When and How Did Roman Values Become Extinct?

[Exarch]

The Roman way of life; what is it exactly? a lot of ppl debate about what cultural values were specifically roman values, so my first question to you is:
1) What are Roman Values (as distinct from cultural values of the Byzantines)?
1.2) When Did Roman Values Disappear?

hellheaven tells me some war with the goths exterminated the roman way of life amongst italians;

Look at italian ppl today; it can be argued their current culture was heavily influenced by the germanic Holy Roman Empire;
now at some point in time after the fall of the WRE , the italian ppl and those who'd been romanised ceased doing traditional roman activities, chief amongst them the use of latin as a common language; at some point in time, vulgar latin disappeared. My second question:

2) At what point in time did italians stop using latin to communicate as a common everyday language? (rather than the lingua franca amongst scholars in the dark ages and medieval period?)

Last question;

3) Besides being the heirs of the ERE, how did the Byzantine Empire, which called itself the 'empire of the Romans' practice traditional Roman Values which the Caesars would've been familiar with?

These are uni level questions so naturally i'm looking for uni level answers. please

[Getwulf]

The Roman way of life; what is it exactly? a lot of ppl debate about what cultural values were specifically roman values, so my first question to you is:
1) What are Roman Values (as distinct from cultural values of the Byzantines)?
1.2) When Did Roman Values Disappear?

hellheaven tells me some war with the goths exterminated the roman way of life amongst italians;

Look at italian ppl today; it can be argued their current culture was heavily influenced by the germanic Holy Roman Empire;
now at some point in time after the fall of the WRE , the italian ppl and those who'd been romanised ceased doing traditional roman activities, chief amongst them the use of latin as a common language; at some point in time, vulgar latin disappeared. My second question:

2) At what point in time did italians stop using latin to communicate as a common everyday language? (rather than the lingua franca amongst scholars in the dark ages and medieval period?)

Last question;

3) Besides being the heirs of the ERE, how did the Byzantine Empire, which called itself the 'empire of the Romans' practice traditional Roman Values which the Caesars would've been familiar with?

These are uni level questions so naturally i'm looking for uni level answers. please

I think that you need to get a little more specific than "values". I'm of the opinion that the Romans didn't actually have that many "values" in the modern sense of the word. Certainly "pornographic" images were more common with the Romans and almost absent from the Byzantines but does that make the Byzantines more "pious", honest and just? Were the Romans ever just...?

[Exarch]

I think that you need to get a little more specific than "values". I'm of the opinion that the Romans didn't actually have that many "values" in the modern sense of the word. Certainly "pornographic" images were more common with the Romans and almost absent from the Byzantines but does that make the Byzantines more "pious", honest and just? Were the Romans ever just...?

i'm not passing judgement on the Romans, i'm curious about the Roman way of life though; what it meant to be Roman.

for eg, look at today's world; Americans have different cultural values to Britons and Germans despite being descended from Britain and much of Europe; In Australia our cultural values are very different to those of the Chinese-our past was very pastoral and heavily influenced by surviving in the Bush not to mention being mostlydescended from convicts means we have a bit of a rebel streak-compare that to most Chinese whose cultural values are confucian and thus they respect authority and have a concept of 'face'which australia's cultural values do not have.

key words here are 'cultural values'

Cultural Values

A culture's values are its ideas about what is good, right, fair, and just. Sociologists disagree, however, on how to conceptualize values. Conflict theory focuses on how values differ between groups within a culture, while functionalism focuses on the shared values within a culture. For example, American sociologist Robert K. Merton suggested that the most important values in American society are wealth, success, power, and prestige, but that everyone does not have an equal opportunity to attain these values. Functional sociologist Talcott Parsons noted that Americans share the common value of the “American work ethic,” which encourages hard work. Other sociologists have proposed a common core of American values, including accomplishment, material success, problem-solving, reliance on science and technology, democracy, patriotism, charity, freedom, equality and justice, individualism, responsibility, and accountability.




A culture, though, may harbor conflicting values. For instance, the value of material success may conflict with the value of charity. Or the value of equality may conflict with the value of individualism. Such contradictions may exist due to an inconsistency between people's actions and their professed values, which explains why sociologists must carefully distinguish between what people do and what they say. Real culture refers to the values and norms that a society actually follows, while ideal culture refers to the values and norms that a society professes to believe.

Source: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/...#ixzz0jOJPjTLp

[Getwulf]

OK... I'll play along...!

1) What are Roman Values (as distinct from cultural values of the Byzantines)?
1.2) When Did Roman Values Disappear?

The Byzantines started out as monotheistic while the Romans had a pantheon. I know, this is a very obvious one but whatever...

2) At what point in time did italians stop using latin to communicate as a common everyday language? (rather than the lingua franca amongst scholars in the dark ages and medieval period?)

I'm not too familiar with what the Italics spoke after say the 5th C. AD... Anyone know if the Langobards spoke German...?

3) Besides being the heirs of the ERE, how did the Byzantine Empire, which called itself the 'empire of the Romans' practice traditional Roman Values which the Caesars would've been familiar with?

They both shared the same patriarchic, nepotism based hierarchy!

[rusina]

2) At what point in time did italians stop using latin to communicate as a common everyday language? (rather than the lingua franca amongst scholars in the dark ages and medieval period?)

They never stopped using it, it just evolved.

[SigniferOne]

The Roman way of life; what is it exactly? a lot of ppl debate about what cultural values were specifically roman values, so my first question to you is:

1) What are Roman Values?

There are several. Probably the first and foremost one is republicanism, which led them to create the old Republic. Central to this was a distate for hierarchy, intolerance of absolute rule, and incapacity for personal submission. Although the obvious conclusion is that this value structure died with the end of the Republic, a more subtle analysis revealse that it persisted long into the Imperial period. The more evident remains of this are the constant challenge that Senators presented to the omnipotent Emperors, scorning them, ridiculing them to their face, openly going to execution, and the periodic attempts to re-establish the Republic in 41 AD, in 68 AD, in 175 AD, and at several other moments. The less evident remains of this republican spirit are the way in which Emperors were treated. The easiest way to understand it is to look at the reign of Diocletian in the late 3rd century AD, when he demanded that people bow to him, flatten themselves on the floor and show utter obeisance and submission -- and then realize that this is what Romans hadn't done to their emperors for the entire Imperial period prior to this. The transition of Rome to an Eastern absolute monarchy under Diocletian and Constantine underscores the degree to which such a thing was absent in the prior period, and thus the great equality of treatment, and the lack of utter subjection, which characterized interactions of Romans with their Emperors throughout the previous 300 years.

As you can see, this republican trait is completely absent in the Byzantine Empire. But it can be argued that it wasn't the Byzantines who lost it but the original Roman Empire itself, as early as the 4th century AD when the Byzantine Empire was being born. What was put in place of the old Roman Imperial system was a Near Eastern absolute monarchy, with eastern symbols of royalty, absolute subjection of rank citizens, complete control of the economy, and even changes in the military doctrine, the old-fashioned Roman infantry being in many places replaced by Eastern cataphracts.

3) Besides being the heirs of the ERE, how did the Byzantine Empire, which called itself the 'empire of the Romans' practice traditional Roman Values which the Caesars would've been familiar with?

It didn't. There was no intersection of values between the Byzantine monarchy and the early Imperial period of the likes of Caesar or Hadrian. There especially was absolutely no intersection of values between the Byzantines and the Republican period.

[Mangalore]

As has been pointed out cultural values change. As such I find it missing the point to attribute one fixed set of attributes to a certain political entity and nation spanning 1000 years. Even dividing in Republic, early principate, imperial age and Eastern Rome is a very crude way of doing it and ignores that it developed overtime and with each generation.

More importantly: How are their values Roman?

[hellheaven1987]

More importantly: How are their values Roman?

When the man was a sex beast that always committed adultery??

[hellheaven1987]

The Roman way of life; what is it exactly? a lot of ppl debate about what cultural values were specifically roman values, so my first question to you is:
1) What are Roman Values (as distinct from cultural values of the Byzantines)?
1.2) When Did Roman Values Disappear?

My idea is that a true Roman value never really existed like Chinese value, probably because the less land space and more civlized neighbours that forced (and allowed) Roman to adopt new idea without going through their own cultural judgement - hence the new adoption was easily to abandon once it was useless.

hellheaven tells me some war with the goths exterminated the roman way of life amongst italians;

I never told you anything after "goths", so don't make false quotation.

Look at italian ppl today; it can be argued their current culture was heavily influenced by the germanic Holy Roman Empire;
now at some point in time after the fall of the WRE , the italian ppl and those who'd been romanised ceased doing traditional roman activities, chief amongst them the use of latin as a common language; at some point in time, vulgar latin disappeared. My second question:

2) At what point in time did italians stop using latin to communicate as a common everyday language? (rather than the lingua franca amongst scholars in the dark ages and medieval period?)

Once Lombards invaded Italy. The effect was northern Italy and southern Italy adopted different cultures in the end.

3) Besides being the heirs of the ERE, how did the Byzantine Empire, which called itself the 'empire of the Romans' practice traditional Roman Values which the Caesars would've been familiar with?

Well, besides it followed an Emperor system which was identified to 4th Century Roman system, Byzantium was largely a Greek nation.

[Exarch]

my thanks to everyone who replied; you've been of great help in deciphering this puzzling question i've had since reading about the fall of Rome;

I never told you anything after "goths", so don't make false quotation.

sorry, lol; i was reading a lot into your quote

so after the lombards invaded north italy were the north italians at once forced to adopt lombard values and way of life? ie speaking lombard, etc

@signifier

There are several. Probably the first and foremost one is republicanism, which led them to create the old Republic. Central to this was a distate for hierarchy, intolerance of absolute rule, and incapacity for personal submission. Although the obvious conclusion is that this value structure died with the end of the Republic, a more subtle analysis revealse that it persisted long into the Imperial period. The more evident remains of this are the constant challenge that Senators presented to the omnipotent Emperors, scorning them, ridiculing them to their face, openly going to execution, and the periodic attempts to re-establish the Republic in 41 AD, in 68 AD, in 175 AD, and at several other moments. The less evident remains of this republican spirit are the way in which Emperors were treated. The easiest way to understand it is to look at the reign of Diocletian in the late 3rd century AD, when he demanded that people bow to him, flatten themselves on the floor and show utter obeisance and submission -- and then realize that this is what Romans hadn't done to their emperors for the entire Imperial period prior to this. The transition of Rome to an Eastern absolute monarchy under Diocletian and Constantine underscores the degree to which such a thing was absent in the prior period, and thus the great equality of treatment, and the lack of utter subjection, which characterized interactions of Romans with their Emperors throughout the previous 300 years.

As you can see, this republican trait is completely absent in the Byzantine Empire. But it can be argued that it wasn't the Byzantines who lost it but the original Roman Empire itself, as early as the 4th century AD when the Byzantine Empire was being born. What was put in place of the old Roman Imperial system was a Near Eastern absolute monarchy, with eastern symbols of royalty, absolute subjection of rank citizens, complete control of the economy, and even changes in the military doctrine, the old-fashioned Roman infantry being in many places replaced by Eastern cataphracts

interesting;
btw do you think the venetian republicanism of the medieval period to be an attempt to recreate the roman empire?
and do you not consider byzantine nobles learning and reading Roman literature and theses on war to be a practice of Roman Cultural values?

[hellheaven1987]

so after the lombards invaded north italy were the north italians at once forced to adopt lombard values and way of life? ie speaking lombard, etc

I would not say forced but rather like Frank, the locals adopted the foreign culture.

[CiviC]

so after the lombards invaded north italy were the north italians at once forced to adopt lombard values and way of life? ie speaking lombard, etc

Italians never spoke Lombard (or more corectly Longobard as Lombard is the name of an Italian dialect). Lombard is a Germanic language and surprisingly it seems it influenced very little Italian. Neither Italians adopted Lombard values and way of life : they had tribal values and way of life they gave up in Italy. It was the other way around, Lombards adopted Italian language and way of life. The values of Italians when Lombards invaded were not anymore the Roman values though but incipient medieval values and way of life. Only at political level Lombards had an influence.

As for the date when most traditional Roman values became extinct I would place this date around the reign of Constantine the Great with the advent of Christianity becoming the base for the new imperial ideology.

[SigniferOne]

@signifier
interesting;
btw do you think the venetian republicanism of the medieval period to be an attempt to recreate the roman empire?
and do you not consider byzantine nobles learning and reading Roman literature and theses on war to be a practice of Roman Cultural values?

I don't think medieval republicanism was in any way a reflection of old Roman values, but there can be independent kinds of republicanism, and I don't think it all has to stem from a single historical source. The only variant that I do think came really close to the Roman kind was the English republicanism circa 1688 and Queen Anne era, subsequently exhibited in the American revolution.

[CiviC]

I don't think medieval republicanism was in any way a reflection of old Roman values, but there can be independent kinds of republicanism, and I don't think it all has to stem from a single historical source. The only variant that I do think came really close to the Roman kind was the English republicanism circa 1688 and Queen Anne era, subsequently exhibited in the American revolution.

The French First Republic copied many institutions from Roman Republic, then French First Empire was modeled on Roman Empire instead on medieval monarchy.

[Gromovnik]

Their values pretty much went down the toilet when they started making more than 50k denarii per turn...

[motiv-8]

The transition of Rome to an Eastern absolute monarchy under Diocletian and Constantine underscores the degree to which such a thing was absent in the prior period, and thus the great equality of treatment, and the lack of utter subjection, which characterized interactions of Romans with their Emperors throughout the previous 300 years.

I'll add, though, that this revolution in political style followed a conscious, if not exactly pre-planned, effort by emperors spanning decades to completely marginalize the Senatorial class, during which time the equestrian order came to replace the former as the major influence and power broker. The instability of the office of emperor which resulted from such a larger class being able to shape events is likely to have influenced the development of these shrouded and complex courtly styles as most fully demonstrated by Dicoletian.

As you can see, this republican trait is completely absent in the Byzantine Empire. But it can be argued that it wasn't the Byzantines who lost it but the original Roman Empire itself, as early as the 4th century AD when the Byzantine Empire was being born. What was put in place of the old Roman Imperial system was a Near Eastern absolute monarchy, with eastern symbols of royalty, absolute subjection of rank citizens, complete control of the economy, and even changes in the military doctrine, the old-fashioned Roman infantry being in many places replaced by Eastern cataphracts.

I would also add to this the concept of divine right which was inserted into Roman law during the recompilation of older codes for Justinian's codex and which became more or less the norm from then on, gaining in solidity as reigns and generations passed.

Once Lombards invaded Italy. The effect was northern Italy and southern Italy adopted different cultures in the end.

Did not many (and most educated) southern Italians long speek Greek anyway?

[CiviC]

The Roman way of life; what is it exactly? a lot of ppl debate about what cultural values were specifically roman values, so my first question to you is:
1) What are Roman Values (as distinct from cultural values of the Byzantines)?
1.2) When Did Roman Values Disappear?

hellheaven tells me some war with the goths exterminated the roman way of life amongst italians;

Look at italian ppl today; it can be argued their current culture was heavily influenced by the germanic Holy Roman Empire;
now at some point in time after the fall of the WRE , the italian ppl and those who'd been romanised ceased doing traditional roman activities, chief amongst them the use of latin as a common language; at some point in time, vulgar latin disappeared. My second question:

"The Roman way of life" ceassed to exist even before the end of Western Roman Empire. Christianity, the gradual feudalisation of society, the dissolution of urban life, the conquest and rule by Barbarians are some of things that made Roman way of life to disappear. Traditional Roman way of life was based on Roman religion and Pantheon, Roman laws, urban life, Roman military machine, sclavagism, trade, etc. When temples were closed and Roman Gods were replaced with one God, Roman laws and rule were replaced with Barbarian laws, cities were repeatedly destroyed, and baths, amphitheatres, gladiatorial games, aqueducts, forums, monuments fell in disuse, disrepair and ruin, the urban population diminuished to 1/10th and fled to countryside, commerce based on coin and long routes was replaced on a closed rural local economy based on barter, slaves were replaced with serfs, the equality of citizens was replaced by bonds of vassalage and the concept of state as res publica was replaced with the state seen as the private property of a Barbarian King, you can say Roman way of life disappeared.

2) At what point in time did italians stop using latin to communicate as a common everyday language? (rather than the lingua franca amongst scholars in the dark ages and medieval period?)

Latin language in its classical form was probably never used as common everyday language in Rome. There was always a form of Vulgar Latin different from Classical Latin used as literary language. Vulgar Latin as any spoken and living language evolved as centuries passed by. Every province of the Empire had its own dialect and interpretation of Vulgar Latin influenced by the fact Vulgar Latin was spoken by people with very different linguistic backgrounds (Gauls, Celto-Iberes, Thracians, Dacians, North Africans, Germans, etc.) Italians themselves had very different backgrounds - Italics, Etruscans, Siculi, Celts, Ligures, Carthaginians, Greeks, Illyres, etc. So probalby there was no unified Vulgar Latin in Italy either (see the separation of Italian languages/dialects into Gallo-Italian and Italo-Dalmatian). When the Western Roman Empire fell, the isolation of these species of Vulgar Latin transformed them in dialects more and more distinct. However the linguist will say that all Romance languages are in fact a dialectum continuum, so in a scientific sense we still can speak of one "Roman" language. Vulgar Latin as others pointed out, never ceassed to be spoken, it evolved and would have evolved with or without the fall of Roman Empire.

Last question;

3) Besides being the heirs of the ERE, how did the Byzantine Empire, which called itself the 'empire of the Romans' practice traditional Roman Values which the Caesars would've been familiar with?

These are uni level questions so naturally i'm looking for uni level answers. please

They kept the concept of state as res publica, and not as the private property of the Emperor. The succession to the imperial throne was very similar with that of Roman Empire : by adoption, association to throne, military rebellion of some general, co emperors, assasination. They kept a great part of Roman Laws that are transmited to as by the Byzantine jurists. The birocracy and administration kept many of Roman traditions. Also the cultural life though Christianised preserved the teachings of ancient Rome.

Urban life also was preserved at high levels and many of the traditions of Roman society for a while, like the Hippodrome. Constantinople was in Middle Ages as great city Rome was in Antiquity and probably the closest model of Roman way of life you could get.

Byzantine Empire was Greek linguistically, but the Eastern parts of Roman Empire were never Latin speaking, and the culture of Roman Empire was in fact Greco-Roman and Christianity (the cultural factor that marked the culture of Byzantines) was also a continuation of something adopted in the times of Roman Empire, so I don't see any real break-up in continuity between Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantium because Roman Empire was in fact half Roman half Greek. Byzantium is just a Medieval evolution of Rome.

[DAVIDE]

Vulgar in Italy was a phase already started by the same Romans, centuries before the arrival of Barbarians. For example inscription 77 of Pompeian graffiti I century Ad:

Myrtile, habias propitium Caesare

Here thing that catches the eye's that there's the fall of -m nomen declination, findable also in Venus:

Sic habeas Venere Pompeianam propytia

Numerous' been the modifications for the verbals forms, in this case the verb to have, findable also in the form ama and amat. The fall of some endings on verbal conjugations and some declinations were already present during the early empire and grew up thru the time creating linguistic pathologies introducing some new elements as the articles to support the same phrase. Appendix Probi is a list of 227 exact and fake Latin words made by an anonymous author in III century Ad in appendix of a copy of a text taken from Institutiones Grammaticae, a Latin grammar attributed to Marcus Valerius Probus I century Ad in which the list shows the difference between spoken and written Latin already in Roman imperial age, very similar or equal to modern Italian too

1. calda instead of calida
2. lancia instead of lancea
3. oricla instead of auris
4. facia instead of facies
5. acqua instead of aqua
6. Febrarius instead of Februarius
7. autor instead of auctor
8. autoritas instead of auctoritas

etc. etc. etc.

[thursgun]

Roman values ended with Christianity:

Before that it was OK having public orgies, sex with underage or being homosexual or bisexual for that matter.
Slavery was allowed.
gladiator fights allowed.
Artistic culture would not appear with the same strength again until Renaissance.
Worshiping many gods was a very important part in their culture too.

[Boyar Son]

Roman values ended with Christianity:

Before that it was OK having public orgies, sex with underage or being homosexual or bisexual for that matter.
Slavery was allowed.
gladiator fights allowed.
Artistic culture would not appear with the same strength again until Renaissance.
Worshiping many gods was a very important part in their culture too.

Those aren't the roman values and there has been a philosophical movement in the later empire that said all gods might just be part of one