Explanation: While we in the modern day marvel at how thoroughly the Romans assimilated people, the fact is that the Romans were more-than-happy to allow provinces under their rule to continue most of their traditional ways of life - so long as they continued to loyally serve the Roman polity!

Romans, for all of their immense arrogance and chauvinism, were also very capable of recognizing superior foreign ways of doing things, and either adapting them themselves, or using the foreigners in such matters. This is something recognized both by the Romans themselves and Greek writers - Roman society, for all of its clamor about tradition and the CORRECT, ROMAN WAY of doing things, was flexible and adaptable in practical matters (and also abstract matters, but don’t mention that to the Romans, they’ll have a fit over not being as tradition-oriented as they talk themselves up to be).

This varied in form from copying Carthaginian ships, to adopting the Spanish sword (the famous gladius) and Celtic chainmail in their Legions, to Greek philosophy and theology, to Anatolian cults, to Celtic and Germanic clothing. In the other way - the recognition of foreign skills - the Romans used a wide variety of auxiliaries in their armies whom they freely regarded as superior in certain skills to native Roman troops (Numidian, Germanic, Gallic, and Scythian horsemen, Balaeric slingers, Syrian archers, Batavian shock troops) and highly praised the arts and wisdom of foreign cultures - the artisanship of the Gauls, the art of the Greeks, the intellectual pursuits (especially in law and theology) of the near-east.

Rome, extremely cognizant of its origins as a little farming village in the backwoods of Italia which burst onto the scene of the wider, more developed Mediterranean, knew damn well that it was not born the center of civilization which bestowed the achievements of man onto its lessers. It became so!

In the words of the Aeneid, a propaganda piece commissioned by the first Emperor, Augustus, but reflecting pre-existing cultural conceptions in Roman society…

Others will cast more tenderly in bronze

Their breathing figures, I can well believe,

And bring more lifelike portraits out of marble ;

Argue more eloquently, use the pointer

To trace the paths of heaven accurately

And accurately foretell the rising stars.

Roman, remember by your strength to rule

Earth’s peoples—for your arts are to be these :

To pacify, impose the rule of law,

To spare the conquered, battle down the proud.

Once when playing a D&D game, my character was a very ‘civilized’ guildsman who constantly went on about the superiority of urban mercantilist civilization (his counterpart, the other player in the group, was a half-orc barbarian who found this whole civilization thing very appealing; we made a good team). When one quest sent us to a halfling village in the middle of the woods, and they rebuffed all my character’s offers to buy land for ‘productive enterprises’, he, of course, came to the wholly normal and completely correct conclusion that ‘these people’ did not even have the concept of private property, how sad! and resolved to educate them (by force if necessary) after the quest was finished of the benefits and necessity of a thriving bourgeois society.

Luckily for the halflings, our two-miscreant party was locked up by the local lord afterwards for a combination of kidnapping/theft/attempted sale of halflings who had been turned into stone by the cockatrice we had slain; and we were set loose on another problem (though not before committing unlawful commerce and gambling our unlicensed profits away at the local tavern playing dragon poker).

“Ah, I see the animation frames on that cave troll, this must be the Bakshi scene!”

If someone with a restraining order against you made their home into Helm’s Deep, there’s probably a (concerning) reason for that tbf

Faus

The Foxblob emojis are fantastic

Garlic makes a man healthy and wise. It Is Known

Fantastic idea! I miss Tumblr terribly ever since the Great Porn Ban of 2018, even though I never even reblogged or followed ‘adult’ blogs. I just wanted to reblog holsum and funny fanart, but fuck giving into puritan corpo censorship.

What’s the moderation policy on genocide denial and the like? I hate having to ask this, but having heard too many people deny the Holodomor on here, I feel it necessary to make the inquiry.

For that matter, more generally, are you prepared, in terms of moderation structure, for the massive amount of legitimately disturbing material that’s going to pass through the site and will need to be removed if the site grows beyond a few hundred users? I would hate to join and then see this crash because of (completely understandable) moderator/admin burnout at the depravity and speed of mankind’s worst elements.

Explanation: Gaius Aelius Gallus was a commander under the first Roman Emperor, Augustus. Gallus was ordered to undertake an expedition to conquer Arabia with 10,000 troops, including local allies - a relatively small army. If successful, it would have massively increased the tax revenues of Rome, as the Arabian states controlled the flow of spices and silk and other exotic imports from the east.

Despite considerable military success in open battle against the Arabian polities, the Romans were chipped away at by the unrelenting desert itself - stretched supply lines, unfamiliar environs, heat, exhaustion, and sickness took their toll. Eventually, Gallus withdrew from the region, making a two-month retreat from modern-day Yemen back to Roman-controlled Egypt, having lost a majority of the expeditionary force in the process - many of them during the retreat itself.

.world

Sh.itjust.works

Sopuli.xyz

Lemmy.cafe

Also, I remember John Rhys-Davies getting a little too into the LARP with the poor stunt actors.

T-Rex’s heart gives out trying to masturbate

Based

The US was heavily involved in both sides of the wars in Europe and Asia prior to their official entrance.

Spreading misinformation is not kosher.

Get this man some pipeweed

My old manimal’s last meal was a burger from McDonalds. He ate it, then ate the napkins.

Miss the old fella.

Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold…

Done.

Meanwhile, I’m grateful that someone else is doing the hard work of sustaining and modding communities 🙏

Contributing irregularly is easy - being there a year later is the hard part!

Normally frog seems like a lot of work for very little meat, but those are some big bastards. Can hardly blame someone for having that on their menu.