Any ideas

History, archaeology, historiography, peoples, and personalities of ancient Rome and the Mediterranean.

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Any ideas

Postby Quintus Aurelius Orcus on Fri Dec 27, 2002 9:51 pm

Salvete
Any ideas on how we can bring "life" back in this collegium? Any ideas or suggestions?
valete optime
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Postby Anonymous on Sat Dec 28, 2002 12:12 am

Salvete
Any ideas on how we can bring "life" back in this collegium? Any ideas or suggestions?
valete optime


You might want to advertise on Hellenic Pagan lists to bring in more members. The one yahoo list on which I lurk are a chatty bunch who discuss all aspects of Hellas, not just the religion.

Aside from that, in the here and now, how about a discussion on the cultural differences between Hellas and Roma, assuming it has not already been done repeatedly.
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Postby Quintus Aurelius Orcus on Sat Dec 28, 2002 11:21 am

salve Coruncane et urse
Coruncane, yes any questions about greek history like mycenean, minoan civilizations are right for this forum.
Urse, i'm the hellenic pagan list too and i can ask it.
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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Sun Dec 29, 2002 7:31 pm

Salvete Sokare, Corunciane et Urse!

To answer your questions...

* Yes, we also centre around the "broader" Greek world which includes the Byzantine Empire. Sadly, not too many people are interested in it here even though it was more Roman than say the 5th century BC (Athenian Golden Era). For most people their interest in the Eastern Empire stops with Iustinianus. The rest is "too Greek". It would be interesting to see discussion about the Byzantines!

* Greek civilisation is an enormous topic. Sokarus has produced an oversight of Sparta's history, and I'm still translating his work on Athens. However, the Greek world is more than that. I personally am interested in the Minoan world and the later Mycenean world, especially in its relation to the Homeros' works. Having been at Santorini and Mykene only aroused my interest even more. However, I don't have enough time to read multi-volumed books on it. An unfinished book about Egypt is still waiting on me and last year I read a profound study of ancient Etruria, another civilisation which interests me a lot.

I will reply to the Atlantis thread at Historicum, if no one minds :).

So, what is there to do?

Well, I have made a Greek (Attic) declension table in the past and Greek fonts used to be available at our site. Alas, when we were reorganising these fonts have been lost. Any one care to search for good Greek fonts? Are there any hellenists here except for Atticus, Lupus and I? The language section could be expanded greatly with some information on Greek dialects or verb declensions (my Latin verb declension has just been finished).

What else... Everyone seems to be concentrating on history for its own sake, but what about literature or art in general? Of course, this also falls under Collegium Artium. Quid censes, mi Lupe?

Also useful, for starters: what do you (dis)like about Greek culture? How do YOU think it compares to Roman culture?

Hoping to have been of service ;),
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Postby Anonymous on Sun Dec 29, 2002 9:36 pm

Salve! (Or should I say "Khaire!" on this board?)

Also useful, for starters: what do you (dis)like about Greek culture? How do YOU think it compares to Roman culture?

I've seen Hellenists denigrate Rome for being too dry, rigid, unimaginative, and legalistic. To me the Romans' penchant for pragmatism is exactly what makes them so endearing. A tough, sturdy, no-nonsense people who rolled up their proverbial sleeves and embraced life's challenges with a facile grasp. I think there is a lesson contained within somehwere for postmodern society.

I do appreciate at times the somewhat more aesthetic strains running through ancient Greece, but I feel the Greeks can at times be accused of an excess of idealism or abstraction. Any culture that could produce Plato needed a reality adjustment (I suppose if you are endeared to Plato you would vastly disagree).

A book I read once made the observation that the Romans' soul allowed them to conquer an empire, but in conquering their empire and adopting Oriental strains of thought they eventually lost their native soul ...
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Postby Anonymous on Sun Dec 29, 2002 9:36 pm

I'm sorry, I don't know what happened to the BBS code on that.
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Postby Quintus Aurelius Orcus on Mon Dec 30, 2002 11:56 am

Salve Scorpio
Well even though i haven't been there i was always interested in Mykene, Crete, Hellas, Rome and Etruria. But most of the Italian tribes are also interested. They speak to the imagination of many because they lay at the foundation of our civilisation. I agree, its a huge topic and sometimes it is weird that this forum doesn't have that much activity but mainly because i think most of us know alot of this topic but not enough.
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Postby Gnaeus Dionysius Draco on Thu Jan 02, 2003 12:35 pm

Salvete omnes,

Regaring Greece vs Rome, I largely concur with Ursus. The Greek were aesthetic pioneers, philosophers, seamen and artists. But we mustn't forget that they at one stage held a world empire too, and that the basic principles of democracy were invented in Athens. So the Greek weren't all that bad at organising. I think it was more their internal squabbling and fighting that caused their downfall more than anything else.

And their love for things abstract, well, it's a two-sided blade. On one hand, where would we be in mathematics without the foundations laid out by Greek (and Arabic and Indian...) mathematicians? And Greek philosophy's tentacles have outlived its own civilisation with more than a millennium. But on the other hand, as Ursus said, perhaps they were not that good at practical things after all. The Romans, sometimes denigrated as "military farmers" were a practical sort, the type of people you'd like to have when building the foundations of a city... or an empire.

I don't know if there is a "people's soul". Did the Romans really view the Empire as a "nation" in the modern sense, or was it simply an extension of a polis-mentality (the whole empire is named after one city!)? I'm not sure that the Romans, even if they had such a thing, "lost" their soul over the years. It simply transformed and changed into the mentality of the Italians, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Latin Americans.

Valete!
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daily life scenario

Postby Quintus Aurelius Orcus on Thu Jan 02, 2003 4:43 pm

Salvete
Mayby we can start with the project we had in mind earlier about the daily life of a Greek? But that is up to the rector to decide i think.
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