General culture questions

[LAF1994]

Some general questions regarding cultures in LI:
-Why are Deutsch in the same group as Thiudiskaz but not Diets?
-Why is Galatai Celtic rather than Hellenic? While the Galatians were originally Celtic, by this point they have spent ~1000 years under Greco-Roman rule, so one would expect they'd be closer to the Greeks than the Welsh or Irish. A similar question applies regarding the Lombards- while the rulers are of Germanic stock, the general public are not.
-Why does Kyrene have Rhomaion rather than Hellen culture if it's ruled by a Diadochoi regime?
-If Rhomaion is meant to be 'Greek-speaking Roman', why is the ERE's name (Imperium Romanum) Latin rather than Greek?

 

[richvh]

Unfortunately, the person to ask these questions (Shaytana) hasn't been on the forum for well over a year.

 

[riknap]

numahr and Cèsar de Quart, among others, have a relatively decent grasp of it though, as they were present during the early days of the mod ^_^

 

[Ezumiyr]

I think we can try to answer to some of these questions just with a good knowledge of the mod:

-Why are Deutsch in the same group as Thiudiskaz but not Diets?

In the mod the Diets are not a Germanic culture, but a Friesian one, if I remember correctly. I might be wrong, but it seems that the cultures of the game take account of the Nordwestblock hypothesis, even if Diets seems to have a Germanic origin (especially if "ie" indicates a long "i" like in modern German).

-Why is Galatai Celtic rather than Hellenic? While the Galatians were originally Celtic, by this point they have spent ~1000 years under Greco-Roman rule, so one would expect they'd be closer to the Greeks than the Welsh or Irish.

According to Shaytana's timeline, the Galatians did not spent so much time under a Graeco-Roman rule, and there are still a lot of non-gaelic celts in Gallia for example. I think they are meant to be more like Gallii than "modern" celts.

A similar question applies regarding the Lombards- while the rulers are of Germanic stock, the general public are not.

As you said, the Lombard rulers are of Langobardian origins. I noticed that in the mod there is a lot less cultural mixes than in history, so I assume that Lombard rulers rule over Lombard people, and not Italian ones.

-If Rhomaion is meant to be 'Greek-speaking Roman', why is the ERE's name (Imperium Romanum) Latin rather than Greek?

I think Rhomaion is intended to be an eastern anti-christian roman culture. But indeed, the name could have been in greek, though it would have been difficult to differenciate the omicron in Rhomaion from the omega in Rhomaiôn. Also the translation of "Imperium" in greek could sound too much like the Persian or Alexandrian empires.

 

[DarkReborn]

It appears to me that Shaytana indulged a bit in a desire of having a lot interesting cultures expand and... keep closer to their roots instead of forming melting plots, I don't know if I'm explaining myself properly.
For example, instead just being the in leadership over Hispano-Romans like IRL, the Visigoths and Sueves make up the population of the realms they rule in Hispania, and no mention of them being a melting plot is made. We can assume these Goths, and Sueves, have actually "Germanized" their surroundings instead of "Latinizing" themselves, the melting plot Goth population (merged with Hispano-Romans I guess) are the "Gothicus".

What I can't explain is where did the Vandals in Carthage or the Visigoths themselves get the population to actually be the cultural majority in provinces... but hey... LI is very disparate (with some specks of accuracy) alt-history.

About the Galatians (and I'm sure you've the same question on the Lusitanians), the Roman policy on vassal peoples and kingdoms was more "relaxed" in this timeline. So far as the vassals sent their tithe in money and manpower, they kept great autonomy, both cultural and political, and while there was some Romanization, it wasn't as much as IRL.

About the Imperium Romanum... I suppose it's a thing of legitimacy. Take the Holy Roman Empire as an example; they kept calling themselves "Imperium Romanum Sacrum", in most of their known official sources, while it was much less Roman than LI's Imperium Romanum.

 

[Ezumiyr]

About the Imperium Romanum... I suppose it's a thing of legitimacy. Take the Holy Roman Empire as an example; they kept calling themselves "Imperium Romanum Sacrum", in most of their known official sources, while it was much less Roman than LI's Imperium Romanum.

Yes but it's also because the language of power (and of the law, and of the Church, and of the scholars) was latin. In the LI "Alexandrian" timeline, the koinè is the language of power of the eastern roman empire and of some diadochoi kingdoms. Even if the first language of the Roman Empire is, historically, latin, I think the choice of latin takes into accounts some considerations we can hardly rediscover.

 

[Numahr]

OK many valid points were made.

In addition, the unwritten principle of LI is that the dynamic of this world lies on a different definition of basic rules of political science and history. Beyond the specific cases discussed here, which could be multiplied by 10 or 20... the "soul" of LI is that political structures, evolution of cultures and religions change in a way slightly different than in our world.

Concretely, I can try to summarize with the "3 Golden Rules" of LI alternative history:
- identities "stick" rather than merge;
- political structures favor the local over the global;
- ambitious unification projects trying to break these two rules are struck by fate and fail, adding to the complexity by adding a layer without removing the previous ones.

The result is a dynamic, living world where identities and political entities are in constant redefinition with increasing complexity, but do not follow the slow trend towards consolidation starting at the feudal time, that the great historian-sociologist Norbert Elias studied in his classical "On the Process of Civilisation" (short, very much recommended reading by the way!)

We should create a specific academy of alternative history studies to go further and encourage academic research in this field

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

OK many valid points were made.

In addition, the unwritten principle of LI is that the dynamic of this world lies on a different definition of basic rules of political science and history. Beyond the specific cases discussed here, which could be multiplied by 10 or 20... the "soul" of LI is that political structures, evolution of cultures and religions change in a way slightly different than in our world.

Concretely, I can try to summarize with the "3 Golden Rules" of LI alternative history:
- identities "stick" rather than merge;
- political structures favor the local over the global;
- ambitious unification projects trying to break these two rules are struck by fate and fail, adding to the complexity by adding a layer without removing the previous ones.

The result is a dynamic, living world where identities and political entities are in constant redefinition with increasing complexity, but do not follow the slow trend towards consolidation starting at the feudal time, that the great historian-sociologist Norbert Elias studied in his classical "On the Process of Civilisation" (short, very much recommended reading by the way!)

We should create a specific academy of alternative history studies to go further and encourage academic research in this field

The guys at Alt History Forums have years of veterany on this matter.

I don't think I have much to add already. I always assumed the Roman Empire ruled still by the descendants of Julian was Greek but Latin was also in use, and the name of the state remained Latin because of tradition (maybe even transcripted phonetically into Latin, Imperioum Rhomanoum or something similar. After all, Autokratia or Basilea Rhomaion was a late addition to Roman concepts, I think the name came later than Heraklios, and the first Emperor to bear the title Autokrator was Alexander (the "last Pagan" sometimes called, probably out of spite) in the Xth Century.

As for the rest, I always look at how the Goths and Franks did things when I want to know how did the Galatians, the Vandals or the Ostrogoths hold on to their lands and turned the people's culture into their own. The Franks did it well, nowadays France is a thing and the French exist healthily. The Visigoths didn't make the people of their kingdom become Goths, but the culture of "Old Spanish Christian = Goth" pervived until the Enlightment. Probably, had the Goths survived or repelled the Arab invasions, their kingdom could have stabilised under a single dynasty and Gothia would be a thing today. Both Goths and Franks kept important parts of their culture and lended it to their Roman subjects even after they stopped using their own language in favour of Romanisation. It's actually the backlash of Romanisation: when Franks and Goths were romanised, the romanised Goths and Franks then "a-romanised" the Romans living in their lands.

The Roman aristocracy living in France and Spain, mostly coping with church hierarchy, kept their own identity as Romans and heirs of classical culture, and intermarried and made Roman onomastics the norm in Church names, while the rule in Army names were Germanic ones (this is true even in V-VIth Centuries' Roman families, in which a son destined to army command would be given a germanic name because it was a trend caused by the rise of Germanic generals in the Roman army; it doesn't help that the Army ended up becoming a State within the State with its own administration, bureaucracy, lands, estates, taxes and social structure).

The same is valid for the Vandals. Furthermore, the House of Gelimer is still there, which means they enjoyed spectacular stability in the local ordere (like most places in Lux Invicta), a good thing to expand their ethnicity to their subjects. I always pictured the Vandals speaking a north-african dialect of Latin, but that's for another time.

 

[Polskers]

A small culture question I'd like to ask... Obviously Yavana is the Sanskrit word for "Greek", but what is "Gandha" exactly? Some sort of Indo-Greek subculture?

 

[DarkReborn]

A small culture question I'd like to ask... Obviously Yavana is the Sanskrit word for "Greek", but what is "Gandha" exactly? Some sort of Indo-Greek subculture?

Refers to the Gandhari (also known as the Shahi). They are getting moved to their proper region in the map expansion (northwestern Pakistan) and their current territories are being switched to over the Tókharos culture, which I guess are hellenized Tocharians, and possibly a catch-all term for hellenized Central Asian steppe cultures.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

Refers to the Gandhari (also known as the Shahi). They are getting moved to their proper region in the map expansion (northwestern Pakistan) and their current territories are being switched to over the Tókharos culture, which I guess are hellenized Tocharians, and possibly a catch-all term for hellenized Central Asian steppe cultures.

ohmigawd yesss!

 

[Ezumiyr]

Refers to the Gandhari (also known as the Shahi). They are getting moved to their proper region in the map expansion (northwestern Pakistan) and their current territories are being switched to over the Tókharos culture, which I guess are hellenized Tocharians, and possibly a catch-all term for hellenized Central Asian steppe cultures.

Tocharians are the dream of each alt history amateur.

 

[Polskers]

So they are Hellenised Indo-Iranian/Aryan peoples, basically? That's interesting! I didn't know that! Thanks, man.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

So they are Hellenised Indo-Iranian/Aryan peoples, basically? That's interesting! I didn't know that! Thanks, man.

As far as I know, Tocharians are one of those undecipherable mysteries of History. No one knows for sure and theories point to all directions.

Lux Invicta's Tocharoi, they're much clearer to guess, because the Light shines bright upon their way.

 

[OscarIsaiah]

Culture in CK or EU generally represents elites/aristocrats/people who matter rather than the actual ethnic composition of the province. So for the Carthage example we would have a segregated Vandal aristocracy ruling over a much larger non-Vandal population. They've been around for so long that locals have grown accustomed to their rule and have lost any serious desire to overthrow them.

 

[Furion Matsuya]

Culture in CK or EU generally represents elites/aristocrats/people who matter rather than the actual ethnic composition of the province. So for the Carthage example we would have a segregated Vandal aristocracy ruling over a much larger non-Vandal population. They've been around for so long that locals have grown accustomed to their rule and have lost any serious desire to overthrow them.

I don't think that's how things in Lux are. I'm fairly sure the culture of a province represents it's majority culture.

 

[Piisamirotta]

This might be the right thread for this question: Why are the teutons heavy cavalry based? From their being pagans I get a feeling they should be more "primitive" in their ways of war, meaning infantry or light cavalry and guerrilla raids. Heavy cavalry, to me at least, has a strong feeling of being tied to strong central powers who can afford the most expensive equipment for their troops. Partly the answer might of course be found on the new description of teiwazic, where it's mentioned that the teiwazics took inspiration from the romans. Sorry if it is a dumb question, haven't found the time to finish the timeline in case the answer is clearly there.

 

[Teutonic_Thrash]

This might be the right thread for this question: Why are the teutons heavy cavalry based? From their being pagans I get a feeling they should be more "primitive" in their ways of war, meaning infantry or light cavalry and guerrilla raids. Heavy cavalry, to me at least, has a strong feeling of being tied to strong central powers who can afford the most expensive equipment for their troops. Partly the answer might of course be found on the new description of teiwazic, where it's mentioned that the teiwazics took inspiration from the romans. Sorry if it is a dumb question, haven't found the time to finish the timeline in case the answer is clearly there.

Not too sure about LI's timeline, but ancient/early medieval Germans did have some decent cavalry which inspired the Romans.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

This might be the right thread for this question: Why are the teutons heavy cavalry based? From their being pagans I get a feeling they should be more "primitive" in their ways of war, meaning infantry or light cavalry and guerrilla raids. Heavy cavalry, to me at least, has a strong feeling of being tied to strong central powers who can afford the most expensive equipment for their troops. Partly the answer might of course be found on the new description of teiwazic, where it's mentioned that the teiwazics took inspiration from the romans. Sorry if it is a dumb question, haven't found the time to finish the timeline in case the answer is clearly there.

Pagan is not equal to Primitive. These Germans have adopted Late Roman tactics and underwent later similar changes as in Ottonid Germany, which means there's not a huge differente in warfare between 1066 Germany and Lux Invicta 1066 Thiudenland.

Heavy cavalry, to me at least, has a strong feeling of being tied to strong central powers who can afford the most expensive equipment for their troops.

This is not true. The most heavy-cavalry abusive age in Europe were the Middle Ages, and they lacked precisely strong central powers. The lack of strong central powers was the main condition for the rise of feudalism, but this did not stop the rise of heavy cavalry as the central piece of the battle's organisation.

There's nothing counter-intuitive to the concept of a German federation of tribes-turned-empire in which cavalry plays a strong role both as sign of status and an effective smasher of enemy lines.

 

[DarkReborn]

Indeed, some Roman Emperors had an ala of bodyguards composed entirely of Germanic cavalry. Much like the Gauls, they were considered some of the best riders of the ancient world.