Banking: Were there banking facilities available to a more or less common person? With accumulated non-real estate wealth, did a person need to hide it to keep it safe? Was there any way to send money across the empire, without actually sending gold or equivalents?

Thank you for the AMA!

How exactly did Italy get so devasted by the Gothic Wars? What made the urban centers, including Rome itself, so depopulated?

How different was the imperial governmant and organization compared to western "feudal" Europe (let's specify, say, the Holy Roman Empire and France) during the High Middle Ages?

Was the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire seen as an "inspiration" of sorts for western european powers around this same period?

Apologies if the questions have already been asked before.

What exactly was the extent of Latin as a language in the empire at the time of its peak? What provinces used it more than others?

And this is another question I've had for a while: many countries that were once part of Rome now use Romance languages, for example Italian, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Romanian, etc. However, English is a Germanic language, even though Rome had prescence in England for almost 400 years. What caused this difference?

Tagging u/bigfridge224 - I came across a Hittite scapegoat ritual that accounts for the varying wealth of the people sponsoring the ritual, which prompted me to ponder the economics of magic and ritual.

nu ANŠE ūnniyanzi mān LÚ.MÁŠDA=ma nu ANŠE ŠA IM iyanzi

They bring in a donkey, but if (the ritual client is) a poor man, they make a donkey of clay.

How much did the cost of Roman magic impact its use? In other words, could relatively poor people afford to buy amulets and curse tablets, offer votives, etc.? How wide is the variation in quality among these objects?

Thank you all for AMA.

I have quite a few questions. I apologize if there are too many of them.

• Generally, the lives of "barrack emperors" were nasty, brutish and short. What motivated barrack emperors to proclaim themselves emperors during the Crisis of the Third Century?
• Why was the Roman Empire (and to a lesser extent Byzantine) never able to formalize principles of hereditary succession?
• In 67 AD, Emperor Nero participated in Olympics, miraculously triumphing every competition he took part of, including singing and acting that he himself added. What was the status of the Olympic games in the Roman Empire? Was it common for a Roman noble to try to participate in Olympics?
• According to u/Heraclean in What age were people considered adults in Ancient Rome girls married starting from 15 in Ancient Rome. Until what age women considered "marriageable"? What would a woman do if she has never got married?
• Related to the previous question, was having a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent girls widespread (similar to pederasty)? Was it frowned upon?
• Have Roman doctors actually took the Hippocratic Oath?
• How was leprosy viewed in Ancient Rome?
• Was piracy a big problem when the Roman Empire controlled the whole Mediterranean sea?
• Have matching Greco-Roman gods as Jupiter and Zeus were considered separate deities or aspects of the same god?
• Edit: To /u/mrleopards . In what period Roman Military was the most successful according to your model?

When Caracalla declared the Constitutio Antoniniano in 212, what was the practical effect on both those who were citizens before, and all the new citizens that came after? And is it really a profound event? I've read elsewhere, though I don't quite recall, that at that time there was already a two-tiered justice system or something, between those of honorable stations and those from humble stations.

I've never understood the Byzantine Civil Wars of the 14th century. It just seems shocking to me that the empire would essentially commit suicide the way it did. The fact that conflict would break out every 10-20 years with the empire weakening itself further and further to the point of essentially becoming a city state... you'd think someone would say "hey if we keep doing this there won't be an empire anymore."

I'm sure this is based on false premises, and I know I'm asking about a series of conflicts with different actors over a 50+ year period, but was there anything deeper going on than title claimants fighting to be the head of a smaller and smaller state? Were there any structural or societal issues that kept the conflicts going?

In the republic and empire, how were military commanders chosen, kept in office, transferred, removed? How did Rome control commanders and military forces? Was rotation through various commands and posts considered or practiced, and if so, why didn't that work in the empire?

Edit: I should mention what motivated the question. I ran across a discussion, probably in the Fall of the Roman Empire FAQ section, where someone wrote that, in the middle Empire, a commander in the field might have some good success, the emperor would immediately become suspicious and would try to destroy the commander, the commander had to then try for the purple. The "fix", as I recall the assertion, was to have the emperor travel from place to place with a large army, enough to overawe commanders, but this was much more expensive and inflexible. I'm approaching a "what if" question here, wondering if command rotation (or any other possibility) was considered or tried, or what the drawbacks were.

Seeing the descriptions of the panelists, I don't see anything "Byzantine" in there (except maybe /u/Mrleopards if "Medieval" includes that?). Does the panel generally believe that Byzantium wasn't actually Rome, or is it just a lot less popular?

Probably for u/tiako:

What do we know of ships used for Roman trade in the Indian Ocean? Were they more like types of ships Romans used in Mediterranean, or something more native to Indian Ocean? I ask because around 15th century native ships on those routes were characteristically made without iron nails and I wonder if that feature was already established at that time?

Another question relates to broader Roman seamanship: without compass what were the common Roman navigational techniques?

A few more questions: how responsible was personal leadership in the last century of Byzantine rule in preventing and/or hastening its fall, compared to factors outside their control?

What was the state of toilet technology throughout the Empire's history? How were facilities maintained, and how widespread was a Roman form.

Last one: the Nika riot is one of the worst sports riots ever. Was the extreme team rivalry seen outside of Constantinople at the time in other cities? And if so what measures were taken to prevent similar riots?

In Apuleio’s “De Magia” he was accused of practicing magic, and he clarifiesthat his magic is the one that helps with contact with the gods. In particular he promoted the cult of isis. What was he accused of, how common were these types of accusations in courts and how widespread was the cult of isis?

I have a few questions on Byzantine literature:

1. While the literate classes of Roman society were often bilingual in Greek and Latin (or at least, that's the common understanding), there's a far cry from that to the change in the official language from Latin to Greek (and the loss of most of Rome's Latin-speaking population) that happened in the Byzantine era, so I'm curious to know: did this "abandonment" of Latin have any effect in the literature produced in the Roman empire during the transition?
2. On more general grounds, I know very little about Byzantine literature, I could only name the Alexiad and that Hagiographies were popular in it. What genres of literature were popular in the Eastern Roman Empire? Is there some relation between the rise or fall in popularity of a given genre and the sociopolitical context of Byzantium at the time?
3. While I've been using the world "popular" here in the sense of "widespread", there's also a sense of "popular vs. elite", so what sort of popular (in the second sense of the word) literature (in the broadest sense possible of the term) could I expect to find in Byzantium?
4. And for something a bit more focused, do we have any surviving literature from minority groups living within Byzantium, if so, what sort of literature?

Thanks to everyone in the panel for doing this.

To what extent was the Byzantine Empire of the 7th-11th centuries in contact with and aware of happenings in western and central Europe?

Hi,

At what point do historians see the Eastern Roman Empire becoming the Byzantine Empire, 476 or later? Did people in the East ever stop seeing themselves as part of the Roman Empire after 476?

How did pagans react to their religions being made illegal? How did pagans continue to worship when their temples had been closed down?

This one is for /u/Bigfridge224, or anyone else who cares to chime in:

Hadrian openly declared his boy lover Antinous to be his favorite and forsook his wife Vibia Sabina for Antinous. His wife was obviously unhappy about this, as was the Roman Senate. As I understand it, it was one thing to have a boy toy but it was not acceptable to elevate him to be your "official" companion. Hadrian, being emperor, ignored them.

My question:

Did Hadrian have the power to shrug off the religious and social mores of Rome in this way? IOW: did he put anything at risk by elevating Antinous?

What knowledge do we have about the “Latin quarter” of Constantinople?

While for more modern times nationalism becomes an important lens for understanding constructing identities. Did residents of the Roman/Byzantine empire view themselves as citizens first and foremost or were other parts of their identities (religious or whatever) thought of as more definitive characteristics? How did ethnic minorities fit into the empire and how were they treated by other groups?

I've read quite a lot about the christianisation of the various peoples who established control in the later western empire - in particular, the Vandals and their adoption of Arian Christianity in North Africa - but I've not been able to find very much on the topic of these peoples' pre-Christian religious beliefs.

Are any of you fine people aware of research on this topic, or is it too limited by the presumed paucity of sources on the matter?

Why did the Roman Empire outlaw intermarriage between Roman citizens and barbarians under penalty of death in the late 4th century under Valentinian and how was this enforced? Also what does it say about how Romans viewed themselves as a nationality?

Are there any slave narratives from Roman slaves or freedmen, any way to look into what they thought? Is Trimalchio from the Satyricon, a satire and fiction, the only hint?

Is there evidence to suggest the Romans understood the grandeur of the crumbling Hellenistic empires they swallowed? I know that many Roman generals and politicians compared themselves to Alexander The Great and tried to live up to his accomplishments, notably Pompey, so they were at least somewhat familiar with Hellenistic accomplishments. Did they see the Diadochoi as mighty rivals? I forget when and with who, but I remember reading an encounter between a Roman elite and one of the Ptolemaic Kings, where the Roman mocked the fatness of the King by walking all around Alexandria to the King's exhaustion. And of course there's the account of Gaius Popillius Laenas who demanded an answer of the Seleucid King before he walked out of the circle he'd drawn in the sand. Were the Romans always so contemptuous of Hellenistic rulers? Were the Roman contemporaries of Alexander and the Diadochoi aware of the magnitude of their accomplishments in Asia and the vastness of their territories?

Today we mock the hubris of Pyrrhus of Epirus by naming after him the embarrassing "Pyrrhic Victory". However there's the account of Scipio and Hannibal discussing the greatest generals of history, where they decided on the list being 1. Alexander, 2. Pyrrhus, 3. Scipio Africanus, and 4. Hannibal, with the last falling there only after his defeat by the third. Despite decisively defeating Pyrrhus in their third major encounter and forever driving him back into the Balkans, why did the Romans so highly respect his generalship? I've never read anything suggesting they respected any other Hellenistic general, is it just the fact that he did win two encounters with the Romans that earn their lasting respect? Various consuls blundered entire armies in the Macedonian Wars, but I've never read about any respect being earned in the process. And lastly, I did read a description of some Roman general speaking of the awe the hedgehog formation of the Macedonian pike phalanx could inspire, but then he went on to crush that army anyway. Was the expectation that since Rome had already defeated Pyrrhus that victory against every other Hellenistic general was a bygone deal?

On a completely unrelated note: I'm aware of the mass Jewish rebellions across Cyrenaica, Egypt, and the Levant the Persians incited during Trajan's invasion of Mesopotamia. Is it at all clear that this is the major reason for Hadrian relinquishing control of all of Trajan's Asian conquests? Is this the East's Teutoberg incident, forever halting further expansion?

On another unrelated note: Diocletian divided the Empire into the Tetrarchy, allegedly to solve the problem that one Emperor couldn't personally deal with security problems along the Rhine, Danube, and Euphrates at the same time. However, a decade before his reign Aurelian did exactly that, effectively reconquering the entire Roman Empire in a five year period. Then a couple decades later Constantine would proceed to do the same thing. Was Diocletian's idea entirely ill-advised? What changed about the situation in and around the Empire that previously created the "Crisis of the Third Century" that was now manageable by a single Emperor? What changed again later to encourage the rule of one Emperor in the West and another in the East? After the successive failures of this system, why would Theodosius, who had again single-handedly ruled the entire Empire, expect his inexperienced sons to succeed where his own predecessors and rivals had failed?

Then my last question is in the meta history. I'm going to start studying Classics at undergrad level this Autumn. I need to start figuring out which time period to focus on for at least my first thesis, and if everything works out, for my future graduate studies. Is there a best sub-field in Roman history to study and try and answer new questions in that is currently emerging? As my previous questions suggest, I have a horribly difficult time refining my interests.

Thanks for doing this AMA!

Three questions:

1. How exactly did Romans conceptualize themselves? That is to say, did they see themselves as a political community bound together by common laws, an ethno-religious community bound by language and custom, or some sort of national community. How widespread was a sense of community? Would a provincial or Italian from outside Rome understand themself to be Roman, or would they only understand Romans from the city to be Roman?
2. How did Roman politics work, particularly when it was not working? E.g. In the US, when there is a violation of rights people will call back to the Bill of Rights, the constitution, what they imagine the constitution to be, Christianity, etc. To what would the Roman politician call back? And when there was a controversy, what ways were there to resolve it? Interested primarily in the Republic here.
3. For /u/Mrleopards would you have any advice on how to use data in history generally. What programming languages or tools one should learn, what good guides are out there for a historian (outside of say Programming Historian), what good archives exist (e.g. so the text can be machine readable), etc.?

I imagine that this is over, but I was hoping for some rather niche information.

In the description of the Basil I's triumph in the appendix to book one of de Cerimoniis, it mentions that many people are wearing crowns made of flowers when they meet him at the Hebdomon. Could this perhaps be tentatively linked with the more ancient Corona Convivialis? Also, does anyone here know of any sources for such coronae? The best I can find is a really old encyclopedia entry online.

Salvēte!

I have a question that I haven't really seen anywhere so here goes. It seems to me that the fashion of the Roman Empire changed during the 2nd century AD to the late Empire in that the tunic which was mostly plain became to be embroidered like Coptic tunics, and also increasingly became long sleeved. I think I read somewhere there these designs were influenced by Germanic and Celtic cultures. My question is that did any writers comment on this and was the reason it became popular is because of a cooling climate?

What would the population of Rome have been like when it put out two legions every campaign season? How about latium of the time?

Edit: did most if not all romans live within the understood limits of the city?

What are some of the Byzantine sources describing interactions with the early Slavic migrants to the Balkans and elsewhere? How did the relationship between Slavic tribes and the byzantines evolve over time?

What was the origin of the cultural impulse that made the Romans utterly unwilling to surrender in dire straits, even if their lives would have been spared? I’ve read from a couple different sources that Hannibal expected Rome to at some point just give up because this is what other ancient states would have done after having their fighting male population so thoroughly devastated. Is there any truth to the claim that Rome was a unique culture in that sense?

Could free Roman citizens be enslaved? If so, how?

Was there a point after the Edict of Milan when Constantine or any other high ranking Roman official publicly acknowledged the wrongful persecution of Jesus Christ? Was there a point before the Edict when this was done? Was there any form of repetitions given to early Christians?

If the leaders of the late republic(Caesar, Augustus, Anthony, Cato, Crassus, Pompey, Cicero, etc) all existed around 400 AD could they have saved the empire? How about 450AD?

Was it poor leadership that doomed the empire or a broken system that would have undermined any leader no matter the talent?

I’m interested in the Late Republic era, for context of this question.

How did the Social War affect Caesar’s ride to power? By that I mean did the Social War make any changes within society that created an environment in which Caesar would be able to assert control and become dictator for life, or was this environment already present by the time of the Social War?

A question for u/Tiako: Were paved track ways such as the Diolkos at Corinth used elsewhere in the Empire?

Medieval Europe is known for its (often detrimentally) complex social structures, what were some of the intricacies of the patrician-plebeian relationship in the Roman Republic?

We have literature from Imperial Rome in the form of epics and poetry. Was all of this meant for the elite or did the lower class listen to these same songs and poems. If not, do we have examples of literature meant for the lower class?

What was the quality of life for the average rural family in the Western Roman Empire compared to Eastern Roman Empire in the 5th century, and did it change substantially at all with the fall of Rome?

What exactly were the rules for becoming/staying a Roman citizen in the 3rd century BC?

Thanks!

How rich would you have to be to go to school?

From Wikipedia:

Jordanes records that Decius' son Herennius Etruscus was killed by an arrow early in the battle, and to cheer his men Decius exclaimed, "Let no one mourn; the death of one soldier is not a great loss to the republic."

This is 251 and "the republic" is long dead. I know that the Senate was still around as a vestigial institution and the idea of Roman institutional inheritance carried on well into the Byzantine period. But what I wonder is would a Roman living in 251, a soldier under Decius' command at Abrittus for instance, still think of their government as upholding republican institutions?

What are the best sources (primary and otherwise) about Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus?

Probably aimed at /u/mrleopards

How should the text, "On Skirmishing?" be interpreted? Is there any judgement on whther "On Skimishing?" is more true than the "Praecepta Militaria?"

Do they provide useful data, in terms of troops numbers, as there are discrepancies?

I once read this suggestion: Rome had previously been more or less accepting of outsiders, though perhaps after some resistance, and the former outsiders could even rise to the top, like Illyrian emperors. But Rome never accepted Germans, and so the Germans (denied legitimate power) ended by wrecking the system. Any opinions on this notion? Is it like Pauli's "This isn't right. It's not even wrong."?

Imperial Roman Politics:

Following the establishment of the Principate, Augustus created several Imperial Provinces to be administered by the Princeps directly, while the remaining Senatorial provinces were administered by proconsuls and propraetors with plenipotentiary powers and a legion (or more) of troops under their direct control. Between this pretty obvious recipe for rebellion (a small scale autocrat with a personal army and a province to squeeze cash from) and the erosion of the prestige of the traditional senatorial positions of yearly elected consuls sitting atop the Roman political system in favor of the single Priceps position being held for life, which of these two - or combination thereof - most directly affected the instability of the Roman system following the collapse of the Julio-Claudian line?

Most of the propaetors and proconsuls of the Empire were de facto equal in rank with the only difference being the relative wealth of their particular province or the experience of their legionaries, and with only one move left for promotion (rebellion and overthrow of the current Princeps) combined with a great deal of personal loyalty from their legions as opposed to loyalty to the state; how did the Roman system manage to function for as long as it did? With a system so well designed to give ambitious players the ability and opportunity to rebel (to which the series of rebellions and civil wars which marked the Pax Romana testify) how was the Empire still able to maintain such economic and cultural stability? How can the high imperial era of the Antonines be maintained when the crises of the third century which followed occurred under roughly the same political traditions and institutions? Did any of the emperors before Diocletian's ultimately failed reforms make a serious attempt at building a more coherent system of hierarchy in an attempt to avert these obvious existential problems?