Peter_deT
Peter_deT t1_itje9s2 wrote
People were touchy about honour and respect and due acknowledgment of rank, so address was important. Also, it was still a time when people put real effort into speech - political speeches and sermons could go for hours (and people listened!), rhetoric was taught and had an effect, a reputation for wit could take you a long way, and there were venues (eg Parisian salons) where fluent argument carried great social cachet. So yes, people did speak like that.
Peter_deT t1_it5sxv4 wrote
Reply to comment by MoreanSwordsman in Was there mass migration of Roman citizens from Western Empire to Eastern Empire during degredation and after fall of Western part of empire. by [deleted]
Squared stone blocks are expensive to make. Cheaper and easier to take them from some abandoned building. Rome went from maybe 500,000 plus to 20,000 over two centuries, and stayed at 20,000 for several centuries more. Basically a mid-size town in the middle of a large field of ruins.
Peter_deT t1_irvi8vk wrote
Reply to comment by guitarnoir in TIl the first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer was built in Germany during world war 2 by Konrad zuse but received no press coverage because of the war by mankls3
Ships had used the same for gunnery direction for decades - continuously developed from pre World War I. One of the components of dreadnought gunnery.
Peter_deT t1_iref2mf wrote
Historians like Peter Heather (Empires and Barbarians) are good on this. For the first 250 years, Rome regularly extended its power across the Rhine and Danube. It negotiated treaties with the German and other groups, on free access for Roman traders (and slave-merchants), access to Roman goods and markets and so on. Bad behaviour was punished by legionary punitive expeditions, cutting off trade, diverting access and favoured treatment to rivals or just inviting the chief to dinner to discuss issues and then killing him. Rome levied drafts for the auxiliaries and took families in and distributed them to provinces short on labour. In other words, all the usual imperial playbook.
Over time the balance shifted. Germania developed, the tribes coalesced into bigger federations, the better to resist Roman pressure (the Alamanni, Franks, Goths, Marcomanni). Roman wars with these were tougher and more expensive, and paid less dividends. The treaties became less one-sided. As civil war, plague, agricultural exhaustion and so on weakened the Empire, the balance shifted. For the last hundred years or so, the Germans were trying to participate in Rome (often as defenders against other groups also wanting a piece), and Rome needed them too much to dictate terms. Then in 350-400 it fell apart under Hunnic and Gothic pressure.
Peter_deT t1_itsnooo wrote
Reply to comment by kanated in Eli5: I don't understand why there seems to be a general consensus that gdp will continue a trend of growth, and why this would be beneficial, considering the cyclical nature of economies and empires rising and falling. Isn't economic downturn on some level unavoidable or even beneficial? by candymannequin
Loss of soil quality (topsoil loss, deforestation, erosion, salinity) was a major contributing factor to the decline of Rome, the Abbasids and probably a few others. So ecology matters.