Can the Roman Empire and the United States be compared through literature?

[Astronuc]

It seems to me that SW VandeCarr was making the point that the Romans (of the Roman empire) knew of China. The following supports that.

Numerous Han envoys were sent west, some parties exceeding 100 members. The Han Dynasty sent one mission to Parthia, which was reciprocated at around 100 BC: Roman emissaries were captured by the Chinese in 30 BC along the Silk Road at Yongchang. Later a Chinese envoy reached the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar, who reigned between 27 BC and 14 AD; (Florus, 25 BC) Several Roman ambassadors reached China after 166 AD.

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=18006 I'm looking forward to cross-referencing with other sources, e.g. Florus (c. 25 BC) ‘'Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum omnium annorum DCC Libri duo'', Loeb Classical Library (no. 231, published in translation 1984, ISBN 0-674-99254-7)

Then there is this:

Soon after the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, regular communications and trade between India, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, China, the Middle East, Africa and Europe blossomed on an unprecedented scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road#The_Roman_Empire
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Transasia_trade_routes_1stC_CE_gr2.png

The Romans were perhaps most concerned with Europe and those regions immediately on the borders. The Danube River seemed to form an natural border.

The Romans certainly knew of other tribes outside of the territory they ruled. They did not venture to Sarmatia or Scythia.

By the first century BC, Sarmatians came into direct contact with Rome through Mithridates VI of Pontus. In the employ of the Pontic King, the Sarmatians ran helped bring Asia Minor under his rule, and likely wreaking havoc in Greece and the Balkans, at the expense of Rome. These alliances would eventually be crushed by Pompey and by Caesar in the mid 1st century BC, but the Sarmatians would continue to be a threat to Rome for another several centuries. External pressures from marauding Huns and other eastern people pushed the Sarmatians farther west. The Iazyges, certainly the most commonly known tribe to the Romans, settled along the Danube, between Dacia and Pannonia, soon to be in direct conflict with Rome.

Initially, the Iazyges were cautiously welcomed by the Romans, as they caused problems for tribes in Dacia, but eventually they would ally against the common foe. The Roxolani, another Sarmatian tribe, had settled the region and joined with their cousins as well. By the early 2nd century AD, the Emperor Trajan led a massive campaign to conquer Dacia, and between 102 and 106 AD, he brought this region and these tribes under Roman rule. Just a generation later, under Hadrian, it was deemed more advantageous to allow the nomadic horsemen their freedom, though Dacia itself was kept under Roman dominion. . . .

http://www.unrv.com/provinces/sarmatia.php
http://www.unrv.com/roman-empire-map.php
Dacia was as far east as the Roman Empire pushed on the Eurasian continent north of Black Sea (Pontus Euxinus), with the exception of what is now Crimea. South of the Black Sea, Rome pushed out to Armenia and Mesopotamia.
http://www.unrv.com/provinces/pontus.php
http://www.livius.org/sao-sd/sarmatians/sarmatians.html
The Alamanni and Rome 213-496 (Caracalla to Clovis)

Another useful reference Rome and the Enemy By Susan P. Mattern

Mattern may be a good reference on Roman History - http://www.uga.edu/history/_cvs/CVMattern.pdf

The study of the Silk Road and its history is rather compelling. It's complementary to my studies of Central Asian and Chinese Histories, which of particular interest to me.

 

[Evo]

No one has questioned if the Romans knew of China, but SW keeps bringing it up as if someone questioned it. I think his rationale is that if the Romans knew of their existence, then they couldn't have conquered most of the "known world". Thank you arildno, for an excellent explanation.

 

[Astronuc]

No one has questioned if the Romans knew of the Hans, but SW keeps bringing it up as if someone questioned it.

I believe SW was responding to tt's comment

I'm confused … since Rome ruled most of the known world …


who was it in debt to?

Then question becomes, what did the Romans know about the rest of the world, and did they know that the world outside their borders was much larger? Perhaps even the most learned scholars could not comprehend the world being much larger than the territory they controlled.

They apparently knew of the Sarmatians, Scythians, Parthian, Indians, Hans (beyond the Scythians and Partians), as well as tribes beyond N. Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_trade_with_India
http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/periplus/periplus.html

Roman coins from the 1st, 2nd and 5th cent CE have apparently been found in India.

I do agree that claims of fact should be supported by references/citations, especially since the thread is about books about the Roman Empire, or at least the title is. The OP seems to go off on a tangent, or skew, about parallels between the indebtedness of the Roman Empire and the US. That seems to be a whole other matter.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Because you can only be in debt to what you regard as the known world.

It was the premise to your question that I was objecting to.

To everyone else who commented, thanks. I was feeling a lonely for a while. I have a Japanese friend who is a long term student of Western history. She even took two years of Latin so she could read Roman authors, particularly Tacitus. She's always telling me about the arrogance displayed by Western authors of Roman history and history in general, especially in older works. She likes to say "No one has ever conquered Japan." Because I want to remain friends with her, I don't argue the point.

 

[tiny-tim]

It was the premise to your question that I was objecting to.

I stand by my premise …

… since Rome ruled most of the known world …

… I do not accept that the fact that Rome knows that there is "something out there" means that Rome knows it.

Is the Oort cloud part of the known world? Was the far side of the moon part of the known world before anyone had even seen it? Was Mars part of the known world before Voyager (or was it Enterprise? ) visited it and started to map it?

Socrates (Roman ambassador to the court of Alexander the Small, ruler of Asia Minor) said something like "Who is wise? Only he who is aware of his own ignorance."

Surely wise Romans were well aware that they did not know the Han empire?

And is there any way that Rome could possibly have been in debt to the Han empire?​

 

[SW VandeCarr]

I stand by my premise …



Socrates (Roman ambassador to the court of Alexander the Small, ruler of Asia Minor) said something like "Who is wise? Only he who is aware of his own ignorance."

This looks like something that needs a citation. Evo, where are you?

 

[arildno]

By the way, I have just begun reading Adrian Goldsworthy's "How Rome Fell", and on page 17, he is referring to Rome as ruling "the bulk of the known world".

That is, he, a professional historian, is utilizing that phrase in the conventional European (i.e, Romanocentric) sense.

 

[arildno]

It was the premise to your question that I was objecting to.

To everyone else who commented, thanks. I was feeling a lonely for a while. I have a Japanese friend who is a long term student of Western history. She even took two years of Latin so she could read Roman authors, particularly Tacitus. She's always telling me about the arrogance displayed by Western authors of Roman history and history in general, especially in older works. She likes to say "No one has ever conquered Japan." Because I want to remain friends with her, I don't argue the point.

And for your Japanese friend, wasn't it a teensy bit of national arrogance in Japan??
And in China, the "Middle Kingdom" i.e, the center of the world, isn't that arrogant?


It is NATURAL that large cultures are immensely proud of themselves, what is UN-natural, and even directly false, is to say Western cultures have been the worst in this.


It should be remembered that it is only by looking beyond your navel, and picking up whatever your competitors have made that seems useful to you that you have a real chance to expand.

The Romans, and Europeans have never denied that they have used other people's inventions and technologies; the Romans prided themselves on this point.

This in contrast to some other cultures, for example..JAPAN??

 

[SW VandeCarr]

It is NATURAL that large cultures are immensely proud of themselves, what is UN-natural, and even directly false, is to say Western cultures have been the worst in this.

Of course. But we who post in PF must be above all that. It must be in the rules somewhere.

Seriously, even these sub-forums should be objective and at least questioning statements like "Since Rome ruled the known world...". It's simply not factual by any reasonable interpretation. If you're going say anything along these lines it should be qualified such as "Rome ruled all the world they felt was worthy of them to rule." Even this is not factual since they had designs on Persia. The simple fact is that Rome ruled about as much of the world as it could reasonably hold and defend as a Mediterranean based civilization.

 

[arildno]

Of course. But we who post on PF must be above all that. It must be in the rules somewhere.

Not for Norwegians like myself.

After all, we are the legitimate rulers of Russia, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Sicily, Southern Italy, some enclaves in Turkey and the North American continent.

We are just biding our time to make our claims once more.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Not for Norwegians like myself.

After all, we are the legitimate rulers of Russia, France, Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Sicily, Southern Italy, some enclaves in Turkey and the North American continent.

We are just biding our time to make our claims once more.

I warned tiny-tim about you guys.

 

[arildno]

Of course. But we who post in PF must be above all that. It must be in the rules somewhere.

Seriously, even these sub-forums should be objective and at least questioning statements like "Since Rome ruled the known world...". It's simply not factual by any reasonable interpretation.

And we haven't denied that.

If you're going say anything along these lines it should be qualified such as "Rome ruled all the world they felt was worthy of them to rule." Even this is not factual since they had designs on Persia.

We have said "most of the known world".
Adrian Goldsworthy uses "the bulk of the known world."

Get used to it, it is a linguistic normative convention, not a precise descriptive term, and was never that to the Romans, either.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

And we haven't denied that.

Get used to it, it is a linguistic normative convention, not a precise descriptive term, and was never that to the Romans, either.

I'm not losing any sleep over it, but it's like asking children why they repeat certain things as if they were true, and they answer "Because everybody says so."

 

[arildno]

I'm not losing any sleep over it, but it's like asking children why they repeat certain things as if they were true, and they answer "Because everybody says so."

And this shows that you have totally failed at understanding the whole thing.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

And we haven't denied that.

We have said "most of the known world".
Adrian Goldsworthy uses "the bulk of the known world."

Get used to it, it is a linguistic normative convention, not a precise descriptive term, and was never that to the Romans, either.

"Everybody says so." is a linguistic normative convention too. It's never really "everybody". It's understood in terms of some social or even cultural context. You're not going to convince me that it's really appropriate in any discussion of scientific merit and I'm apparently not going to convince you that it isn't appropriate, or Evo or tiny-tim or perhaps a lot of other people (including the eminent Adrian Goldsworthy). Let's leave it at that and agree to disagree.

 

[Evo]

I believe SW was responding to tt's comment Then question becomes, what did the Romans know about the rest of the world, and did they know that the world outside their borders was much larger? Perhaps even the most learned scholars could not comprehend the world being much larger than the territory they controlled.

If you look at they lands they conquered, it would seem that they did not care about the lands beyond them because they weren't worth conquering, a military campaign would not be effective, or the territory would be too costly to control, not that they weren't aware of them.

 

[arildno]

"Everybody says so." is a linguistic normative convention too. It's never really "everybody". It's understood in terms of some social or even cultural context. You're not going to convince me that it's really appropriate in any discussion of scientific merit and I'm apparently not going to convince you that it isn't appropriate, or Evo or tiny-tim or perhaps a lot of other people (including the eminent Adrian Goldsworthy). Let's leave it at that and agree to disagree.

Ever heard about the "Edict of Milan"?

That was technically neither an edict or issued at Milan, but THE NAME HAS STUCK ANYWAY.

The sciences, and history as well, of course, are replete with namings and definitions at odds with either an ordinary, or technical, meanings.

A puristic frenzy to uproot all such linguistic growths would be both endless and pointless.

 

[tiny-tim]

Hi arildno!

Ever heard about the "Edict of Milan"?

Nooo … but … I've heard of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_of_Worms" . ​

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Ever heard about the "Edict of Milan"?

That was technically neither an edict or issued at Milan, but THE NAME HAS STUCK ANYWAY.

The sciences, and history as well, of course, are replete with namings and definitions at odds with either an ordinary, or technical, meanings.

A puristic frenzy to uproot all such linguistic growths would be both endless and pointless.

I'm not in any kind of frenzy. My reasons are specific. They're stated in post 27.

 

[Evo]

SW, you seem to be interested in chinese history. Why don't you start a thread on that? I think it would make for a good discussion.

 

[Astronuc]

If you look at they lands they conquered, it would seem that they did not care about the lands beyond them because they weren't worth conquering, a military campaign would not be effective, or the territory would be too costly to control, not that they weren't aware of them.

This quite true. The Romans generally stayed around the Mediterranean, or coastal areas.

Rome went as far east as it could. They were pretty much stopped by the Germanic tribes in the north, by the Sarmatians and Scythians north of the Black Sea, by the Parthians in Mesopotamia, and probably by the Sahara desert in the south.

The Romans and Parthians fought a series of wars beginning with Crassus' invasion in 52-53 BC and ending with Macrinus' ignominious defeat and retreat in 217 AD. . . . .

http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/numismatics/parthia/frames/romvspar.htm

According Strabo's Geographica and later, Pliner the Elder's The Natural History, the Roman's knew quite a lot about the lands east of the Black Sea and Mesopotamia, and apparently as far east as Bactria or basically the mountainous western border of China. They traded with India.

It appears that the Sarmatians, Scythians and Parthians were too much for Rome to conquer. The descendants of these tribes eventually rolled over the Roman and Byzantine empires.

 

[Integral]

I have not read every post in this thread but, there is no doupt that the Romans has a well established trade with China. Read the Wiki article on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road#The_Roman_Empire"

The togas of the wealthy were rewoven from Chinese silk.

Further according to the Buddists, christ traveled the silk road to Tibet as a youth. This According to my verbal source (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS249US249&q=Sonam+Kazi")

 

[SW VandeCarr]

SW, you seem to be interested in chinese history. Why don't you start a thread on that? I think it would make for a good discussion.

I don't claim any expertise in Chinese history, but it would be interesting to compare the Han and Roman empires in the 1st century CE when both states were at or near the height of their power and influence. I'm kind of spread out right now, but I'll give it some thought. Thanks.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Further according to the Buddists, christ traveled the silk road to Tibet as a youth. This According to my verbal source (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS249US249&q=Sonam+Kazi")

What's Sonam Kazi's source for THAT? It's difficult enough to even establish the existence of a historical Jesus Christ, let alone that he traveled to TIBET!

EDIT: I may have seemed harsh, but I take the search for the historical Jesus seriously, not for religious reasons, but because of the influence of Christianity on the subsequent course of Western history, which was enormous. The issue is how much of Jesus is Jesus and how much is a mythic creation of those who followed him? The Gospels first appeared some 40-60 years after he was supposed to have died. There's almost no contemporary documentation of his life. Did Jesus really give the Sermon on the Mount? Who took notes? Even religious Christians agree Jesus never wrote anything down. Was he able to write? It wasn't that common then. Most scribes wrote in Greek, not Aramaic. I believe it's more likely than not that Jesus lived and that basic facts of his life (not the miracles or resurrection) as related in Matthew and Mark are probably historically valid, but outside the Gospels and the epistles, there's almost nothing to go on.

When you relate the Buddhist tradition that Jesus visited Tibet, it makes the historical person less real, more mythical and supernatural. It becomes more difficult to separate the search for the historical man from the myth, and religious faith from scientific knowledge. From that point of view, I don't I think that belongs in PF, if for no other reason than that a discussion of the historical Jesus in PF is more likely to be challenged as unacceptable under the rules.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

 

[Integral]

What's Sonam Kazi's source for THAT? It's difficult enough to even establish the existence of a historical Jesus Christ, let alone that he traveled to TIBET!

EDIT: I may have seemed harsh, but I take the search for the historical Jesus seriously, not for religious reasons, but because of the influence of Christianity on the subsequent course of Western history, which was enormous. The issue is how much of Jesus is Jesus and how much is a mythic creation of those who followed him? The Gospels first appeared some 40-60 years after he was supposed to have died. There's almost no contemporary documentation of his life. Did Jesus really give the Sermon on the Mount? Who took notes? Even religious Christians agree Jesus never wrote anything down. Was he able to write? It wasn't that common then. Most scribes wrote in Greek, not Aramaic. I believe it's more likely than not that Jesus lived and that basic facts of his life (not the miracles or resurrection) as related in Matthew and Mark are probably historically valid, but outside the Gospels and the epistles, there's almost nothing to go on.

When you relate the Buddhist tradition that Jesus visited Tibet, it makes the historical person less real, more mythical and supernatural. It becomes more difficult to separate the search for the historical man from the myth, and religious faith from scientific knowledge. From that point of view, I don't I think that belongs in PF, if for no other reason than that a discussion of the historical Jesus in PF is more likely to be challenged as unacceptable under the rules.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

According to Mr. Kazi his name appears in the Buddhist records, of course this is just oral hearsay as far as we are concerned.

Not sure how a trip across the Silk Road makes him any more mystical. The Silk Road was a well established trade route routinely traversed in that era.

The Romans ruled the known world by definition. If they ruled it it was known, outside the empire was not known. They did not stop conquering because they were not interested but rather because they ran into peoples who did not wish to be conquered. They tried and failed to conquer Germany and Scotland, as well as other areas in the Middle East.

 

[Proton Soup]

According to Mr. Kazi his name appears in the Buddhist records, of course this is just oral hearsay as far as we are concerned.

Not sure how a trip across the Silk Road makes him any more mystical. The Silk Road was a well established trade route routinely traversed in that era.

The Romans ruled the known world by definition. If they ruled it it was known, outside the empire was not known. They did not stop conquering because they were not interested but rather because they ran into peoples who did not wish to be conquered. They tried and failed to conquer Germany and Scotland, as well as other areas in the Middle East.

interesting. i didn't know there were other versions of this.

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

not that i have much faith in the tale, but fwiw, from my rather shallow understanding of buddhism, i think there is some overlap on issues like self-denial.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

interesting. i didn't know there were other versions of this.

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

not that i have much faith in the tale, but fwiw, from my rather shallow understanding of buddhism, i think there is some overlap on issues like self-denial.

The issue here is the level of scholarship and historical validity. The site I linked presents material from authors with reputations for a scholarly approach to this difficult, but historically important area of research. There are any number of stories and beliefs about Jesus Christ including the Mormon (LDS) belief that Jesus visited North America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon see Chronology

 

[SW VandeCarr]

The Silk Road was a well established trade route routinely traversed in that era.

Movement of goods along the Silk Road was in stages. Very few people traveled the entire length. This would have been very difficult and dangerous. It took Marco Polo two years to traverse the road in the 13th century CE when the route was much better organized and Mongol power helped insure safety.

http://www.silk-road.com/artl/marcopolo.shtml

 

[Proton Soup]

The issue here is the level of scholarship and historical validity. The site I linked presents material from authors with reputations for a scholarly approach to this difficult, but historically important area of research. There are any number of stories and beliefs about Jesus Christ including the Mormon (LDS) belief that Jesus visited North America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Mormon see Chronology

http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/tibet.html

 

[SW VandeCarr]

http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/tibet.html

Well, this article essentially dismisses the idea of Jesus in Tibet. To say it's possible is virtually meaningless. It's possible that Jesus is a complete fiction or a composite of several individuals. I'd prefer to stick to real history to the extent it's possible. Whatever we might be able to say about the historical Jesus, there is no doubt that Christianity took root in the Roman Empire in the 1st century CE, first as a Jewish sect and eventually as the state religion of Rome by the early 4th century. It would be nice to know how it all began. If Jesus is fictitious, who invented him and why? I personally believe there was such a person.Most scholars agree (see my link: post 55), and an oral tradition developed around his teachings. These traditions were probably committed to written form (the lost Q Gospel?) well before the canonical Gospels appeared. There is always the possibility that the Q Gospel or other written documentation will be found. In any case, I'd prefer any further comments or questions along these lines would focus on historical scholarship rather than ahistorical speculation. I won't respond to the latter.