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One thing for sure if they would come to our time they will see the Jewish people that they try so much to eliminate and arise from history still here still kicking and thriving more than ever and in the same the Roman civilization is no more maybe they left a hell of a legacy for the people that came after them but still they gone extinct they are no more they are only a memory today unlike the the Jewish people that's still here and ain't going anywhere!! 🇮🇱✡️🕎🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 !!! עם ישראל חי
"Like and let me know if you want another episode of this" Metatron my brother in christ make this a series PLEASE!!! Heck jump periods and cover the middle ages or maybe go into what a Carthaginian would think or someone from the 1800s! I learned a lot and thought of a ton of stuff that never occurred to me before thank you! 3rd edit: OH OH OH what about if you brought an ancient Sumerian or what about the perspectives of Persia or bronze/Iron age Japan!
One thing for sure if they would come to our time they will see the Jewish people that they try so much to eliminate and arise from history still here still kicking and thriving more than ever and in the same the Roman civilization is no more maybe they left a hell of a legacy for the people that came after them but still they gone extinct they are no more they are only a memory today unlike the the Jewish people that's still here and ain't going anywhere!! 🇮🇱✡🕎🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 !!! עם ישראל חי
Vira gets less lethal with time. Just look at COVID, they want to be able to spread better, and they cannot if they kill their hosts immediately. So the vira he was used to, would be more lethal than our versions. Only those from "The New World" would be serious- except they do not kill fast.
@@sagagis Almost all cases of modern influenza are caused by descendants of the virus that caused 1918-1920 Spanish flu pandemic, so anyone from before those years probably wouldn't have an immunity and the disease would be as deadly to them as Spanish flu used to be during the pandemic.
Even more wild is the existence of a country that larps as the Roman Republic _and_ Empire, but is immediately north of Latin America but not a part of it.
@@rogeriopenna9014well, eyewitnesses are not necessarily reliable or knowledgeable, and they may have the wrong impressions of things or some faulty preconceived ideas. Do you know and understand why Mike Johnson delayed aid to Ukraine and then suddenly changed his mind, for example? Or why Putolini invaded at all? Maybe historians will gain better insights than we have now. That would not be the first time.
One of the best quotes I've ever read, regarding this type of scenario, is this: *Modern Day Person*: "Currently, in my back pocket, I have a device that connects me to the entirety of man's collected knowledge, since the beginning of recorded history, and even beyond. It contains all our science, art, philosophy, culture, and the wisdom of the ages." *Ancient Civilization Person*: "Oh really? And what do you do with this miraculous device?" *Modern Day Person*: "Look at pictures of cats, and argue with idiots."
@@Laurelin70 Nah Romans would loath over how modern civilization generally restricted or even banned brothels that modern people have to resort to porn lol
Well, we do use it for all the good reasons as well. We don't just watch cats and argue with idiots. Most of the time we don't actually. In fact I think that as soon as they actually start to understand how prevalent smart phones are and how much we use them, that the way we use them is actually very easy to understand for a Roman. They probably would do the same things if they had access to them. Entertainment has always been a major drive for humanity and debate would be very understandable for a Roman.
@@Laurence0227 I don't think that's so much the case. Even in countries where brothels are legal (I am Dutch, you can just walk to a brothel at any hour here if you want to), porn is still FAR more popular. It's cheaper and more private and much lower effort. I don't think Romans would be surprised by the prevalence of porn at all when they realise that you can show moving pictures of that quality to anyone instantaneously. Porn is so obvious that it basically existed the very moment it was possible. It's quite literally human nature to seek sexual enjoyment.
He never sought fame or wanted to be remembered for thousands of years. It's ironic that this private manuscript that he wrote to himself became so prolific and appeals to different cultures across time and across the world.
Could you imagine thier reaction to vaccines? "So you are telling me that one of the most deadly diseases known to man (smallpox), has been all but eliminated?!"
Metatron with a cellphone: "Message sent. It reached Germany. Oh, and they spoke back." Ancient Roman: on the floor, rocking himself, having a PTSD episode.
You maniac, now Germania knows about us! We must prepare the fortifications against the Teutones et Cimbericae... Do we even have the time before their hordes teleport to our position?
Remember that this ancient Roman has already overcome either time travel or resurrection to get here. The idea of instantaneous communication might not be so hard to believe after that.
Varro: "Who is the general here? Me or you? I'm dealing with those Libyan barbarians called 'Bloods' who want to 'bust a cap in my ass', so ask Vorenus for the Legions!"
I imagine a Roman looking up at the night sky in a big city and wondering "Where are all the stars!? Did you steal them and bring them to earth!? Have the gods abandoned us!?"
@jaspermooren5883 ...salt was a form of currency to the Romans. The mind blowing comes from just how MUCH salt one day's wages would buy (e.g., how mindblowingly well paid we are on that standard)
sure, we have overcome salt scarcity. And in the right parts of the world, also food and water scarcity in general. But have introduced scarcity on so many other things. Like, the common oak forests covering all of Spain and Italy, that Republican Romans might still know about: No wonder we don't construct wooden ships anymore, we maniacs chopped all the wood (centuries ago)
@@GuukanKitsune Yes, I know that (it's where the word salary comes from for example). The joke was just that, like @loganshaw4527 said, eating too much salt can cause a heart attack. So it was a joke made by taking your obvious figure of speech literally. But jokes are hard to get sometimes in written form.
@@truntbeefwell9784 even before that, any spice that at their time had to be imported from very far away so was extremely expensive. Now, you can buy several small bottles of spices, for an hour's worth of a basic job.
Food in general would shock them due to the things we can grow in places they couldn't, and the volume at which we can make high value foods available to anyone with a few bucks. That andnthey would likely be disgusted with alot of our packaged foods... though the preservation aspect would likely impress, but not surprise.
there was a scene in the short series dracula in which he, after slumbering for 160 years, enters an apartment of a women who considered it a bums place but he replied „I met many nobles and kings in my past and I can tell you none of them would ever go outside again having seen all these marvelous treasures you possess. I knew that the future would bring many amazing things, but I didn’t know it would make them ordinary“ that struck it perfectly for me
@@tygicalNot only did they knew about the Greek gods, Roman religious life was a salad of different cults. For example, the goddess protector of Rome from Asian monotheistic religion where you can only get to heaven by cutting off your penis. Or the Egyptian leek cult. Or Egyptian gods adapted to the Greek mentality (artifacts of this cult were even found in modern Ukraine). Or the secret monotheistic religion of pirates. Or that time when the emperor declared himself the sun god and then died a year later and the Romans for a while thought that Christianity and Solar Invictus were the same religion.
I could be wrong on this, but Romans have always struck me as supremely adaptable and, above all, practical. Of all ancient peoples, I think they might have the easiest time with being transported to the 21st Century because they seemed to say, "Hey that thing we never heard of works/is proven, so let's make it/do it ourselves." Of course there would be tremendous initial shock that, in some cases, would never be gotten over, but I tend to think their reaction would be more curiosity than fear. But what do I know.
I've always thought the hardest thing to explain to someone from virtually any previous age of humanity would be, "I have an object in my pocket that lets me instantly communicate with people across the world, and lets me access the entirety of human knowledge."
What would a Roman think of new world crops? The sheer fucking VOLUME of spices we get through. Synthetic artificial dyes, the idea the Tyrrian Purple was suddenly worth so little that even a homeless beggar can wear it would utterly break a Roman.
Even something as simple as a modern beetroot would be revolutionary if introduced to the ancient world. It is actually just a variant of "beta vulgaris" that grew wild in Mediterranean and was cultivated by Romans. The difference between the two is that Romans only had access to white/dull/colourless tuber, while modern is purple. I'm not sure how good of a dye you could make from it, but pickled beetroot brine is deep purple and has the ability to create stains on clothing that are almost impossible to get rid off, so it presumably would function as a dye. Even if it can't match the hue of Tyrrian Purple, it would be absolutely dirt cheap in comparison and destroy the association between colour purple and royalty. (It was continued by the "Byzantines" and people of the middle ages, and persists to some degree to this day.) And to bring this back to our modern world - I regularly just pour this stuff down the drain when a jar runs out and needs to be prepped for recycling.
@@samhobbs9116 A certain type of rare snail you only get around the east Mediterranean. Called Tyrrian purple because only the city state of Tyre was able to get more than a tiny amount of it.
It’s crazy that we are able to watch a UA-cam video of a late empire Roman giving us his own personal recollection of culture shock with the modern era. Truly amazing times we live in.
Yup those trying to be nobles have to do the bidding of high nobles. It is the same for those trying to be rich you have to do the bidding of those with more money then you.
I think the thing that would be the most astonishing to an ancient brought from the past to the present would be the things that they are used to in general, but in the sheer scale of availability and precision. Paper, they had papyrus, and velum, but we use paper to blow our noses and to wipe it is so cheap. Glass, they have glass, but it is generally small rough panels, we have large multi-meter sheets of it, clear as clean water. They had simple swamp air conditioning, we can command ice at will, and similar things.
Roman: “What kind of fool do you take me for? He’s the Roman Empire? (points to HRE) He’s the Roman Empire? (points to the Byzantines) He’s the Roman Empire (Points to the Ottomans) I’M THE ROMAN EMPIRE! Are there any other Roman Empires I should know about?” The Russian Empire: “Blyat” Roman:”…….Im out of here”
@@rynemcgriffin1752mate the “byzantines” have never existed, from the day romulus supposedly founded rome to 1453 the roman people stayed as a continuous state. By the time the west fell, the majority of the roman culture, military, wealth, and population was in the east whereas the unholy fake roman empire was just straight up german and the ottomans aren’t even native to a single region in europe or the middle east since they originate near mongolia same as the mongols lmao so yeah the “byzantines” were real romans in literally every single manner. Fuck i hate that word because it literally was never used once while the roman empire still existed
@@nekogaming5300 I’m aware, I just needed a third name for the joke. Even still, the Byzantines or Medieval Romans or whatever you want to call them were drastically different from their counterparts in the Roman Empire proper in terms of culture and religion so an ancient Roman wondering if they were Roman wouldn’t be too far of a stretch. It would be like a Samurai from the 1600s looking at Modern Japan for lack of a better comparison. As for the other two, obviously the HRE wasn’t Rome, that was the joke. The Ottomans however, after conquering Constantinople, called themselves the “Successors of Rome” so while not a continuation like the -Byzantines- Late Stage Romans were, It still kind of fit the whole “WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE” type joke. As for Russia, they basically claimed the same thing on the grounds that they were the new home of Orthodox Christianity but had less reasoning than the HRE.
Many Romans of upper classes were quite aware languages evolve, as themselves had difficulty understanding old Latin, they had arguments about the ethnology of words and names (like Caesar itself) So those people would be really interested and maybe proud in knowing that 2000 years later, there are over 1 billion people, including in a continent they never knew existed speaking weird but clearly recognizable forms of Latin. That 2000 years later all of Europe and the Americas have a calendar with months named after Roman gods, two Roman consuls/dictators/princep civitatis... That law in all western hemisphere is full of Latin terms, and in many countries it's mostly based on Roman law. They would also recognize the LATIN ALPHABET everywhere, although they would be curious about the minuscule letters (non capital). They would find it interesting all around the world there are countries called REPUBLICS, with SENATES. They would probably find amusing there is a town called NOVA ROMA DO SUL (however they would have to be explained sul means austral), that but only is in another continent, but in the southern hemisphere. 😮 They would be maybe fascinated that so many things in science are named in Latin. That in the entire western hemisphere the planets are still named after Roman gods (plus the planets they knew nothing about) I would like to tell Julius Caesar, that despite his despair when he visited Alexander's tomb and at the same age Alexander had done so much compared to him, that 2100 years later he was more known than Alexander and had a month named after him and that for 2000 years emperor's have been called after his branch of the Julii, the caesares
They will be surprised to know that the reason Latin is still in use in science because of the clergies of the accursed religion of Christianity preserved it.
@@blazecrep7849 i feel the answer would be dependant on the person you take, some roman generals might take it with philospohy "welp, clearly they were either lucky or just plain better" and others would probably start sharpening their pikes and swords...
The months were named by the Romans themselves. Many, if not all, by Julius Caesar himself. Catholicism didn't rename the months, but changed their numbers, so October isn't the 8th month anymore.
I think something an ancient Roman would be shocked and fascinated by is our knowledge of medicine and the workings of the human body. The idea of organ transplants or surgeries that solve problems that would be deadly or debilitating to their time would blow their minds.
If you watched Patrick Kelly channel, our medicine knowledge were similar to the Roman up until late 19th century. Even when microscope was invented in 16th century, medical world still believed in the existence of humors, which was codified during Roman times.
@@calibadgerdude6082 even just realizing how much more likely we are to survive cancers and tumors nowadays through proper medical care when even just 30 years ago it was considered a toss of the coin if you'd survive it is impressive.
I think no matter what, they would be surprised and shocked by four things: food, food storage, sanitation, and medicine. Everything else would surprise them, but the sheer variety of food options, the availability of spices and food preservation along with our sewers and medicine practically tripling life expectancy would blow their minds.
This is one of the things that I have always thought; he'd be amazed at the sheer volume of our road network, and appalled at the shitty quality of most of it, covered with patchwork repairs within a year of construction.
roman roads has people and horses and wagons on them. they are comparable in use to a busy sidewalk, not a road with giant cars constatnly driving over them.
probably because it constantly has 3250 pound SUVS owned by insecure middle aged men running over it did you know that weight in proportion to road damage is exponential?
The anime Thermae Romae dealt with this idea, but from a very a narrow viewpoint, that of an Ancient Roman bathhouse designer who, for brief periods of time, gets transported to modern day Japanese bathhouses. After each visit he takes ideas from what he saw in Japan and applies them, to the best of his knowledge and the technological capabilities of his time to great success.
if I am correct the anime ends before the end of the manga. because in the second part of the manga Lucius meet a girl obsessed with ancient Rome, and he learn more things about the modern world. and a sequel manga exist too
One thing I think that a Roman would notice in a modern urban area would be the lack of public amenities. Where are all the public toilets? Where are all the public baths? These were community structures to him, places where people socialized as much as they did their business. Churches would be confusing to the Christian and the Pagan Roman alike. Christians met in small spaces, and temples were for the gods, not for the worshipers to go inside. I could see him going into a major outdoor sports arena and wondering, "hey, why don't they have a cover over the seats like we had in Rome?"
This is something that saddens me. You have so many places where you can charge your phone. But if you need to go popo, tough luck buddy. Better hope you can hold it in until you're home!
@@GerardMenvussaconsidering the state most public bathrooms end up in, can you blame people? It's the tragedy of the commons. A friend of mine worked at a gas station. He had fresh horror stories weekly of what he found and often had to clean in the bathrooms.
@@hugovandyk9918Isn’t that a cultural issue with how little people have respect for others belongings or public spaces ingrained into them from birth, though? Kind of hard to have things clean and nice when the masses aren’t made to respect or consider anyone else. People only value what they own and maybe wherever they conveniently are at. Otherwise, much like how children before the age of five lack object permanence? Those areas don’t exist. It gets to the point where the word public has a sort of a dirty or inferior connotation. And when the people at the top don’t care, that apathy trickle down or even up.
A great book on this issue is Tom Holland's book Dominion. It's basically a history of how Western society got from the value system of the Greco-Roman world to the very different value system of today. Part of the inspiration for the book was that writing a series of histories of the Roman world made the author realise that the mindset of ancient Romans was alien to his own secular humanist perspective.
I don't know if I fully agree. Just 150 years ago all of the Americas still had slaves Was the Roman republic more alien than the 15th century, except for Christianity?
@@rogeriopenna9014 1. Slavery wasn’t race based and literally a father could sell his children or abandon them at birth to slavers. Anyone could be a slave really to their own children. Being freed happened after a period, but until then? If another wanted to slight their master, they’d come after the slaves in various manners of assault. 2. The pagan religions were basically pay to win schemes, where the poor and women were on the lowest end. Since they couldn’t make sacrifices or enter the temple respectively to worship. Eerily similar to prosperity gospel, the pagan Roman religions presumed all failures were from immorality and sin. That if one succeeded, they were in the gods’ favor. The main reason why the temple system lasted so long was from patronage of the wealthy, so naturally the theology built up around them. 3. A man had free reign over the household and could kill or enslave anyone under his roof. All of these factors and more are why Christianity took hold in the empire and became vastly popular. Not because like Edward Gibbons liked to think was a decay. But because Greco-Roman society was cruel and only offered a good afterlife, or Elysium, to the rich and wealthy or those who died in glory and battle ,who were viewed as special. Take away the rose tinted view many weirdos have of this era and it’s not that fun of a place to live in. Not to mention the Romans weren’t all that more hygienic than their medieval descendants, since their shared bathrooms and bathhouses were unclean compared to the Japanese or Turkish bathhouses they came later. Western hygiene standards took a long while to actually improve. It’s why the Jewish and Muslim populations fared better during the plagues for instance.
@@ByTheStorm Apparently you don't know anything about the baths used in the Middle Ages by the Western and Eastern Slavs, Finns and Estonians. A thousand years ago, the Andalusian traveler al-Bakrī described such customs in his work: "Book of Roads and Kingdoms". That traditions continue to this day: Sauna/Ба́ня.
20:54 Yes they would notice the difference in air quality. In Canada I lived near Toronto, a major city. When I moved back up north you can tell the difference of air quality. The biggest tell is the lack chemical and smell of gas and smoke (both cigarette and stacks).
Northern NSW Australia, agree lived in Sydney (NSW) for 38 years moved to the countryside. When I visit the city now you can smell and taste the difference.
Great video, I think you're forgetting the part where he would freak out when he realizes all of his friends and family are suddenly dead and have been for over a millenia.
Some things that would be incredible to show/bring an Ancient Roman: (1) Night assault tactics, night vision, and thermal vision. (2) The scale of agricultural corporations as well as our modern day agricultural technologies. (3) How affordable books and the spread of knowledge has become. (4) Modern day medical technologies and advancements. (5) A trip to space, and our understanding of the universe. If the Ancient Roman was from the times of the Roman Republic, it would be interesting to show the rise and history of representative democracy from the Enlightenment onward.
to add to your list: Phone and television will surprise them. Rifle and artillery will freak them. A simple lighter is a wonder for them, even when their own technology should be able to produce some themselves.
The Roman: "I'm sorry, but why exactly are (insert 90% of the human population) allowed to vote? It's no wonder your rulers are all mockeries of Crassus!"
@@aaronclarke1434 A Roman who knew a good recipe might be able to make a killing opening a chain of "Authentic Roman Cuisine" restaurants including Garum as a main condiment they put on everything a Roman might. He could even offer a Roman twist on some modern dishes. Like a burger with Garum on it. Or pizza where the sauce is Garum. He could offer a 10% discount to anyone who comes dressed in something resembling authentic Roman garb as well to add to the atmosphere.
The most shocking thing to a Roman would probably be the departure from the master - apprentice / helper system in education and manufacturing. This is what kept them from industrialization.
I once watched a video of a couple of guys form a hunter/gatherer tribe in Papua New Guinea, people with practically no knowledge of the outside world, were flown out to New York City and they almost seemed bored. I think they just didn't really know what to make of it all. It was super interesting!
this reminds me of one of my favorite tv shows as a kid, it was a dutch show called "welcome to the romans" (roughly translated) and every episode they'd have a famous roman person who, according to the hostess, "has been dead for a couple thousand years but they've come back to life today, especially for us!" and they would just talk about what their life was like and how it's changed from then to now...
I think the Roman would be flabbergasted by our having in our pockets a device we use not only for communication but also to gain access to the combined knowledge of contemporary humanity, but we also use it to watch silly videos of cute little kittens.
19:17 try explaining how angry people get over lag, that usually delays your interaction across the world by seconds, when they had to wait days to hear from the next town over XD
As an aspiring historian / classicist I love these videos. I am personally very interested in how a Roman would react to for them future historic events. WW1 and WW2, Napoleon, the industrial revolution, the fall of the Western Empire and the continued existence of the Eastern half for another over millennia, are just a few that come to mind first. I think that a video like that would be fascinating!
If a ancient Roman just spawned today, first things first we would need to find a translator. Edit: wow I did not expect this comment to get so many replies even after two weeks.
It would depend where they spawn at if in modern day Rome judging by Luke’s video there would be a lot of misunderstandings except for a few words here and there.
19:10 "Imagine the idea of instantaneous communication, having to explain that to someone who is used to sending a letter or a package." I'm not that old, but I remember having to learn to do that myself in the mid 1990s. So it probably wouldn't be that crazy to explain it. Just explain it how I learned it myself. What I find interesting is much of our technology and amenities are actually quite new and evolved within the last 40 years. About the only thing prior to that, where the Roman wouldn't be familiar would be combustion engines, flight, telecommunications (telephone/telegraph), and electricity. But everything else would have been things that his society (or one that traded with) pioneered, such as plumbing, cement, and even freezing foodstuffs. If you took a Roman to 1924, they'd have much less of a shock, but taking someone from 1924 would have near as much a shock as a Roman would in 2024.
I'm not even 40 yet, and the change in my lifetime has been staggering. I often think about my grandparents' generation and wonder if they felt the same. My grandmothers, in particular, were born at a time when horses still did many things, cars and tractors were new and scarce, and they lived into the Internet Age, seeing all that transpired in between.
@@BRTowe I'm not much older than you but my parents were in their mid 30s when I was born so they got to see a lot of that. They were around when milk, ice, and some other things were delivered by horse and buggy. It was actually kind of amazing how my parents adapted to computers. My dad took a bit longer to get used to the internet than my mom. Yet he could use a computer pretty well, having to use one in the Marine Corps in the 70s and 80s for things before they had GUI. His typing speed was phenomenal (I suspect mostly from typewriter). 20th Century had some pretty big leaps, both technologically and culturally.
There is a novel by Richard Ben Sapir "The Far Arena" that takes up this theme of a full-blown culture shock. A Roman gladiator out of Domitian era is found frozen in the ice and brought back to life. I read the novel a long time ago and found it very fascinating.
@@zanir2387 Nah. That was more a meso-American thing. Gladiators were expensive, and rarely were killed. The ones who died were usually condemned for some crime or offense to the emperor. But a Roman would DEFINITELY recognize sports culture, star athletes, etc.
@@Cardan011 They were, but they also considered bravery a fundamental virtue. I suspect our Roman time traveler would consider drone operators to be cowards, and their leaders equally so.
@@TheLegendaryLore respectfully I disagree, no difference between balistae operators or drone operators. Romans were known to adapt to whatever worked best in warfare and also known when needed to use underhanded tactics. The idea of “strength and honor “ is very romantic ( as you can see where that word came from) . Of course every military appreciates bravery but for Romans effectiveness was priority.
Hey, I just wanna say as an Eastern Roman history enthusiast, I would very much appreciate it if you make videos about the Eastern Romans. I noticed you made a lot of videos about the Roman Empire during the Principatus, and less so about the Dominatus, but haven't come across any videos about its Eastern half.
If a Roman military commander were brought into today's world, he would learn as much as possible about the time from his to ours. He would then use that knowledge to advance Rome's dominance even further than in "the past".
For the past 2 years I have been wanting to see a movie based on this. The curiosity of an Ancient Roman coming to terms with Modern Life, also must be animated, no Live-action bs that's almost always overdone in weird ways. Would like to see all the videos of things you proposed this episode, specially modern day vs ancient "Republics".
This is a fascinating video…thank you for making it! I think the Roman would be amazed at how well off is the “average” person. The size of the middle class and its level of comfortable living and access to things that only the extremely wealthy in ancient times could dream of would be almost disorienting.
This was the first video I’ve ever seen from this channel and I’ve gotta say it’s pretty good!. Altho summarizing all of this into a single 20 minute video is neat I think it’d be great to go more in depth with separate videos for each aspect of this one. Tech, culture, ect ect
@@GerardMenvussabecause after the first world War, the penalties heaped upon Germany for losing ultimately lead to Hitler's rise to power and the second world War. Eventually people separated Germany from Nazi and we moved on. Germany was not evil, there were just evil people in charge of Germany for a while. We learned that to blame the whole for the actions of some would be foolishness. Now the idea of European nations like France, England and Germany going to war with each other over their borders or old grievances is absurd. That nations like Russia still try to conquer their neighbours by force of arms leaves them a century behind the rest of the world.
I would think a lower class Roman woman would marvel at our washing machines, dishwashers, textiles, and the fact that we could have full daylight light in our houses all day long if we want to. And warm water straight out of the tap. And spices available for just about everyone. And that girls are given unique individual names, and not just the feminine version of their fathers name with a number added to it. Oh, and safe contraceptions, pre-natal care and safe(er) births
Reading this comment all I see is Rome suddenly having a civil war between the men n women over the dish washing n regular washing machines in Wether or not it was witchcraft and if they can have it
This is the kind of content which I love so much. Culture shock and awe of people, not only from different areas of the Earth, but also time. King Jayabaya, one of the King of Kediri once said: There will be an era of upside down and contradictory. So I guess it's kinda true that culturally and morally, ancient people will be disappointed. Bu technology wise, it'll blow their mind away. Hope you can expand a little by viewing some comments here. Some hilarious, some realistic.
I like the thought experiment of Novae Romae Thermae of the man going to modern Japan and just being absolutely blown the hell away by the stuff he sees, trying to bring it back to the Empire and being hailed as a genius. An ancient Roman would be as blown out of the water today as someone from 2024 would be, by seeing a science fiction setting.
Luke Ranieri/ScorpioMartius made a video about this, playing a legionaire lost in modern New York City. His character is convinced that "America" is just an endonym for Atlantis, a continent full of barbarian mages, and he's waiting for his Emperor to start long-term planning to annex Atlantis/NYC. 😂
This was so fun! I'd love to see more of these videos. Maybe with different civilizations (although I realize it'd be extremely similar), or here's a question I thought about recently, what single piece of technology (in isolation) would have made the biggest impact on an ancient civilization? Now that you brought up phones... what could've happened if the romans had it??
That was fun 😃 A couple of things I would add. First is the relationship to hierarchy and the extent of the dominance of a higher up over a lower person. In a change of context, the things we are used to but are no longer available jump at us. So a Centurion for example, I suspect would be amazed about the relative absence of power today. He would probably wonder how a society can work so loosely. Another one, although minor, is, well, representation of the male organ. It was even used as doorbells then. I tend to believe the almost complete absence of imagery about it would be probably feel weird.
"The Far Arena" is a great novel about a Roman gladiator unfrozen in modern times and the only person who knows enough Latin to communicate with him is a nun. Incredible book, though it's out of print.
Romans had a very good hygiene, even compared to us. Difference is that bathing was a social event, where people would sit together and talk while bathing, unlike us who prefer our privacy in the bathtub. It's only after the collapse of the Roman Empire where pooping out the window onto the street and bathing only twice a year became the norm for many people.
Funnily enough, in theory, it's because of the Romans, the Varian Disaster in particular. I've heard it postulated that you can trace both World Wars directly back to that incident.
I honestly think they would be absolutely stunned. Imagine the sound of fighter jet during low attitude fly-by. It fills me with awe as it sounds like the heaven, air and reality itself is being torn to pieces. Can you imagine what would Romans feel? And I believe you dont need a military to absolutely shock Romans. Just imagine showing them airplanes or taking them to Rammstein concert. I love to entertain myself with this kind of thoughts ❤ Thank you sir, our kind lord Metatron, thank you once again for a fantastic video!
They had amphitheaters during their time, but they will be curious about the stadium design than can amplify the sound so loud, only to be disappointed when they see the loudspeakers, while at the same time wonder how the device works.
more than the amplification itself, the musical instruments, the way modern instruments work, aside from simpler classical ones such as guitar, is impressive, even a fairly standard chepo 50$ keyboard would be a magical marvel to them(whereas if you took someone from say, the 1600s, they'd probably just be annoyed)
@@iota-09 Yea and the sheer amount of noise - I know battles etc were very loud, but Imagine having a truck with tons of heavyweight speakers, traveling along classical world. And the way it can record a speech and talk back and make a noise so loud it damages your ears, i think theyd be baffled.
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Was it the manga about bath houses or the SCP 1510 that caused this?
Seeing the Colosseum in its "modern" state, would give the ancient Roman from BC an instant heart attack. From AC, not so much.
One thing for sure if they would come to our time they will see the Jewish people that they try so much to eliminate and arise from history still here still kicking and thriving more than ever and in the same the Roman civilization is no more maybe they left a hell of a legacy for the people that came after them but still they gone extinct they are no more they are only a memory today unlike the the Jewish people that's still here and ain't going anywhere!! 🇮🇱✡️🕎🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 !!! עם ישראל חי
"Like and let me know if you want another episode of this" Metatron my brother in christ make this a series PLEASE!!! Heck jump periods and cover the middle ages or maybe go into what a Carthaginian would think or someone from the 1800s! I learned a lot and thought of a ton of stuff that never occurred to me before thank you! 3rd edit: OH OH OH what about if you brought an ancient Sumerian or what about the perspectives of Persia or bronze/Iron age Japan!
One thing for sure if they would come to our time they will see the Jewish people that they try so much to eliminate and arise from history still here still kicking and thriving more than ever and in the same the Roman civilization is no more maybe they left a hell of a legacy for the people that came after them but still they gone extinct they are no more they are only a memory today unlike the the Jewish people that's still here and ain't going anywhere!! 🇮🇱✡🕎🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱 !!! עם ישראל חי
*spawns in middle of modern Rome*
*immediately dies from random diseases*
"Hello there! 👋 Nice to meet you. ☺️ I live with these folk. 🫵 My name's Rhinovirus, but you can call me; _Daddy."_ ~ 🦠
I don't think ancient Romans (at least some of them) didn't have immunity against common diseases like influenza
Vira gets less lethal with time. Just look at COVID, they want to be able to spread better, and they cannot if they kill their hosts immediately. So the vira he was used to, would be more lethal than our versions. Only those from "The New World" would be serious- except they do not kill fast.
More likely to die from an infection without modern antibiotics.
@@sagagis Almost all cases of modern influenza are caused by descendants of the virus that caused 1918-1920 Spanish flu pandemic, so anyone from before those years probably wouldn't have an immunity and the disease would be as deadly to them as Spanish flu used to be during the pandemic.
An ancient Roman learning that an entire part of the world he had no idea existed is called _Latin_ America is wild.
underrated comment
Even more wild is the existence of a country that larps as the Roman Republic _and_ Empire, but is immediately north of Latin America but not a part of it.
@@EdwardM-t8pBrazil
After learning to use the internet he would rage-edit 90% of Wikipedia-articles on ancient Rome.
Lol😅
Source?
I WAS THERE!!!1!
Just to have some Wikipedia editors returning it to the original state saying they know better
And mince meat the replacement theology of white characters with acient Roman's in movies by Disney. 😂
@@rogeriopenna9014well, eyewitnesses are not necessarily reliable or knowledgeable, and they may have the wrong impressions of things or some faulty preconceived ideas. Do you know and understand why Mike Johnson delayed aid to Ukraine and then suddenly changed his mind, for example? Or why Putolini invaded at all? Maybe historians will gain better insights than we have now. That would not be the first time.
One of the best quotes I've ever read, regarding this type of scenario, is this:
*Modern Day Person*: "Currently, in my back pocket, I have a device that connects me to the entirety of man's collected knowledge, since the beginning of recorded history, and even beyond. It contains all our science, art, philosophy, culture, and the wisdom of the ages."
*Ancient Civilization Person*: "Oh really? And what do you do with this miraculous device?"
*Modern Day Person*: "Look at pictures of cats, and argue with idiots."
And porn! Don't forget porn!
@@NRG56 Oh, but porn would be DEFINITELY understood by the Romans...
@@Laurelin70 Nah Romans would loath over how modern civilization generally restricted or even banned brothels that modern people have to resort to porn lol
Well, we do use it for all the good reasons as well. We don't just watch cats and argue with idiots. Most of the time we don't actually. In fact I think that as soon as they actually start to understand how prevalent smart phones are and how much we use them, that the way we use them is actually very easy to understand for a Roman. They probably would do the same things if they had access to them. Entertainment has always been a major drive for humanity and debate would be very understandable for a Roman.
@@Laurence0227 I don't think that's so much the case. Even in countries where brothels are legal (I am Dutch, you can just walk to a brothel at any hour here if you want to), porn is still FAR more popular. It's cheaper and more private and much lower effort. I don't think Romans would be surprised by the prevalence of porn at all when they realise that you can show moving pictures of that quality to anyone instantaneously. Porn is so obvious that it basically existed the very moment it was possible. It's quite literally human nature to seek sexual enjoyment.
Roman: "At least the moon hasn't changed."
American: "We left footprints on it."
yea lol, that would blow their mind
@@capslfern2555 He might join the moon landing deniers as soon as he finds out about them.
😅 L O L 😂
At least sun really hasn't changed - we didn't leave any foodprints on it!
@@elvenrights2428 “the sun feels a lot hotter than I remember”
"All these barbarians wearing TROUSERS!"
But, barbarians always wear trousers....
😂😂😂
This is what I came to say lol. *points gladius at your throat* "Explain please why everyone in Rome is wearing pants. NOW!"
oh gods they would HATE our idea of fashion and think that were degenerates.
Wow the food is soo GOOD.
Meanwhile Marcus Aurelius: Who published my diary, that was meant to be private!!! 😳
It's a plot twist.
Augustus: I sure am glad my propaganda campai....I mean the perfectly truthful account of how I saved the Republic has survived through the ages.
He never sought fame or wanted to be remembered for thousands of years. It's ironic that this private manuscript that he wrote to himself became so prolific and appeals to different cultures across time and across the world.
🗿🤦🏻♂️
What if it's Procopius? "Um, guys, that was secret for a reason."
An ancient roman probably would shed to tears seeing how advanced medicine is. The mere concept of antibiotics would probably amaze them.
Could you imagine thier reaction to vaccines? "So you are telling me that one of the most deadly diseases known to man (smallpox), has been all but eliminated?!"
Tells about a mold that saves lives.
"Leprosy is easily treatable!" And he'd faint.
Enjoy them while they last... we are actually running out of antibiotics.
@@jwisemanm a terrifying fact that i'm happy to forget from time to time😓
Metatron with a cellphone: "Message sent. It reached Germany. Oh, and they spoke back."
Ancient Roman: on the floor, rocking himself, having a PTSD episode.
ancient roman : wow! that pidgeon was so quick, I didn't even see it!
@@michelguevara151 It was Mercurius himself who delivered the message
You maniac, now Germania knows about us! We must prepare the fortifications against the Teutones et Cimbericae... Do we even have the time before their hordes teleport to our position?
Remember that this ancient Roman has already overcome either time travel or resurrection to get here. The idea of instantaneous communication might not be so hard to believe after that.
"The trees spoke bar bar bar..."
Roman picking up a phone: "Varro! Where the fvck are my legions?!"
Ancient Roman hears Anonymous: "We are Legion." Ancient Roman joins them immediately.
Brilliant comment well done
Varro: "Who is the general here? Me or you? I'm dealing with those Libyan barbarians called 'Bloods' who want to 'bust a cap in my ass', so ask Vorenus for the Legions!"
I imagine a Roman looking up at the night sky in a big city and wondering "Where are all the stars!? Did you steal them and bring them to earth!? Have the gods abandoned us!?"
Tell Roman to chill and take him to the country side he'd be relived.
All this things if you think about it... small details are pretty different to back then
@@zombiedoggie2732 Can you imagine taking that dude in a car ride? He would be absolutely floored by the experience.
I'd say ya, we call them light bulbs now! We're still trying to get the rest.
@@jakej2680 "THis chariot, It requires no horse? And...you can sit!"
"Hi roman, this is one day salary, and this is how much salt you can buy with it" Roman: dies of heart attack
Wait you're not supposed to actually spend it all on salt and eat it!
Ya too much salt does cause heart attacks.
@jaspermooren5883 ...salt was a form of currency to the Romans. The mind blowing comes from just how MUCH salt one day's wages would buy (e.g., how mindblowingly well paid we are on that standard)
sure, we have overcome salt scarcity. And in the right parts of the world, also food and water scarcity in general.
But have introduced scarcity on so many other things. Like, the common oak forests covering all of Spain and Italy, that Republican Romans might still know about: No wonder we don't construct wooden ships anymore, we maniacs chopped all the wood (centuries ago)
@@GuukanKitsune Yes, I know that (it's where the word salary comes from for example). The joke was just that, like @loganshaw4527 said, eating too much salt can cause a heart attack. So it was a joke made by taking your obvious figure of speech literally. But jokes are hard to get sometimes in written form.
We all think, and with good reasons, ancient Romans would be amazed by our technology. But cheap spices would also blow their mind.
Sugar. A bar of chocolate would drive them mad.
Whenever Romans encounter a superior technology, they will absorb it into their culture immediately.
@@truntbeefwell9784 even before that, any spice that at their time had to be imported from very far away so was extremely expensive.
Now, you can buy several small bottles of spices, for an hour's worth of a basic job.
Food in general would shock them due to the things we can grow in places they couldn't, and the volume at which we can make high value foods available to anyone with a few bucks. That andnthey would likely be disgusted with alot of our packaged foods... though the preservation aspect would likely impress, but not surprise.
French toast alone would do them in
there was a scene in the short series dracula in which he, after slumbering for 160 years, enters an apartment of a women who considered it a bums place but he replied „I met many nobles and kings in my past and I can tell you none of them would ever go outside again having seen all these marvelous treasures you possess. I knew that the future would bring many amazing things, but I didn’t know it would make them ordinary“
that struck it perfectly for me
Which series if you can remember?
@@Fyr365 it's a netflix series, 3 parts only. it's called just dracula
@mister_duke Thanks a bunch!
"We have thermonuclear weapons now."
Roman: ...
"It's not that complicated, you just need uranium or plutonium and..."
Roman: The power of the GODS!!!!!!1!1!
well, uranium would not sound godlike to them, as uranus was actually a greek god
@@tygicalNot only did they knew about the Greek gods, Roman religious life was a salad of different cults. For example, the goddess protector of Rome from Asian monotheistic religion where you can only get to heaven by cutting off your penis. Or the Egyptian leek cult. Or Egyptian gods adapted to the Greek mentality (artifacts of this cult were even found in modern Ukraine). Or the secret monotheistic religion of pirates. Or that time when the emperor declared himself the sun god and then died a year later and the Romans for a while thought that Christianity and Solar Invictus were the same religion.
@@NickV-ez4be but the average roman would not think of "uranus" as some powerful being
I could be wrong on this, but Romans have always struck me as supremely adaptable and, above all, practical. Of all ancient peoples, I think they might have the easiest time with being transported to the 21st Century because they seemed to say, "Hey that thing we never heard of works/is proven, so let's make it/do it ourselves." Of course there would be tremendous initial shock that, in some cases, would never be gotten over, but I tend to think their reaction would be more curiosity than fear. But what do I know.
Dude imagine them seeing cars , trains, PLAINS. They would be piss terrified.
@@berilsevvalbekret772 Hope they do not have agoraphobia when they see the Great Plains of North America lmao
I've always thought the hardest thing to explain to someone from virtually any previous age of humanity would be, "I have an object in my pocket that lets me instantly communicate with people across the world, and lets me access the entirety of human knowledge."
"This bic lighter is cheaper than water, and it can instantly make fire." 🔥
What would really amaze our Roman is that most people use that wondrous device for p0&n, cat memes, and arguing about politics with each other.
"And we use it to look at pictures of cats, and argue with idiots."
"current entirety". Even an ancient roman would weep at the loss of the library of Alexandria. As we all should.
@@ChristChickAutistic "So like our graffiti then?" Roman graffiti had a lot of p0&n, anmimal pictures, and political statements.
What would a Roman think of new world crops?
The sheer fucking VOLUME of spices we get through.
Synthetic artificial dyes, the idea the Tyrrian Purple was suddenly worth so little that even a homeless beggar can wear it would utterly break a Roman.
Take that a step further: we dye food. We can just casually eat colors that would have been worth a month's salary.
Even something as simple as a modern beetroot would be revolutionary if introduced to the ancient world. It is actually just a variant of "beta vulgaris" that grew wild in Mediterranean and was cultivated by Romans. The difference between the two is that Romans only had access to white/dull/colourless tuber, while modern is purple. I'm not sure how good of a dye you could make from it, but pickled beetroot brine is deep purple and has the ability to create stains on clothing that are almost impossible to get rid off, so it presumably would function as a dye. Even if it can't match the hue of Tyrrian Purple, it would be absolutely dirt cheap in comparison and destroy the association between colour purple and royalty. (It was continued by the "Byzantines" and people of the middle ages, and persists to some degree to this day.)
And to bring this back to our modern world - I regularly just pour this stuff down the drain when a jar runs out and needs to be prepped for recycling.
@@Xazamas Here is me thinking that is exactly where purple did come from lol.
Walking around modern Russia, everyone purple.
@@samhobbs9116 A certain type of rare snail you only get around the east Mediterranean.
Called Tyrrian purple because only the city state of Tyre was able to get more than a tiny amount of it.
Martin: _"I bring you.... FIRE!"_ **lights zippo**
Peasant: _"We have fire."_
I freaking love these kinds of stories. The fish out of water storylines never gets old.
same here
"You call this salad a WHAT?"
Kamala says word salad.🥗
😂😂😂
didn't almost all emperors wear the title Caesar? So much so the the German Kaiser derives from that?
@@HerzausStahl
As does Tsar
The very fact that the name Caesar is still widely known 2000 years after may be very interesting for Romans.
Wait until he finds out about Astérix...
It’s crazy that we are able to watch a UA-cam video of a late empire Roman giving us his own personal recollection of culture shock with the modern era. Truly amazing times we live in.
Man, he learned English fast!
He had very good teachers
Love the "Are you sure about that statement" regarding slaves.
Yup those trying to be nobles have to do the bidding of high nobles. It is the same for those trying to be rich you have to do the bidding of those with more money then you.
I think the thing that would be the most astonishing to an ancient brought from the past to the present would be the things that they are used to in general, but in the sheer scale of availability and precision. Paper, they had papyrus, and velum, but we use paper to blow our noses and to wipe it is so cheap. Glass, they have glass, but it is generally small rough panels, we have large multi-meter sheets of it, clear as clean water. They had simple swamp air conditioning, we can command ice at will, and similar things.
"What do you mean the Germans destroyed half the empire and then tried larping as us?"
Roman: “What kind of fool do you take me for? He’s the Roman Empire? (points to HRE) He’s the Roman Empire? (points to the Byzantines) He’s the Roman Empire (Points to the Ottomans) I’M THE ROMAN EMPIRE! Are there any other Roman Empires I should know about?”
The Russian Empire: “Blyat”
Roman:”…….Im out of here”
@@rynemcgriffin1752Facist Italy (ww2 Italy):Hello!
@@rynemcgriffin1752mate the “byzantines” have never existed, from the day romulus supposedly founded rome to 1453 the roman people stayed as a continuous state. By the time the west fell, the majority of the roman culture, military, wealth, and population was in the east whereas the unholy fake roman empire was just straight up german and the ottomans aren’t even native to a single region in europe or the middle east since they originate near mongolia same as the mongols lmao so yeah the “byzantines” were real romans in literally every single manner. Fuck i hate that word because it literally was never used once while the roman empire still existed
@@nekogaming5300 I’m aware, I just needed a third name for the joke. Even still, the Byzantines or Medieval Romans or whatever you want to call them were drastically different from their counterparts in the Roman Empire proper in terms of culture and religion so an ancient Roman wondering if they were Roman wouldn’t be too far of a stretch. It would be like a Samurai from the 1600s looking at Modern Japan for lack of a better comparison.
As for the other two, obviously the HRE wasn’t Rome, that was the joke. The Ottomans however, after conquering Constantinople, called themselves the “Successors of Rome” so while not a continuation like the -Byzantines- Late Stage Romans were, It still kind of fit the whole “WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE” type joke.
As for Russia, they basically claimed the same thing on the grounds that they were the new home of Orthodox Christianity but had less reasoning than the HRE.
@@rynemcgriffin1752 the U.S. also modeled themselves after Rome so they could work as well
Many Romans of upper classes were quite aware languages evolve, as themselves had difficulty understanding old Latin, they had arguments about the ethnology of words and names (like Caesar itself)
So those people would be really interested and maybe proud in knowing that 2000 years later, there are over 1 billion people, including in a continent they never knew existed speaking weird but clearly recognizable forms of Latin.
That 2000 years later all of Europe and the Americas have a calendar with months named after Roman gods, two Roman consuls/dictators/princep civitatis...
That law in all western hemisphere is full of Latin terms, and in many countries it's mostly based on Roman law.
They would also recognize the LATIN ALPHABET everywhere, although they would be curious about the minuscule letters (non capital).
They would find it interesting all around the world there are countries called REPUBLICS, with SENATES.
They would probably find amusing there is a town called NOVA ROMA DO SUL (however they would have to be explained sul means austral), that but only is in another continent, but in the southern hemisphere. 😮
They would be maybe fascinated that so many things in science are named in Latin.
That in the entire western hemisphere the planets are still named after Roman gods (plus the planets they knew nothing about)
I would like to tell Julius Caesar, that despite his despair when he visited Alexander's tomb and at the same age Alexander had done so much compared to him, that 2100 years later he was more known than Alexander and had a month named after him and that for 2000 years emperor's have been called after his branch of the Julii, the caesares
They will be surprised to know that the reason Latin is still in use in science because of the clergies of the accursed religion of Christianity preserved it.
Imagine a Roman knowing about the portuguese, french and spanish empires.
Would they despise them? Look at them as weird sucessors?
@@blazecrep7849 i feel the answer would be dependant on the person you take, some roman generals might take it with philospohy "welp, clearly they were either lucky or just plain better" and others would probably start sharpening their pikes and swords...
@gorilladisco9108 do you need help. Please call the men in white coats. There is help for you
The months were named by the Romans themselves. Many, if not all, by Julius Caesar himself. Catholicism didn't rename the months, but changed their numbers, so October isn't the 8th month anymore.
I think something an ancient Roman would be shocked and fascinated by is our knowledge of medicine and the workings of the human body. The idea of organ transplants or surgeries that solve problems that would be deadly or debilitating to their time would blow their minds.
If you watched Patrick Kelly channel, our medicine knowledge were similar to the Roman up until late 19th century. Even when microscope was invented in 16th century, medical world still believed in the existence of humors, which was codified during Roman times.
@@gorilladisco9108 yeah, the sheer amount of medical knowledge gained in the last century, heck even in the last few decades, is staggering.
@@calibadgerdude6082 even just realizing how much more likely we are to survive cancers and tumors nowadays through proper medical care when even just 30 years ago it was considered a toss of the coin if you'd survive it is impressive.
The Roman Empire may be gone but we can keep it alive in our hearts.
We never stop thinking of it😅
😄 I'm a Celt.😄
@@kellysouter4381 I love how the Romans just went "F-this!" and walled the Scottish off. 😂
In 60,000 years, children on the planet Caladan will joke to each other about how this or that "Is Rome af."
Nah, it deserved to collapse. Good riddance to an evil colonial empire.
I think no matter what, they would be surprised and shocked by four things: food, food storage, sanitation, and medicine. Everything else would surprise them, but the sheer variety of food options, the availability of spices and food preservation along with our sewers and medicine practically tripling life expectancy would blow their minds.
Modern Timer: "Check out our tech!"
Roman: "Why do your roads suck?"
This is one of the things that I have always thought; he'd be amazed at the sheer volume of our road network, and appalled at the shitty quality of most of it, covered with patchwork repairs within a year of construction.
Modern timer: government incompetence.
Roman: oh, that makes sense.
Because modern roads take a much greater beating than any Roman road ever did.
roman roads has people and horses and wagons on them. they are comparable in use to a busy sidewalk, not a road with giant cars constatnly driving over them.
probably because it constantly has 3250 pound SUVS owned by insecure middle aged men running over it
did you know that weight in proportion to road damage is exponential?
The anime Thermae Romae dealt with this idea, but from a very a narrow viewpoint, that of an Ancient Roman bathhouse designer who, for brief periods of time, gets transported to modern day Japanese bathhouses. After each visit he takes ideas from what he saw in Japan and applies them, to the best of his knowledge and the technological capabilities of his time to great success.
if I am correct the anime ends before the end of the manga. because in the second part of the manga Lucius meet a girl obsessed with ancient Rome, and he learn more things about the modern world. and a sequel manga exist too
@@mik6299THANKS FOR SAYING THERE IS A SEQUEL
@@mik6299 Can you send me the link here, I wanna know it too.
Underrated hidden gem. Thankfully, Metatron is one of the very few content creators on UA-cam that touched upon the series in one of his older videos.
The live-action movies of this are a glorious gem
One thing I think that a Roman would notice in a modern urban area would be the lack of public amenities. Where are all the public toilets? Where are all the public baths? These were community structures to him, places where people socialized as much as they did their business. Churches would be confusing to the Christian and the Pagan Roman alike. Christians met in small spaces, and temples were for the gods, not for the worshipers to go inside. I could see him going into a major outdoor sports arena and wondering, "hey, why don't they have a cover over the seats like we had in Rome?"
This is something that saddens me. You have so many places where you can charge your phone. But if you need to go popo, tough luck buddy. Better hope you can hold it in until you're home!
@@GerardMenvussa American malls don't have public toilet? How about gas stations?
@@GerardMenvussaconsidering the state most public bathrooms end up in, can you blame people?
It's the tragedy of the commons.
A friend of mine worked at a gas station. He had fresh horror stories weekly of what he found and often had to clean in the bathrooms.
Where's the communal butt sponge?
@@hugovandyk9918Isn’t that a cultural issue with how little people have respect for others belongings or public spaces ingrained into them from birth, though?
Kind of hard to have things clean and nice when the masses aren’t made to respect or consider anyone else. People only value what they own and maybe wherever they conveniently are at. Otherwise, much like how children before the age of five lack object permanence? Those areas don’t exist.
It gets to the point where the word public has a sort of a dirty or inferior connotation. And when the people at the top don’t care, that apathy trickle down or even up.
A great book on this issue is Tom Holland's book Dominion. It's basically a history of how Western society got from the value system of the Greco-Roman world to the very different value system of today. Part of the inspiration for the book was that writing a series of histories of the Roman world made the author realise that the mindset of ancient Romans was alien to his own secular humanist perspective.
I like Tom Hollands books. His book 'Rubicon' was my first introduction to Roman history
War, war never changes
I don't know if I fully agree. Just 150 years ago all of the Americas still had slaves
Was the Roman republic more alien than the 15th century, except for Christianity?
@@rogeriopenna9014
1. Slavery wasn’t race based and literally a father could sell his children or abandon them at birth to slavers. Anyone could be a slave really to their own children. Being freed happened after a period, but until then? If another wanted to slight their master, they’d come after the slaves in various manners of assault.
2. The pagan religions were basically pay to win schemes, where the poor and women were on the lowest end. Since they couldn’t make sacrifices or enter the temple respectively to worship. Eerily similar to prosperity gospel, the pagan Roman religions presumed all failures were from immorality and sin. That if one succeeded, they were in the gods’ favor. The main reason why the temple system lasted so long was from patronage of the wealthy, so naturally the theology built up around them.
3. A man had free reign over the household and could kill or enslave anyone under his roof.
All of these factors and more are why Christianity took hold in the empire and became vastly popular. Not because like Edward Gibbons liked to think was a decay. But because Greco-Roman society was cruel and only offered a good afterlife, or Elysium, to the rich and wealthy or those who died in glory and battle ,who were viewed as special.
Take away the rose tinted view many weirdos have of this era and it’s not that fun of a place to live in.
Not to mention the Romans weren’t all that more hygienic than their medieval descendants, since their shared bathrooms and bathhouses were unclean compared to the Japanese or Turkish bathhouses they came later.
Western hygiene standards took a long while to actually improve. It’s why the Jewish and Muslim populations fared better during the plagues for instance.
@@ByTheStorm Apparently you don't know anything about the baths used in the Middle Ages by the Western and Eastern Slavs, Finns and Estonians. A thousand years ago, the Andalusian traveler al-Bakrī described such customs in his work: "Book of Roads and Kingdoms". That traditions continue to this day: Sauna/Ба́ня.
20:54 Yes they would notice the difference in air quality. In Canada I lived near Toronto, a major city. When I moved back up north you can tell the difference of air quality. The biggest tell is the lack chemical and smell of gas and smoke (both cigarette and stacks).
Yah and the taste of water, especially in Toronto.
Northern NSW Australia, agree lived in Sydney (NSW) for 38 years moved to the countryside. When I visit the city now you can smell and taste the difference.
Great video, I think you're forgetting the part where he would freak out when he realizes all of his friends and family are suddenly dead and have been for over a millenia.
Some things that would be incredible to show/bring an Ancient Roman:
(1) Night assault tactics, night vision, and thermal vision.
(2) The scale of agricultural corporations as well as our modern day agricultural technologies.
(3) How affordable books and the spread of knowledge has become.
(4) Modern day medical technologies and advancements.
(5) A trip to space, and our understanding of the universe.
If the Ancient Roman was from the times of the Roman Republic, it would be interesting to show the rise and history of representative democracy from the Enlightenment onward.
to add to your list:
Phone and television will surprise them.
Rifle and artillery will freak them.
A simple lighter is a wonder for them, even when their own technology should be able to produce some themselves.
The Roman: "I'm sorry, but why exactly are (insert 90% of the human population) allowed to vote? It's no wonder your rulers are all mockeries of Crassus!"
@@DISTurbedwaffle918this is heavily projecting modern ideas onto history
They knew/saw camouflage... It literally broke their necks in Teutoburger forrest
Sorry, but books were already very common in Roman times. They had become scarce in medieval times.
He would say: "What's pasta and why do I feel an urge to defend it with all my devotion?" 🍝
It's in the DNA! 😂😂
*chews twice*
Not bad. Needs Garum.
Ha😊
@@aaronclarke1434 A Roman who knew a good recipe might be able to make a killing opening a chain of "Authentic Roman Cuisine" restaurants including Garum as a main condiment they put on everything a Roman might. He could even offer a Roman twist on some modern dishes. Like a burger with Garum on it. Or pizza where the sauce is Garum. He could offer a 10% discount to anyone who comes dressed in something resembling authentic Roman garb as well to add to the atmosphere.
Absolutely. The Romans didn't die out. They still exist, they're called Italians now.
The most shocking thing to a Roman would probably be the departure from the master - apprentice / helper system in education and manufacturing. This is what kept them from industrialization.
I think showing Ancient Romans computers and explaining Quantum physics would be mind blowing to them.
I think they'd straight up just not get what you're talking about if you tried explaining quantum physics to them.
I once watched a video of a couple of guys form a hunter/gatherer tribe in Papua New Guinea, people with practically no knowledge of the outside world, were flown out to New York City and they almost seemed bored. I think they just didn't really know what to make of it all. It was super interesting!
this reminds me of one of my favorite tv shows as a kid, it was a dutch show called "welcome to the romans" (roughly translated) and every episode they'd have a famous roman person who, according to the hostess, "has been dead for a couple thousand years but they've come back to life today, especially for us!" and they would just talk about what their life was like and how it's changed from then to now...
Haha Welkom bij de Romeinen classic
De bakermat van de beschaving haha
@@touchme7018 jazekerrr
I think the Roman would be flabbergasted by our having in our pockets a device we use not only for communication but also to gain access to the combined knowledge of contemporary humanity, but we also use it to watch silly videos of cute little kittens.
And porn. Don't forget the porn.
@@gorilladisco9108you mean *_P O R N O G R A P H Y_*
@gorilladisco9108 somehow I don't think he'd be too shocked by that, but I think he'd find it a bit lame and sad.
These are the Kind of Videos i follow you for :)
19:17 try explaining how angry people get over lag, that usually delays your interaction across the world by seconds, when they had to wait days to hear from the next town over XD
As an aspiring historian / classicist I love these videos. I am personally very interested in how a Roman would react to for them future historic events. WW1 and WW2, Napoleon, the industrial revolution, the fall of the Western Empire and the continued existence of the Eastern half for another over millennia, are just a few that come to mind first. I think that a video like that would be fascinating!
If a ancient Roman just spawned today, first things first we would need to find a translator.
Edit: wow I did not expect this comment to get so many replies even after two weeks.
*busts out Google Translate and prepares for lots of misunderstandings*
You probably have a good enough one in your pocket right now. Fortunately latin isn't the most obscure ancient language.
Did you hear about the guy that tried to rob a bank using Google translate 😅 just a funny thought these comments made me think of -sorry😅
I could speak with him
It would depend where they spawn at if in modern day Rome judging by Luke’s video there would be a lot of misunderstandings except for a few words here and there.
19:10 "Imagine the idea of instantaneous communication, having to explain that to someone who is used to sending a letter or a package."
I'm not that old, but I remember having to learn to do that myself in the mid 1990s. So it probably wouldn't be that crazy to explain it. Just explain it how I learned it myself. What I find interesting is much of our technology and amenities are actually quite new and evolved within the last 40 years. About the only thing prior to that, where the Roman wouldn't be familiar would be combustion engines, flight, telecommunications (telephone/telegraph), and electricity. But everything else would have been things that his society (or one that traded with) pioneered, such as plumbing, cement, and even freezing foodstuffs.
If you took a Roman to 1924, they'd have much less of a shock, but taking someone from 1924 would have near as much a shock as a Roman would in 2024.
1924 people had science fictions that told about the things we have today. Their reaction would be, "So it has been made, huh?"
I'm not even 40 yet, and the change in my lifetime has been staggering. I often think about my grandparents' generation and wonder if they felt the same. My grandmothers, in particular, were born at a time when horses still did many things, cars and tractors were new and scarce, and they lived into the Internet Age, seeing all that transpired in between.
@@BRTowe My mother is 80 years old, and she watches tiktok every day. 😅
@@BRTowe I'm not much older than you but my parents were in their mid 30s when I was born so they got to see a lot of that. They were around when milk, ice, and some other things were delivered by horse and buggy.
It was actually kind of amazing how my parents adapted to computers. My dad took a bit longer to get used to the internet than my mom. Yet he could use a computer pretty well, having to use one in the Marine Corps in the 70s and 80s for things before they had GUI. His typing speed was phenomenal (I suspect mostly from typewriter). 20th Century had some pretty big leaps, both technologically and culturally.
Australians over a certain age remember when it took *_ages_* for movies to premiere here- & then ages more to come out on VHS...
Talking about the differences between ancient and modern republics is a great ideia! I'd love to watch that
Great video! I would absolutely love a video comparing ancient and modern republics.
I love this channel
Thanks!
There is a novel by Richard Ben Sapir "The Far Arena" that takes up this theme of a full-blown culture shock.
A Roman gladiator out of Domitian era is found frozen in the ice and brought back to life. I read the novel a long time ago and found it very fascinating.
surely he wondered why the loser players in sports aren't thrown into the lions...
@@zanir2387 Nah. That was more a meso-American thing. Gladiators were expensive, and rarely were killed. The ones who died were usually condemned for some crime or offense to the emperor.
But a Roman would DEFINITELY recognize sports culture, star athletes, etc.
I've thought of this before; to an ancient an airplane might be scary but ultimately awe inspiring. But a helicopter would be completely terrifying.
I love these kinds of hypotheticals being explored by people who know their history, please do some more in the future.
“So you’re saying this tiny thing is a miniature ballista!?”
*shoots glock
lol
More like a self-propelled sling.
literacy and overall health would amaze an ancient roman.
Great video, more please! Yes, one on roman economics would be very interesting!
He'd probably find modern drone warfare dishonorable.
Don’t think so Romans were very pragmatic about military affairs.
@@Cardan011 They were, but they also considered bravery a fundamental virtue. I suspect our Roman time traveler would consider drone operators to be cowards, and their leaders equally so.
@@TheLegendaryLore respectfully I disagree, no difference between balistae operators or drone operators. Romans were known to adapt to whatever worked best in warfare and also known when needed to use underhanded tactics. The idea of “strength and honor “ is very romantic ( as you can see where that word came from) . Of course every military appreciates bravery but for Romans effectiveness was priority.
@@TheLegendaryLore they'd quickly realise you don't need being in the frontline to be brave, if the enemy can strike far beyond the frontline too.
Roman had no concept of dishonorable weapon in warfare. Everything that helped them to kill their enemy would be adopted in no time.
Yes! A video on the difference of Republic then and now sounds so interesting from you!
Hey, I just wanna say as an Eastern Roman history enthusiast, I would very much appreciate it if you make videos about the Eastern Romans.
I noticed you made a lot of videos about the Roman Empire during the Principatus, and less so about the Dominatus, but haven't come across any videos about its Eastern half.
If a Roman military commander were brought into today's world, he would learn as much as possible about the time from his to ours. He would then use that knowledge to advance Rome's dominance even further than in "the past".
For the past 2 years I have been wanting to see a movie based on this. The curiosity of an Ancient Roman coming to terms with Modern Life, also must be animated, no Live-action bs that's almost always overdone in weird ways.
Would like to see all the videos of things you proposed this episode, specially modern day vs ancient "Republics".
Like "The visitors" Les Visiteurs from 1993.
This is a fascinating video…thank you for making it! I think the Roman would be amazed at how well off is the “average” person. The size of the middle class and its level of comfortable living and access to things that only the extremely wealthy in ancient times could dream of would be almost disorienting.
I've been wanting to see this video after watching Thermae Romae Novae. Thank you for finally making it.
This is the most well thought out explanation I’ve ever heard on this type of subject.
This gives me an idea for a new series of videos you could make "The Time Traveler's Guide to... [insert region and time period]".
The reaction to plastic would be very strong. We use it everywhere and he would be amazed by it.
Disgusting stuff, plastic
I always love these kind of questions and I'm glad you went over one such scenario
While we are here, thanks for the video you made on ''Thermae Romae Novae'' some time back, was a fun watch.
This was the first video I’ve ever seen from this channel and I’ve gotta say it’s pretty good!.
Altho summarizing all of this into a single 20 minute video is neat I think it’d be great to go more in depth with separate videos for each aspect of this one.
Tech, culture, ect ect
There is a meme about this question :D "yOU HAVE EXACTLIY 3 SECONDS TO EXPLAIN WHY GERMANY EXIST!!!!"
To bitch slap France every 50 years on average.
I mean... I also would like to know why germany exists /s
@@GerardMenvussabecause after the first world War, the penalties heaped upon Germany for losing ultimately lead to Hitler's rise to power and the second world War.
Eventually people separated Germany from Nazi and we moved on. Germany was not evil, there were just evil people in charge of Germany for a while. We learned that to blame the whole for the actions of some would be foolishness.
Now the idea of European nations like France, England and Germany going to war with each other over their borders or old grievances is absurd.
That nations like Russia still try to conquer their neighbours by force of arms leaves them a century behind the rest of the world.
YOU LET THEM START 2 WORLD WARS AND LET THEM STILL EXIST?!
Germans?! In Gaul?!
What's a Turk?!
What's a "Slav?!"
I would like to see how a Roman would react learning that a vassal state hijacked an Empire.
You should write the movie script. It would be a fascinating watch. I know that your attention to detail wouldn't let me down.
I vote for ancient vs modern republic ! Very nice video! Clever and quite unheard of! Thank you!
Very cool discussion. I really liked this!
I would think a lower class Roman woman would marvel at our washing machines, dishwashers, textiles, and the fact that we could have full daylight light in our houses all day long if we want to. And warm water straight out of the tap. And spices available for just about everyone. And that girls are given unique individual names, and not just the feminine version of their fathers name with a number added to it.
Oh, and safe contraceptions, pre-natal care and safe(er) births
Japan has manga called Thermae Romae. There's a scene when the Roman character freaked out about bidet.
Dear grief, I'd be Raelena 1. Raymondina? Raymona?
@@gorilladisco9108 "Neptune's Kiss!!!" 🥶
Everyone takes grocery stores for granted. They are the best part of modern society.
Reading this comment all I see is Rome suddenly having a civil war between the men n women over the dish washing n regular washing machines in Wether or not it was witchcraft and if they can have it
the anime "Gate" probably describes best how a roman will feel about a modern world.
Thermae Romae is manga series that deals with this video's exact premise. It was made into an anime... twice.
Imagine looking out your window and seeing your weird neighbor decked out like a Roman soldier, or jumping around wearing a Samurai suit…
I aim to be that wierd neighbor 😂
This is the kind of content which I love so much. Culture shock and awe of people, not only from different areas of the Earth, but also time.
King Jayabaya, one of the King of Kediri once said: There will be an era of upside down and contradictory. So I guess it's kinda true that culturally and morally, ancient people will be disappointed.
Bu technology wise, it'll blow their mind away. Hope you can expand a little by viewing some comments here. Some hilarious, some realistic.
I like the thought experiment of Novae Romae Thermae of the man going to modern Japan and just being absolutely blown the hell away by the stuff he sees, trying to bring it back to the Empire and being hailed as a genius.
An ancient Roman would be as blown out of the water today as someone from 2024 would be, by seeing a science fiction setting.
Thanks for the insight.
Luke Ranieri/ScorpioMartius made a video about this, playing a legionaire lost in modern New York City.
His character is convinced that "America" is just an endonym for Atlantis, a continent full of barbarian mages, and he's waiting for his Emperor to start long-term planning to annex Atlantis/NYC. 😂
Why NYC? Why not Atlantic City?
Do you happen to know the particular name of the video? That sounds like fun!
I think what would hit your guest the most is to bring him back to the ruins of the forum in Rome.
They kept farm animals in here... 😬
This was so fun! I'd love to see more of these videos. Maybe with different civilizations (although I realize it'd be extremely similar), or here's a question I thought about recently, what single piece of technology (in isolation) would have made the biggest impact on an ancient civilization? Now that you brought up phones... what could've happened if the romans had it??
19:39 This shot from my hometown!!! Nice to see including your video sir!!!
That was fun 😃 A couple of things I would add. First is the relationship to hierarchy and the extent of the dominance of a higher up over a lower person. In a change of context, the things we are used to but are no longer available jump at us. So a Centurion for example, I suspect would be amazed about the relative absence of power today. He would probably wonder how a society can work so loosely. Another one, although minor, is, well, representation of the male organ. It was even used as doorbells then. I tend to believe the almost complete absence of imagery about it would be probably feel weird.
If an ancient Roman ever goes to your home.... Hide the sponges of the kitchen 😶
The sponge on a stick? They were to scrub the toilet, not ones butt. There is a reason, they look exactly like our toilette brushes.
"The Far Arena" is a great novel about a Roman gladiator unfrozen in modern times and the only person who knows enough Latin to communicate with him is a nun.
Incredible book, though it's out of print.
This could easily be expanded to several videos over several hours. And I'm all for it. Please!
Imagine experiencing our modern restrooms hygiene etc then having to go back to 40 BC Rome...
😳 nope I'm good thanks 😅 though I am curious about bathing with Olive oil instead of water.......
Why are Americans so prissy about calling a toilet a toilet?
🤔
😂
Romans had a very good hygiene, even compared to us. Difference is that bathing was a social event, where people would sit together and talk while bathing, unlike us who prefer our privacy in the bathtub.
It's only after the collapse of the Roman Empire where pooping out the window onto the street and bathing only twice a year became the norm for many people.
@@TheBeastCH ask them what the xylospongium was used for
@@TheBeastCH that's probably fake to lol
He would say “Remitte me! Statim!”
Yes I did enjoy it thank you sir 😊
What a fun thing to think about, great job on this subject 🙏
Wonderfull video Metaton
"I AM GOING TO GIVE YOU EXACTLY 35 SECONDS TO EXPLAIN TO ME WHY GERMANY EXISTS"
Funnily enough, in theory, it's because of the Romans, the Varian Disaster in particular. I've heard it postulated that you can trace both World Wars directly back to that incident.
@@BRTowein what possible sense?
Interesting!
Cheers!
What about music? I think an ancient roman would be overwhelmed but appreciative of a performance of, for example, a classical symphony.
Would Monty Python's "What have the Romans ever done for us" work in this instance?
This topic is really interesting you could make more of these🙂
bro would be baffled about paying for water
I honestly think they would be absolutely stunned. Imagine the sound of fighter jet during low attitude fly-by. It fills me with awe as it sounds like the heaven, air and reality itself is being torn to pieces. Can you imagine what would Romans feel? And I believe you dont need a military to absolutely shock Romans. Just imagine showing them airplanes or taking them to Rammstein concert. I love to entertain myself with this kind of thoughts ❤ Thank you sir, our kind lord Metatron, thank you once again for a fantastic video!
They had amphitheaters during their time, but they will be curious about the stadium design than can amplify the sound so loud, only to be disappointed when they see the loudspeakers, while at the same time wonder how the device works.
You take him to a Rammstein concert and he immediately gets flashbacks to border patrol in the Rhineland.
more than the amplification itself, the musical instruments, the way modern instruments work, aside from simpler classical ones such as guitar, is impressive, even a fairly standard chepo 50$ keyboard would be a magical marvel to them(whereas if you took someone from say, the 1600s, they'd probably just be annoyed)
@@iota-09 Yea and the sheer amount of noise - I know battles etc were very loud, but Imagine having a truck with tons of heavyweight speakers, traveling along classical world. And the way it can record a speech and talk back and make a noise so loud it damages your ears, i think theyd be baffled.