Italy

[Leoreth]

(3) Modern Italians are Ancient Romans' closest descendants – and, in that sense, we can say things like “Scipio was Italian”.

Following that logic, you could also say the Archaeopteryx was a bird because birds are his closest descendants.

 

[Úmarth]

Do you guys realize that the last common human ancestor lived around 2000 years ago (barring pure 100% Native Americans), according to geneticists and anthropologists?

That renders any racial argument moot.

I think you mean 2000 BCE. And you don't have to discount any Native Americans to get that number (which would be a little harsh, don't you think?)

 

[Linkman226]

Well....

Rohde, Olson, and Chang (2004),[5] using a non-genetic model, estimated that the MRCA of all living humans may have lived within historical times (3rd millennium BC to 1st millennium AD). The paper suggests, "No matter the languages we speak or the color of our skin, we share ancestors who planted rice on the banks of the Yangtze, who first domesticated horses on the steppes of the Ukraine, who hunted giant sloths in the forests of North and South America, and who labored to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu". Rohde (2005)[6] refined the simulation with parameters from estimated historical human migrations and of population densities.

 

[Linkman226]

And this:

"Other models reported in Rohde, Olson, and Chang (2004)[5] suggest that the MRCA of Western Europeans and people of Western European ancestry lived as recently as AD 1000. "

 

[aprogressivist]

Hang on. All tigers are cats. That is not the same as saying that all tigers are the same as cats.

So I kinda see Charles Martel's point, people are using the "being"-operator differently here and then arguing about what they think the other person is saying.

 

[Úmarth]

Prof. Pedia takes a bit of a liberty with the sources there. But yeah, Rohde's most recent date is 3500 +/- 1500 BP so I suppose your date was (just) in the range. I misremembered. Personally I think that method is still far too coarse to produce meaningful results though, promising as it is. It's based on modelling migrations between continents with reference to known dates and then assuming genes will spread through the continental population uniformly based on certain parameters - that grossly underestimates the degree to which populations within a continent can be reproductively isolated (think the Amazon, Polynesia).

But since this is completely off topic...

 

[Charles Martel]

Following that logic, you could also say the Archaeopteryx was a bird because birds are his closest descendants.

But that is not the logic of the statement. Rather, the logic is as follows:

Both primitive birds and living birds belong the same evolutionary chain, call it the "bird-chain" (or the "Aves" class). So the Archaeopteryx is an early member of the bird-chain (or, as taxonomers say, it belongs to the Aves class, as all birds do).

Similarly, both ancient Romans and modern Italians belong to the same culture-chain, call it the "Italian" group. So, in that sense, ancient Romans are early Italians. That is a perfectly legitimate way of putting it.

 

[Leoreth]

No, you're deliberately copping out here by claiming that "Italians" means something different to what it means usually. No one interprets the sentence "Romans = Italians" as "Roman = (group of all people forming a cultural relation with Italians)".

Which reminds me of this.

 

[Linkman226]

No, you're deliberately copping out here by claiming that "Italians" means something different to what it means usually. No one interprets the sentence "Romans = Italians" as "Roman = (group of all people forming a cultural relation with Italians)".

Which reminds me of this.

Indeed.

 

[Charles Martel]

No, you're deliberately copping out here by claiming that "Italians" means something different to what it means usually. No one interprets the sentence "Romans = Italians" as "Roman = (group of all people forming a cultural relation with Italians)".

When people say that "Scipio was Italian" they are obviously giving the word "Italian" a wider meaning, so that it comes to mean: "member of a group that comprises ancient Italic peoples , medieval Italians, and modern Italians". This is, roughly, what Petrarch meant by "people of Italy". Which is, in fact, the original Medieval meaning of the word "italico".

If you choose to interpret the word "Italian" in a narrower sense (say, "somebody whose native language is modern Italian"), then "Scipio was Italian" comes out as trivially false. But then you'd misinterpret the claim. Clearly, in the context of the assertion that "Scipio was Italian", the narrower meaning of the word "Italian" cannot be the intended meaning.

 

[Linkman226]

...Why is this even important?

 

[onedreamer]

But I don’t see why anyone should interpret “Ancient Romans are Italians” in the strongest possible sense, as a claim of identity between groups of people from different ages. (Not even the fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile would have made such a strong claim). To put it that way is to misrepresent the claim and attack a straw man.

The real disagreement turns on whether modern Italians are, culturally speaking, the direct descendants of the Romans, or their closest successors – closer, say, than the French or the Spaniards.

We have three options:

(1) Culturally speaking, ancient Romans have no successors at all: Roman culture is extinct.

(2) There are several different cultures that are equally close descendants of the Romans: anyone, say, who speaks a Romance language.

(3) Modern Italians are Ancient Romans' closest descendants – and, in that sense, we can say things like “Scipio was Italian”.​

I take it that Rhye and OneDreamer would go for (2), and would object to (3) on the grounds that it smacks of nationalism and is reminiscent of fascism.

It seems to me that neither (1) or (2) represent the majority opinion amongst Italians, even if we count only living Italians, and discount Romanticism, Risorgimento and all that. The widespread consensus surrounding Benigni’s speech makes me suspect that most Italians would be inclined to agree with (3), and I don’t think that this makes them “nationalists”, “fascists”, or ignorant about history.

That is not to say that Benigni’s speech gives any good historical evidence for (3). I do think, however, that it gives a good indication of what most contemporary Italians actually believe.

Almost nothing of what you write is correct CM. Are you really Italian?
1) The national hymn, even with its nationalistic verve, in no way claims that Scipio was Italian. You are beyond the border limit of nationalism, and this alone should ring some bells. The national hymn claims that Italy has put up Scipio's helmet, the helmet of victory, the helmet of a General that with his winning campaign changed the fate of his current world and of the future of a good part of the planet. This is not the same as saying "Come on Italians, Scipio was Italian!", at least not in my book.

2) The widespread consensus about Benigni regards the dignity of a people that is currently N/A around the world thanks especially -but not only- to some despicable person voted by less than 14 millions (among 60) who claims to represent all Italians. It does not regard the battle of Zama which happened well over 2k years ago, before French, Germans, English, Dutch, Americans etc who are currently laughing at our stupidity as a people even existed.

3) As everyone in this forum by now knows, I would go with 1) the Roman culture is extint and transformed in several other cultures. I'd like to point out that a host of Historians (not Philosophers and certainly not Fascists) are backing my thought on this.

4) How would you call Emperor Trajan? Was he Italian? It is interesting to note he was born in "Italica" How would you call Septimus Severus? Is Septimus Severus Lybian, Carthaginian, Italian or simply Roman? Don't you think that Scipio was an Italic (adj. pertinent to the Italian peninsula) Roman, Trajan an Iberian (adj. pertinent to the Iberian peninsula) Roman and Septimus Severus a Tripolitanian (adj. pertient to modern day western Lybia) Roman?

5) I do not know a difference between modern Italian and "something else" Italian. The Italian culture and people existed long before the unification of the present day country, actually this unification wouldn't have happened if an Italian culture and nationalistic sentiment didn't exist. Do the Dutch call themselves "modern Dutch" as opposed to the Dutch people that were under Spanish or Austrian rule prior to Dutch indipendence? I don't know. Do the Japanese call themselves "modern Japanese" to distinguish themselves from the Japanese that lived in different clans during Middle Ages? I doubt it. Italian sentiment existed already with Dante Alighieri or Machiavelli, but bear in mind that even if most missinformed americans (a good slice of this forum population) will mock Italy because of its late unification and because of its famous losses during World Wars (that is how far the avg american person can go when thinking of "History"), despite the common belief that Italy was "slave" to European powers and not independent, the various Italian reigns and republics were de facto independent and very important in Europe financially, culturally and politically. Present day Italy is in the G8 and is the smallest of the 8 countries, and even those countries near in population and land area (UK and France) have the advantage to have been colonial empires during industrialization. Even after unification, in what you call "modern Italy" great scientists, artists, merchants, engineers (ok maybe not spies and prophets) were born and grown; we have a beautiful country, best food in the world, a monumental heritage (not just expression of the Romans) worst leading class after Lybia but this can "easily" be improved, at least compared to the other things I mentioned. One should be amazed (personally, I am) to what Italy and Italians can and could do nowadays. No, we do not need Scipio's helmet these days.

edit
6) The words Italy and Italic predate Petrarch. Since he is not the "inventor" of these terms, the meaning he gives to these words isn't anything to take as a fact, rather as an opinion, not different from yours or mine.

 

[Leoreth]

When people say that "Scipio was Italian" they are obviously giving the word "Italian" a wider meaning, so that it comes to mean: "member of a group that comprises ancient Italic peoples , medieval Italians, and modern Italians". This is, roughly, what Petrarch meant by "people of Italy". Which is, in fact, the original Medieval meaning of the word "italico".

If you choose to interpret the word "Italian" in a narrower sense (say, "somebody whose native language is modern Italian"), then "Scipio was Italian" comes out as trivially false. But then you'd misinterpret the claim. Clearly, in the context of the assertion that "Scipio was Italian", the narrower meaning of the word "Italian" cannot be the intended meaning.

Assuming this is true, then the sentence is so meaningless that it's not worth saying it, much less arguing over it. Take your example "Scipio was Italian". With your definition of "Italian", the statement becomes so broad it has no actual meaning to contemporary Italians. But this is clearly not what the national anthem is trying to convey, not what Risorgimento nationalists were trying to convey, and also not what Renaissance thinkers were trying to convey when they said Italians are Romans.

 

[Charles Martel]

In fact, I DO believe that Italians are the closest successors of the Romans. I am arguing against your claim that ancient Romans are Italians, that is, Italy and ancient Rome are the same civilization.

Then we disagree about what it means, in game terms, to say that X is the “same civilization” as Y.

In my view, X can be taken as the same civilization/country as Y just in case there is good enough continuity from X to Y (and there is no Z such that the continuity from X to Z is better than that from X to Y). What counts as “good enough” depends on the scope of the game.

For a game such as Civ4, where the scope is broad and civilizations span millennia, the continuity standards must be coarse grained. If X is Y’s closest successors, then, to me, this is good enough reason for lumping X and Y together. So, it’s ok for the Old Kingdom to be the same civ as Cleopatra’s Egypt, even if there are three thousand years between them! All the more so, it’s ok for Germany to be the same civ a the Holy Roman Empire, it’s ok for Qin’s China to be the same civ as Mao’s China, and it’s ok for Rome to be same civ as Italy. I don’t see why Caesar’s Italy --> Mussolini’s Italy is any less plausible than, say, Qin’s China --> Mao’s China. Why the double standards? At any rate, dynamic names (or the “re-birth” mechanism introduced by certain mods) can take care of the finer distinctions.

By contrast, games such as Europa Universalis can have fine-grained standards. For example, EU distinguishes between “Sardinia-Piedmont” and “Italy” as two countries with separate tags. That’s ok, because EU is more focussed in scope and its game engine allows for more variety and historical detail.

 

[Leoreth]

This I agree with (and else I'd be hypocritical considering the features of my modmod ).

 

[awesome]

the roman empire and the italian republic are definitely not the same civilization, but for game purposes, i still wouldn't mind a more modern leader for rfc only for some of the ancient civilizations that tend to respawn more often, like egypt and rome, since india and china are already covered.
or maybe it should just have some reference to modern italy in one or more of its names (italian republic instead of spqr? fascist kingdom of italy instead of whatever it's called now when running police state?)

 

[Leoreth]

The current fascist Roman name even includes an allusion to Mussolini (iirc it's "New Roman Empire").

 

[awesome]

i just tested and it is, indeed, "new roman empire".
also, they're known as the italic peoples before settling a city, but that probably refers more to the language family, though that's obviously named after the penninsula

 

[Leoreth]

Aren't the various people that lived on the peninsula in pre-Roman times called Italic?

 

[awesome]

probably, i have to admit that i don't know too much about italy before rome, except for the basics.
so maybe the penninsula was named after the language instead of the other way around.