by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . April 8, 2009 . 10:52AM
Today, we’re talking about Roman Civilzation.
30% of people in Rome in the early Empire were slaves.
20 year life expectancy. But deaths outstripped births.
Under the Empire, slaves got more protection. Could not be put to death under Hadrian.
Pictures from things talked about last class!
- Colosseum, and the infamous steps leading up to the interior.
- The Hippodrome, and some temple. From the time of Cicero.
- The Forum in Pompeii. Showing Roman road/sewer (kind of the same place).
- The Pantheon (Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius) – a copy/replacement of the Republican-period building.
Back to slavery.
Teachers, Doctors, sheepherders. Ceasar brought them back from Gaul. A freedperson is simply free. The economy was slave-driven. Pirates took slaves, soldiers, too. Once a slave population is established, women would birth children. Agricultural slaves grew food in large country estates. Shop slaves in factories, prostitutes, gladiators, and at worst: miners (in Spain, mining silver).
State-owned slaves taught children, ran the mint, taught other slaves. You may own a slave doctor, or slave gladiators as bodyguards. The emperor’s slaves were a select lot, and were better off than poor free people in many aspects.
Slaves were often physically deformed from heavy work. Slaves weren’t seen as outsiders, or threats – Aristotle spoke of “natural slaves.” An owner could treat a slave however they wanted, with no restrictions. Sexual abuse was common – homosexual acts upon male slaves. ALWAYS ON BOTTOM. If you injured a slave, the owner would be compensated. A master fed his erstwhile slave to lamprey eels, with no ill effects. Augustus was quite mad at this dude, who saw it as immoral and unnecessarily cruel. In order to be a witness, a slave would be tortured prior to testimony.
In the 2nd century BC, Sicily was affected by a slave revolt. 139BC on a huge scale, the slaves caused destruction across the island. In 131BC, it was finally quelled. 73 BC was Spartacus, every last one was crucified (6,000 of them). Rome’s armies were needed elsewhere, and Romans made a study of controlling slaves, breaking up by nationality and religious-leanings.
Manumission - setting a slave free. Many times freedom would be provided posthumously. A freedman was automatically a Roman citizen, with few restrictions. Cicero manumitted Tiro, his slave, who became his personal secretary. Cicero said that he was very deserving and thought of him as a dear friend.
Letting slaves free means that they could vote for you. They could be a good trader for you, making you money. Freedman usually were tied into their masters financially.
Paterfamilas would be in charge of all members of a household, including slaves. Sometimes slaves would engage in profit-sharing with a master, which would then be used by that slave to buy their freedom. Freed slaves would usually be a client of their master, which would act as their patron. Under this relationship, the former slave would owe days of labor on behalf of their Patron.
If a woman gave birth four times, they would be manumitted under Augustan law.
Dilicus - head slave on a farm.
Later, during the Imperial period, most slaves would be home-born.
Stoic Philosophy was influential in improving the lot in life of the enslaved. The “universal rights of man” was definitely seen in its infancy. Although slaves could be bought and sold at a whim and treated with impunity.
Moving on to Gladiators…
They were introduced by accident. Two brothers, Brutus(es) wanted to honor their father in an amazing way. Marcus Brutus having a gladiator combat as part of funerary games.
264 BC – Three pairs of slaves fighting.
Anyone running for office put on slave fights. Aediles would spend lavishly on these games when running for office. Freedman looking for money, slaves, jailbirds. When several dozen gladiators fighting, the forum wouldn’t be enough, they’d charge for putting on a show at the Circus, along with horse races.
Famous gladiator: Flamma. He stabbed lots of people, he was big as hell, he was a soldier (Gaul) against the Retarius. He was a secutor (l. chaser) at 50:1 odds. He tired out the Retarius, killed him, and thus the Emperor sent out another Retarius.
No gladiators left a memoir. So, just go by the movie, which is perfect in every respect!
by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . April 8, 2009 . 6:45AM
Today, we’re finishing up talking about Indian independence. (Lecture 29) And we’re to begin talking about post World War II British domestic politics.
Looks like the final paper will be assigned on Friday. Back quizzes are in the back of the room.
Quit India Movement (1942-43)
Churchill, a very hardline Imperialist, was during WWII raised up to the savior. His vision was of a large and continuing Empire. Britain was confronted by a large nationalist movement in India. Labor, upon replacing Churchill in 1945, was not as invested in retaining Empire. Britain wasn’t in a position to defend India, on the basis on being broke. Britain wasn’t about to pay for running its own colony. Indian nationalists managed to shift the bill from them to the UK taxpayer earlier. India’s independence was pretty much in the bag by the end of WWII.
Speaking of partition, the problem of turning all the indirectly-ruled princely provinces and the Hindi/Muslim areas into a single nation was being fought over by politicians and partisans alike. (more…)
by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . April 4, 2009 . 9:07PM
The first PC I’d ever used was a Franklin “Clone” that was 99% IBM-compatible. That bastard 1%. After smashing in the then-$50 standard keyboard playing the classic Rogue, my parents surprised me for my 9th birthday with a computer they picked up at a yard sale, one of my very own.
My dad managed to beat the game, with a lot of luck and Merit lights. I’ve yet to accomplish this same goal, even though I’ve wasted like hundreds of manhours in process.
The year, 1992. The computer, an IBM XT 5130.
This model, an IBM 5160, is a little bit newer than the 5130 I had. The “half-height” 5 3/4″ (aka 5.75 to me) drives are very similar in size to the optical drives we still use in ATX-style cases. I hope to actually plug one of these bad boys in (a 5.75 drive), assuming I can find a drive controller card. It’s a .003 Ghz beast running MS-DOS 2.11 (good thing I kept the book!)
The monitors included with many “complete” IBM systems of this era are either monochrome, or at best, CGA (four colors). The two-knob (brightness and contrast), one button (power) setup is simplicity itself. Besides that, there’s not a lot to say about them, except that I’m seriously considering an I(B)Mac.
The XT series computers had some killer peripherals, as well. Most famously are the “clicky” model M series of keyboards IBM developed that gave the feel of their electric typewriters, providing a large metal platform with cork feet for stability. To this day, enthusiasts are buying these keyboards (and the 38 adapters for XT to AT to PS/2 to USB). The mechanical motion makes many membrane-based keyboards (including the quite clicky Blackberry 8350i keyboard I’m using now) feel squishy and unsuitable by comparison.
The yard sale luck held out, when mere months later, I bought a IBM Portable PC for $7. I saved 99.4% on retail! The in-built monitor was monochrome, but if you wanted the four-color action in CGA, you had to plug in an external monitor.
Recalling the feeling of hauling my IBM portable PC (at 40lbs) to school to play around in BASIC (and a little Rogue, natch), I guess I can’t really bitch about a 15″ Macbook Pro weighing around six pounds.
Model: model 68
Introduced: February 1984
Price: US $4225.
Weight: 30 pounds
CPU: Intel 8088 @ 4.77MHz
RAM: 256K, 640K max
Display: 9-inch amber display
CGA graphics, 80 X 25 text
Storage: Two 360KB 5.25-inch disk drives
Ports: 1 parallel, 1 serial, CGA video
OS: IBM PC-DOS Version 2.10 (disk)
Call me nostalgic, but I’ve been thinking long and hard about purchasing one of these old XT computers to relive some early DOS glory. Also, I have a killer rack concept that was inspired by the whole “ikea hacker” movement. (Pending measurement and girlfriend approval. The idea is basically a wardrobe “shell” to be fitted with the necessary shelving and power to be a 4-5 sqft computer museum.
by Zacharias @ http://inexactitu.de . April 3, 2009 . 8:54AM
Thanks, professor Ridley Scott!
for those who need a little more background: imdb.