably reached 25% (screenshot in Russian is attached). But this estimate still collides with Movchan's estimate of up to 40% slaves in Rome and 20% for the empire. Finally, J.P.Toner in his "Popular culture in ancient Rome" confirms the estimate of 15-25% slaves for Italy (screenshot attached)

Well, I ain't the one to blame, I just quoted a few facts from the latter book by Andrew Movchan (the original page in Russian is attached in case there are readers proficient in Russian here). Movchan referred to a few works to support his statements, including [21] William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, 1875 [22] https://ancientimes.blogspot.com/2016/03/roman-slavery-and-rate-of-manumission.html [23] Thmas Wiedemann. The Regularity of Manumission at Rome / The Classical Quaterly, 35 (1), 1985 [24] F.Cowell, Life in Ancient Rome, Russian edition, 2006, p. 255 Hope this helps :)

Precisely. There is a chapter about Constantine in Stephen Williams' book about Diocletian, in which Williams mentions the fact that Constantine rummaged the pagan temples for gold. Because the Roman economy was crumbling with high inflation and years of political struggle between those who succeeded the tetrarchs. So the rise of Christianity was a by-product of the events and emerged rather out of necessity than spiritual devotion, Constantine didn't even mean to make it the dominant religion, it was supposed to be equi-distanced like any other. After all as an emperor Constantine was the highest Roman priest (or Pontifex Maximus) and so had the legal right to intervene and administer any existing religious cults. The myth of Constantine's baptistry on the deathbed is among many other myths of Christianity and perhaps ain't worth any attention. PS It is very difficult to avoid being called "the Great" once a man usurped authority by killing all his rivals.

Well, if we are to compare the status of slaves in ancient Rome VS the status of slaves in the US of 19th century, then I am afraid to say that, but Roman slaves would be better off. Just let me give you a few examples. Teaching Roman slaves to read was very common, whereas in the US of 19th century this would be penalized. The chances of manumitting Roman slaves before they reached the age of 30 are estimated between 10% to 50%, once they had reached the age of 30 the chances of getting freedom would be 50% to 90%. In the US only 0.04% of slaves would be manumitted every year. The maximum of slaves in the US seemingly reached 30% of total workforce in 1820s (see Labor Force and Employment, 1800 - 1960 by Stanley Lebergott), but in ancient Roman this would barely reach 20% (with the exception of Rome itself, where the number of slaves reached up to 40% of population within a period)

If any of you ever happen to visit the Tretyakov Art Gallery in Moscow (which is not far from Kremlin), you may also find interesting to drop in the St Clement's church, which is just about 350m from the the Gallery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Clement's_Church,_Moscow The reason I mention this church is because St. Clement used to be a Roman pope in 1 century AD, but he ended up as a worker in a quarry in Crimea. So apparently Crimea used to be within Roman reach after the Kingdom of Pontus was taken by Romans in 1st century BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_I#Death_and_legends_of_final_days

Hi there, I am a new user from Russia. I've been through rather cumbersome registration here (by some reason, the forum disallows Russian registration emails 🙂), but you may find my posts (under the same name) on worldhistoria and historum, where I no longer participate in discussions due to certain issues with moderation (I ain't blocked there though). Among local posters I seem to know only caldrail. I am not a professional historian, but do have experience in writing on historical subjects. My interests in history are rather broad and include finance, crime, slavery, religions. Looking forward to participating in local discussions.