Italy

[AnotherPacifist]

I thought the Manhattan project was American (with lots of scientists from different nationalities contributing).

Foreign peoples that migrated from an entirely different continent, hence of entirely different ethnicity, invaded Italy in overwhelming numbers resulting in an even mixture of peoples which generated an entirely new people.

Maybe it's hybrid vigor that gave the Italians and the Americans their advantages.
As far as criminality, maybe it's because we have a more transparent society that we're able to document more. (God knows how corrupt the rest of the world is, Europe excluded of course)

Pasta originated in China you know.

So once and for all, if Italy is to be playable in the 600 AD scenario, it should NOT have Rome's UU/UB/UP, and definitely not Justinian as its leader.

 

[scu98rkr]

Alot of the things you list above are not represented in Civ or generally of little importance in the history of the world.

- Is the renowned italian food Roman in origins ?

To be honest I dont know, but what other CIV has a UU/UB/UP based on good cooking. The two things Italy is most famous for are pasta and pizza. I would be surprised if there wasnt something about during Roman times similar to pasta. Is there any date for the invention of pasta ?
What date are you suggesting the people stopped being "Roman" and started being "Italian" ?

- Is the renowned (at least, before globalization) italian textile/styling industry Roman in origins ?

The romans were famous for mass producing things and probably set the first factories up in Europe so I would imagine the Italian textile textile industry had some connection to this period. Also the reason Italian clothes were seen to be stylish is that even after the collapse of Rome the rest of Europe still looked to italy for inspiration and as the centre of civilization for centuries afterwards. I very much doubt without Rome anyone would of cared about Italy's clothes. Also again what CIV has UP/UB/UU based on being stylish.

- Automobile industry. Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc... renowned in the whole world, are Romans ?

The car was not invented in Italy so you have some good companies so do the Germans, Japs, Americans.

- Enrico Fermi achieved the first nuclear fission, with a team of italian scientists. That's a modern age Civ technology. Discovered by Romans ?

Enrico Fermi is a very clever guy.
1 He is Roman born in Rome and spoke a language descended from Latin.
2 Enrico Fermi and his colleagues in ROME studied the results of bombarding uranium with neutrons in 1934.
3 He then left italy

- Marconi and the Radio ? Romans ? Another modern age tech.

Marconi was in England when he commercialized not invented Radio.

- Volta ? Roman ?

I think your missing the point I'm saying the Roman stroke Italian culture are the same culture. May be Italy would be a better name for the Civ than Rome. Or put it another way :-
Julius Caesar, Italian ??? YES!!!!!

- There is probably no other country as big (or small) as Italy who has achieved as much in so many different sports; sports playing a big role in today's society.

I would say the USA and Russia still lead the way in achievement in sport but that simply because their big.
I think Australia has probably achieved the most considering its population base not italy.

- Fascism is an italian word. Not the best period in History, still it's yet another tech in Civ.

ok well done

- what other civ can boast a Silvio Berlusconi ? None I say . And he doesn't speak Latin, believe me.

hmm well done


"Scu98rkr, perhaps you will tell us which 60 million people nation with 150 years history has achieved as much as the italian people"

Ok from the unification of mongolia, the mongols managed to have the worlds largest land empire in much less than 150 years. Also they didnt have the advantages of 1000's of years of history on their side.

 

[scu98rkr]

"So once and for all, if Italy is to be playable in the 600 AD scenario, it should NOT have Rome's UU/UB/UP, and definitely not Justinian as its leader."

But why not do this for all other CIV's then say greece, egypt, babylon/iraq

Except of course this then leads to the usual argument of who were the Byzantines.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Greece, Egypt, Babylon should definitely not respawn in their original 3000 BC forms. Maybe some intrepid soul can make a super-mod-mod to update these ancient civs so that when they spawn in 600 AD they are not stuck with HR/slavery as their UP. Persia/Iran was definitely not a conqueror in the modern age, and having no resistance from Iraqi conquests is a little anachronistic, no?

 

[Charles Martel]

The Romans aren't the Italians.

The most celebrated poems dedicated to Italy, from Petrarch's (14th century) to Leopardi's (19th century), have one thing in common. Guess what? Yes, they all say that ancient Romans are Italians!

Take, for starters, Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374). This is the man who, together with Dante and Boccaccio, is regarded as the father of the Italian language, so he's not one who can be easily dismissed. His poem to Italy, "Italia Mia", sings Gaius Marius and Julius Caesar as Italian heroes. Italy itself is described as heir and successor of ancient Rome. And in case you are wondering: no, Petrarch does not present this idea as a metaphor or poetic license, he means it quite literally. In fact, he was so obsessed with this theme that he wrote a whole Latin Epic about it: Africa. There he talks about the Punic Wars, portrays Scipio as an Italian hero, and concludes that Italy should be unified in order to resume the civilizing mission of ancient Rome. For that reason, Petrarch is often described as the first Italian "nationalist". By stressing the parallel between Roman unity and Italian unity, he anticipated many key Risorgimento themes.
Anyway, here is what he has to say in the poem Italia mia...:

vertù contra furore
prenderà l’arme, e fia ‘l combatter corto:
chè l’antiquo valore
ne l’italici cor’ non è ancor morto.​

"...because the ancient bravery is not yet dead within the Italian hearts," where the Italian heart's bravery is, of course, that of the Romans.

Now let's jump ahead a few centuries, to Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837). This is another heavy weight, the icon of Italian Romanticism. He still basically thinks the same as Petrarch's. Here's the beginning of his famous poem All'Italia, "To Italy":

O patria mia, vedo le mura e gli archi
e le colonne e i simulacri e l'erme
torri degli avi nostri,
ma la gloria non vedo,
non vedo il lauro e il ferro ond'eran carchi
i nostri padri antichi​

"O my country, I see the walls and arches,
the columns, the statues, and the deserted
towers of our ancestors;
but their glory I see not,
nor do I see the laurel and the iron which girt
our forefathers."​

Who are "our forefathers"? Keep reading and it soon becomes clear. Yes, you guessed it: they are the Romans.

I've chosen just a couple of influential examples, but they are by no means peculiar or isolated cases. Literary works where ancient Romans are described as fellow Italians abound in Italian literature.

The idea that Italy is ancient Rome's successor isn't just a fantasy of a crazy fascist dictator, but it is a belief that was widely held throughout the centuries, by quintessential Italian intellectuals such as Petrarch, Cola di Rienzo, Leopardi and, to some extent, even by the founding fathers of the Italian nation, such as Mazzini and Cavour. Don't you think that we should give these people at least some credit? Or did they all happen to have "the wrong perception of Italy", as Rhye has put it?

In summary Zach is making a mod to substitute the Roman civ in the 600AD ... You and others are objecting that this is redundant

Me? Not at all. On the contrary, I welcome Zachscape's project.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Italy isn't Rome, but Italy in RFC has a degree of representation through Rome. That's how I divide the representation of modern countries in RFC:

1. Fully represented - has a RFC civilization that completely corresponds to that country (France, England, USA).
2. The region is represented - the country isn't represented itself, but its main areas are represented by another civ that occupied the same place, with a certain cultural link (Italy-Rome, Azteca-modern Mexico).
3. Represented by conqueror/colonizer/dominant partner, who founds cities in the area (Scotland-England, SE Asian countries-Khmer).
4. The cities of the country are not even usually seen on a RFC map (Polynesian countries).

 

[scu98rkr]

Yes there are differences between how Civ are protrayed.

I think alot of this could be improved by

1. Adding many more leaders. I know Rhye is only keen on using the best leaderheads buts if theres any mod that is crying out for more leaders its RFC. Because RFC is trying to represent CIV's through out history they need to act differently at different times. Personally I think most CIV's could quite happily have 4 leaders some of the ancient CIV's could easily have 5 or more. This would also help represent different dynasty's with in CIV's where the leaders were replaced but the CIV didnt collapse.

2. The dynamic naming system could be expanded however this could be a never ending job. It would be nice if this could some how be linked to the number of respawns a CIV has or at the very least time ie Rome would re spawn as Italy. If this can be done to be honest I known think it would be best if we renamed Rome as Italy. And a certain combination of CIVs give roman republic/roman empire or a certain time period.

But to be honest the dynamic naming system could just be expanded and expanded and expanded and I imagine Rhye would not be too keen on this.

 

[kairob]

slightly off topic I just wanted to bring up this point;

Maybe it's hybrid vigor that gave the Italians and the Americans their advantages.

I do not believe that americans (from the USA not counting latin america) have a more mixed racial ancestry than Europeans as both Europeans and European Americans have a mix of Roman, Germanic, Celtic, Nordic and Slavic blood. However European Americans, Spanish Americans, Asians Americans and the Black Community generally do not intermarry, (although this is less true since the 1960 and the civil rights movement) as such I think that all Europeans (Britain especially) have a very mixed racial make up.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, with hybrid vigor I didn't mean interbreeding, I meant the fusion of different cultures. And the term I'm just using for fun, nothing biological meant by it.

If it's just different faces on the diplo screen it's just a facelift, not changing the essence of the civilization. That's why in the next game (Civ5) it would be great if we have dynamic techs and UP/UU/UB depending on era. That might make later civs more disadvantaged, but maybe you can make it up by giving less benefit to earlier civs and maybe even "anti" UP/UU/UBs for earlier civs as they progress. The possible combinations are mind-boggling though...

 

[Pottery]

Nice thread, but some posters greatly exaggerate the impact of the barbarian invasions on the stability of the Latin-Italian culture. I know that many people still think of the barbarian invasion as massive migrations that destroyed classical civilization and forged an entirely new society. But this is an outdate view. Nowadays, historians have overturned it. Rather than large-scale migrations, there are military takeovers by relatively small groups of tribal warriors and their families.
Ultimately, the Germanic tribes that settled in Italy lost their tribal identity: they were absorbed into Latinhood and adopted a form of Roman language, customs and administration. This is more like assimilation than fusion.

I've read one poster claim that barbarians invaded Italy in overwhelming numbers. That is also an exaggeration. The truth is that the Germanic tribes were a minority, if compared to the total Roman/urban and Italian/rural population. The invaders were just tribes of warriors and their families, numbering in the tens of thousands. Even the whole of Alboin's army could fit within Ravenna's walls. He led an estimated 20,000 soldiers (probably not more that 100,000 people, including women and children)... not that many people when compared to the 4-5 million Latin population of Dark Ages Italy.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

A quote from wikipedia article on barbarian invasions:

In this regard, profound changes in culture (and language) could occur through the influx of a ruling elite with minimal or no impact on overall population composition.[46], especially if it occurs at a time when the indigenous population is receptive to such changes.

Genes don't change (we're probably the same creatures from 12000 years ago), it's CULTURE that changes, and that should be all what having a distinct civilization in the game means. If the barbarians adopted Roman institutions, it doesn't mean they copied them without significant modifications and transformations.

@ Charles Martel
It might be true that the Italians thought they were emulating Romans, but maybe that's part of their identity (i.e. trying to be Roman without actually being so).

 

[Charles Martel]

From the same Wikipedia article:

the Germanic groups in the western Empire were accommodated without dispossessing or overturning indigenous society and maintained a structured and hierarchical form of Roman administration

I agree with Pottery. I don't buy the claim that huge barbarian hordes exterminated the local population and "generated an entirely new people", as onedreamer has put it. True, Aquileia was destroyed by Attila, but its Roman residents fled to the swamps, thus laying down the foundations of Venice. Most Roman cities survived the invasions more or less intact, and are still standing today as major Italian cities. Even Aquileia was soon rebuilt by Latin people under the protection of the Byzantines.

And, by the way, the Carthage-Algeria comparison is no better than the Hittites-Turkey one. The continuity from Carthage to Tunis is very tenuous, almost non-existent, and in no way comparable to the much stronger continuity from ancient Rome to modern Rome. For all the barbarian hordes that supposedly laid Roman culture to rest, contemporary Romans still speak a language that is the direct descendant of Latin, whereas Tunisians speak a language that bears no resemblance whatsoever to Hannibal's mother tongue.

No doubt the barbarian invaders brought deep change to the Italian peninsula. But change, even radical change, is compatible with continuity. Latin culture has no doubt changed radically, but it has also changed continuously, gradually evolving into the Medieval Italian culture of Dante and Petrarch, who, in turn, are the forefathers of contemporary Italians. By contrast, Carthage was annihilated: unlike its Latin counterpart, Punic culture faded into nothingness, and its last remnants probably disappeared during the chaos of the Vandal's invasion. So much so that there probably is more continuity from Rome to Tunis than there is from Punic Carthage to Tunis.

@AnotherPacifist
I don't think that the finest Italian intellectuals, from Petrarca to Leopardi, were somehow deluding themselves in trying to "emulate the Romans", as you put it. Don't forget that these people where extremely smart and knowledgeable. They knew Latin and Greek, they knew their history better than you and me, and were well aware of the changes caused by the Goths and the Lombards' invasions. Even so, they never believed for a second that those invasions had resulted in a new mixed German-Latin ethnicity which had somehow replaced the Romans. Yes, it is part of the Italy's national identity (from the Middle Ages to Risorgimento) to regard the ancient Roman as fellow Italians. I find it hard to believe that this was a systematic and collective delusion of generations of first-rate intellectuals and politicians.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I never said deluded. I just said they THOUGHT that they were emulating the Romans, up to the best of their abilities. They succeeded in some way in their emulation, but is the real thing? Probably not. Was even their pronunciation of Latin the original version. Probably not. When you have enough differences, one starts to call a culture separate, even if related.

they knew their history better than you and me, and were well aware of the changes caused by the Goths and the Lombards' invasions.

This is highly debatable.

 

[Rallas]

Carthage to Tunisia is nowhere similar because the region of Carthage was conquered by the Arabs forcing them into a completely different culture from the Roman European culture they once were.

The Italians spoke Italian because unlike Carthage they had no culture or nation forcing a language upon them allowing them to slowly develop a language from the original language that united a continent.

 

[ZachScape]

In summary Zach is making a mod to substitute the Roman civ in the 600AD (where it is obsolete) with a more modern civ -Italy- that can spawn in the 19th century.

Embarrassingly, I don’t know how to mod. I was just throwing out the ideas an materials so somebody, or a group of us, could make it. At first, we should make the Italian civ with the LH, UB, UU, UCNs, settler and stability maps, and the Pedia entries first, because they are already made for us. We just have to copy and paste (loosely) from the link I posted in the OP. (the maps are just numbers, they are easy. And I have already done the bulk of the DCNs.

Maybe it's hybrid vigor that gave the Italians and the Americans their advantages.

I have my own philosophy on how the Americans have achieved so much superiority in so many fields, but I doubt any of you would want to here it. It has to do with immigration and Social Darwinism though.

 

[Charles Martel]

I never said deluded. I just said they THOUGHT that they were emulating the Romans, up to the best of their abilities. They succeeded in some way in their emulation, but is the real thing? Probably not. Was even their pronunciation of Latin the original version. Probably not.

You are giving Petrarch and later generations of Italian intellectuals a goal they never had, and you are setting it impossibly high. Their goal was not to parrot the ancients and become exact replicas of the Romans. Rather, they thought it obvious they were the Romans' successors. They did not so much seek emulation of the Romans, but emancipation from the foreign rulers, and they took this right to emancipation to be based on their Roman heritage. Following Petrarch, the "nationalist" Italian intellectuals believed that Roman ancestry gave them both the right and the duty to overcome internal divisions, unite against the foreign powers, and continue Rome's civilizing mission.

(A note on your baffling "pronunciation" remark: are all Chinese scholars good at imitating the pronunciation of ancient China's dialects? If not, would it show that these scholars aren't *really* Chinese?)

When you have enough differences, one starts to call a culture separate, even if related.

When is "enough" enough? Are there enough differences between ancient China and modern China to make them "separate but related"? And what do you mean by "separate but related"? Temporally distant cultures, no matter how different, aren't really separate if they are linked by a continuity relation.

This is highly debatable.

What is debatable? That the fathers of the Italian Nation knew Italian history better than you and me? That they were well aware the changes brought by the Goths and Lombards' invasions?

Take Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873), the quintessential Italian novelist. He knew well about the Lombards, and wrote an epic (Aldelchi) and an historical treaty about them: Discorso sopra alcuni punti della storia longobardica in Italia ("A Discourse on Some Points of Lombard History"). Manzoni's main contention is that the Lombard's invasion did not result in a mixed Germanic-Roman ethnicity. At the time, the two main theories on the Lombard-Roman relationship were as follows:

• The Manzoni view: the Lombard invaders did not "mix" with the Romans. Instead we have two peoples: the subjugated Romans (aka the Italians) and the Lombard rulers, each existing as a separate nation.
• The Macchiavelli-Muratori view: the Lombard's did not generate a uniquely new culture. Instead they were quickly integrated into the Roman culture.

Now, I don't actually believe that Manzoni's extreme view is correct, and I find something like the Macchiavelli-Muratori's view to be more plausible. But notice that, on both theories, there is no fusion of Germanic and Latin identities resulting in a genuinely new ethnicity.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

In fact we don't really know how ancient Chinese is pronounced. Modern Chinese dialects are diverse and Standard Mandarin is actually a 4th generation dialect. The original meaning of the Chinese classics have been amplified by commentary (just like the Latin classics). And in some respects, the culture of the the Warring Kingdoms is markedly different from, say, the Yuan Dynasty, so one would call them different, even if related and we all call them "Chinese" cultures.

When I'm saying their knowledge of Italian history is debatable, I'm saying that the Italians aren't more objective than modern historians simply because of their technology. Of course they can use their erudition in historical texts to justify their nationalist goals. Do they have the benefit of modern archaeology, genetics and literary criticism?

And maybe you can enlighten us on the views of the Turin native Gioberti (who, I read in the wiki, wanted Papal rather than secular dominance in Italy) and Pius IX. Would they have maintained that the Italians are Romans?

 

[scu98rkr]

People keep getting it the wrong way round its not Italians are Roman its that Rome is an Italian Civilization therefore the Romans are Italians.

 

[usi]

In fact we don't really know how ancient Chinese is pronounced. Modern Chinese dialects are diverse and Standard Mandarin is actually a 4th generation dialect. The original meaning of the Chinese classics have been amplified by commentary (just like the Latin classics). And in some respects, the culture of the the Warring Kingdoms is markedly different from, say, the Yuan Dynasty, so one would call them different, even if related and we all call them "Chinese" cultures.

Yeah, Westerns feel that many Asians are alike, and Asians feel that many Westerns are alike.
That's called the outgroup homogeneity bias.
The biggest thing I learned from the long debate in this thread is that people really love Rome and Italy.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

People keep getting it the wrong way round its not Italians are Roman its that Rome is an Italian Civilization therefore the Romans are Italians.

I thought the whole point of this argument was that
A. Italy should not equal Rome when (and if) they spawn in the 1800's
B. Rome itself is not Italy, even if the Romans were geographically Italians, if not temperamentally Italian as we know the term today.
C. Medieval and Modern Italian civilization should not equal Roman civilization.

I've typed the word Italy so many times it now looks funny to me.