Should there be Roman culture on the map in the new DLC?
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Back on topic, while I agree on the Gothic Wars as being a potentially good red line (if anything for the sybolic value) to declare the death of the Roman culture, I still think something should be done to address the weird situation one can see in the cultural map from the trailer, where most of Italy is "Lombard" and a few provinces in the center are generically "Italian".
I definitely like the idea of Italo-Roman culture in the "Italian" areas of the map. Also, much of Francia should be Gallo-Roman with Frankish rulers at this point, but that's being a bit pedantic.
Rather than Gallia, I would rather lobby for Iberia, which should be "Hispanic" with Visigothic rulers (in the north).
But thanks for supporting me!!!
That sounds neat too. "Latin peasants, German overlords" is pretty much the story of this period. Though I'd make Catalan and Occitan culture areas Visigothic. (That way, they never have to melting-pot apart. :laugh
It seems that my question was either misunderstood or became a subject of debate.
I was asking when the Roman culture "die out", as in not become extinct, but rather completely evolve into the various Romance cultures we have today. Because as far as I can understand, even when the Roman culture branched into the various other cultures, Latin was still spoken for quite some time. So obviously this question can't be about the language. To make it simply, how about hats? When did the hats change?
I was asking when the Roman culture "die out", as in not become extinct, but rather completely evolve into the various Romance cultures we have today. Because as far as I can understand, even when the Roman culture branched into the various other cultures, Latin was still spoken for quite some time. So obviously this question can't be about the language. To make it simply, how about hats? When did the hats change?
Very interesting discussion. As others have pointed out, there's no evidence of an Italian language prior to the 10th century, and even the Veronese Riddle is just Vulgar Latin in written form. Written languages are always more formal than their "street talk" in written form -- if you compare the grammar of written American English with the grammar even of a CNN reporter doing an interview (not reading from a script), they are different, but American's are so used to using both they don't notice.
During the early CK2 timeframe Latin names were alive and well in regions of Italy the Lombards had not conquered. The names of the later Exarchs of Ravenna look Roman to me, and the Exarchate came to an end in 751 -- during Charlemagne's lifetime.
For people saying that the Gothic Wars were evidence that Italy was no longer Roman culture because they didn't like the Byzantines, I think you've got it backwards -- it was the BYZANTINES whose culture was changing from Roman to Medieval Greek -- caused by the establishment of Constantinople as a separate political power center, with a separate Senate, in the Greek-speaking east. Justinian, who is said to be the last Roman Emperor who spoke Latin as his first language, died in 565, and Heraclius changed his title from Augustus to Basileus in 629 and the language of government from Latin to Greek.
During the early CK2 timeframe Latin names were alive and well in regions of Italy the Lombards had not conquered. The names of the later Exarchs of Ravenna look Roman to me, and the Exarchate came to an end in 751 -- during Charlemagne's lifetime.
For people saying that the Gothic Wars were evidence that Italy was no longer Roman culture because they didn't like the Byzantines, I think you've got it backwards -- it was the BYZANTINES whose culture was changing from Roman to Medieval Greek -- caused by the establishment of Constantinople as a separate political power center, with a separate Senate, in the Greek-speaking east. Justinian, who is said to be the last Roman Emperor who spoke Latin as his first language, died in 565, and Heraclius changed his title from Augustus to Basileus in 629 and the language of government from Latin to Greek.
The Roman republic mindset of unity died with the massive amounts of gold from the conquests of greece and the elimination of Carthage. That is when the romans lost the unity of purpose. The Rome that you say changed was really the decadence that set in from these events. Rome had a winning model until plagues and incapable emperors and unruly soldiers set in.
YES! I made a thread a long time ago for ToG and now I think it's point it only made stronger now. Roman Culture should be more than back history!
My Points back then:
"As some of you already know they have the latin (roman) culture in the game to be used for back history on the Roman Empire. I believe that it should be added into the game as the culture for the islands of Sardinia and Corsica for the ToG startdate for a couple of reasons and I hope you and Paradox consider my reasons and opt to make a change to the game.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_language#Classification_and_related_languages That's a comparison of the breakdown of modern languages from Latin. As you can see, these islands languages are extremely conservative and aren't even in the same ballpark as Italo-Western Romance would evolve into.
2: Dante Alighieri stated in De Vulgari Eloquentia (1303-1305) that Sardinians were not Italics and, furthermore, had never developed any Vulgar language of their own in his opinion, preferring to imitate Latin instead. Now if this is common thought in 1303 I think we can assume in late 800's they have got to be pretty conservative latin in culture.
3: Unlike the mainland Italy, Roman rule was maintained in the area except for a small period of 78 years starting in 456. The muslim conquest of Sicily between 827 and 902 cutoff communication with the E.R.E. but the culture and administration continued as is but independent during this time. At ToG start date they just became independent. Their culture should have a lot more in common with the Eastern Roman Empire as opposed to the italian mainland. Sidethought: If a player were to recapture all of Sicily from the Muslims the Empire would never write them off as an imperial province in 952.
3: Having escaped the barbarian conquests and mass settlement that reshaped the rest of Western Europe, early medieval Sardinian political institutions evolved from the millennium old Roman imperial structures with relatively little Germanic influence. Although they used hereditary lordships for the rulers, the old Roman imperial notion that separated personal title or honor from the state still persisted, so the state was not regarded as the personal property of the monarch as was common in later European feudalism. Like the imperial systems, they also preserved "semi-democratic" forms, with national assemblies. Seems to me they should reflect this with a latin culture to suggest their backwater conserative style as opposed to the mainlands evolution in less conservative thinking for the time.
4. And I think this is the most important reason: For those that want to return Latin to the mainland or recreate a united Latin Roman Empire without cheating in the culture or using a ruler designer character this is the best way to do so while being historically viable.
I hope my reasons persuade a change to these provinces."
That's why I mentioned the Gothic Wars -- it's when the urbanized Roman culture of the late Empire died out for good, and when Roman institutions -- which had survived the fall of the Empire -- collapsed.
Nobody said that they weren't Roman because they hated the Byzantines; they said that the inhabitants of Italy hated the Byzantines for destroying Roman civilization in Italy. Nobody's even talking about the Byzantines and how they differ from ancient Romans -- it's a completely separate issue. This thread is about when the Italians -- "Roman" since the Social War -- stopped being Roman in any meaningful sense.
As for the issue of Latin and Latin names, that's not the best criterion: Latin continued to be the universal language of the west, as well as the language of state. The Franks used it, but we wouldn't call the Merovingians Romans, would we?
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That's interesting because Sardinian dialect is the closest distinct language to Latin that exists.
Yup, the islands never had Lombard influence long enough to change their culture, they always maintained contact with the Roman Empire East or West, and in this early of a start date the muslim conquest of Sicily in 827 had not happened yet to isolate them so there is no reason for them not to be latin speakers as it was only in 620 the Byzantine Empire went Greek and we know Sardinia under their control this whole time didn't follow the Greek path so I'd stand to reason they are still Roman Culture.
I'd say that's plausible enough to put in in the game, just so everyone with a weird obsession with restoring roman culture can do so and still get achievements.
When did Italian start to develop? More or less in this very period, it turns out. The Longobards had been poor overlords for a long time, but in the last century or so they had mixed deeply with the preexisting populace. Their language had shifted to a Romance base, and the cultural differences between ruling class and lower classes had started to diminish. They came, to be honest, pretty near to be the Franks of Italy. But then Charlemagne arrived.
Well, in the West, Boethius was one of the last secular authors to write in Latin. I think Roman culture died with him (or Cassiodorus). Latin of course continued with the Church, but even there you get exhortations to use the vernacular, so it's obvious that some people at least couldn't follow. Beyond monasteries, and a few churches, did anyone actually speak Latin? I don't think so, unless you consider all Romance languages to be Latin. I doubt even Boethius used Latin to speak with his children.
In the East, the end date is probably the reign of the Apostate. But that was the realm of Greek, anyway, even if culturally (Greco-)Roman influence continued.
Eh.
1. Culture isn't language. If you used that criteria England would have changed culture 3 times since 1066. Furthermore dialects muddy the picture considerably, and the fact you don't know what people actually spoke in a lot of places prior to the current muddies the picture even more. It also isn't necessarily religion (otherwise your pagan->Christian->Islam conversion screws you up in a lot places) or even rulership (as noted there are more than a few places where rulers left little trace in language or institutions)
2. Culture isn't a constant over time. This is actually the main reason why reintroducing ancient roman as roman is silly. Even if Italy started speaking Vulgate Latin or Sardinian, they are hardly going to start wearing togas and fighting in legions. Technology has progressed past that point, and their institutions are hardly likely to revert to the imperial system.
3. If Sardinia is that distinct from the mainland its Sardinian, but many of his points are silly in any event (how could it not have contact with the mainland right next to it while having 'contact' with the ERE? The ERE in 6-800 was very much not the ERE of 400 let alone the Rome of 100 or 0 AD in any event - thus why its reconquest of Italy didn't 'restore' anything, so it being a nominal province is meaningless.
Strangely, some people in this thread have. Which is kind of a contradiction of the fact they (and latin) are all separate languages.
1. Culture isn't language. If you used that criteria England would have changed culture 3 times since 1066. Furthermore dialects muddy the picture considerably, and the fact you don't know what people actually spoke in a lot of places prior to the current muddies the picture even more. It also isn't necessarily religion (otherwise your pagan->Christian->Islam conversion screws you up in a lot places) or even rulership (as noted there are more than a few places where rulers left little trace in language or institutions)
2. Culture isn't a constant over time. This is actually the main reason why reintroducing ancient roman as roman is silly. Even if Italy started speaking Vulgate Latin or Sardinian, they are hardly going to start wearing togas and fighting in legions. Technology has progressed past that point, and their institutions are hardly likely to revert to the imperial system.
3. If Sardinia is that distinct from the mainland its Sardinian, but many of his points are silly in any event (how could it not have contact with the mainland right next to it while having 'contact' with the ERE? The ERE in 6-800 was very much not the ERE of 400 let alone the Rome of 100 or 0 AD in any event - thus why its reconquest of Italy didn't 'restore' anything, so it being a nominal province is meaningless.
Strangely, some people in this thread have. Which is kind of a contradiction of the fact they (and latin) are all separate languages.
I consider all Romance languages (except perhaps Romanian and Sardinian) to be dialects of Vulgar Latin, which unfortunately has never been standardized.
Vulgar Latin, on the other hand, is a completely different language with respect to Classical Latin.