Alex > Recent Status Updates

"Hadrian’s beard was not just a fashion statement but also a cultural and political sign. Elite Roman men normally went clean shaven; Greek men grew a beard. By not shaving, Hadrian signaled his love of Greek culture and his policy of elevating the eastern, Greek-speaking part of the empire."

"Rome also enjoyed a favorable climate. What scholars refer to as the Roman Climate Optimum, a period of warm, wet, and stable conditions, stretched across the Mediterranean world. It was ideal for farmers and for consumers too."
Good information on economic conditions at the time. Infant mortality rates in Trajans time were as high as one-in-three until the twenty-eighth month after birth.

"Rome claimed a veto power over Armenia, but the Parthians had chosen Armenia’s most recent king. Yet when the Parthians backed off, Trajan refused to take yes for an answer. He wanted his war because he wanted glory."
The conquest of Parthia was rolled back shortly thereafter. Trajan almost died while leading a cavalry charge (at age 60!).

"Whereas Domitian had to accept a compromise in Dacia, Trajan conquered it, annihilated its ruling class, and opened the country to colonization by Roman veterans. The destruction of the Dacian elite was so complete that although Dacia remained a Roman province for only two hundred years, Romanians today speak a language derived from Latin."

However:
"The new emperor was no intellectual, but he did not lack intelligence. Two of his passions were wine and boys, but he held his liquor, and he did not force himself on any lover. We hear of affairs with various imperial page boys, with an actor and a dancer, and even, according to gossip, with Nerva and Sura. Two of his other passions were vanity and war, and in these he was not as moderate."

"Trajan ate in the military mess. He shared his men’s hardships, marching on foot and fording rivers with the rank and file. When bandages gave out during one of his battles, he is said to have had his own clothing cut into strips to serve."

Continued:
"Although a military man, Trajan had the qualities of a good politician. He was affable, even-tempered, and untroubled by personal attacks. He never forgot that he had three constituencies to please—the Senate, the people, and the army—and he delivered to each of them"

"Perhaps the word that best sums up Trajan’s rule is paternalistic. He was not the first emperor to accept the title of Father of the Fatherland (pater patriae) from the Senate, but, more than most, he tried to be as benevolent as he was severe."

"Domitian pleased the army but not the Senate. Nerva pleased the Senate but not the army. Trajan showed from the very start that he was the man to gratify both, while also making the people happy. He garnered impressively widespread support."

Really good book. It's been a while that I've read a history book that flowed so smoothly.

"Since Quintilian later influenced such figures as the early Christian thinker Saint Augustine, the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch, the Protestant reformer Martin Luther, and also possibly the great composer Johann Sebastian Bach and the liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill, the world owes much to Vespasian’s patronage."

"A footnote to Vitellius’s career: he removed the hugely unpopular governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate—the same Pilate who had condemned Jesus. As for Vespasian, Vitellius helped him become consul in the year 51."

"According to Tacitus, Nero punished those guilty not only of starting the fire—a crime to which they had supposedly confessed—but also guilty more simply of “hatred of the human race.” Ever the impresario, Nero turned their execution into a ghastly show."

Nero also introduced concrete to Roman architecture.

"Nero’s freedman and head of the major naval base nearby killed Agrippina. Nero said afterward that this day had given him rule of the empire, but later he hated the man for killing his mother because, as the historian Tacitus said, “we look on accomplices in evil deeds with a kind of reproach.”"

Continued:
"The very term Augustan Age means a period of peace, prosperity, and cultural flowering under an enlightened and orderly political patron. Writers such as the poets Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, as well as the historian Livy, flourished. Augustus was an educated man who appreciated literature."

"The reign of Augustus was a classic moment in the history of the world. It was one of the most creative and enduring eras of Western political history, yielding basic political concepts such as emperor, prince, and palace."

"Whenever Augustus attended a game or show, he made sure the crowd saw him watching carefully, and he let people know that he loved a good show. When he appeared in public, he tried to look the part of leader. For example, because he was of only average height for a Roman male, at five foot seven, he wore lifts in his shoes to look taller. "

Augustus enacted laws aimed at increasing birth rates by disincentivizing childlessness through change in the inheritance laws and punishing certain forms of adultery and fornication. He himself had already divorced his first wife and married Livia, who was six months pregnant at the time.

"Roman mothers had to be boosters. Their husbands often predeceased them, leaving it up to the mother to fend for the children. Roman history is full of forceful mothers who pushed their sons ahead. Latin literature offers the example of the goddess Venus, who drives her son, Aeneas, forward to his divine fate of founding Rome. No wonder Roman men often revered their mothers."

"Conquering elites always burn themselves out and become more interested in money and pleasure than in expansion. Every empire declines without exception. However, the Romans did an excellent job of holding onto what they had won."

The literature review is somewhat tiresome, but the rest was good.

Russia, the Baltic nations and Poland were seen as Northern Europe until the Ottomans were fought back. That's when "Eastern Europe" was "invented".

The desecration of the corpse of a supposed "vampire" in 1672 in Istria coincides with the little ice age, if I'm not mistaken.