Archaic Rome in Soldier

Chris · 16 Jun 2003, 14:55 · from urth-v0306.mbox · original

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From: "Chris" <rasputin_ at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Archaic Rome in Soldier
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 14:55:15 +0000
Message-ID: <urth-v0306-3474 at digest.urth.net>
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I don't have the book on hand to reference as someone else did, but I=20
remember a passage in Herodotus that explicitly says that traders were=20
looked down on in Greece, more in some cities and less in others. He cites=20
one city in particular - Corinth, I think, but I'm not sure - where they ar=
e=20
hardly looked down on at all. But we can infer that there would be some=20
prejudice in the other cities. Probably not quite as much in Athens as in=20
Sparta, but still there.

re: Latro as an Immortal, I didn't actually know that foreigners were=20
allowed in that unit - Herodotus didn't say an awful lot about it, and I=20
haven't read other sources. But certainly that would help to explain things=
.=20
Though, I'm not so sure his entire unit would have been used that way. If=20
they were, it seems more likely that they would have been caught in the=20
later fighting around Thebes than to have gotten so far away.

>How anachronistic are the glimpses we get? Eg: at the very start of Mist,=20
>Latro says that he would have though the commander of a warship would be a=20
>"horseman". Presumably by this he means somebody of equestrian rank, rathe=
r=20
>than a low-status money-grubbing merchant. This seems like an accurate=20
>portrayal of Roman attitudes during later times, but what do we know of=20
>such distinctions from the archaic period? I guess I need to go back to=20
>Livy or something.
>
>Also, I have doubts about the picture of Athens presented in the same=20
>little passage. Did merchants really have high status in classical Athens?=20
>I have a mental picture of a society where the honorable path to wealth wa=
s=20
>through land, and booty taken in wars, and where on the nitty-gritty side=20
>of things the silver mines were a far more important part of the "GDP" and=20
>the war economy, than anything to do with trade & merchandise. Maybe I'm=20
>wrong, but the Hypereides character doesn't feel right.
>
>--

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