Poll: Which Ancient Civilisation would yo liked to have lived in?

Captain Pirate

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Sparta, Greece by far.
Not just because of 300, but because it would've been an awesome place to live.
I hate the idea of war in this modern age, but I've always been fascinated by the idea of honourable combat with no guns.
Also, it would be pretty awesome living as a Spartan, what with the intense training and everything.
 

dragonswarrior

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Feb 13, 2012
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thaluikhain said:
Even with diseases taken out of the equation, most ancient civilisations were pretty shitty places to live, both figuratively and literally. Might be fun to visit, the way third world countries get tourism, but not to stay.

Though, most people don't even mention the diseases when they come up with these things, so points for that.
You might actually be surprised how nice conditions could be in ancient times. Everyone has this idea that things were horrible, because they didn't have indoor plumbing or gas stoves or something, but the reason third world countries are crap in today's world is because they were exploited and abused by the first world countries, and then left that way.

Ancient life wasn't nearly so hard as a lot of people think, not until medieval/feudalism/renaissance times did it actually start getting really crappy. There just wasn't enough population to truly make things horrible for the lower class, and even being a slave in some ancient civilizations was better than being a serf in medieval times. I don't want to just say things were good, but they were better than you might think.
 

dragonswarrior

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Feb 13, 2012
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Captain Pirate said:
Sparta, Greece by far.
Not just because of 300, but because it would've been an awesome place to live.
I hate the idea of war in this modern age, but I've always been fascinated by the idea of honourable combat with no guns.
Also, it would be pretty awesome living as a Spartan, what with the intense training and everything.
Spartan's training was awful and intense, and the reason they were able to sustain their culture and society was because they had enslaved an entire race of people, and made them do all the work. If you wanted truly honorable combat/army whatever, you would want to stick with Athens. Who, contrary to popular belief, were very war like. They required that all citizens serve a stint in the military and everything.
 

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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Demon ID said:
I think the rape and pillaging the vikings got up to could be a laugh, too many people seem to frown on that sort of activity nowadays no matter how much I try to tell them it's respecting heritage and tradition :/
Are you wearing a horned hat?

If you pillage and burn a village to the ground people will think your a bit mad and if you start spouting about heritage then you'll get locked up, but if your wearing a horned hat, just point to the hat, no one will question you.

OT, being a French Man, I choose Gaul, only two tribes the Roman's didn't fuck with, The Gauls and the Scots, when I go to Scotland I actually get called "Gallic Brother" by the older crowd.

*brofist* to all you Scots.
 

Alssadar

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Sep 19, 2010
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Rome, because I've been playing too much Rome: Total War recently. They also had plenty of good stuff at the time that the rest of the world didn't. And thus they hated them.
"All right, but apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
 

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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dragonswarrior said:
Captain Pirate said:
Sparta, Greece by far.
Not just because of 300, but because it would've been an awesome place to live.
I hate the idea of war in this modern age, but I've always been fascinated by the idea of honourable combat with no guns.
Also, it would be pretty awesome living as a Spartan, what with the intense training and everything.
Spartan's training was awful and intense, and the reason they were able to sustain their culture and society was because they had enslaved an entire race of people, and made them do all the work. If you wanted truly honorable combat/army whatever, you would want to stick with Athens. Who, contrary to popular belief, were very war like. They required that all citizens serve a stint in the military and everything.
Oh I like you!, its a pleasure reading your comments!.

I think Captain Pirate means the honour in un-armed combat instead of the thuggish means of projectile weaponary we have today, having to be disciplined and mastering combat and war itself instead of mastering a tool of war.

I've heard about the Spartans locking down anyone that stepped into their borders and having neighbouring tribes as slaves to look after their land but not invading, I should look into it more, after all I named my dog Spartacus since he was a Greek slave.
 

DirtyJunkieScum

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Feb 5, 2012
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DigitalSushi said:
OT, being a French Man, I choose Gaul, only two tribes the Roman's didn't fuck with, The Gauls and the Scots, when I go to Scotland I actually get called "Gallic Brother" by the older crowd.

*brofist* to all you Scots.
They did fuck with the scots, fucked them up pretty badly on occasion they just decided it wasn't worth the effort for a load of hills given the need for troops in areas with more loot available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_during_the_Roman_Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Wall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mons_Graupius

Also I could have sworn Gaul was conquered by the Romans...except that one little village of course.
 

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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DirtyJunkieScum said:
DigitalSushi said:
OT, being a French Man, I choose Gaul, only two tribes the Roman's didn't fuck with, The Gauls and the Scots, when I go to Scotland I actually get called "Gallic Brother" by the older crowd.

*brofist* to all you Scots.
They did fuck with the scots, fucked them up pretty badly on occasion they just decided it wasn't worth the effort for a load of hills given the need for troops in areas with more loot available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_during_the_Roman_Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Wall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mons_Graupius
I fully admit my history isn't as good as other peoples (in fact its pretty shitty!) but I always thought like you said that the Romans got there, had a fight and went "actually fuck this place its too much effort" and turned around.
 

Captain Pirate

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dragonswarrior said:
Spartan's training was awful and intense, and the reason they were able to sustain their culture and society was because they had enslaved an entire race of people, and made them do all the work. If you wanted truly honorable combat/army whatever, you would want to stick with Athens. Who, contrary to popular belief, were very war like. They required that all citizens serve a stint in the military and everything.
Well, Athens it is, then.
It would still be very awesome in my opinion.
 

dragonswarrior

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Feb 13, 2012
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Captain Pirate said:
dragonswarrior said:
Well, Athens it is, then.
It would still be very awesome in my opinion.
*laughs* Trust me, youre better off there. To further this point, Athens widely considered that the greatest way a man could die was "on the spear of an enemy", and that their city was named after goddess Athena. Who, in addition to rocking wisdom and architecture and all that jazz, was also the goddess of honorable and just warfare.

As opposed to Ares, who was the god of dick warfare. An oversimplification sure, but that more or less sums it up.
 

DirtyJunkieScum

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DigitalSushi said:
I fully admit my history isn't as good as other peoples (in fact its pretty shitty!) but I always thought like you said that the Romans got there, had a fight and went "actually fuck this place its too much effort" and turned around.
It was a lot more than that, Caledonia was never conquered as such but the lowlands were occupied for several decades in parts. Also I'm pretty sure the Romans took Gaul, by force with some very serious casualties on the Gallic side.
 

dragonswarrior

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Feb 13, 2012
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DigitalSushi said:
dragonswarrior said:
Captain Pirate said:
Sparta, Greece by far.
Not just because of 300, but because it would've been an awesome place to live.
I hate the idea of war in this modern age, but I've always been fascinated by the idea of honourable combat with no guns.
Also, it would be pretty awesome living as a Spartan, what with the intense training and everything.
Spartan's training was awful and intense, and the reason they were able to sustain their culture and society was because they had enslaved an entire race of people, and made them do all the work. If you wanted truly honorable combat/army whatever, you would want to stick with Athens. Who, contrary to popular belief, were very war like. They required that all citizens serve a stint in the military and everything.
Oh I like you!, its a pleasure reading your comments!.

I think Captain Pirate means the honour in un-armed combat instead of the thuggish means of projectile weaponary we have today, having to be disciplined and mastering combat and war itself instead of mastering a tool of war.

I've heard about the Spartans locking down anyone that stepped into their borders and having neighbouring tribes as slaves to look after their land but not invading, I should look into it more, after all I named my dog Spartacus since he was a Greek slave.
*laughs* thanks!

And I suppose in Sparta's defense, they were very honorable to each other. Always stood by their shield mates, and part of their training involved turning each squad of warriors into an unbreakable bonds of brotherhood lodge kinda thing. They were fiercely loyal to each other and actually treated their women fairly well all things about the ancient world considered.

They just treated everyone else like crap. And had very little in the way of art or philosophy and all that jazz. While Athens had all that and a very warlike mentality. So really, if you wanted to be in a state that honored warfare in all its ancient glory, I would pick Athens over Sparta any day.
 

dragonswarrior

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Feb 13, 2012
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DirtyJunkieScum said:
DigitalSushi said:
I fully admit my history isn't as good as other peoples (in fact its pretty shitty!) but I always thought like you said that the Romans got there, had a fight and went "actually fuck this place its too much effort" and turned around.
It was a lot more than that, Caledonia was never conquered as such but the lowlands were occupied for several decades in parts. Also I'm pretty sure the Romans took Gaul.
But don't forget that the Gauls (and the Celts) got Rome too!! They were just a pillaging society rather than a conquering society, which is why they eventually lost...
 

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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DirtyJunkieScum said:
DigitalSushi said:
I fully admit my history isn't as good as other peoples (in fact its pretty shitty!) but I always thought like you said that the Romans got there, had a fight and went "actually fuck this place its too much effort" and turned around.
It was a lot more than that, Caledonia was never conquered as such but it was occupied for several decades in parts. Also I'm pretty sure the Romans took Gaul.
I thought the Romans took the area that is now Eastern France but the Gaul's kept Western France?, like I said my history is pretty poor and based on drunk on granddads in pubs, still fun to listen to.

I know the English were the tribes called the Angles, I saw a guy punch* another guy in England for calling him a "Vandal" which I think is now Germany, its why the French call England "Angleterre", land of the Angles basically.

*Tribal nature
 

EmperorSubcutaneous

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I chose other because I couldn't decide. Probably Mongolia, or the Middle East before/around the time of Muhammad. They would have been much friendlier to me as a woman than other times/places I could choose, and I'd enjoy seeing what the music and dance were like at the time.

Oooh, or Crete.
 

DirtyJunkieScum

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DigitalSushi said:
I thought the Romans took the area that is now Eastern France but the Gaul's kept Western France?, like I said my history is pretty poor and based on drunk on granddads in pubs, still fun to listen to.

I know the English were the tribes called the Angles, I saw a guy punch* another guy in England for calling him a "Vandal" which I think is now Germany, its why the French call England "Angleterre", land of the Angles basically.

*Tribal nature
Nope, all Roman. There were different provinces and like in most parts of the empire pre existing noble types retained an amount of power and influence but in the end the Romans were top dog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Gaul

The Angles were later, a Germanic tribe that arrived after the Romans left, same era as the Saxons and Jutes.

[EDIT: OK, you mean the English post Roman as opposed to Britons who were pre Roman, that's closer to being right.]

"Vandal" is a word for someone who destroys things for fun, usually public property, it is unlikely anyone was annoyed at someone hinting they may be related to an ancient Germanic tribe.
 

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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DirtyJunkieScum said:
DigitalSushi said:
I thought the Romans took the area that is now Eastern France but the Gaul's kept Western France?, like I said my history is pretty poor and based on drunk on granddads in pubs, still fun to listen to.

I know the English were the tribes called the Angles, I saw a guy punch* another guy in England for calling him a "Vandal" which I think is now Germany, its why the French call England "Angleterre", land of the Angles basically.

*Tribal nature
Nope, all Roman. There were different provinces and like in most parts of the empire pre existing noble types retained an amount of power and influence but in the end the Romans were top dog.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Gaul

The Angles were later, a Germanic tribe that arrived after the Romans left, same era as the Saxons and Jutes.

"Vandal" is a word for someone who destroys things for fun, usually public property, it is unlikely anyone was annoyed at someone hinting they may be related to an ancient germanic tribe.
I thought the Vandals (and judging by one dude hitting another about it they thought the same) were a tribe from the German region?

I know a vandal is a miscreant though in modern language, but I've been told by several drunks that vandals were a tribe... I'm starting to sound like Hagrid from Harry Potter, "got it off a bloke in a pub"
 
Dec 27, 2010
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Gaelic Ireland, for purely nationalistic reasons. Ancient Greece would be cool to see as well, cradle of Western civilisation, and all that. But honestly, I'm more interested in seeing a future civilisation to be completely honest though.

Edit:
DigitalSushi said:
OT, being a French Man, I choose Gaul, only two tribes the Roman's didn't fuck with, The Gauls and the Scots, when I go to Scotland I actually get called "Gallic Brother" by the older crowd.

*brofist* to all you Scots.
Oi, the Romans were afraid of the Irish as well!
 

A_Parked_Car

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Oct 30, 2009
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I would like to live in Tang Dynasty China. Getting to see Chang'an at its height would be pretty cool stuff.