She's so articulate in her explanations. I love how she explains the life expectancy and women's rights in terms of how progressive it was for the time, but how it also had its shortcomings.
@@Obi-WanKannabis strongly disagree. She doesn't give any unfair treatment to the male or female side of the argument. She's simply stating that our modern standards of rights are far better than that of the Romans.
@@burtoncampbell4457hardly, she's attempting to say they were "progressive" in terms of societal sexuality but "regressive" in terms of societal governance... I.e. cherry picking the parts of the society that fit her current narrative of what she considers progressive and acceptable in society to label as good and/or bad
They were not mostly staged. Only in the presence of someone truly important would it be. We truly only know like 20 gladiators that actually existed. Verus and Priscus were two gladiators who fought sine missio at the inaugural games of the Colosseum, and have the only descripted fight of gladiators known, where their fight was such a highlight, the Emperor Titus granted both freedom.
@@royjonzejr not at all, there could absolutelly be fight arranged to end in one's death, maybe even matches that were not staged at all, however there would usually be settlement and payment in advance. Executions could be done in way where lowly skilled and badly equipped prisoner would be sent against gladiator that is much better suited to win. Imagine you are training mma fighters and once a week one dies, i don't think you'd be able to train them fast enough.
I know she’s a professor and literally an expert on Rome but wow she is incredibly intelligent. The depth to which she was able to answer these finite questions is remarkable. What a brilliant scholar, respect to you Dr. Ginsburg
@@NN-zk4uzyou are just assuming they never would have said that if it was a man doing the video. No proof, just projecting your own biases. Perhaps you need to examine your own conception of women instead of throwing accusations.
@@vladutzuliI'm gonna jump on your comment to add that if the original poster actually had meant that, now they'll never admit it. All because this person jumped to conclusions and couldn't be patient enough to ask a leading question or two to get the op to explain themselves.
@@Materialist39 Basically, the police anti-riot squad today still uses the same methods the Romans used back then. The most distinguishable is the beating on the shield rhythmically, which creates discomfort to the people in front of you and the illusion that you have way more people than the one there really are.
@@Idiomatick They don't rofl, they mostly walk in lines. The testudo is a semi-myth in the way it is represented. You can't move if you interlock the shields, they just did it occasionally to avoid missiles of any sort, such as arrows or javelins
Shes great! Fast and decisive information and you can clearly tell she loves her job. Only thing I disagree with is the part about civil war, where she essentially says "what is civil war, if slaves have an uprising is that civil war?" Slaves were considered...slaves not citizens so that wouldn't be a civil war but a slave uprising. Other than that, amazing video.
@Icanbacktrailers Wired isn't a channel specialising in the Roman Empire/Republic/Byzantine Empire. If you want to know further, please look into channels specialised in that topic
The vomitorium reminds me of something. In my native language of german we have the word "übergeben". It literally translates to "to overgive". However, the meaning of it is "to hand over" on the one hand and also, on the other "to puke." So it's very similar to the vomitorium, even though german is not a romance language.
Aztec civilization is not ancient, it sprung up after the medieval era (1300s) . I think you might be referring to the Olmec Civilization, which popped up approximately 1200-400 BC. Now that’s ancient. The Aztecs and Olmec did share the same geographical area tho. But the Olmecs are way older by the Aztecs a long shot.
@@Ootazfromda03 I think it may also just be that we don’t really recognize how recent the Aztecs were in the span of human history. We think of them as ancient, but they were decidedly modern. Could also be thinking of the Mayans.
@-alovelygaycat- Fun fact: The Mayans actually still exist! They're called the Quechua now and they are an indigenous minority of Mexico and Guatemala. Their language is still even spoken to this day; I've been to Mexico and in some of the tourist areas they have trilingual signs: Spanish, English, and Quechua. It's really cool.
I have had a few martinis and I wanted to say" Your enthusiasm for the words Fruit and Nuts and other related fruits is admirable. You really place emphasis in a beautiful way. This is the highlight of the video.
Wired is not a reliable source and most of what she said is just opinion not truth. Read the historical records. If this was you professor of Roman history you don't know Roman History.
Ancient Romans had their own version of Thunderdome called Pankration, the two fighters wore battle gloves with blades and spikes in them. The only rules were no biting or gouging, basically the same rule set at the beginning of modern MMA.
There were also several classes of gladiators. There were criminals condemned to fight on the arena. They were supposed to die there, so they did not really get training. Some of them actually survive and could rise in ranks. There were also professional gladiators, those were often slaves, but they were essentially trained athletes and entertainers. Some of them even became superstars... These are the ones she talked about in the video
A note about the Pantheon: the concrete only needs to support its own weight (dead weight), but a bridge, road, or apartment building is constantly being stressed by wear and tear. Practical Engineer did a video on this. It's not that the Romans built things better than we do today, it's that the stuff we use today is built to handle things they never needed to. He suggests that a Roman architect or road builder would be astonished to see how strong and resilient modern structures are. (Also survivor bias in that they're studying, well, the Pantheon, not some random building.)
This is true but this conversation usually revolves around still existing Roman concrete around water vs our concrete around water. She failed to mention in her answer that the "healing" aspect of the concreate seems to activate in contact with water.
@@jonathanbetts1169 Reinforced concrete usually has iron reinforcement and when iron rusts; it expands and stresses the surrounding concrete -so a small, insignificant crack in the concrete would cause rusting; which means more cracks and so on. A similar effect happens when the water on/in concrete/rocks/etc are regularly frozen and thawed. The random (non metal reinforced) concrete in your patio area; would probably last centuries in a stable climate -water or not.
i recommend watching some of the videos that try to set things clear, she gave a lot of personal opinions on what was supposed to be a historical video
Sort of like the picture menus above the counters at fast food restaurants. Customer looking at the pictures: "Uhmm, yeah, I'll have a cowgirl and two doggie styles, please". "That'll be 10 denarii. You can add a BJ for 1 more denarius"
4:10 This Quicklime we call "Cal" here in Brazil. It is very used in greek houses to help maintain their nice temperature and not getting warm. It helps you to keep builds a bit colder. Here in Brazil most houses are made of brick and concrete so we usually paint the houses with Quicklime mixed with paint so it will get the house very warm.
It’s kind of crazy how alike the Romans were to us today. Obviously they were lacking in many modern advances in technology and scientific theory. But their culture is so similar in some ways it’s kind of crazy to think how they actually are pretty alike us in the modern era.
One of my personal favorite comparisons was the correspondence between Marc Antony and Octavian before their civil war kicked off. They sent letters back and forth between Italy and Egypt just roasting each other. One calling the other an alcoholic, the other calling him a cuckold! It was by all means a twitter argument! Another favorite of mine is a Greek writer devoting a chapter in his book to his dog, and gushing over how awesome his dog is!
I'd love two experts to see how Rome compared side by side in all facets with the Han of the same time, arguably the two greatest and I'd say inarguably the two most influential civilizations of the ancient world. Would be fascinating
There's a great historian called premodernist who has some good stuff. Unfortunately the rome vs China is a $3 patreon exclusive, but is a really good warch.
12:13 this explanation gave me a much better understanding why average life spans were so young, bc infant and child mortality rates were so high. That definitely tanks the average. If you survive childhood and survive war then mid50s or older is a highly likely shot
@@gavinm2183 probably the part where she was saying it’s impossible for Rome to have any good Emperor because part of the population was enslaved, as if that wasn’t just a part of normal life at that time.
On some perspective, Gladiators aren't simply put in the colosseum to death, they are there to entertain. They mostly were taught to wound, not kill. Being a gladiator for most of the part is like a MMA Fighter or Sport celebrities these days, there are product advertisements, there are money to be made, and groups or guilds for it. Therefore, some gladiator could retire and enjoy their wealth. but that would be an entire different story if you're Christian on that age of time, death is absolute for you lol
I think she should have worded it better. To me that take makes so little sense, that I interpreted it as "whoever is HOSTING the event decides that a specific gladiator is going to die", without him actually knowing it. So yeah, it was "agreed upon", but not by the person who was going to actually die. I may be wrong, but it makes much more sense like this.
Yeah, me too! Kinda adorable, how she made herself giggle with the "whacking" motion. Her being such a bubbly and truly passionate professor makes her a pure joy to listen to. Love people like that and we need more of 'em 😊
i love how so much of Roman life is so similar to our own that on the one hand it's depressing to see how little we've improved considering how much time has passed but it's also fascinating that we're doing basically the same things
Loved this, Lauren has an incredibly positive energy and seems to have vast knowledge of many areas, not just her specialisation. Also I do love when historians talk about the common people, not just royalty and generals.
Wool really is kind of a miracle fabric, it’s one of the only fabrics that retains heat even while completely soaked. Cotton or linen once it’s wet it saps heat away but you can actually start sweating while having a completely soaked wool sweater on.
I am glad she pointed out the information about concrete . Often you here people say ancient things could not be replicated today , this is totally fallacious. Problem is cost is prohibitive compared to other methods.
Also worth saying that Roman concrete is NOT stronger than modern concrete, it just lasts longer because of the self-healing. Modern concrete can support much greater loads.
Very much so. There’s also a survivorship bias in that there were TONS of ancient buildings and structures that they made which DIDN’T survive to the present day. The ones that are still around are the better made ones (and/or ones that society took special efforts to preserve and maintain, usually because of their cultural or historical importance).
i don't think when someone asks who was the best roman emperor they're asking about how nice of a person they were i believe they're mostly asking how effective an emperor they were for the prosperity of Rome As a whole.
I agree with this take. I loved most of her responses but this was a complete non-answer and I found it kind of frustrating. I was leaning towards Trajan and expecting her to come in with some interesting insight/ or obscure emperor that I hadn't given much thought towards.
I'm so thankful my middle school history/social science teachers were as passionate about teaching history as this professor because i remember so many of these facts. And why i found the "roman empire meme" so amusing. I hope for more of these videos about other cultures! 💕
Mannnnn it was absolutely fascinating listening to you talk, Dr. Lauren! I was completely enthralled and I wish I could hear you talk about Rome all day, please do come back :D
The concrete section isn't completely correct on a few points: - Self healing concrete is being used and has been developed for more than 2 years. (BAM, The Netherlands, Paleis het Loo) The self healing properties of roman concrete have been known about and figured out for longer than that. - Most conrete can cure under water just fine. - The central reason why a lot of roman concrete structures are still standing is due to building style. Current buildings are more often than not built with a lot of tension, while roman structures are almost without exception built in compression. Tensioned structural steel doesn't rot the concrete over time, meaning they exist for longer, but have limited architectural styles. Skyscrapers for instance are rather hard to build without our current advancements.
@@antoniousai1989 In Greco-Roman mythology the Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, Mars as Ares, Venus as Aphrodite, etc. Vergilius told the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Ancient Romans were regiliously very tolerant and they took influences nearly every part of their Empire like Egypt, Asia Minor and Syria.
@@lucone2937 Those gods were only a couple of them that they syncretized into the Roman religion, but the approach to religion itself was radically different. The whole concept of the Roman religion was the "peace with the gods", seen as a contract with the divine forces, which were innumerable. Also, even the position in the Roman Pantheon is different. Mars was a positive figure for the Romans, and an agricultural god as well, something that he wasn't for the Greeks. Saturn was the same, Minervae too, similar but not the same, because even the Greek gods basically did unite with the previous gods already present among the Italic civilizations. Romans also put lots of emphasis on seasons, cycles, and the days of the year, to the point that they had a god who was the conveyor of the concept of change and transformation, Janus.
@@forzaacmilan36 In fairness, as a Christian myself, if you think that a religion like what Christianity was back then (ostensibly a messianic cult trying to galvanize jewish people into conflict with the state in the near east) would be allowed in other periods either, I think it's just a misunderstanding of the progression of the christian tradition. Bearing in mind that Christians would eventually come to manifest the religion in an entirely different form for the sake of Constantine and the platonists, it's worth considering that it was more of a political issue than a religion issue.
If you are in the U.S. you do learn quite a bit about tribes in the US, not enough about South America or Mexican tribes though, the truth is there isn't a lot of known history since most of the western tribes were wiped out by plague before any explorers even met them and they didn't have written language so much of the history and culture was lost or misinterpreted due to living members of different tribes merging.
@@avvery8593 Yeah I've been seeing that some states have started requiring Native American history to be taught in schools, but that's because they teach so little about it. Just a few years ago it was reported that 27 states don't mention a single Native American in their K-12 curriculum
@@eggymayo3271 Yeah right. Let's not pretend any history class focused on the every day life of Roman citizens beyond discussing what rights they might have had at any given time. What history is being taught at lower level schools is mostly wars and some politics. This had very little of that
@@Dobbyisfreelmao Yeah, but this dumb bltch puts her own politics into her explanations of the subject of Roman life. For example the whole part about roman sexuality, is wildly inaccurate.
This series should definitely be part of the national curriculum. The teaching style, the passion, the clarity, the brevity - amazing! And directly answering specific common questions - love it!
I’m an Italian living in Tokyo, and I actually do end up thinking about the Roman Empire daily (when thinking about cultural differences, food, muscle training, skin and hair cleaning etc 😅)
This was an absolutely amazing video. I love that we’ve broadened our context of learning to focus on day-to-day lives, context, and culture, and not jist painting in broad strokes and listing dates and lineages of rulers.
It's a close thing with Marcus Aurelius being my favorite in later Imperial times, while Augustus set the stage for Imperial Rome's rise. You can't ignore Trajan and Hadrian though.
There is a Roman bath in the city of Bath in the UK. In the 70s when I was a youngster you could paddle in it. (not any longer) it's in amazing condition to this day.
It really seems like the more we learn about history, the more we learn that humans haven't actually changed that much over time and that people are people no matter where or when you look.
In Spain, the town of Santiponce (Seville) is partially build over the old Roman city of Itálica. Some areas of that town still uses the old roman sewer system while the rest uses a system build in the 20s of the 20th century. In the 90s there was once a massive rainfall that caused a flood on the town... The parts of the town serviced by the modern sewer system!!
"We just don't call them 'vomitoriums'." Yes we do. I've worked in theatre before and that is still used. In my case, we used it for the the side exits of the stage where we could get everyone off the stage quickly once the curtain came down between scenes.
As someone who thinks about the Roman empire on a VERY frequent basis, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Prof. Ginsburg was truly fun & interesting to listen to, great vid.
Vomitoria do still sometimes show up in live theatre settings, especially classically inspired stages and theatres "in the round." The one I'm most familiar with is in San Diego: the White Theatre in Balboa Park, part of the Old Globe complex, is a theatre in the round and has two vomitoria (or voms) through which actors enter and leave the stage.
I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or pointing out the flwas in her logic but rome had many great leaders and people that worked in the empire to improve it one of the most famous omes being Constantine the great who promoted christianity,ended the Praetorian gaurd,brought some social reforms and a couple other stuff
@@M50A1you’re missing the point. She said that the Roman emperors were morally bad (probably true for the vast majority of them) but I think what the question wanted to know was which emperor was the most effective ruler. The Romans had many incredibly effective rulers and many incredibly ineffective rulers. The ‘Roman empire fantasy’ is not shattered by having assholes run the empire, no one cares that they were assholes.
Great video! I've been studying Roman history for school. This video is very useful for filling in the gaps that most books and lectures don't have time to talk about
Gladiators were very expensive and heavy investments. It wasn’t worth it for them to die. So typically it wasn’t to the death. It would be like training a NFL player for one game.
@@antoniousai1989 Yeah famous gladiators had toys made in their image, they had sponsorships and would do advertisements for businesses, etc. They were sports celebrities largely in the same way as modern sports stars.
@@joaquindonoso5481 The problem is most people aren't well versed enough in history to discern her fallacies. Most see history for the fun facts, and not for how much it explains the present and can help predict the future. It also doesn't help that she isn't a history professor, but a professor of ancient literature.
Antoninus Pius was the best emperor, because absolutely nothing happened during his reign. He was emperor for 20 years and it was extremely peaceful. That is an achievement!
Yes, but to this woman, if he didn't free the slaves he's still evil. That's what happens when you view all of history through the lens of modern morality.
@@DiviAugustiThis is why examination of ‘best’ emperor is difficult. It doesn’t consider the efforts of predecessors that contributed to their reign, and the fact that not having to deal with a plague (like Aurelius and Justinian) or constant invasions contributed to his success. Pius was a good Emperor, but he was also very lucky.
Yeah, as a public health researcher who was trained by a financial historian, I know that life expectancy at birth, you see a dramatic improvement over the past couple hundred years, but if you look at life expectancy at older ages, while you still see an improvement, it's not nearly as dramatic. We know that Ramses II the Great lived to about 90, for example.
Every argument made on roman concrete is also present in modern concrete. When calculateing crack failure, we calculate how large cracks can be selfrepaired and design our construsctions thereafter. Modern cancrete is much better due to addetives like plastecizers and silica that allow us to better compose the concrete for the task ahead. The idea to reinforce concrete was invented in 1885 long after the romanempire had fallen.
For one they gave us the basis for our system of law. The framers of the constitution were heavily influenced by Roman (and Greek) history and used the model of the Roman Republic to craft that document. The US is basically New Rome.
@@D4N1CU5 No, it says Romans, go home!1!1! To be serious and honest, though, I'm learning Latin right now and that sketch feels hilariously accurate to the experience of it all sometimes.
Absolutely love it when there is an expert like Lauren answering these questions where you see the excitement in her answers. It really builds on the videos.
I really love when historians discuss the daily life, economy, and traditions of a specific era.
that’s anthropology!!
@@divyajoshi4498 Actually that's not what they are called
It's great! It's called social history
Just think, in a thousand years someone will be discussing the United States in this manner.
Unfortunately she started showing her extremely biased view history when she started blasting feminism
I am delighted to learn that Ancient Romans brought little tailgating grills to the Colosseum. That makes my day.
😊😊😊😊 mine too
I like to think they had giant sponge # 1 fingers, too.
they just wanted to grill
Some things never change.
@@jsharp3165 Nope, sponges were for #2 only, check the section on sewers and hygiene.
Could you do a video about ancient Egypt next? This was extremely interesting and informative!
They've already done a video about aliens.
yes, yes, yes please! WIRED hear our plea 🙏🏽
And ancient Sumer
Dude, I bet Lauren studied about Rome for many years. She can't produce another video about Egypt just because you ask nicely.
Ancient Phoenicians and Carthaginians would be interesting people too.
shocking lack of comments about the fact that ancient romans’ favourite position was cowgirl
romans were ahead of their time with that one
Who doesnt love a good cowgirl or cowboy position 😅
They were just like me fr fr
Because that's a little noddie!
Good for them I just don't think its really worth caring about.
Huh I was just thinking about the roman empire. What a coincidence.
I was watching ancient Rome VS Han dynasty when this popped up 💀
😂
😅
😂
Same😂
She's so articulate in her explanations. I love how she explains the life expectancy and women's rights in terms of how progressive it was for the time, but how it also had its shortcomings.
@@jonbinki9651pls shutup
Not really an historian, more of a feminist who is judging the past through modern lenses, pretty disappointing.
@@Obi-WanKannabis strongly disagree. She doesn't give any unfair treatment to the male or female side of the argument. She's simply stating that our modern standards of rights are far better than that of the Romans.
@@Obi-WanKannabisyikes 🙄
@@burtoncampbell4457hardly, she's attempting to say they were "progressive" in terms of societal sexuality but "regressive" in terms of societal governance... I.e. cherry picking the parts of the society that fit her current narrative of what she considers progressive and acceptable in society to label as good and/or bad
I would love to take a class with this prof. Her energy makes the subject so interesting
Me to
Yeah she’s great! She seems like she’s be a great grade school history teacher too 😁
She is Jewish so take a bit salt with what she is saying; it is truth mixed with degenerate lies to deconstruct europeean identity be forewarned.
Same!! And it makes me really happy to find her on RateMyProf and see she's rated 5/5 :D
I have and she’s a favorite in her department- super nice
Finding out gladiator fights were staged has hurt me more than finding out wrestling is staged
You could always join the army for some real action. 🤷♂
They were not mostly staged. Only in the presence of someone truly important would it be. We truly only know like 20 gladiators that actually existed. Verus and Priscus were two gladiators who fought sine missio at the inaugural games of the Colosseum, and have the only descripted fight of gladiators known, where their fight was such a highlight, the Emperor Titus granted both freedom.
Does that mean instances where gladiators were killed were just epic botches?
I choose to ignore this.
@@royjonzejr not at all, there could absolutelly be fight arranged to end in one's death, maybe even matches that were not staged at all, however there would usually be settlement and payment in advance. Executions could be done in way where lowly skilled and badly equipped prisoner would be sent against gladiator that is much better suited to win. Imagine you are training mma fighters and once a week one dies, i don't think you'd be able to train them fast enough.
I know she’s a professor and literally an expert on Rome but wow she is incredibly intelligent. The depth to which she was able to answer these finite questions is remarkable. What a brilliant scholar, respect to you Dr. Ginsburg
The answer about roman concrete really stuck out to me in this respect! Though maybe just because that's the part I know the least about.
@@NN-zk4uz waman dum
Ok settle down
@@NN-zk4uzyou are just assuming they never would have said that if it was a man doing the video. No proof, just projecting your own biases. Perhaps you need to examine your own conception of women instead of throwing accusations.
@@vladutzuliI'm gonna jump on your comment to add that if the original poster actually had meant that, now they'll never admit it. All because this person jumped to conclusions and couldn't be patient enough to ask a leading question or two to get the op to explain themselves.
So a vomitorium basically vomits people out of a stadium really quick? Still a fitting name.
ancient crowd control could be its own video, super cool to learn about
We need vomitorium !
Get to the vomitorium! Is what Arnold should say
@@Materialist39 Basically, the police anti-riot squad today still uses the same methods the Romans used back then. The most distinguishable is the beating on the shield rhythmically, which creates discomfort to the people in front of you and the illusion that you have way more people than the one there really are.
@@antoniousai1989 They also use the roman testudo formation while marching with their roman style scutum shields.
@@Idiomatick They don't rofl, they mostly walk in lines. The testudo is a semi-myth in the way it is represented. You can't move if you interlock the shields, they just did it occasionally to avoid missiles of any sort, such as arrows or javelins
She gives so much detailed into without it stretching forever. Love her energy and how she explains things
the video is fastened before uploading.
@@suyashprksh The video is "cut down" , not "fastened", but her explanations are concise and yet full of detail despite the cuts.
Shes great! Fast and decisive information and you can clearly tell she loves her job. Only thing I disagree with is the part about civil war, where she essentially says "what is civil war, if slaves have an uprising is that civil war?" Slaves were considered...slaves not citizens so that wouldn't be a civil war but a slave uprising. Other than that, amazing video.
It seemed like a video for children. I was hoping I’d learn something new
@Icanbacktrailers Wired isn't a channel specialising in the Roman Empire/Republic/Byzantine Empire. If you want to know further, please look into channels specialised in that topic
The vomitorium reminds me of something.
In my native language of german we have the word "übergeben". It literally translates to "to overgive". However, the meaning of it is "to hand over" on the one hand and also, on the other "to puke."
So it's very similar to the vomitorium, even though german is not a romance language.
Umfahren (to drive around smth.) is the opposite of umfahren (to run smth. over)
:D
I completely forgot I tweeted that. Glad to have made it into the video!
Which question ❓
@@hui975 8:56
This was very good! I’d love to see one about ancient Aztecs, specifically on the subject of Tenochtitlan.
I'd love to see this!
Aztecs weren’t super ancient, more like a renassiance era people.
Aztec civilization is not ancient, it sprung up after the medieval era (1300s) . I think you might be referring to the Olmec Civilization, which popped up approximately 1200-400 BC. Now that’s ancient. The Aztecs and Olmec did share the same geographical area tho. But the Olmecs are way older by the Aztecs a long shot.
@@Ootazfromda03
I think it may also just be that we don’t really recognize how recent the Aztecs were in the span of human history. We think of them as ancient, but they were decidedly modern.
Could also be thinking of the Mayans.
@-alovelygaycat- Fun fact: The Mayans actually still exist! They're called the Quechua now and they are an indigenous minority of Mexico and Guatemala. Their language is still even spoken to this day; I've been to Mexico and in some of the tourist areas they have trilingual signs: Spanish, English, and Quechua. It's really cool.
Tailgating outside the gladiatorial matches is something I never considered but somehow makes perfect sense.
If you're going to be there for at least four hours, it only makes sense to have some food. You may as well have something worth eating.
😊
I have had a few martinis and I wanted to say" Your enthusiasm for the words Fruit and Nuts and other related fruits is admirable. You really place emphasis in a beautiful way. This is the highlight of the video.
We need a ancient Greek, Aztec and Mayan experts next please!! This was soooo interesting
Inca and Celtic too please
I just watched the Mayan expert episode. It's great.
AND THE DID
This kind of reminds me of the building use of Coquina like in St Augustine. I wonder how similar that is cuz it has limestone too
Wired is not a reliable source and most of what she said is just opinion not truth. Read the historical records. If this was you professor of Roman history you don't know Roman History.
i love that our ancestors are so much like us, the local pub, grilling before a game, gladiators where basically a hard core version of WWE.
If you walk around in the Colosseum, you can see how much the design of our modern stadiums still follows it's pattern.
@@njhoepnerwell it is an effective architecture idea to use and we've basically only changed a few things.
Ancient Romans had their own version of Thunderdome called Pankration, the two fighters wore battle gloves with blades and spikes in them. The only rules were no biting or gouging, basically the same rule set at the beginning of modern MMA.
@@njhoepner now that I think of it there is only one real way to design a stadium.
This is not a good thing.
So Gladiators were the ancient world's WWE wrestlers.
More like MMA fighters in the fact that they actually fought but not usually to the death. But it wasn't just basic theatrics a la WWE.
There were also several classes of gladiators.
There were criminals condemned to fight on the arena. They were supposed to die there, so they did not really get training. Some of them actually survive and could rise in ranks.
There were also professional gladiators, those were often slaves, but they were essentially trained athletes and entertainers. Some of them even became superstars...
These are the ones she talked about in the video
@@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control She said it was choreographed to be exciting for the audience...like WWE.
@@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control But MMA is boring. Theatrics for gladiatorial combat was a big deal. They were superstars, not just fighters lol.
@@elevatedream She said, yes. But then there's experts who say the contrary.
"How often did gladiators die?"
Basically just once...
To be fair, they all died.
😂
Lol
@@Kevin-bl6lg as a professional guy, I can say that's true. Experts say that they all died once
A note about the Pantheon: the concrete only needs to support its own weight (dead weight), but a bridge, road, or apartment building is constantly being stressed by wear and tear. Practical Engineer did a video on this. It's not that the Romans built things better than we do today, it's that the stuff we use today is built to handle things they never needed to. He suggests that a Roman architect or road builder would be astonished to see how strong and resilient modern structures are. (Also survivor bias in that they're studying, well, the Pantheon, not some random building.)
This is true but this conversation usually revolves around still existing Roman concrete around water vs our concrete around water. She failed to mention in her answer that the "healing" aspect of the concreate seems to activate in contact with water.
@@jonathanbetts1169 Reinforced concrete usually has iron reinforcement and when iron rusts; it expands and stresses the surrounding concrete -so a small, insignificant crack in the concrete would cause rusting; which means more cracks and so on.
A similar effect happens when the water on/in concrete/rocks/etc are regularly frozen and thawed.
The random (non metal reinforced) concrete in your patio area; would probably last centuries in a stable climate -water or not.
This was great! I love her simple and detailed explanations. Please bring her back for more Roman Empire questions!
I concur!
Preferably with citations lol
i recommend watching some of the videos that try to set things clear, she gave a lot of personal opinions on what was supposed to be a historical video
“Thrust slowly” had me choking on my water
Yeah someone really want to make a statement for the people that are going too fast lmao
They placed pornographic paintings on the wall next to the dining table. They celebrated fertility. You can see examples of this at Pompeii.
Those pictures were also to give ideas to the clients
@@johnbeckwith1361 yes I know I just thought it was hilarious
Sort of like the picture menus above the counters at fast food restaurants.
Customer looking at the pictures: "Uhmm, yeah, I'll have a cowgirl and two doggie styles, please".
"That'll be 10 denarii. You can add a BJ for 1 more denarius"
4:10 This Quicklime we call "Cal" here in Brazil. It is very used in greek houses to help maintain their nice temperature and not getting warm. It helps you to keep builds a bit colder. Here in Brazil most houses are made of brick and concrete so we usually paint the houses with Quicklime mixed with paint so it will get the house very warm.
Brazil mentioned 🇧🇷
We also do that in all the mediterranean area. For example, here in Spain.
It’s kind of crazy how alike the Romans were to us today. Obviously they were lacking in many modern advances in technology and scientific theory. But their culture is so similar in some ways it’s kind of crazy to think how they actually are pretty alike us in the modern era.
Eerily similar. The Late Republic especially.
One of my personal favorite comparisons was the correspondence between Marc Antony and Octavian before their civil war kicked off. They sent letters back and forth between Italy and Egypt just roasting each other. One calling the other an alcoholic, the other calling him a cuckold! It was by all means a twitter argument! Another favorite of mine is a Greek writer devoting a chapter in his book to his dog, and gushing over how awesome his dog is!
@@DirkLasermasterThat's amazing
Yeah like women not being able to vote and having their economy based on slavery...
@@DirkLasermaster Pets in Rome at times had fancier graves and more touching epitaphs than some people
As an Italian, thank you for covering our ancient culture with such passion. I really enjoyed your explanations!
Ehhhh
you Italians have as much of a cultural claim to Rome as Russia does.
@@Cyanide_and_Loneliness Moscow is the Third Rome!
@@Cyanide_and_Loneliness No seas bruto.
@@Cyanide_and_Loneliness your lack of knowledge is astonishing.
I'd love two experts to see how Rome compared side by side in all facets with the Han of the same time, arguably the two greatest and I'd say inarguably the two most influential civilizations of the ancient world. Would be fascinating
There's a great historian called premodernist who has some good stuff. Unfortunately the rome vs China is a $3 patreon exclusive, but is a really good warch.
for that you gotta read the book
yeah, bring in an actual historian for it tho
12:13 this explanation gave me a much better understanding why average life spans were so young, bc infant and child mortality rates were so high. That definitely tanks the average.
If you survive childhood and survive war then mid50s or older is a highly likely shot
it is a shame, she didnt told us, why was the infant/child mortality so high there... I would like to know that...
@@Bakoskapolio and chicken pox
@@Bakoskanot the best conditions for giving birth, so higher chances of getting infections and diseases that could cause death
Fun fact: we DO still call them Vomitoriums in theatre! (Though we do most often just say “vom” for short)
OH YEAH. That's right!
I immediately came to the comments looking for this!
She has so much PASSION for the subject it’s contagious!
Got a little woke there for a minute, then i remembered that was just at their end...
@@wvvwwvwvv Seek help
@@wvvwwvwvvlmao, what about this was “woke”? 😂
Yess
@@gavinm2183 probably the part where she was saying it’s impossible for Rome to have any good Emperor because part of the population was enslaved, as if that wasn’t just a part of normal life at that time.
So crazy that some gladiators were prepared to die. Imagine going into the colosseum knowing there’s nothing you can do.
Maybe they were told that their families would be taken care of if/when they died?
On some perspective, Gladiators aren't simply put in the colosseum to death, they are there to entertain. They mostly were taught to wound, not kill. Being a gladiator for most of the part is like a MMA Fighter or Sport celebrities these days, there are product advertisements, there are money to be made, and groups or guilds for it. Therefore, some gladiator could retire and enjoy their wealth. but that would be an entire different story if you're Christian on that age of time, death is absolute for you lol
I think she should have worded it better. To me that take makes so little sense, that I interpreted it as "whoever is HOSTING the event decides that a specific gladiator is going to die", without him actually knowing it. So yeah, it was "agreed upon", but not by the person who was going to actually die.
I may be wrong, but it makes much more sense like this.
@@AerB111she says agreed upon by whoever had ownership of the gladiator
they themselves didnt know ,their owners did
Haha I loved how excited she got showing the stamping of coins. 15:53
Yeah, me too! Kinda adorable, how she made herself giggle with the "whacking" motion. Her being such a bubbly and truly passionate professor makes her a pure joy to listen to. Love people like that and we need more of 'em 😊
i love how so much of Roman life is so similar to our own that on the one hand it's depressing to see how little we've improved considering how much time has passed but it's also fascinating that we're doing basically the same things
Humans have been humans for a frickin' long time
If consider modern humans have been around for about 150 thousand years, it hasn’t been that long.
Except there’s more slaves and peasants than ‘citizens’
Oh, we’ve improved a fair bit. Many people don’t seem to realize how truly horrible history was once you go back about 500+ years.
@@PerfectSense77*100+
Loved this, Lauren has an incredibly positive energy and seems to have vast knowledge of many areas, not just her specialisation. Also I do love when historians talk about the common people, not just royalty and generals.
The entire Tech Support series is just consistently great. This was a great topic, I always wondered about the vomitorium...
Wool really is kind of a miracle fabric, it’s one of the only fabrics that retains heat even while completely soaked. Cotton or linen once it’s wet it saps heat away but you can actually start sweating while having a completely soaked wool sweater on.
And it's renewable and then you can use the sheep for meat too
I feel like I was just attended a very fun Roman History class! Thank you so much and I'm really waiting for the next class!
I am at the nine minute mark, and I have learned more here than in any history class lecture!
not an accurate source, unfortunately
I am glad she pointed out the information about concrete .
Often you here people say ancient things could not be replicated today , this is totally fallacious.
Problem is cost is prohibitive compared to other methods.
It's also not useful for many modern purposes such as roads/bridges due to the drastically different loads and stresses it would incur.
lookin @ you, damascus steel.
Also worth saying that Roman concrete is NOT stronger than modern concrete, it just lasts longer because of the self-healing. Modern concrete can support much greater loads.
Very much so. There’s also a survivorship bias in that there were TONS of ancient buildings and structures that they made which DIDN’T survive to the present day. The ones that are still around are the better made ones (and/or ones that society took special efforts to preserve and maintain, usually because of their cultural or historical importance).
This is on the same line as "We CoUlDn'T BuIlD tHe PyRaMiD wItH mOdErN tEcH". We can easily and quickly but why would we?
Love the charisma of this historian! Can we get an Ancient Egypt one?
You got lucky, They did the egyptian one.
She’s not a historian
As someone who is majoring in history and trying to specialize in Homeric Greek history to the end of the Roman Empire this is fascinating
Wow, these are usually fun but Dr. Ginsberg is particularly great. She's so engaging and her enthusiasm for the subject is really infectious.
She's a person I would literally spend the day listening to. I really love her mind.
i don't think when someone asks who was the best roman emperor they're asking about how nice of a person they were i believe they're mostly asking how effective an emperor they were for the prosperity of Rome As a whole.
This.
Clearly Aurelian was the greatest emperor. He is the Restitutor Orbis after all.
(Augustus/Octavian doesn't count. He's not an emperor really)
I agree with this take. I loved most of her responses but this was a complete non-answer and I found it kind of frustrating. I was leaning towards Trajan and expecting her to come in with some interesting insight/ or obscure emperor that I hadn't given much thought towards.
Never trust a Jewish historian.
Wired is woke asf so she has to put left-wing ideology when talking about politics. That's the problem with academia in the US.
I love how excited and passionate she is when she’s talking about all this.
It’s really cool to see
This video was interesting! Can we like get one on other empires too? I would love it as a series.
I'm so thankful my middle school history/social science teachers were as passionate about teaching history as this professor because i remember so many of these facts. And why i found the "roman empire meme" so amusing. I hope for more of these videos about other cultures! 💕
Mannnnn it was absolutely fascinating listening to you talk, Dr. Lauren! I was completely enthralled and I wish I could hear you talk about Rome all day, please do come back :D
The concrete section isn't completely correct on a few points:
- Self healing concrete is being used and has been developed for more than 2 years. (BAM, The Netherlands, Paleis het Loo) The self healing properties of roman concrete have been known about and figured out for longer than that.
- Most conrete can cure under water just fine.
- The central reason why a lot of roman concrete structures are still standing is due to building style. Current buildings are more often than not built with a lot of tension, while roman structures are almost without exception built in compression. Tensioned structural steel doesn't rot the concrete over time, meaning they exist for longer, but have limited architectural styles. Skyscrapers for instance are rather hard to build without our current advancements.
Considering Skyscrapers are prestige objects rather than actually useful buildings I think the Romans have one over us
Also, survivorship bias. Imagine how many buildings that didnt endure the test of time.
Well she's a feminist 🤡
Not a historian.
I would take all of her classes in a heartbeat. I miss studying history sooooo much and I WISH more professors were like her!!!! Amazing energy
I absolutely adore Greco-Roman mythology and the ancient ways of life. This was enlightening!
It's Greco or Roman. Their way of approaching religion is radically different
@@antoniousai1989 In Greco-Roman mythology the Romans regarded Jupiter as the equivalent of the Greek Zeus, Mars as Ares, Venus as Aphrodite, etc. Vergilius told the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Ancient Romans were regiliously very tolerant and they took influences nearly every part of their Empire like Egypt, Asia Minor and Syria.
@@lucone2937 Those gods were only a couple of them that they syncretized into the Roman religion, but the approach to religion itself was radically different. The whole concept of the Roman religion was the "peace with the gods", seen as a contract with the divine forces, which were innumerable. Also, even the position in the Roman Pantheon is different. Mars was a positive figure for the Romans, and an agricultural god as well, something that he wasn't for the Greeks. Saturn was the same, Minervae too, similar but not the same, because even the Greek gods basically did unite with the previous gods already present among the Italic civilizations.
Romans also put lots of emphasis on seasons, cycles, and the days of the year, to the point that they had a god who was the conveyor of the concept of change and transformation, Janus.
@@lucone2937 Ehmmm..... I'm not sure you're familiar with a people call christians
@@forzaacmilan36 In fairness, as a Christian myself, if you think that a religion like what Christianity was back then (ostensibly a messianic cult trying to galvanize jewish people into conflict with the state in the near east) would be allowed in other periods either, I think it's just a misunderstanding of the progression of the christian tradition. Bearing in mind that Christians would eventually come to manifest the religion in an entirely different form for the sake of Constantine and the platonists, it's worth considering that it was more of a political issue than a religion issue.
Would love an expert on more history like this for other locations, especially the Native Americans as we don't learn much about them in school here.
If you are in the U.S. you do learn quite a bit about tribes in the US, not enough about South America or Mexican tribes though, the truth is there isn't a lot of known history since most of the western tribes were wiped out by plague before any explorers even met them and they didn't have written language so much of the history and culture was lost or misinterpreted due to living members of different tribes merging.
@@avvery8593 that isn't true for most of us, unfortunately.
@@Tanyathestoryteller It is true, just look at school curriculums across the country.
@@avvery8593 Yeah I've been seeing that some states have started requiring Native American history to be taught in schools, but that's because they teach so little about it. Just a few years ago it was reported that 27 states don't mention a single Native American in their K-12 curriculum
There's 1000s of videos on youtube. If you actually want to learn it's just a click away
At this point I’m completely obsessed with all those videos. I cannot do anything else. Thank you wired
She did awesome! Would gladly watch her talk about the ancient world again!
You should watch Metatron he has a video debunking this one but I think you would like his content
I’m a Classical Studies major myself. Absolutely ADORED this vid!
Part 2 please!!! This woman is great at explaining this topic and is super knowledgable
It's like year 5 roman history tbh
@@eggymayo3271 i had no such subject
@@eggymayo3271 Yeah right. Let's not pretend any history class focused on the every day life of Roman citizens beyond discussing what rights they might have had at any given time. What history is being taught at lower level schools is mostly wars and some politics. This had very little of that
@@Dobbyisfreelmao Yeah, but this dumb bltch puts her own politics into her explanations of the subject of Roman life. For example the whole part about roman sexuality, is wildly inaccurate.
and very biased
This series should definitely be part of the national curriculum. The teaching style, the passion, the clarity, the brevity - amazing! And directly answering specific common questions - love it!
Fast food history for people with little to no interest in learning about history so they turn to Wired.
I’m an Italian living in Tokyo, and I actually do end up thinking about the Roman Empire daily (when thinking about cultural differences, food, muscle training, skin and hair cleaning etc 😅)
Oh, you're the Thermae Romae opening guy, aren't you!
@@sasstsuma1467 ahahah yes
You had my attention within the first 5.5 words.
Sounds like the beginning of a joke. 😆
This was an absolutely amazing video. I love that we’ve broadened our context of learning to focus on day-to-day lives, context, and culture, and not jist painting in broad strokes and listing dates and lineages of rulers.
This was one of the most fascinating videos I've seen in a while. I feel like I'll be thinking more about the Roman empire going forward.
Yes one more!
It's a close thing with Marcus Aurelius being my favorite in later Imperial times, while Augustus set the stage for Imperial Rome's rise. You can't ignore Trajan and Hadrian though.
There is a Roman bath in the city of Bath in the UK. In the 70s when I was a youngster you could paddle in it. (not any longer) it's in amazing condition to this day.
It should be in good condition considering it was built by the Victorians and not ancient Romans some 1500+ years ago.
@@stoneagepig3768 The baths are roman, the rest of the structure was expanded and rebuild in several phases between the 17th and 19th century.
She is so incredibly knowledgable and such a great educator :) Thanks for making this amazing video
Lauren was wonderful. Would love a part 2 in the future
It really seems like the more we learn about history, the more we learn that humans haven't actually changed that much over time and that people are people no matter where or when you look.
This was all so informative 😮😮😮 wow!!! She has a lot of charisma and it’s so clear how passionate she is about her field!!
she's so knowledgeable!! its a treat to watch someone so passionate:)
In Spain, the town of Santiponce (Seville) is partially build over the old Roman city of Itálica. Some areas of that town still uses the old roman sewer system while the rest uses a system build in the 20s of the 20th century. In the 90s there was once a massive rainfall that caused a flood on the town... The parts of the town serviced by the modern sewer system!!
"We just don't call them 'vomitoriums'."
Yes we do. I've worked in theatre before and that is still used. In my case, we used it for the the side exits of the stage where we could get everyone off the stage quickly once the curtain came down between scenes.
As a history teacher i still have plenty of questions to ask her. Please bring her back 🤓
All the experts they invite for these videos are so passionate, makes it really fun and interesting to watch.
This and the Acient Egypt video are fantastic. Love it.
I've been glued to this channel for days now. You pick up some interesting stuff.
2:22 I’m watching this whilst eating popcorn😂😂
Professor Ginsberg seems super fun to hang out with, please join our DND game or something
As someone who thinks about the Roman empire on a VERY frequent basis, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Prof. Ginsburg was truly fun & interesting to listen to, great vid.
This lady is wonderful: love the Egyptologist and the Medievalist too.
Love her energy! Yall just have a knack for getting the best people
I just love learning about ancient Rome. The Romes society is sometimes so recognizable to us, still it's 2000 years ago...
Vomitoria do still sometimes show up in live theatre settings, especially classically inspired stages and theatres "in the round." The one I'm most familiar with is in San Diego: the White Theatre in Balboa Park, part of the Old Globe complex, is a theatre in the round and has two vomitoria (or voms) through which actors enter and leave the stage.
How did they have such advanced tech and infrastructure if all of the rullers were bad?
I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or pointing out the flwas in her logic but rome had many great leaders and people that worked in the empire to improve it one of the most famous omes being Constantine the great who promoted christianity,ended the Praetorian gaurd,brought some social reforms and a couple other stuff
She never said all rulers were bad just that there were no best ones, which is pretty true depending on who you are
"waaaah someone said the truth, my roman empire fantasy is shattered!"
@@SiliaIssolahthat's not the job of a historian
@@M50A1you’re missing the point. She said that the Roman emperors were morally bad (probably true for the vast majority of them) but I think what the question wanted to know was which emperor was the most effective ruler. The Romans had many incredibly effective rulers and many incredibly ineffective rulers. The ‘Roman empire fantasy’ is not shattered by having assholes run the empire, no one cares that they were assholes.
This is so informative. Lauren is so great with answers. I would have loved to have her as a teacher x
Great video! I've been studying Roman history for school. This video is very useful for filling in the gaps that most books and lectures don't have time to talk about
I know Lauren! We were faculty at the University of Cincinnati together! This is great 👍 Hi Lauren ✋
Since gladiators were heavily choreographed, that makes that ancient WWE wrestlers
they were still slaves though
@@rip_bugsy just like fighters now
"Romans really pioneered the idea of socks and sandals" 🤣🤣 This was great, please invite Professor Ginsberg back for a Part II!
As a German I appreciate that we are just Romans in a colder climate.
She's fantastic! Please have her back, I learned a lot in 20 minutes
Gladiators were very expensive and heavy investments. It wasn’t worth it for them to die. So typically it wasn’t to the death.
It would be like training a NFL player for one game.
Yup
I just realized. They basically were the WWE of the time
@@antoniousai1989they essentially are, successful gladiator could be as big as Stone Cold Steve Austin, for example. Or the Rock
@@antoniousai1989 Yeah famous gladiators had toys made in their image, they had sponsorships and would do advertisements for businesses, etc. They were sports celebrities largely in the same way as modern sports stars.
I had 4 years of latin in high school. I really enjoyed you expanding my knowledge of the Roman era.
this was great, we need more time with her! do a second session!
When we do concert gigs in arenas we still call the four wide entrances at each corner of the court “voms” so we do still use that word in my world!
Please do a part 2, I have so many more questions!
This was so interesting! Can we please have this professor back for a part 2?
Especially that during gladiator fight people use to grill some good meat haha
But she just kept spilling BS and falsehoods.
@@joaquindonoso5481 The problem is most people aren't well versed enough in history to discern her fallacies. Most see history for the fun facts, and not for how much it explains the present and can help predict the future. It also doesn't help that she isn't a history professor, but a professor of ancient literature.
Antoninus Pius was the best emperor, because absolutely nothing happened during his reign. He was emperor for 20 years and it was extremely peaceful. That is an achievement!
Yeah but he had Hadrian and Trajan before him.
Aurelian was the absolute best miliatry beast. Constantine was great
Yes, but to this woman, if he didn't free the slaves he's still evil. That's what happens when you view all of history through the lens of modern morality.
@@DiviAugustiThis is why examination of ‘best’ emperor is difficult. It doesn’t consider the efforts of predecessors that contributed to their reign, and the fact that not having to deal with a plague (like Aurelius and Justinian) or constant invasions contributed to his success. Pius was a good Emperor, but he was also very lucky.
yeah, but she mentioned slavery so yeah, OBJECTIVELY no one was good, she has a point but I find it pedantic.
Yeah, as a public health researcher who was trained by a financial historian, I know that life expectancy at birth, you see a dramatic improvement over the past couple hundred years, but if you look at life expectancy at older ages, while you still see an improvement, it's not nearly as dramatic. We know that Ramses II the Great lived to about 90, for example.
Woah, that's incredibly interesting, the more you know!
She’s such a joy to watch. We can see that she’s very intelligent and love what she does. I wish I was this passionate about something
love this !!!
we need a part two like immediately!
Every argument made on roman concrete is also present in modern concrete. When calculateing crack failure, we calculate how large cracks can be selfrepaired and design our construsctions thereafter. Modern cancrete is much better due to addetives like plastecizers and silica that allow us to better compose the concrete for the task ahead. The idea to reinforce concrete was invented in 1885 long after the romanempire had fallen.
You forgot to answer the most important question, "What have the Romans ever done for us?"
For one they gave us the basis for our system of law. The framers of the constitution were heavily influenced by Roman (and Greek) history and used the model of the Roman Republic to craft that document. The US is basically New Rome.
@@robo5013it's a Monty Python joke.
ROMANES EVNT DOMVS
@@leoribic1691 People called Romanes, they go the house?
@@D4N1CU5 No, it says Romans, go home!1!1!
To be serious and honest, though, I'm learning Latin right now and that sketch feels hilariously accurate to the experience of it all sometimes.
Absolutely love it when there is an expert like Lauren answering these questions where you see the excitement in her answers. It really builds on the videos.
NGL, A lion being launched into the air at people sounds like the most terrifying experience imaginable.