• shalafi@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    2 days ago

    By 14 I had watched Shogun a time or three and read the book not long after. Guess where I fell.

    BTW, the new miniseries is the finest television I’ve seen in ages, maybe ever. All my love for the original, but the latest one blows it straight out the water.

  • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    2 days ago

    For some reason I can’t stop reading about Mesopotamia =/

    Did you know that in 1770 B.C. Zimri-Lim, king of Madi, was so exasperated by his daughter being such a bitch to his political ally, the king of Ilansura, that he eventually traveled all the way from Madi to Ilansura to “liberate the palace of Ilansura from her presence” (his own words)?

    • lemerchand@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 days ago

      I just wrapped up a deep dive into Mesopotamia myself and man it was fucking fascinating. Hadn’t heard this one before, so thanks

      Another fun one from Mari was how Shamshi-adad berated his son via correspondence by saying he was too busy womanizing and partying to be a good leader and should be more like his older brother 😂.

      There are so many cool stories. I have moved on for now to study some Greek and Egyptian history because I want to have a nice background for when I get to Roman history but one day I wanna grab a book specifically on Assyrian history.

      Anyway I am around if you ever want to talk Mesopotamian history haha

        • lemerchand@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          2 days ago

          The newly inspired Roman fan in me wants to say ‘no you filthy Carthaginian scum!’ but the guy who just read about Dido in a Greek mythology book says he needs to learn more about it because it seems really interesting

          • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            A Phoenician (the “punic” wars come from a mistranslation from greek to latin, phoenike) colony that became independent due to distance from the capital and just wanted to get rich from trading stuff around. They had an incredible naval industry. All the “losers” and “enemies” of these eras have amazing stories that we’re not taught at school. The many Persian dynasties of those times did incredible public works and had their own advanced bureaucracies and statecraft, which is what later muslim conquerors used as a basis for their own caliphates.

            Somewhat related, this video, “Lost Worlds: Secrets of Alexander the Great” is a tracing, initially, of the likely path that created the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, as the myth possibly comes from when sea levels were much higher, to the point that the Black and Caspian seas were connected and you could sail all the way to what today is the middle of Turkmenistan. Later on, it mentions how Alexander didn’t “found” new cities in the region of Bactria, but rather subjugated the cities he happened to walk into

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 days ago

        Wasn’t Shamshi-Adad the first one to claim the title “king of the universe”? 🤣

        Assyrian boasting always cracks me up. Sennacherib describes this battle against Babylon:

        With the dust of their field covering the heavens, like a wide, mighty storm, they drew up in battle array before me on the bank of the Tigris. They blocked my passage and offered battle. I put on my coat of mail. My helmet, emblem of victory, I placed upon my head. My great battle chariot, which brings low the foe, I hurriedly mounted in the anger of my heart. The mighty bow which Assur had given me, I seized in my hands. The javelin, piercing to the life, I grasped. I stopped their advance, succeeding in surrounding them. I decimated the enemy host with arrow and spear. All of their bodies I bored through. I cut their throats, cut off their precious lives as one cuts a string. Like the many waters of a storm, I made the contents of their gullets and entrails rain down upon the wide earth. My prancing steeds, harnessed for my riding, plunged into the stream of their blood as into a river. The wheels of my war chariot, which brings low the evil and the wicked, were spattered with filth and blood. With the bodies of their warriors, I filled the plain like grass. Their testicles I cut out, and tore out their privates like the seeds of cucumbers of June.

        Meanwhile, the Babylonian records say:

        The Assyrians lost the battle.

        • lemerchand@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 days ago

          Wasn’t Shamshi-Adad the first one to claim the title "king of the universe

          I think it was actually Sargon of Akkad! If you haven’t looked into the Akkadian stuff I highly suggest it. It’s woefully lacking in detail since it was the 3rd century BCE. A lot of it was written after Sargon passed, but it’s all very foundational for the Babylonian and Assyrian stuff that came after.

          Assyrian boasting always cracks me up. Sennacherib describes this battle against Babylon:

          Case in point, a lot of the bragging and boasting started during the Akkadian dynasty. Sargon jumpstarted it by bragging about how he captured Lugalzagessi and paraded him around the city before taking him to the gate of Enlil in Nippur. One of his sons (Rimush or Manishtusu) or perhaps his grandson, Naram-sin, was the first to try and estimate (and brag about) casualties by his army’s hand!

          They also bragged a lot about how they put down rebellions…it was a tradition in their line haha 😂

          That being said, like their rule, the Assyrians were far more boastful about their straight up brutality. But one thing they had in common that I found interesting and super respectable…they wanted to be remembered more for their creation and restoration than their destruction. Sennacherib and his successors did some really amazing city planning and tried to take care of their people.

          I hadn’t seen that entire description from Sennacherib before thanks! I will say, he was fucking pissed and it shows!

          • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            Sargon was fucking nuts. From son of a gardener to king of the world.

            Fun fact: I always thought the Mask of Sargon looks like the Chad guy in soyjack memes

            • lemerchand@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              2 days ago

              Hahahaha that’s hilarious. I’ll never unsee it!

              Have you been reading books or reading through Wikipedia? The wiki pages are very thorough but I like having an author organize everything for me. I read “Mesopotamia: invention of the city” by Gwendolyn Leick and listened to the majority of the audiobook for “Weavers, Scribes, and Kings.” I was looking at a book by Echart Frohm when I started getting enamored with Rome and I kinda got sidetracked haha

              • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                3 hours ago

                I like the details an author can give that the Wikipedia page doesn’t have room for. I was just listening to The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer which inspired my initial post.

  • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    I actually prefer the late West Roman period, or East Roman in time of Belisarius and Narses, for the Roman pic. They have for me that association for the piece of that time which is almost possible to emotionally connect with ours.

    And vikings didn’t look like that, they looked like the better kind of LOTR illustrations.

    The third pic - should have the alternative of Austria-Hungary, with all the nice marches and uniforms and their utter inability to actually function as a military.

    The fourth pic - again, nice, but I’d prefer to see a bunch of half-naked ashigara with pikes there and a samurai with a bow, and maybe a couple of muskets.

    EDIT: and, eh one of these? why not all?

    EDIT2: no Egypt? no Nubia? no fscking Athens even?

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    Make that 5 if you’re actually from the relevant country/region of one of the older ones.

    Source: am viking by birth, hippie by sensibility 😁

  • Match!!@pawb.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    2 days ago

    this image is missing the substantial influence of the Dynasty Warriors game series

    • SassyRamen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      What was it again? The Yellow Band Tribe?

      I tried to play one of the newer Dynasty Warriors, but it was way too over complicated

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        2 days ago

        It’s an animefication of the Romance of Three Kingdoms novel, which is a fan-fiction/novelization with some artistic liberties of the Three Kingdoms period, the turmoils that led to the fall of the Han dynasty around 186AD and the ensuing war among several warlords, founding the titular three kingdoms: Wei, Wu and Shu.

        In the DW games it’s just a one off stage because, “Pffft, peasants rebelling, amirite?”

  • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    This is just school houses. I was in Romans (red) and the other two were Saxons (blue) and Vikings (green, bad behaviour encouraged).