History questions not worth their own thread II

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Stalin has signally failed to prevent future generations from knowing who Yezhov was precisely because Stalin disappeared him

People today know of Yezhov because someone thought he looked like Obama.

 

[madviking]

What's a real-world example of a bourgeois dictatorship?

 

[LightSpectra]

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte?

 

[Lord Baal]

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte?

Beaten by 2 hours.

 

[LightSpectra]

Which ancient Roman writers wrote positively of Roman militarism and imperialism? Most of ones I've gone through so far were stoics and said little about the subject.

 

[W|M]

I think Tacitus made a very biased report on Boudica's final defeat (forgot the name of the battle).

 

[aronnax]

Do Chinese proverbs serve the same function as our equivalent of Aesop's fables? It's difficult to answer this unless one has had a deep immersion in both western and eastern cultures.

Not really. From what I can gather, Aesop's fables are like the bases of fairytale stories with morals in them. While many Chinese Cheng yus are derived from classic literature, they also come from myths, stories, religions, accounts and real life events.

Chinese proverbs however, are created not to teach morals but rather to convey a message of some sort that may or may not be a reference to a moral event.

For example, this Chinese proverb "金屋藏娇" which means putting Jiao in a Golden House is derived as a reference when Emperor Wu boasted to his mother that he loved his Empress, Jiao so much that he would house her in a golden palace.
Some how this proverb means today "To keep a mistress in a tucked away in a luxurious house or apartment".

I would call them idioms more than they are proverbs though

 

[Traitorfish]

I think Tacitus made a very biased report on Boudica's final defeat (forgot the name of the battle).

On the other hand, he treated Calcagus and Arminius as freedom fighters, presenting their opposition to Roman imperialism in a very much positive light. The (presumably fictious) speech he attributes to Calgacus before the Battle of Mons Graupius reads, perhaps not coincidentally, like something from Braveheart:

Whenever I consider the origin of this war and the necessities of our position, I have a sure confidence that this day, and this union of yours, will be the beginning of freedom to the whole of Britain. To all of us slavery is a thing unknown; there are no lands beyond us, and even the sea is not safe, menaced as we are by a Roman fleet. And thus in war and battle, in which the brave find glory, even the coward will find safety. Former contests, in which, with varying fortune, the Romans were resisted, still left in us a last hope of succour, inasmuch as being the most renowned nation of Britain, dwelling in the very heart of the country, and out of sight of the shores of the conquered, we could keep even our eyes unpolluted by the contagion of slavery. To us who dwell on the uttermost confines of the earth and of freedom, this remote sanctuary of Britain's glory has up to this time been a defence. Now, however, the furthest limits of Britain are thrown open, and the unknown always passes for the marvellous. But there are no tribes beyond us, nothing indeed but waves and rocks, and the yet more terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Which ancient Roman writers wrote positively of Roman militarism and imperialism? Most of ones I've gone through so far were stoics and said little about the subject.

Livy, Julius Caesar, Polybius, Horace, and Tacitus who was already mentioned.

 

[madviking]

Seltic or Keltic?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Technically, both are accepted. Kelt is more accurate and used by every expert I've seen.

 

[Karalysia]

I've always seen Celtic.

 

[vogtmurr]

On the other hand, he treated Calcagus and Arminius as freedom fighters, presenting their opposition to Roman imperialism in a very much positive light. The (presumably fictious) speech he attributes to Calgacus before the Battle of Mons Graupius reads, perhaps not coincidentally, like something from Braveheart:

I think Tacitus was excellent for his time, and you're right he wasn't all 'pro-Roman Arms'. Probably better than Plutarch who lived around the same time. He captured the essential story with an economy and style that led you to your own conclusion. He didn't waste too many words moralizing or justifying but usually finished with a dramatic flourish like:

Arminius, without doubt Germania's liberator, who challenged the Roman people not in its beginnings like other kings and leaders, but in the peak of its empire; in battles with changing success, undefeated in the war.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I think Tacitus made a very biased report on Boudica's final defeat (forgot the name of the battle).

Wattling Street. He wasn't too bad, I thought. He treated her fairly sympathetically, but didn't hide what she did in response and what finally happened. He wrote to teach moral lessons as much as anything else. The lesson in her case ended up being fairly ambiguous, but not entire pro-Roman either.

 

[Traitorfish]

Seltic or Keltic?

Technically, both are accepted. Kelt is more accurate and used by every expert I've seen.

Agreed. "Seltic" is only really used in reference to sports teams.

 

[W|M]

I thought Tacitus said that the Romans killed way more soldiers than they actually did when writing about Wattling Street, due to the Roman general being related to Tacitus.

 

[SeekTruthFromFacts]

If you're interested in hearing a brief, informed discussion about Tacitus and Boudicca, you might enjoy this BBC programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r7lr9 .

I think the discussion of Tacitus is about 15 mins in, but it's a few months since I heard it.

 

[spryllino]

Seltic is completely bogus and misspelt and suggests a Greek word beginning with a sigma, which isn't the case.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I thought Tacitus said that the Romans killed way more soldiers than they actually did when writing about Wattling Street, due to the Roman general being related to Tacitus.

Agricola didn't fight the battle, Paulinus did. I'm pretty sure he wasn't related to Tacitus. The numbers may have been exaggerated, but most ancient battles have exaggerated numbers (start with Herodotus and his million strong Persian army).

The numbers killed included onlookers. Tacitus claims that entire villages were abandoned so they could travel with the army. In that context, perhaps the large death toll is plausible.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

This is probably a question for an as-yet-nonexistent "Arts and Entertainment Questions not worth their own thread," but I'll ask it here as it relates somewhat to history.

What I am wondering is: how were Jane Austen's novels, particularly Sense and Sensibility, so popular in Britain when they were first published (1811), if many of her characters had sensibility, and that type of a posteriori moral philosophy was considered to be French-like, and people who exhibited that trait were often labeled as being anti-patriotic?