I'm interested in reading the primary sources for Roman antiquity. Can anybody give me a guide to who/how/order to read the primaries? Also, any good primary source recommendations regardless of time period are welcome. Share interesting anecdotes and quotes.
Livy and Tacitus are primary for the Empire.
People like the Plinies, Appian, Juvenal and Plutarch are also from roughly that time.
If you're looking for primaries from the republic, try Cicero and Polybius, but there's not much in that way, I don't think.
Anything earlier than that is a laughable notion, because all the earlier histories were destroyed
>>1165617
Livy?
He gives more into narrative over fact.
But Polybius is a great choice.
>>1165623
The assumption goes that you have to assume that Livy romanticized information collected from existing Histories that he had access too, like one of those modern books that try to give flavor to History.
That said, anything contemporary to him is lost, so he isn't really a primary.
He was a Roman, but he wrote about history ancient to him.
I actually don't know why I said him, but whatever
>>1165649
I actually remember why, it's because I naturally associate Livy with Roman Historian, because of I, Claudius
Speaking of primary sources, I've been wondering, is it explicitly mentioned anywhere that senatorial togas were white, or is that something we assume cause of everything else being white 2000 years later?
>>1165696
>tempore quo primum uestis mihi tradita pura est
> At the time when first a white toga was given to me
Catullus 68:15
This is the Toga Virilis, which was both the Toga given to boys upon entering adulthood, and the Senatorial Toga
>>1165696
Yes. Made with mool, the togas had that off-white color that most sheep's wool has. The brighter the white, the most money, power and status the person had to be able to afford such a fine piece.
They were dyed super white to show purity of the person as well. Purple we all know from the more Greek side of the Roman Empire as the symbol of the Emperor and his family. If you saw a dude in purple... he was part of the Emperor's direct line or an older relative. Big respect went to them... or marked them as targets for abduction. The ancient world was crazy.
One of my fav stories from Plutarch:
http://www.livius.org/sources/content/plutarch/plutarchs-caesar/caesar-and-the-pirates/
>>1165773
"mool", thanks typo!
>wool
>>1165773
Actually purple originally was the colour of the senatorial order and the consul, later adopted by the Emperors.
>>1165773
what is going on in this pic, one guy with his head cut off and a sword shoved down the throat, one solider who has been burned to a crisp, a guy with only a helmer is grabing somone and a soilder is puling said mans hair and looks pissed.
wat
>>1166755
infernum est bellum
>>1166761
i googled it but found noting, what does it mean?
>>1165587
Polybius I pretty based and very accurate by ancient standards. I used hem for my own research into the Punic wars.
>>1166902
"War is hell" in clunky latin.
Here are some interesting primary sources:
>Einhard's biography of Charlemagne (Vita Karoli Magni)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Vita_Karoli_Magni
>Leo Africanus' (real name: al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan) Description of Africa.
http://archive.org/stream/worksissuedbyha01unkngoog#page/n7/mode/2up
These three volumes contained the first detailed descriptions published in Europe of the Barbary Coast (modern Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) and the gold-trading kingdoms of west-central Africa. And the guy who wrote it had a pretty interesting life.
>Lucian of Samosata's True History
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl2/wl211.htm
One of the earliest known fiction about travelling to outer space, alien life-forms and interplanetary warfare. Written in the 2nd century, the novel has been referred to as "the first known text that could be called science fiction"
>Hanno the Navigotar's periplus
Quote from the periplus:
"In its inmost recess was an island similar to that formerly described, which contained in like manner a lake with another island, inhabited by a rude description of people. The females were much more numerous than the males, and had rough skins: our interpreters called them Gorillae. We pursued but could take none of the males; they all escaped to the top of precipices, which they mounted with ease, and threw down stones; we took three of the females, but they made such violent struggles, biting and tearing their captors, that we killed them, and stripped off the skins, which we carried to Carthage: being out of provisions we could go no further."
Hanno the Navigator was a Carthaginian explorer of the sixth or fifth century BC, best known for his naval exploration of the western coast of Africa. The only source of his voyage is a Greek periplus. According to some modern analyses of his route, Hanno's expedition could have reached as far south as Gabon.
>>1167188
ok thanks
