[HN Gopher] A new history of Byzantium reveals the inner working...
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A new history of Byzantium reveals the inner workings of a late
antique empire
Author : mr_golyadkin
Score : 111 points
Date : 2022-03-13 18:51 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thecritic.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (thecritic.co.uk)
| [deleted]
| Uehreka wrote:
| This sounds fascinating. I almost want to get it just so I can
| learn what is meant by "The cursus publicus was hailed for its
| efficiency, at least until Justinian got his hands on it. "
| atdrummond wrote:
| A modern analog would be the USPS historically and what it's
| turned into under recent administrations, especially
| accelerated under DeJoy's administration.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| Imagine an analogous overlay much like you provided but
| continuous for such historical texts. That would be
| something. Like a Google translate from historical or
| cultural texts to your own contemporary culture, or a battery
| of footnotes.
|
| On a tangent. The latest version of Candide on Gutenberg has
| such footnotes spread throughout to explain some obscure
| mentions in the text. An absolute recommender.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| A battery of footnotes, commentary, and other marginalia is
| the norm for historical texts. The commentary is frequently
| more significant than the primary work.
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _cursus publicus_
|
| Didn't the Byzantians speak Greek (rather than Latin)?
| Veen wrote:
| They did, but the cursus publicus was inherited from the
| Western Empire. It's demosios dromos in Greek.
| mr_toad wrote:
| Early on, the official language was still Latin. The
| population of Constantinople spoke Greek natively. Later on,
| Greek became common in official business as well.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| This is fascinating.
|
| "The cursus publicus (Latin: "the public way"; Ancient Greek:
| demosios dromos, demosios dromos) was the state mandated and
| supervised courier and transportation service of the Roman
| Empire, later inherited by the Eastern Roman Empire. It was a
| system based on obligations placed on private persons by the
| Roman State"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursus_publicus
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Isn't it wild that the Roman Empire lasted until the 1400s, only
| to finally fall to the Ottoman Empire?
|
| But as the Empire fell, a large set of manuscripts were brought
| by the great Plethon to Cosimo d'Medici. Marsilio Ficino's
| translation of Greek classics into Latin--like the complete works
| of Plato and the Hermetica--helped kindle the European
| Renaissance as we know it.
| canjobear wrote:
| Why was it hard for people in Western Europe to get Greek
| manuscripts before the fall of the Byzantine Empire? It's not
| that far from Rome to Athens. Seems like you could just ride
| down to Brundisium and then get on a boat, get to Athens and
| ask around. Before 1054 there wasn't an East-Wests schism so
| the clerics in Greece wouldn't be hostile.
|
| Was the political situation really so chaotic and crazy that
| you couldn't take that trip? Or was no one interested?
| xavxav wrote:
| The manuscripts weren't in Greece. These works were written
| centuries ago, many of them _before_ the rise of the roman
| empire. As books were expensive back then, they would often
| be found in wealthy cities like Rome, Alexandria or
| Constantinople and often taken as spoils after conquests. The
| fall of the Western Roman empire additionally meant no one
| had time or resources to go collecting old dusty manuscripts,
| but the rising Arabic empires did. Later in the medieval
| period, notably after the crusades and moor conquest of
| spain, monks began (re)translating the arabic copies of these
| works, bringing them back west along with many other novel
| works, commentaries and inventions.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| One thing to note is that the Greek works likely could not have
| survived medieval Europe if they had left Constantinople a lot
| earlier. There were two great advantages to renaissance
| scholars:
|
| 1. The works were still in their original Greek (rather than
| translations into Latin done long ago, or the translations from
| Greek to Arabic (and then to Latin) that came in through
| moorish Spain).
|
| 2. Religious attitudes allowed the works to be studied close to
| their original form. Early Christians were basically of the
| opinion that if a book disagreed with the bible it was heresy
| and should be destroyed, and if it agreed with the bible it was
| unnecessary and could be destroyed. That was less the case in
| the eastern side of the church and of course a big exaggeration
| too: there were old Latin translations of eg Plato however they
| had been quite bastardised to conform with Christian theology
| (I understand Aristotle was a little less bastardised as early
| Christian theology was itself quite Aristotelian). By the
| renaissance less bastardisation was required (if translating to
| Latin rather than the vernacular).
|
| Without being transferred so late to the west, the works may
| never have made it to modern times in such a complete form.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| Well there was also The Holy Roman Empire (Translatio imperii)
| following the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire and currently
| the See of Rome where the Pope holds title as bishop of Rome as
| just 1 of a handful of absolute monarchs recognized under
| international law.
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