We Know a Lot About the Ancient Romans....

[aleshanee]

some of the history of what happened to the true cross after it was discovered in
jerusalem is covered in this video.... at one point it was carried at the head of
armies marching around the mediteranean.... only to be captured by one side
or the other... and even ransomed back in a sort of prisoner / relic exchange..

..

 

[AntiMegaChurch]

some of the history of what happened to the true cross after it was discovered in
jerusalem is covered in this video.... at one point it was carried at the head of
armies marching around the mediteranean.... only to be captured by one side
or the other... and even ransomed back in a sort of prisoner / relic exchange..

..

View attachment 3157

Fascinating.

 

[aleshanee]

Fascinating.

thanks.... i have always thought so too.... ..i hope he continues with this series of videos and covers the crusade campaigns under king baldwin in which the templars were defeated and the true cross was captured by saladin..... there is a lot of controversy about what happened to it after that..... some historians says saladin burned it.... others say he traded it to christians at the last remnant of the eastern roman empire in turkey...where it was cut into pieces and passed out as relic souveniers..... either way nothing of what was believed to be the true cross in antiquity can be identified as such today.....

 

[aleshanee]

those of scottish ancestry... (like my adopted dad).... and others who understand that
it was the ferocity of scottish warriors which kept the romans out of scotland... and
not simply the weather and the rough terrain... might take issue with the assertions
the author makes in this video.... but it;s still a good study of the roman era in
scotland and northern england...
.

"tell me again... who was it that thought coming here was a great idea?...."

 

[aleshanee]

dog lovers might be interested in knowing that rome had several unique breeds of dogs
that either are extinct.. or no longer exist in their original form... dogs like the molossian
hound shown in the picture below were huge and had a furry mane around their neck like a lion
... they were strong enough to pull chariots and some of them were large enough to be ridden
..they were most likely replaced by smaller breeds that were easier to keep and care for and
the last of them allowed to die out.... all that remains of them now are statues and artwork
to show us what they looked like.....

many other breeds of dogs appear in statuary and mosaics that are recognized as not being
in existence today..... evidence suggests they were an integral part of roman life....
.

 

[aleshanee]

.
one reason i started this thread about roman history.... is because i love studying history
through archaeology... and to me rome is particularly interesting because the history of
rome and the history of christianity are inseparably intwined... ..

apart from jerusalem and the holy land itself... many physical records and artifacts from the
early history of christianity... as well as examples of early christian art... can best be found
beneath the streets of rome in the citys catacombs...... and many biblical archaeologists
believe christians can be credited for the fact the roman catacombs are so extensive....
.. as it was christian influence that caused romans to move away from the practice of
cremating their dead.. and making burial space beneath the city for them instead....

 

[aleshanee]

news of current events and other happenings was an important part of life in ancient
rome just as it is today... .there was even a news paper published called acta diurna
... (a.k.a. ..daily news)..... but since most romans could not read - the acta diurna
was usually read aloud by someone employed by the news agency.. and standing in
a public forum where a crowd would gather to hear..... ...

and these readers of daily news sometimes took abuse from the crowd when the news
they were reading was bad... they would sometimes be beaten by a crowd infuriated
over the details of an event... and choosing to take that anger out on the messenger
.. who was doing nothing more than reading to them the story of what someone else
had done... i wonder what would have happened to them if they had turned political
activist like our current news agencies have.... and i also wonder if that threat of a
beat down ever caused them to down play the events they were reporting on....

it;s interesting how some things never really change... even after 2 thousand years.
and how other things tend to go back to the way they were even after society works
feverishly to change them.... .
.

 

[aleshanee]

so.... why am i posting a video about a medieval surgeon... who saved the life of a
the prince of wales in 1403 , after he had been shot in the head with a arrow... in
my thread about ancient rome?... because the methods and sanitary protocols used
by that royal surgeon had actually been developed by a roman physician and surgeon
named galen... over a thousand years before... he saved the young prince who would
later become king henry the 5th of england.. and who would lead england
against france at agincourt... ....

the surgeon was richly rewarded. .. but of course if you were just a common soldier
wounded in such a way you were on your own... at worst you would die screaming
in agony.... and at best you would have to live the rest of your life with an iron bodkin
arrowhead lodged in your sinuses.. .might have been possible. and certainly preferable
to death..... but it would make going through airport security a nightmare... and MRIs
would be out of the question..... ...
.

 

[aleshanee]

to most historians the fall of the roman empire marked the beginning of the medieval age...
. an era that would last almost 1000 years... and one in which many of the advances rome
made in sanitation.... hygiene... and medicine would be ignored... and even forgotten....

 

[aleshanee]

the 1959 version of Ben Hur is TCM today.... and even though i have seen it umpteen
million times i am watching it again while multitasking other things...... ....but it
reminded me... i looked into this aspect of roman culture once before and to my
surprise learned that not only was the movie fairly accurate in it;s depiction of a
roman chariot race... .. but it actually softened much of the harsh reality of it..
.

 

[aleshanee]

so... what were a roman soldiers chances of making it to retirement?.... ..and
would any of them actually look as old as the guy on the face of the video?.....
.

unlike most armies - even hundreds of years later.... the roman army had a very good medical
corps for its time...... many of the treatments and life saving procedures used by army doctors
in europe well into the late medieval age had been pioneered by the romans.....

 

[aleshanee]

if you are a game of thrones fan.. then you probably already know that the great
wall of ice in the series, was inspired by hadrians wall..- built by the romans to
separate roman brittain from the barbarians in the land to the north - that
would later become scotland.....

 

[aleshanee]

tattoos in rome and ancient greece....

tattoos for freeborn roman citizens were generally frowned upon.... one of the
reasons was that a tattoo marked a person as someone elses property.... or as a
convicted criminal. ... but as rome and greece came into contact with foreign
countries and cultures where tattoos were considered acceptable, and even
desireable, that began to change....

 

[Dr. Huk-N-Duck]

tattoos in rome and ancient greece....

tattoos for freeborn roman citizens were generally frowned upon.... one of the
reasons was that a tattoo marked a person as someone elses property.... or as a
convicted criminals.... but as roman and greece came into contact with foreign
countries and cultures where tattoos were considered acceptable and even
desireable, that began to change....

Interesting video. I view tattoos like many other debatable/taboo topics: what’s the intent of the person. If someone gets a giant swastika tattooed on their back, we all know that person’s intentions are not good. (I suppose it’s possible to find someone in rural India using it as an ancient Hindu symbol, but I digress.) However, if a guy gets a tattoo of his wife’s name with a heart around it, I don’t think it should be viewed as commensurate with the swastika.

 

[aleshanee]

Interesting video. I view tattoos like many other debatable/taboo topics: what’s the intent of the person. If someone gets a giant swastika tattooed on their back, we all know that person’s intentions are not good. (I suppose it’s possible to find someone in rural India using it as an ancient Hindu symbol, but I digress.) However, if a guy gets a tattoo of his wife’s name with a heart around it, I don’t think it should be viewed as commensurate with the swastika.

i don;t know all the reasons ancient romans were against tattoos.... i only mentioned a few possibilities in my comments above the video.. and i assumed it had something to do with class status............ i had always heard that christian influence had caused most people in the modern age to be against tattoos.... and i know that is true....... ..

but i found it interesting that ancient romans had a negative view of tattoos for those who had freedom and citizenship, even before christians came on the scene.... and long before christians were able to have any influence on rome... .. in most other ancient cultures tattoos were very common.... .. and as romans became exposed to more people from those cultures they began to accept tattoos for their own free citizens as well .. along with many other things common to those cultures ....

i never wanted a tattoo because of the permanent nature of them.... ...i;ve seen what happens to them as the wearer gets older and their skin begins to sag.... and i;ve known more than one guy that got the name of a serious girlfriend tattooed on himself... only to discover later that she was not that serious..... i even know of a few girls who did that...

 

[Ransom]

tattoos in rome and ancient greece....

There were a couple notable uses of tattoos in the Roman Empire.

A soldier might get the name of his centurion tattooed on his hand, as a sign of loyalty.

When a runaway slave was returned to his owner, he might have the letters "FUG" (for fugitivus) branded on his forehead, to mark him as a troublemaker.

Compare:

it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead. (Rev. 13:16)​

John's original audience would have been familiar with this imagery. It wasn't some new technology being implanted under the skin. It was a mark of loyalty, or ownership.

 

[aleshanee]

There were a couple notable uses of tattoos in the Roman Empire.

A soldier might get the name of his centurion tattooed on his hand, as a sign of loyalty.

When a runaway slave was returned to his owner, he might have the letters "FUG" (for fugitivus) branded on his forehead, to mark him as a troublemaker.

Compare:

it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead. (Rev. 13:16)​

John's original audience would have been familiar with this imagery. It wasn't some new technology being implanted under the skin. It was a mark of loyalty, or ownership.

i never saw that connection made before.... . but i believe you are right.... thanks for pointing that out........ ..so the people in johns time understood very clearly that the mark of the beast was something voluntarily taken... a mark clearly visible on the skin and which they would know very well the meaning of.... .....not like something you could be tagged with secretly or unknowingly, like so many conspiracy theorists today like to claim......

 

[aleshanee]

fraud... impersonation... and even identity theft were common in ancient rome...
.

 

[aleshanee]

at the end of the 2nd century rome was still pagan... with less than 1% of it;s
population identifing as christians... ..... but by the end of the 4th century a
majority of romans identified as christian.... some making that conversion
through persuasion.. and others by force as roman emperors from the late
4th century on began campaigns to root out and ban paganism......

.....the told in stone guy explains much of it pretty well... . i don;t know how
accurate his historical narrative is... but it;s pretty interesting....
.
.

 

[abcaines]

Christianity became a political ideal under Constantine. As a political entity, the church lost its distinctiveness from pagan practices. Oh sure, pagan shrines were outlawed but men's hearts were still unregenerate.