History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VIII

Well, his name was G. Julius Caesar. The pronomen was rarely used, because Romans had so few. There were also several G. Julii; but there was only one G. Julius Caesar.

I mean if you really want to be pedantic about it it's C. Iulius Caesar.

As Gaius was abbreviated with a C., and Gnaeus with a Cn.
 
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus sounds rather grander than simply "Pompey the Great", so there is something to be said for long Roman names. :)
 
That's not strictly true - 'Caesar' was not, as commonly believed, one of those Roman nicknames given to an individual, but rather one of those Roman extra names designed to mark out branches of a family. Taking another famous Roman name, it was like the 'Scipio' in L. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, not like the 'Africanus'. As it happens, the famous Caesar had a father, grandfather and great-grandfather all named C. Iulius Caesar. However, you've hit the bigger nail on the head - people tended to be creative with which names were used in order to make sure that they could tell important people apart. We still have traces of that today - we know one emperor as Tiberius (the praenomen) and another as Nero (the cognomen), which avoids the confusion of having two called Tiberius.

EDIT: Looking through the internet for evidence on this, I came across Gaius Julius Caesar Strabo Vopiscus, a distant relative who somehow ended up with two cognomina, despite not having any relatives with either or immediate relatives called Gaius.

A distant relative of Caesar's served as consul before him as well. But that's not the point. Let me put it another way. Jan Jansen is about the most common name in the Netherlands. And yet, to cyclist enthusiasts, there was only one Jan Jansen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Janssen

In the same sense, there was only one Caesar. (His father was so obscure, we're not even certain about Caesar's exact birth date.) It was the one Caesar after which all the caesars, czars and Kaisers were named. If it weren't for him, nobody would remember any G. Julius Caesar.
 
romans would break with the first gun fired . Depends on the effects of volley whether they will re-group for an investigation of what happens , the rate of fire , reload , whether the black demons are supported by white demons , whole set of belief systems . Coloureds broke whenever Whiteman showed up with the thunderstick but they did come back , given time .

as for shields stopping bullets , ı actually asked it in a serious forum , there were no answers . Can't remember whether ı was also banned . 10-15 mm stuff in armoured cars and stuff apparently keep average bullet out and there were many early tanks with 8 to 10 mm proper armour . Asyrian way of one shield carrier and one fighter , of bows or molotof cocktail thrower might work if ranks close . Then presumably legion will prevail ... Civ III says 3/3/1 to 1/2/2 .
 
A distant relative of Caesar's served as consul before him as well. But that's not the point. Let me put it another way. Jan Jansen is about the most common name in the Netherlands. And yet, to cyclist enthusiasts, there was only one Jan Jansen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Janssen

In the same sense, there was only one Caesar. (His father was so obscure, we're not even certain about Caesar's exact birth date.) It was the one Caesar after which all the caesars, czars and Kaisers were named. If it weren't for him, nobody would remember any G. Julius Caesar.

Yes - and well put.
 
A distant relative of Caesar's served as consul before him as well. But that's not the point. Let me put it another way. Jan Jansen is about the most common name in the Netherlands. And yet, to cyclist enthusiasts, there was only one Jan Jansen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Janssen

In the same sense, there was only one Caesar. (His father was so obscure, we're not even certain about Caesar's exact birth date.) It was the one Caesar after which all the caesars, czars and Kaisers were named. If it weren't for him, nobody would remember any G. Julius Caesar.

Some good reasonable points, and one illogical conclusion. :)

If there had been no G. Julius Caesar, world history would not have taken
exactly the same trajectory.
Therefore, you do not know what would have been important in that world,
or whether there was a Germany, or a Russia, or that they would have
adapted "caesar" to czar or kaiser.
 
I'm not sure the devil needs his advocates to work that hard!

Somebody has to mind the shop. It's a public holiday here, so the devil is barbecuing outdoors today.
 
Well, to be fair, Caesar's career might have been cut short at many points in his illustrious career. But I don't do What if?s to the point of 'there would have been no Germany or Russia' if not for the one Caesar. That's a wee bit out there for me. Or illogical, if you wish.
 
Well, to be fair, Caesar's career might have been cut short at many points in his illustrious career. But I don't do What if?s to the point of 'there would have been no Germany or Russia' if not for the one Caesar. That's a wee bit out there for me. Or illogical, if you wish.

There were many centuries before there were the entities we now call Germany
and Russia, and many twists and turns of history to get there, so it's not
that "illogical".
By the same token if there were no G.J. Caesar, Augustus or someone else
might have provided the inspiration for csar or kaiser to be adopted.
Anything can happen if you sprinkle enough pixie dust around. :)
 
Almost certainly, Ferocitus, but we wouldn't be using the word caesar or anything like it. :)
 
There were many centuries before there were the entities we now call Germany
and Russia, and many twists and turns of history to get there, so it's not
that "illogical".

Actually, that's exactly the word for it. The emergence of Russia and Germany as political entities has little or nothing to do with there being a Julius Caesar in the 1st century BC. History is not being writ in stone, and I don't adhere to the theory that if a butterfly bats its wings the entire universe changes because of it. It may or it may not, and we just don't know either way..
 
Actually, that's exactly the word for it. The emergence of Russia and Germany as political entities has little or nothing to do with there being a Julius Caesar in the 1st century BC. History is not being writ in stone, and I don't adhere to the theory that if a butterfly bats its wings the entire universe changes because of it. It may or it may not, and we just don't know either way..

It might not be susceptible to small perturbations in the short term, but it's a
very long time until those nations do arise. It's not just the effect of one butterfly
wing flap - it's compounded myriad times.
But you're right, of course, that we don't know either way, which is why it is just
speculative amusement, like "The Man in the High Castle", or "Years of Rice and Salt".
 
I take the Mendelssohn approach to alt-hist that the ripples reach a peak effect at some point and then wane. I can imagine Cesar's ripple being gone by the time Russia or Germany came around. Especially Germany, since it came later.
 
Why did China have a silver standard instead of a gold standard?

Like isn't gold better?
 
I take the Mendelssohn approach to alt-hist that the ripples reach a peak effect at some point and then wane. I can imagine Cesar's ripple being gone by the time Russia or Germany came around. Especially Germany, since it came later.

Sure, but some cultures like looking backwards for inspiration,
as if it gives their titles or public buildings extra gravitas.

Kaiser, tsar or similar words could easily have been adopted because
another "Caesar" impressed a particular culture, or even because of an
in-joke where the plebs mockingly compared one of their current
poobahs to a Caesar with similar characteristics or style.
 
Why did China have a silver standard instead of a gold standard?

Like isn't gold better?

Not really. A lot of European countries used silver, at least alongside gold, at various points. The early United States operated both a silver and a gold standard, which lasted until 1873 (when silver was demonetised). In 1933, the opposite happened, and the US went back to a silver standard.

The advantages you look for when you want to tie your currency to a product are, roughly:
  1. It should be comparatively rare, so that small amounts of money don't become physically huge.
  2. It should be valued for something other than being money.
  3. It shouldn't corrode or decay.
  4. It should be possible to divide it as close to infinitely as possible.
  5. One 'unit' of it should be functionally as close to identical to any other unit of it as possible.
  6. It should be easy to identify.
Both silver and gold fit these bills roughly equally well. The reason you would want to use commodity money is because it isn't tied to the authority of the government that issues it - the only way for the state to inflate the currency is to debase it, so the 'good' coins in your pocket are safe in a way that 'good' banknotes in your pocket aren't. This means that long-term prices are basically stable, and therefore the value of non-money wealth is basically stable as well. Likewise, if your government collapses, people will still want your money as a commodity, which protects your wealth. It's also easier to trade across borders when foreign trading is comparatively rare, provided that people on both sides of the border accept the underlying commodity as valuable.

The disadvantages are the same, too. Both give huge national importance to a single industry (the mining of silver or gold), and huge economic advantages to countries with gold reserves. By extension, both make it difficult to increase the money supply when the economy grows, unless it does so in lockstep with the mining industry. It also means that governments can't use most of the tools of monetary policy, particularly increasing the money supply during a recession. Most critically, it allows them to hoard gold in times of difficulty - as gold stocks therefore increase faster than the economy, you end up with inflation. This is exactly what happened during the Great Depression, and one of the major reasons why it went so badly.
 
Is there a reason that the Protestant and Catholic divide sort of seems to correspond to the divide between Latin and Germanic-influenced cultures? And please don't rant about Scotland or Austria disproving my racism/determinism, I said 'sort of.'
 
Yes. The Spanish aggressively spread Catholicism in their colonies. Much later, Anglican missionaries made similar efforts in the British colonies. I don't know much about France, but expect that similar things happened there. Most Americans had English or German ancestry (often only one or two generations old), and most of those people were non-Catholic. In Europe itself, it's mostly geographical. You can draw a line around all the Protestant countries, and they're all near Germany, where it all began. You have a few historical quirks like England (which owes it to Henry VIII) but the principle of least resistance probably works as well as any.
 
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