10-25-2006, 03:11 PM
Fearsome? Why? Do you really think the Romans were in fear of someone? I think that what they could feel, facing the danger, was attention, worry, alarm, maybe..., but not true fear.
I think that as "Populus Romanus" it was the least inclined to feel the true, real fear, almost "genetically". It was a state of mind that derived from the republican history in my opinion: too many dangers were surpassed, yes, through great pains, but always surpassed. A calm certainty that could have been doped, always more, their reflexes, in a figurative sense, of course, like less or more, a nobleman that does not realize to be ruining his properties and gives his bad situation just a cursory glance: he's not in fear, is just annoyed or irritated. Of course, I'm not telling about the "immediate" fear, like when people face an actual siege or raid, but about that fear, or better, that anxiety, caused by "overhanging" or "imminent" dangers.
I think that tells the Romans apart in comparison with other peoples, like the Cartaginians (may I ?), the Gauls, the Germans, the Dacians, the Marcomanni and Quadi, the Goths, or even the Sassanians, whose aggressiveness could directly derive from their "deep" and real fear of Roma, and is similar to some dogs aggressiveness: impressive, but due to the fear.
An accelerated changing could be in the last times of the Empire as the last Romans had lost totally their spiritual strength derived from the classical vision of the world, and were unable to spiritually react and fight back as was "normal" to their, not too much, remote ancestors.
Valete,
I think that as "Populus Romanus" it was the least inclined to feel the true, real fear, almost "genetically". It was a state of mind that derived from the republican history in my opinion: too many dangers were surpassed, yes, through great pains, but always surpassed. A calm certainty that could have been doped, always more, their reflexes, in a figurative sense, of course, like less or more, a nobleman that does not realize to be ruining his properties and gives his bad situation just a cursory glance: he's not in fear, is just annoyed or irritated. Of course, I'm not telling about the "immediate" fear, like when people face an actual siege or raid, but about that fear, or better, that anxiety, caused by "overhanging" or "imminent" dangers.
I think that tells the Romans apart in comparison with other peoples, like the Cartaginians (may I ?), the Gauls, the Germans, the Dacians, the Marcomanni and Quadi, the Goths, or even the Sassanians, whose aggressiveness could directly derive from their "deep" and real fear of Roma, and is similar to some dogs aggressiveness: impressive, but due to the fear.
An accelerated changing could be in the last times of the Empire as the last Romans had lost totally their spiritual strength derived from the classical vision of the world, and were unable to spiritually react and fight back as was "normal" to their, not too much, remote ancestors.
Valete,
TITVS/Daniele Sabatini
... Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum
desinet ac toto surget Gens Aurea mundo,
casta faue Lucina; tuus iam regnat Apollo ...
Vergilius, Bucolicae, ecloga IV, 4-10
![[Image: PRIMANI_ban2.gif]](http://web.tiscali.it/iulianevivas/PRIMANI_ban2.gif)
... Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum
desinet ac toto surget Gens Aurea mundo,
casta faue Lucina; tuus iam regnat Apollo ...
Vergilius, Bucolicae, ecloga IV, 4-10
