The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans? Part I: Beginnings and Legends

https://acoup.blog/2021/06/11/collections-the-queens-latin-or-who-were-the-romans-part-i-beginnings-and-legends/

by picture • 5 years ago

125 30 5 years ago

The ‘newsreader’ from HBO’s Rome, played by English actor Ian McNeice. The Romans would have called him a praeco; it was an occupation which was looked down upon.

How else would I know which one is the true roman bread for true romans?

ggambetta• 5 years ago

Oh man, I loved that guy. Now I might have to re-watch Rome... again. THIRTEENTH!

spaced-out• 5 years ago

Fascinating article. It's pretty ironic that Roman aristocrats are so often depicted by white, British actors, in no small part because that fits Americans' mental image of what an aristocrat is.

jmeister• 5 years ago

Well, there is nothing stopping other cultures from depicting Roman aristocrats in their own image.

Indian gods and historical figures are usually depicted as fair, in their own, contemporary art.

pastage• 5 years ago

Except missing it, I notice that you are not disagreeing with the point. Lots of contemporary indian culture features fair skinned people in the main role. For the same general reason.

rjknight• 5 years ago

It's also the case that many British theatrical productions, going back at least to the time of Shakespeare, were based on Roman history. Many of our ideas of how Romans spoke, look, and acted come through a prism of Shakesperean-era dramatisation, and later reinterpretations of these plays, rather than a bottom-up evaluation of the historical, social, ethnographic, and political context.

zozbot2342• 5 years ago

I'm not sure that the Roman senatorial elite is properly described as an 'aristocracy', since ancestry had become less and less relevant wrt. social status even as early as the late Republic. Wealth and social connections became a lot more important at some point, but people from different backgrounds could acquire those with comparable ease. Of course citizenship status still mattered, but that was gradually extended over time as well. Ancient Rome seems to have been a remarkably open society by the standards of their time.

Koncopd• 5 years ago

Do you mean patricians? Because senatorial elite and senators in general were not become less relevant during the republic, as a roman became a senator after he took the office of a quaestor, the first position in the line of roman public service offices. And it wasn't limited to patricians only, for the most important offices there were no restrictions for plebeians, though there were some special positions for patricians only and for plebeians only. Examples - Cicero was a plebeian, even a novus homo (a politician without senators among his ancestors); Cato the Younger, one of the leaders of the optimates (traditionalist fraction in the senate), was a plebeian, though a member of plebeian aristicracy, descendant of Cato the Censor.

Edit: i think i misread your comment, so there is no arguing with you actually.

TacticalCoder• 5 years ago

Roman aristocracy two thousands years ago was pretty much looking like people from northern Italy today no!?

If anything Augustus looks to be modern eastern european (from its famous statue).

What's not correct about "white" when depicting roman aristocracy? From all the statues we have they were certainly neither asians nor black nor from india nor descendants of, say, the aztecs.

Here's a reconstruction using AI of 30 roman emperors and I'd say 27 of them look totally white.

https://www.boredpanda.com/realistic-recreations-ancient-scu...

Heck, they even made Augustus with blond hairs and blue eyes (I have no idea if that's correct: all I can say his is marble statues looks like the modern easter european type to me).

Now I can understand they didn't sound british when speaking, but I don't see why you write "white, british actors". If anything, and there's nothing racist in there, "black british actors" would have been weird no!?

Or maybe you meant to say most of the aristocracy probably had the "mediterranean" type? (which I don't think is true and which, anyway, is classified under "white" I think?)

EDIT: TIL: Augustus' biographer, Suetonius, wrote that Augustus indeed had golden hair and clear eyes. This comes at a surprise to me.

michaelpb• 5 years ago

As a history buff, my understanding is there were no "White" or "Black" people then, since these races hadn't been invented yet. Black British actors would have been fine as well, since neither race existed. Creation of these distinct races in such a cosmopolitan society as existed in many eras of the Roman Empire, where ethnic groups frequently move shockingly long distances, would require a system of racial segregation that has no historical evidence. That's not to say there was no ethnicity-based prejudice -- quite the opposite, it was an era defined by it -- but it wasn't focused on skin color.

I happened to read a relevant passage on this a few weeks ago by Erik Jensen in his book Barbarians in the Greek and Roman World. In explaining how ethnicity worked in the ancient world, he gives the example of how the Greek historian Herodutus argued that the Colchians of the Black Sea were of the same "ethnicity" as Egyptians. Whether or not there was a connection is a different question, but how it was argued is more interesting, since it reveals the mentality of the time. He dismisses arguments made based on skin-tone as a red-herring since people can have all different appearances and be part of different cultures, but instead focuses on language and cultural customs (notably circumcision). If we believe his account, then if Colchians were to time-travel to modern times, most of them might be considered "Black", despite that most people living in that region today would be considered "White" -- but they were considered neither at the time, they were just "Colchians" that (according to Herodotus) had moved from Egypt

yodelshady• 5 years ago

Deveraux's work is always a treat. Incidentally, so is hearing Latin spoken with an Italian accent - so that it actually sounds spoken, rather than rehearsed. Unfortunately if I learnt it myself I'd be required to join the Civil Service.

as well as some very salty Roman writing which I will not bowdlerize in the slightest a little later in the series

Heh, heh, heh. You're going to want to follow this one.

MiguelX413• 5 years ago

As long as they use Classical Pronunciation and not Ecclesiastical

throw0101a2• 5 years ago

To learn about the differences, see video on Luke Ranieri's Polymathy channel:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeqTuPZv9as

Also:

How should Latin be pronounced? The debate has raged for more than a hundred years, but as the dust has settled two poles stand astride each other: the traditional Italian pronunciation, called Ecclesiastical, and the Restored Classical pronunciation. Is one more correct than the other? Is one more appropriate than the other in certain contexts?

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPlJMWQci8

biztos• 5 years ago

It's ironic in this context that one of the most prominent non-Roman characters in HBO’s Rome, the enslaved Eirene, who speaks English with a thick accent, was played by an actress from… Rome:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1493547/

https://hbo-rome.fandom.com/wiki/Eirene

tovej• 5 years ago

It's great seeing Livius getting some attention, and on hackernews of all places.

Ab Urbe Condita is really much more of an epic tale than a proper history book by modern standards, even though, as Deveraux notes, the later bits are probably more or less accurate in the big picture (e.g. the 2nd punic war).

Livius mostly wanted to create a sort of national romantic work with Ab Urbe Condita. He was a republican who wanted to look back to the glory days of the republic, even as Rome became an empire. With his stories, he wanted to create an ideal of Rome to set an example to other Romans. Livius preaches to Romans about Roman justice, cleverness, and honesty. Livius has his own agenda, he does not represent every Roman.

Luckily we have archaelogy and the historical method to help us. I feel like ancient history is trending (at least on the internet). There's hope for more TV shows with more diverse casting.

Great piece, wonderfully researched, I'm excited for the next article in the series.

animal531• 5 years ago

I am working on a small Roman themed indie game at the moment, so things like this are a great resource for inspiration and more knowledge, thanks!

throw0101a2• 5 years ago

If anyone wants to learn more about Latin, Luke Ranieri's Polymathy channel has a lot of good stuff:

* https://www.youtube.com/c/PolymathyLuke/videos

He recent 'reviewed' the Latin in Civ5 and Civ6, as well as the "Romans go home" scene of Life of Brian. He does other languages as well as science-y stuff as well.

Hayarotle• 5 years ago

Other good sources include

Schola Latina (From Italy, content from lots of different Latin speakers)

Ericson2314• 5 years ago

I've long found it funny that this blog titled with "pedantry" has so many disclaimers. Pedantry is usually about poking all the tiny wholes in the opposing argument not your own!

Anthony-G• 5 years ago

As a self-described pedant – albeit, one who’s trying to be less of a perfectionist – I’d say it manifests itself as a 19:1 ratio of being critical of my own writing over anyone else’s.

When communicating textually, I try my best to read my emails and other text messages to look for mistakes, ambiguities and other sources of confusion before pressing “Send”. It’s only on rare occasions that I’d bother correcting someone else’s mistakes or misconceptions and I’d be more inclined to do so if the misconception is popular and leaving it to stand would reinforce the spread of the misconception.

jkingsbery• 5 years ago

Many students are more than a little surprised to find that the actual contents of Latin literature are often rather less elevated than they might have expected

Our college Latin teacher was trying to get us to translate Catallus more faithfully, especially after one student gave a particularly polite translation. It was a moment in my career as a student I'll never forget - not only using pretty graphic language in class, and having a professor respond "Right, good."

The Queen’s Latin or Who Were the Romans? Part I: Beginnings and Legends

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