Some questions about the Roman Empire... (1 Viewer)

[Dennis Nicholls]

Todd, do you like....gladiator movies?

 

[andrew markworthy]

It's a wonderful way to learn *some* of the basic facts (and a lot of the salacious scandal) and it's a great drama, but don't read too much into it. For example, Antonia is portrayed as a scheming bitch, but in reality was probably an utterly virtuous woman (aside from keeping her husband constantly supplied with virgins, though that probably counted as virtuous in those days). Claudius is portrayed as using his final years to hatch a cunning plan (I won't spoil your enjoyment by revealing what it is) but in reality he probably succumbed to dementia.
Try Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; it is (honsetly!) very readable and will take you through the lives of the best known emperors. Suetonius was secretary to the Emperor Hadrian (of Wall fame) and had access to the state archives (now of course lost). Generally the accounts are pretty impartial. I,Claudius is partly based on it, and you can see how many liberties Graves took with the story.

Incidentally, with regard to Roman remains, some of the principal English roads are Roman in origin. In some cases the modern roads are basically tarmac laid on top of the original Roman road - the build quality really was that good.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

It's a common error, or perhaps just a shorthand expression which has become misunderstood, to say that a Romance language -- Spanish, French, Portugese, even Italian -- is "derived from Latin". I do it myself, but I know what it really means. The only modern European language which is actually descended directly from Latin is Romanian. All the others, although they have strong Latin influences, are really derived from the languages the people were speaking there before the Roman conquest, languages which were in the main closely related to Latin.
While appearances are confusing, a little etymological research reveals that the Gallic or Gaelic family of languages, for instance, is closely cognate to Latin. Standard Latin itself, in fact, is the Latin of the Romans, only one of probably a dozen or more dialects employed by the various Latin peoples of Central Italy five centuries before Christ. Roman Latin was a more sophisticated and developed language than the other Latin dialects, a fact generally believed to have been instrumental in the ascendancy of Rome in Latium and then the whole Western World, and the ascendancy and survival of the Romans' dialect.
Roman Latin makes closer distinctions between the different vowels and between the voiced and unvoiced sounds than its neighbours did; a glance at the inscriptions of the "Lapis Niger" will explain what I mean. On such small pivots does the world turn...

 

[MichaelBA]

The series ROME on HBO is excellent.

 

[Richard Kim]

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