File: download (1).jpg (13KB, 275x183px) Image search:
[Google]
13KB, 275x183px
Could anyone point me to any good sources of information on the fall of the roman empire
12 Posts / 4 Images
View this topic
>>
Gibbon
>>
>>1618750
thanks
>>
>>1618714
Stefan Monlyeux
File: drawing_etruscan_bronze_wolf_hi.jpg (32KB, 450x348px) Image search:
[Google]
32KB, 450x348px
>Nowhere is Hannibal's failure to understand Roman culture clearer than in his expectation that Rome would agree to peace. Had he known his history, he would have recalled that Pyrrhus of Epirus, after smashing the Roman army in battle, had sent emissaries to Rome to begin peace negotiations, but they were dismissed out of hand. The Romans saw war as a relentless struggle, in which every conflict had to end with the total defeat and subjugation of either the enemy or themselves. They were willing to negotiate only as victors. It remains one of Hannibal's great failures that he did not understand the culture and values of the enemy he was fighting.
-Hannibal by Richard Gabriel
So /his/, why exactly did Rome such a different approach to warfare than all others surrounding them historically that generally took the Hellenic approach (win or lose decisive battle, then negotiate peace)? The Romans seem to have been the first to take a "total war" approach whereby the end is only determined by absolute destruction or subjugation of either side. What about their culture, geography, history, etc was it that made these bastards so tough, brutal, and stubborn?
24 Posts / 3 Images
View this topic
>>
File: g_discus_thrower.jpg (278KB, 457x465px) Image search:
[Google]
278KB, 457x465px
>>1618713
Autistic barbarians. Once they had annihilated the noble and heroic civilizations around them, the Romans set about stealing the cultural achievements of better Empires. Since the other Empires were eviscerated, the Romans could happily claim that the other civilisations' achievements were, in fact, Roman!
They became so arrogant that they abandoned the Greeks and began the Roman Empire, regressing into their old barbaric ways again. They colonized Gaul and Britannia, making out that this was somehow a great feat. It was nothing compared to the Punic wars bt from then on the majority of Romans spend the centuries screaming "WE WUZ HELLENIC AN SHIET". Only a few good Emperors humbled themselves before Greece and Carthage. The Emperors only kept their fragile sanity by deluding themselves into believing that the USA- erm I mean, the Roman Empire had some "destiny" to dominate the world, and that they were Gods. Ofc the Roman Empire descended into turbo-autism after the good Emperors were gone.
The Aspergers continued with the ERE Byzantines. They wuz Romans dat wuz Greeks n shit.
When I was 7 I thought the Romans were "cool". I grew up, did you?
>>
>>1618799
Well... all the drama aside, I know that the Romans did have a lot of their identity rooted in Hellenic culture, but it seems in so many ways they defined themselves as being something of an antithesis to Greek culture as well. Namely what I said above about customs and practices in war. Also their belief that they were descended from the Trojans, whom they saw as nobler and more honest people than the somewhat perfidious and clever Greeks. From what I understand, they regarded the Greeks as people who created a lot of great things that were useful, but lived in a vile and decadent society (yes, I understand the hypocrisy of one thinking Greeks were decadent and Romans werent).
I dont think the Romans were faultless, but I certainly think they are afforded a lot more credit than being called autistic barbarians. For better or worse, they have contributed a great many things to Western Civilization. Dont you?
>>
File: t_Eastern_Roman_Empire.png (216KB, 500x375px) Image search:
[Google]
216KB, 500x375px
>>1618713
That's actually a very interesting question.
One could look at the origins of Rome itself, a story of Romulus and Remus, Romulus going so far as to kill his brother over a disagreement.
Maybe it has to do with the culture of the local tribes that would unite to create the greater tapestry that became known as Rome.
But they certainly had a unique look on war with no half measures and its something that nobody at the time could comprehend. Rome would never play second fiddle to somebody else. They either won completely or they would be destroyed completely. But they would never negotiate with barbarians at their gate.
Perhaps it had to do with the unique ability to continue throwing manpower at a problem until it simply ceased being a problem. In a time when one or two armies was all that a people could muster and if it lost, that was the end, Rome could lose 4 armies and still have the manpower to raise a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh to throw at the enemy until they won. It made fighting them nearly impossible due to attrition taking its toll and once your army broke, there simply was no way to form another in time to stop the roman threat.
But I can't say which came first, the outlook or the manpower. And to fast forward I wonder if this mentality eventually led to the fall of the West and its abandonment to the continuation of the East. When it came time to negotiate, the Western Emperors (Honorius especially) failed to recognize the severity of the threats they faced and their own weakness to stop them.
While the East fully recognized the costs of such a harsh stance and simply decided to pay their problems away.
Anyway, I'm rambling here OP but thanks for a good thread.
File: 250._majdanek_extermination_camp_postwar.jpg (696KB, 1334x940px) Image search:
[Google]
696KB, 1334x940px
Why did the Nazis clothe, feed and house people in extermination camps? Seems like a very inefficient way of going about it. Why not just fence off a piece of land and let them starve/die of exposure from not feeding/sheltering/clothing them? Was there a reason they could not?
34 Posts / 3 Images
View this topic
>>
>>1618657
they made them do work
>>
>>1618674
Not him, but so they were forced labor camps or extermination camps? Did you have an expiration date after which you can no longer do work and have to be exterminated? Why in the fuck did they have medical wards / hospitals in the camp if they just wanted to kill people?
Also, there already was basically forced labor in factories for POWs from Poland / USSR. Concentration camps weren't a part of it.
>>
File: stalinism.jpg (31KB, 207x300px) Image search:
[Google]
31KB, 207x300px
Why a FIVE year plan tho? Why not four or six? Please tell me it's not because of the star having five beams? That's too retarded even for the communist subhumans.
13 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
>>1618449
Five is a cardinal number you autistic retard
>>
Five is a prime number
>>
>>1618449
Five is a popular number to count by. You don't count in leaps of four or six.
File: Gospel_of_Jesus'_Wife.jpg (219KB, 1024x674px) Image search:
[Google]
219KB, 1024x674px
Was Jesus married, /his/?
262 Posts / 12 Images
View this topic
>>
>>1618441
We will never know but the bible suggests he was married.
>>
>>1618453
Source?
>>
>>1618441
No he was an adulterer.
How thin is the line between socialism and fascism?
15 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
Just add nationalism and I don't think there's much of a difference.
>>
>>
>>1619268
Tripfag
File: 2000px-Spreading_homo_sapiens_la.svg.png (280KB, 2000x940px) Image search:
[Google]
280KB, 2000x940px
Is there anything that may seriosly challenge the OOA theory?
15 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
As of now, no
t. Paleoanthropologist
>>
As >>1618279 said, not now. But new stuff is discovered constantly, and our knowledge of the history of our species is quite muddy.
>>
No, but I think the left's fears about any notion of racial difference prevents many people from discussing Neanderthal/Denisovan admixture, or lack thereof. I understand that hominids in general originated in Africa also, but you get my point...
File: 2016-02-07-1454862213-4170494-skullandcrossbones.png (88KB, 800x800px) Image search:
[Google]
88KB, 800x800px
How can an observer stop observing?
12 Posts / 3 Images
View this topic
>>
close your ees?
>>
Death
Unconsciousness
>>
>>1618168
by participating
File: castle.jpg (130KB, 1376x692px) Image search:
[Google]
130KB, 1376x692px
Explain this to me - why scale the walls with ladders instead of breaking the walls with pickaxes? It's just stone, after all. Should be time-consuming, but possible, no?
11 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
Because people are trying to murder you while you're doing it.
>>
>>1617745
I do it in minecraft all the time
>>
>>1617749
You are the most retarded person I've seen on this board yet.
File: 1463844928250.jpg (116KB, 1280x720px) Image search:
[Google]
116KB, 1280x720px
Why do some beliefs/philosophies/religions ring true for some people and flagrantly false for others?
For example, I remember rejecting Christianity (and all Abrahamic religions, for that matter) when I was around 13.
Fedora-memeing aside, the reason I did so was because it sounded ridiculous to me. I couldn't fool myself into partaking in the religion much like a very heterosexual man cannot fool himself into enjoying gay sex. We weren't compatible, simple as.
However, when I encountered eastern philosophical traditions and especially the more contemporary interpretations of them, I felt like I finally found something like a religion I could believe in. It clicked for me, and I'm precisely interested in the "why" of that.
Why does my intuition lean much more strongly in the direction of concepts like "instantaneous incarnation (i.e. you must assume a form of life as the absence of which cannot be experienced), the universe's inherent dualistic nature, the idea that you are universe experiencing itself, you are a node in the cosmic web", etc. rather than things like "heaven and hell, punishment for one's sins, an anthropomorphic fatherly figure as God who created man and everything else, Noah's Ark, miracles", etc.?
Why is it that I am magnetized in the direction of eastern thought and not (albeit quite old, not sure where we stand collectively now) western thought or otherwise? Has this phenomenon (if I can even call it that) been formally studied?
19 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
anime posters make the dumbest threads
>>
>>1617655
Christianity on the whole is pretty far fetched, and only really designed for illiterate savages.
>>
Because you're a weeaboo.
File: hqdefault.jpg (16KB, 480x360px) Image search:
[Google]
16KB, 480x360px
>Swords and axes were useless.
Is he right /his/?
25 Posts / 6 Images
View this topic
>>
>>1617617
Why should I care?
>>
>>1617617
This tool is never fucking right about anything he talks about I'm starting to think his videos are him trying to be funny
>>
>Does LARP
>Thinks he knows everything about ancient and medieval arms
>Reads some memoirs of soldiers
>Thinks he knows everything about modern war and it's armaments.
File: vikang.jpg (10KB, 194x259px) Image search:
[Google]
10KB, 194x259px
How come guys who were only one inch taller than Saxons on average, who attacked undefended monasteries and villages and who converted to christianity (which DID NOT immediately made them stop raiding, there were christian vikings who still were into piracy) are shilled as fierce, large warriors who serve their bloodhtirsty gods (which ironically is christian monk propaganda)?
13 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
File: bored_baby.jpg (29KB, 455x290px) Image search:
[Google]
29KB, 455x290px
>It's another "vikings weren't that great" episode
Why don't you go start a thread on who the real successor of the Roman empire is next, OP?
>>
>>1617566
Nah, he's yet to make a German Hate Thead, before ending the day with that one and going to sleep.
File: 1434198168435.jpg (174KB, 1000x1314px) Image search:
[Google]
174KB, 1000x1314px
>5'8
>Austrian
>brown hair
I don't get it. According to his ideal German wouldn't he be considered untermensch save for his blue eyes?
36 Posts / 6 Images
View this topic
>>
That's what you get for getting your history from hollywood and history channel. You can only think in terms of cartoonish stereotypes.
>>
>>1617542
>nazis wanted to exterminate all non-blonde people
i love this meme
Also the master race wasn't about hair/eye color, it was more about cephalic index.
File: hero-garofalo-pasta.jpg (356KB, 1500x900px) Image search:
[Google]
356KB, 1500x900px
Why wasn't pasta more popular throughout Europe in the middle ages/Renascence? Surely other countries had plenty of contact with Italy and would like to use their grains for something other than bread.
25 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
This is my favorite food but some people don't like it. They consider it a side dish.
>>
>>1617502
Why weren't burgers more popular throughout the dark ages?
>>
>>1617518
because the earl of sandwich wasn't born yet.
Anonymous
if Sitting Bull won the american indian war could he have taken over washington D.C? 2016-08-29 10:35:57 Post No.1617240
[Report] Image search: [Google]
if Sitting Bull won the american indian war could he have taken over washington D.C? 2016-08-29 10:35:57 Post No.1617240
[Report] Image search: [Google]
File: sittingbull.jpg (9KB, 225x228px) Image search:
[Google]
9KB, 225x228px
if Sitting Bull won the american indian war could he have taken over washington D.C?
Anonymous
2016-08-29 10:35:57
Post No. 1617240
[Report]
[View this topic]
13 Posts / 2 Images
View this topic
>>
>>1617240
How exactly is a ragtag group of drunkard Indians with a smaller population than the U.S. Army had soldiers going to win a war let alone get out of the fucking Dakotas? Little Big Horn was a fucking fluke.
>>
>>1617267
/thread
>>
>>1617240
probably the most ridiculous thing i've heard in the history of this board