The WrestlingSmarks History Club

[O-Blaze]

I think this fits here.

This was a good interesting watch.

 

[Chris]

Something I find increasingly fascinating, probably bc of how little we have for it rn (which is equally frustrating), is the current historians pouring through thousands of boring diaries and reports to piece together these aspects of everyday life that people didn't think were important enough to talk about directly.

An example would be sleeping schedules, no one really cared to talk about it in surviving documents because why would anyone care, but we now know just from analyzing completely unrelated documents and piecing together common threads that until the modern 8 hour workday, full electricity, and alarm clocks, everyone slept in two increments, not one 8 hour increment.

I've long heard that before electricity people just slept when it was dark, woke up when it was late, but that's not exactly true. They slept when it got dark for about 4 hours, woke up and did something usually relaxing for a couple hours, then went back to sleep for another 4.

I don't really think any conclusions need to be drawn from this tho. I don't really think an 8 hour sleep schedule as opposed to 4 hour increments is worse, and I assume it's something that we'll better adapt to over time. What is interesting though, is most modern sleep science such as insomnia diagnosis don't really factor any of this in. I'm kind of baffled it's not more acknowledged that people who can't really sleep 8 hours at a time might be the normal ones.

 

[Chris]

Semi-related, I went down a rabbit hole of everyday life in ancient Greek and Rome and stumbled upon a hilarious diary entry from Cicero, while he was in the heat of a million important things happening, being very concerned some workers aren't going to come fix a big crack in the wall of his house soon enough

 

[Barry Poppins]

Semi-related, I went down a rabbit hole of everyday life in ancient Greek and Rome and stumbled upon a hilarious diary entry from Cicero, while he was in the heat of a million important things happening, being very concerned some workers aren't going to come fix a big crack in the wall of his house soon enough

Classic Cicero.

 

[Barry Poppins]

Btw here's a hot take: Tiberius is not a bad emperor, he just became emperor at the worst time.

 

[Chris]

A lot of the earlier emperors also suffer from a perception issue of the Senate dictating their legacy in writing after the fact. It's hard to take their conclusions about how bad someone is when you know they hated each other.

Nero wasn't as universally hated as they made it seem too and he's only really been reevaluated the last 100 years or so. Which of course swings everything too far to the other side lol I don't think every single commoner adored him like more modern historians claim either, but it was certainly more than just "he told the people what they wanted to hear and was an evil liar" like it was presented during and directly after his reign.

 

[Chris]

Classic Cicero.

Rediscovered the diarrhea letter today, forgot about this one

Having been suffering for nine days past from a severe disorder of the bowels, and being unable to convince those who desired my services that I was ill because I had no fever, I fled to my Tusculan villa, after having, in fact, observed for two days so strict a fast as not even to drink a drop of water. Accordingly, being thoroughly reduced by weakness and hunger, I was more in want of your services than I thought mine could be required by you. For myself, while shrinking from all illnesses, I especially shrink from that in regard to which the Stoics attack your friend Epicurus for saying that "he suffered from strangury and pains in the bowels" — the latter of which complaints they attribute to gluttony, the former to a still graver indulgence. I had been really much afraid of dysentery. But either the change of residence, or the mere relaxation of anxiety, or perhaps the natural abatement of the complaint from lapse of time, seems to me to have done me good. However, to prevent your wondering how this Came about, or in what manner I let myself in for it, I must tell you that the sumptuary law, supposed to have introduced plain living, was the origin of my misfortune. For whilst your epicures wish to bring into fashion the products of the earth, which are not forbidden by the law, they flavour mushrooms, petits choux, and every kind of pot-herb so as to make them the most tempting dishes possible. Having fallen a victim to these in the augural banquet at the house of Lentulus, I was seized with a violent diarrhoea, which, I think, has been checked today for the first time. And so I, who abstain from oysters and lampreys without any difficulty, have been beguiled by beet and mallows. Henceforth, therefore, I shall be more cautious. Yet, having heard of it from Anicius — for he saw me turning sick — you had every reason not only for sending to inquire, but even for coming to see me. I am thinking of remaining here till I am thoroughly restored, for I have lost both strength and flesh. However, if I can once get completely rid of my complaint, I shall, I hope, easily recover these.

 

[Barry Poppins]

In this particular case I think Tiberius suffered from an indecisive Senate who, after nearly half a century of rule under Augustus, were used to just being told what to do.

Tiberius just wanted to sit by the pool, read philosophy and history, and not be bothered with legal or military stuff.

 

[Chris]

Well that would seem to inherently imply he wasn't a good ruler as well lol but again, that's just also a perception of "bad rulers" especially in the ancient world but it still exists today. They can't be too frivolous, must be all action and kill people to have that good legacy written.

Rating historical leaders is usually hard because I think there should be a distinction in being good at their job vs just being pleasant people. The pleasant people are few and far between and also weren't the best at their jobs, arguably because of sabotage in a lot of cases but still, but they're the more interesting to me in modern times almost because of how out of place they seem.

 

[Barry Poppins]

Aurelian was a god tho and I wonder what would have happened if he didn't get stabbed in the back after literally saving the Empire.

 

[Chris]

Aurelian was a god tho and I wonder what would have happened if he didn't get stabbed in the back after literally saving the Empire.

Not well versed in 200-400 CE time really so can't add to this one (I'm not even certain he was in this time if that's wrong lol)

I have some big holes still where I just have some base knowledge and most of the Roman Empire entirely is one. Not sure why, but I quickly lose interest after the Republic falls outside of random niches like architecture or entertainment. Most of what I end up looking into from that time are the peripheral colonies I guess you'd call them, I enjoy seeing how they were able to stretch the empire as far as they were with relative success (until it wasn't). But the individual people tend to bore me

 

[Barry Poppins]

Not well versed in 200-400 CE time really so can't add to this one (I'm not even certain he was in this time if that's wrong lol)

I have some big holes still where I just have some base knowledge and most of the Roman Empire entirely is one. Not sure why, but I quickly lose interest after the Republic falls outside of random niches like architecture or entertainment. Most of what I end up looking into from that time are the peripheral colonies I guess you'd call them, I enjoy seeing how they were able to stretch the empire as far as they were with relative success (until it wasn't). But the individual people tend to bore me

Yeah he was, he was the guy that beat back the Barbarians and then took back territory from the splinter states Palmyra and the Gallic Empire (which each later served as proto-territories for the Tetrarchy a couple decades later.