Can you tell me about mercenaries /his/?
I can understand why one might decide to become a mercenary, but I'm more interested in the organisation and administration of mercenary bands themselves
How were they contracted? What did they do during peacetime? Were they held under the authority of kings or their own leaders? Where would they live? How were they paid?
>>1360228
Depends of the type, the nationality and the era you're talking about.
Note that I'll mostly talk about France because this is what I studied.
In France, there were always bands of "routiers", local soldiers who would form huge bands moving from village to village until they found an employ during a private war. After a big conflict, like the one between Philip Augustus and John Lackland, they could have been awarded castles or even be knighted.
The more "professional"...
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Well my knowledge of Mercenaries is mostly about the sort you'd find in antiquity, mainly the Hellenistic period 323BC to 31BC.
Greece was over populated, and many men would migrate to the Hellenic states of Egypt or the Seleucids. These men would be granted land in return for military service obligations, typically as cavalry or in the phalanx. However they were not mercenaries, they were not paid a wage, their "pay" was the farm they'd been given.
The other type of Greek who did want to leave Greece, but not settle, became a mercenary, and...
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Mercenaries were simply called "Paid troops" in Ancient Greek, which itself proves that getting a wage was a rare thing, considering almost all troops who were paid were mercenaries. In fact, mercenaries sometimes comprised up to 75% of an army, the smaller Greek states, lacking in manpower but having plenty of money, had almost entirely mercenary armies. They were less of a problem than the roving mercenaries of the middle ages, as they were more akin to a standing army. The mercenary band would soon find itself in employment and on a permanent payroll, they were...
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How do I start with Stoicism? Can I be Ubermensch and be Stoic at the same time?
>>1360200
The Ubermensch is a stoic by his very nature
>>1360200
Read the Enchiridion and the works of Seneca. Marcus Aurelius too.
Also look into Epicureanism. The letter to Menoeceus pretty much summarized that philosophy.
You start with Stoicism by starting with the Pre-socratics, then going to Plato and Aristotle. Only then will you be ready
How do I into Zen?
Are you actually looking to practice buddhism? You can just look online for the basic principles of zen buddhism and meditation. You should look online for a local meditation center to learn the proper technique though.
The Way of Zen - Alan Watts
>>1361112
>Alan Watts
Disgusting.
How many mistakes can you spot in this clip?
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p6RfIEVO6YQ
1) you're using it in mobile
Dumb phoneposter
Anything actual constructive criticisms?
How could the Maori have prevented British colonization of New Zealand?
>>1359919
Being unified, not being cannibals, not believing in mana, not using slave labor.
The musket Wars would have never happened.
>>1359930
What has being cannibals, using slave labor, and believing in mana got to do with it?
>>1359919
Why bother? New Zealand is the only place where the British were actually decent to the natives, and the Maori loved them.
Lets have a history of the werewolf thread.
What is the oldest record of the werewolf phenomenon?
How does this myth manifest across different cultures?
Please give sources when you can.
they were actually viking berserkers
>>1359827
Some Roman historian mention a tribe of slavs that wear wolf furs and change into wolfs at night.
>>1359827
Herodotus, Greek historian and traveler, writing in 5th century BC about a folk living around Thrace;
>The Neuroi practise the Scythian customs: and one generation before the expedition of Dareios it so befell them that they were forced to quit their land altogether by reason of serpents: for their land produced serpents in vast numbers, and they fell upon them in still larger numbers from the desert country above their borders; until at last being hard pressed they left their own land...
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So why did Japan refuse to open a second front against the soviets in Manchuria after all its other axis allies entered into war against the USSR?
Stalin would not have been able to send the siberian divisions to defend moscow at the end of 1941 had they done this. I think it's safe to say that after Italy attacking greece this was the biggest fuckup of a member of the axis powers in the entire war.
So why exactly did Nippon fuck up so badly here? Inb4 their earlier bad experiences with soviet forces from khalkin gol
They were having trouble occupying China as it was. Their last encounter with the Soviets was a smashing failure. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Khalkhin_Gol)
There also wasn't anything they could take from the soviets that would immediately aid their war effort like the Oil they desperately needed that could be found readily in the Dutch Indies.
They already fought the Russkies in 1939 and got BTFO so they signed a nonaggression pact. Also they were busy fighting the Chinese and Americans and Australians.
Also what >>1359818 said. They had already occupied half of Siberia in the 1920s and got jack shit from it. Instead they invaded Indochina, Singapore, and Indonesia to get that sweet, sweet oil.
>>1359818
The simple illuminations a game of Hearts and Iron can teach you.
Fuck you, I am not dealing the 1000 pound steel gorilla that is the USSR until I finish with also immense but theoretically far easier China.
Was he Australian?
>Know that Marriage is an outward material thing like any other secular business.
>But the woman is free through the divine law and cannot be compelled to suppress her carnal desires. Therefore the man ought to concede her right and give up to somebody else the wife who is his only in outward appearance.
>Suppose I should counsel the wife of an impotent man, with his consent, to giver herself to another, say her husband’s brother, but to keep this marriage...
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>If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the words I baptize thee in the name of Abraham.
>Like the drivers of donkeys, who have to belabor the donkeys incessantly with rods and whips, or they will not obey, so must the ruler do with the people; they must drive, beat throttle, hang, burn, behead and torture, so as to make themselves feared and to keep the people in check.
>Moses is an executioner, a...
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>>1359784
>>>St. Augustine or St. Ambrosius cannot be compared with me.
>>>St. Augustine cannot be compared with me.
>>1359846
BANTZ
I know it would be autistic as fuck, but would any /his/storians be interested in building a world from top down and simulating history in it?
I was inspired by this fascinating display of autism
http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/collaborative-world-project.282532/
>>1359741
The project looks interesting, but I feel like it would be hard to effectively reach a consensus. This is a little more complicated than writing a novel, for example. Perhaps if this happened on /his/ it would need a legitimate starting point, like IRL Earth in the year 50,000 BC or some shit
>>1359741
I imagine it would take a lot of procedural simulations
>>1359741
Tbh you should take this to /tg/, it's up their alley.
Umm... how did India benefit from British colonialism again????
>>1359720
Very little but that graph is wonky because it groups all the kingdoms and shit into 1 group but that doesn't detract from the earlier point.
>chart conveniently ends at 1950
>>1359720
>imperialist powers
vs
>part of an imperialist power
Wow holy shit I never would have anticipated this
What's its name /his/?
Holy Roman Empire
Shitting Dick Nipples Empire
>>1359706
It was known as Sacrum Romanum Imperium or for English speaking plebeians the Holy Roman Empire.
Where did this idea that God was All-Seeing and All-Knowing come from if He couldn't find Adam and Eve in the garden until they came out of hiding?
The best I can reason is that His power was exaggerated by priests and travelers, but wouldn't the Church clamp down and prevent that sort of thing from the former? I'm aware that for a time sermons were given in Latin and the common man had no idea what it all meant, but wouldn't the Church nevertheless become aware of and stamp out popular beliefs that conflicted with what the Bible says?
There...
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Originally Yahweh was a Canaanite storm spirit, he had wives and petty squabble with Baal and the rest of the Babylonian Fun Bunch.
Eventually the Greek philosophers started coming up with fun big infinity ideas about Ideal Perfect Forms and Omni-whatevers and the later Christians started saying about their new guy "Yeah mee too, my God is also those things! Haha!"
>>1359735
I thought he was the war god and baal was the storm god
>>1359735
Yup. That sums it up nicely.
Tel me the position of Plato about the democracy
"Democracy sucks balls!"
t. Plato
>>1359345
Plato was more into an oligarchy of philosophers making all political decisions (I think, my Plato is rusty).
So if that were the case, he would not be about democracy at all
>>1359411
Basically this. Democracy killed his BFF, he was a total fanboy of Sparta, though.
is there any difference between catholicism in latin america and catholicism in europe, aside from the fact that in latin america the prayers are orange skinned and in europe they're white?
i mean in terms of how they hold the mass, how they pray, how fevours the believers are, anything really.
>>1359322
Syncreticism is very high amongst Catholic populations in Latin America.
>>1359322
Europeans are polythiests. Latin American at least uphold the bible.
Look up liberation theology to understand Catholicism in Latin America
Life on a materialist view is absurd. There is a mismatch about what we feel should be, and what the materialist believes.
Many materialists have noticed this, and they usually go one of three ways: either they kill themselves, they embrace absurdity with a sort of bravado or humour, or they start trying to convince themselves that materalism is false for personal gain.
I want to suggest a fourth reaction: why don't we see this absurdity as something that can't be true? Isn't the definition of absurdity that it doesn't make sense? Don't...
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>>1359016
That's a whole lot about nothing.
So stuff isn't as you though it would be? Big whooop. You don't care so much after a while. And I don't get why call it absurd.
>>1359037
>You don't care so much after a while.
I would say you are taking the second path. And I know what you mean, the frequency with which you think about it certainly decreases.
But every time you DO think about it, it's just as baffling as the first time.
>>1359016
How are 2 and 4 incompatible?