For all you "this game is woke" crowed. Here is how Rome really was (and those interested)

[Holy Athena]

I've been seeing a lot of crazy talk about this game being "Woke" Granted some of those are trolls, but not all of them, and I can even see some reviews stating it as well, so can't all be trolling.

This little tid bit is also for those who are just generally interested in Rome.

Before you begin, you need to understand 1 golden rule. Everything you know is probably wrong. Your only frame of reference is probably extremely outdated books, and Hollywood, which depict all of Rome being white, and Legionnaires all being white Italians from the city of Rome or very close nearby..

That is 100% wrong.

Granted of course, what we do know is sadly extremely minimal. Most information of this time era was destroyed with the fall of the library of Alexandria, and the entrance into the Dark Ages and the fall of written language, and writing things down. Most of what we know is speculation, and filling in the blanks.

However, what we do know that is preserved in writing, is how and why Rome grew and prospered, specifically, how it governed those it conquered.

Once Rome conquered a people, territory, area, etc. It was not an immediate transfer to Roman control, but a bit more gradual. It was more of a transition, rather than a straight take over. Think of it as more as a puppet province, rather than a full annexation.

Rome would also begin to recruit legionnaires from the province itself. The perk of this was becoming a full Roman Citizen. Rome had the Caste system, so fighting for Rome, in it's armies and helping with it's expansion, would net you and your family Citizenship, was a HUGE bonus in both way of life, living, opportunities, income, etc.

This helped Rome by keeping potential provincial uprisings to a minimum, since the leaders, rulers, and people governing were still of that culture, and people. This made Rome feel less like a conqueror annexation, and more like a big brother who came in to help. Yes they may be parenting over you, but Rome was more or less hands off in most cases. That's how Rome grew so quick, and so successfully.

Slaves who could fight were often brought into Gladiator schools, and Colosseum all over the Roman Empire. These people were often from conquered nations, and you could be given an opportunity as well like in the game itself, to get out of that, and fight for Rome and secure your citizenship.

Here is where the mainstream ignorance comes in, because area's like Nubia, parts of Africa, etc. were taken by Rome prior to the start of the time frame in this game. That means that black legionnaires, especially in the speculatores was not only possible, but more than likely completely expected.

Lets talk about the Speculatores as well. The Roman Speculatores were not part of the mainstream army. This game kind of straddles what they were, since you play a part in the major battles in the strategy portion of the game, but historically from what we can tell, they were more the "special forces" of the Roman Army. Smaller groups of soldiers, who were Exploreres, Scouts first and foremost, but also spies, and in some cases even Assassins. Whatever Rome needed at that time. They were the first to scout and explore the enemy territory, and would often again recruit, and bring into the fold people of that area.

While yes, females were by and large, and historically never part of the army, or speculatores, what is "historically accurate" doesn't mean there aren't "Exceptions to the rule".

All through history up to even World War II which was not that long ago, the idea of a having a female fighting in a war historically did not happen, and it especially was unheard of to have one as a general, or leading armies in large scale campaigns.

May I revert your eyes to Joan of Arc?

Or how about Artemisia I OF Caria? A female who in the very age this game takes place, was commanding fleets and militaries as a military leader, in the year of 360 BC.

Boedicia?

Zenobia? Who's reign of terror against Rome was such that she was paraded in the streets after her capture, and all of Rome celebrated it.
----------------

So the idea that Rome might accept or recruit 1 or 2 females into a speculatores who's main job is to stay quiet, and blend in is not remotely crazy to consider. Nor is the idea that they would abuse that by having the females be the main spies, since.. who would expect that? Hiding in plain site.

TLDR: This game isn't even remotely "woke" it's actually pretty damn historically accurate. Get educated.

[Esmarix]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Korhal:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Drakken:

Keep in mind, history is writen by males, and males in history do not like to see females outside of their kitchen, so a lot of notable females have been forgotten by history.
And by the way you had female rulers during that era. Even nations lead by females, and not just once, but always like the Nabateans.

There was also Boudica in England, who lead a big group of "barbarians" against the roman invasion, yet she was killed due to treason.

yeah, the romans didnt like it when she left the kitchen :) lol...sry couldnt resist

[AbbsNormal]

All things considered, I think this game is a bad vehicle for the "woke" debate. Gender selection actually causes some relatively thoughtful story changes. I really respect the makers for actually trying to handle a touchy subject in a thoughtful way. I actually think it could go deeper, but then they would just piss everyone off. e: I thought not letting female characters have a formal personal name was actually quite a striking choice.

However: The people who are posting about this game being "woke", and this is important, DO NOT CARE. They don't care about Rome: Expeditions. They don't care about any individual game for that matter, they are just playing a side in the culture war. And don't take that as a judgement against them, we all do it! These ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ arguments are one of the few tiny bits of solidarity left for many. But I do think you can feel less frustrated if you understand the battleground. They aren't having the fight because this game exists, they are having it because right now this game has an audience to fight with.

TL;DR: Don't feed the trolls, I am a woketard, anything less than a game with the rules from F.A.T.A.L. will be too "woke"

[heh]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Astalonte:

Given the time the game is set. Rome is multicultural to some extent but not much.

During the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus, other African-born Romans were active in Britain. Eight African men had positions of command in the northern Roman legions. Other Africans held high rank as equestrian officers. Most Africans, however, were ordinary soldiers or slaves in the Army or to wealthy Roman officials. Moreover, the racially mixed Roman military force did not treat all troops equally. Auxiliary troops were often positioned in the front during battles and thus most likely to suffer injury or death. Nonetheless of the approximately 18,000 Roman soldiers stationed in Britain during the four centuries between 122 and 410 AD, when the Empire evacuated Britain, a small number of them were Africans by birth including those who stood guard and rebuilt sections of Hadrian’s Wall at the northwest edge of the vast Roman Empire.

CONTRIBUTED BY: IAN BERNARD

Now you take your own opinion. Multicultural rome was common in late empire but depending of the area.

History is what it is. You cannot change it to accommodate your politic views. We are all human and deserve respect but we did not participate or achieve history "success" in the same degree. You cannot bring people with different skin colour to European history bec they were not there or the way you want it to be.

Every time they properly investigate the remains of the few asserted "black romans" in britain they find them to be fully european. It's just bizarre modern revisionism. It's similar to the same thing the sami do in my country, whenever ancient remains are found on sami land they appropriate and incinerate them so that they cannot be tested and possibly be found to be non-sami which would thus diminish their historical claims to those areas. If people are afraid of investigation then they probably shouldn't be trusted to be telling the truth about whatever's threatened to be put under it.

What's true is true whether people like it or not. Valuing this is what separates the west from the rest. But finding the truth is a very hard thing to do, because it's so easy to see what one expects to see rather than what is. Personally, I wouldn't trust an anime avatar to be able to be true and accurate about anything. Those guys and sojacks are on opposite ends of the horseshoe of impertiality-overriding bias.

What bothers me more is that people are increasingly getting their "history" from sources like fantasy books, movies, and indeed video games. Obviously, it's absurd for roman praetorians of the late republic to be sub-saharan africans. Obviously, it's absurd for women to serve roles in the roman army. Obviously, it's absurd for a roman aristocrat to go into battle wielding a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bow as his main weapon. Come on. It's fantasy. The giant talking black cat isn't real either.

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von kind of a ♥♥♥♥♥:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Astalonte:

Given the time the game is set. Rome is multicultural to some extent but not much.

During the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus, other African-born Romans were active in Britain. Eight African men had positions of command in the northern Roman legions. Other Africans held high rank as equestrian officers. Most Africans, however, were ordinary soldiers or slaves in the Army or to wealthy Roman officials. Moreover, the racially mixed Roman military force did not treat all troops equally. Auxiliary troops were often positioned in the front during battles and thus most likely to suffer injury or death. Nonetheless of the approximately 18,000 Roman soldiers stationed in Britain during the four centuries between 122 and 410 AD, when the Empire evacuated Britain, a small number of them were Africans by birth including those who stood guard and rebuilt sections of Hadrian’s Wall at the northwest edge of the vast Roman Empire.

CONTRIBUTED BY: IAN BERNARD

Now you take your own opinion. Multicultural rome was common in late empire but depending of the area.

History is what it is. You cannot change it to accommodate your politic views. We are all human and deserve respect but we did not participate or achieve history "success" in the same degree. You cannot bring people with different skin colour to European history bec they were not there or the way you want it to be.

Obviously, it's absurd for roman praetorians of the late republic to be sub-saharan africans. Obviously, it's absurd for women to serve roles in the roman army.

Not as absurd as you would think, if we look at another time period.
The US civil war, I would argue that Christian culture of that period was at least as "protective" of women if not more than Roman times.
And yet we know for a fact women concealed themselves as men and joined the army most of the time helped by Brothers, husbands and other family members.
Some estimate as many as 500 did so during that war, but we know names and details if at least 10-15 largely because they ended up in field hospitals.

We have absolutely no evidence of this in Roman times, but it is not that far fetched or absurd so say it could happen.

[A-94L542 Abyssal Admiral Lavelle]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von kind of a ♥♥♥♥♥:

Every time they properly investigate the remains of the few asserted "black romans" in britain they find them to be fully european. It's just bizarre modern revisionism. It's similar to the same thing the sami do in my country, whenever ancient remains are found on sami land they appropriate and incinerate them so that they cannot be tested and possibly be found to be non-sami which would thus diminish their historical claims to those areas. If people are afraid of investigation then they probably shouldn't be trusted to be telling the truth about whatever's threatened to be put under it.

What's true is true whether people like it or not. Valuing this is what separates the west from the rest. But finding the truth is a very hard thing to do, because it's so easy to see what one expects to see rather than what is. Personally, I wouldn't trust an anime avatar to be able to be true and accurate about anything. Those guys and sojacks are on opposite ends of the horseshoe of impertiality-overriding bias.

What bothers me more is that people are increasingly getting their "history" from sources like fantasy books, movies, and indeed video games. Obviously, it's absurd for roman praetorians of the late republic to be sub-saharan africans. Obviously, it's absurd for women to serve roles in the roman army. Obviously, it's absurd for a roman aristocrat to go into battle wielding a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bow as his main weapon. Come on. It's fantasy. The giant talking black cat isn't real either.

History and subjectivity never agreed with one another. It is just that the subjectivity-issue only surfaces now strongly because the internet is available. If subjectivity was never an issue, we would have significantly more accurate accounts of historic events.

People peruse history to understand where they come from, what the people before them have done, but the accounts only ever reflect the general sense, not the accurate one.

[heh]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von HereticRivga:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von kind of a ♥♥♥♥♥:

Obviously, it's absurd for roman praetorians of the late republic to be sub-saharan africans. Obviously, it's absurd for women to serve roles in the roman army.

Not as absurd as you would think, if we look at another time period.
The US civil war, I would argue that Christian culture of that period was at least as "protective" of women if not more than Roman times.
And yet we know for a fact women concealed themselves as men and joined the army most of the time helped by Brothers, husbands and other family members.
Some estimate as many as 500 did so during that war, but we know man's and details if at least 10-15 largely because they ended up in field hospitals.

We have absolutely no evidence of this in Roman times, but it is not that far fetched or absurd so say it could happen.

I don't know much about the US civil war. Maybe they had strenjuous requirements and heavy drills and these women made it through regardless. Personally, I believe women in modern militaries underperform to their potential because they neither take service seriously nor are they reated as anything more than political pawns whose mere presence is more desireable above their actual performance so they're given huge amounts of slack in their performance and so since they don't *have* to perform well they don't. But even in modern militaries, women can't cut it. In a roman legion marching everywhere on its feet carrying most their luggage on their backs, women would really stand out.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Fell on head:

What bothers me more is that people are increasingly getting their "history" from sources like fantasy books, movies, and indeed video games. Obviously, it's absurd for roman praetorians of the late republic to be sub-saharan africans. Obviously, it's absurd for women to serve roles in the roman army. Obviously, it's absurd for a roman aristocrat to go into battle wielding a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bow as his main weapon. Come on. It's fantasy. The giant talking black cat isn't real either.

History and subjectivity never agreed with one another. It is just that the subjectivity-issue only surfaces now strongly because the internet is available. If subjectivity was never an issue, we would have significantly more accurate accounts of historic events.

People peruse history to understand where they come from, what the people before them have done, but the accounts only ever reflect the general sense, not the accurate one. [/quote]
Historians try really hard with this stuff, when they take themselves seriously. They spend their time reading the most tedious of sources while digging everywhere looking for physical evidence and testing it with increasingly impressive methods that constantly overturn previously knowledge, and they increasingly work to incorporate local historical knowledge into their theories. E.g., when they found those remains in north america of people whose skeletons looked 'white', but who the oral traditions of the locals described as their ancestors, scientists assumed the locals were wrong and that this was evidence of some other theory. But when they developed the methods to test the remains they found that they were genetically related to the locals, whose oral tradition now seems to have been fairly accurate, so they returned the remains. Obviously, that could've been done better and not everyone's happy with it, but at least they came to the right conclusion eventually.
If it really were just subjective then they'd not have done these tests to begin with (since they'd see themselves as clearly correct so there'd be no need to bother with the effort to confirm), and probably have done what the sami do and just burned the remains so that they couldn't have been tested, and then stuck to their original belief in spite of the (no long existing) evidence.

[drago5899]

Yeah, this is a case of overreacting for sure. I haven't finished the game, but so far, nothing seems too out of place. The multi-ethnic cast is well within reason (all of the main centurions are Italian as it was historically) and the few female characters do have good reasons for being in the story. Granted I have only played Asia minor so far, so Egypt is were they could mess it up, but we will see.

As for the women in the army... yes the game shows the female enemies mostly being supports, which is fine in my opinion. Companions get a pass (only if the writing is reasonable, which it is so far). As for Bouedicia and Joan of Arc, don't use those as examples. One was a failed "leader" if you can call her that and the other pretended to be a man for years, so no those are just silly examples.

[Duckman]

wOmen Did NoT take pArT oF MilITary ExPeDiTioNS in AnCIent rOmE, tHeRes pLenTy of MaTerIal tHat coNfIrM this, main reason why i did not buy the game is its failure to even make any logical meaning towards its supposed plot. Woman joining the military or being part of it, by law, is actually preety recent, being from times of Napoleon, if i would guess. Not that its wrong, but stupid and not immersive for people with an actual graduation.

[Raven Ranks]

I'm going to continue to throw this out there, but we do understand that the Latin language and culture were created by the Romans, correct? These people, even by a European standard, were never "white". And the idea that Rome was somehow teaming with extremely dark skinned Africans, even if they did exist within Rome, or that somehow women played some sort of huge military role, is absolutely ridiculous.

[wirednight]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von drago5899:

well within reason

Reason has nothing to do with it. It's why these basement dwelling border-line ♥♥♥♥'s are up in arms about it. Reason has nothing to do with it. They're simply projecting their fears into the game and the forums that they can't argue that Jesus was a blond haired, blue eyes man, that North Africa was as white as Donald Trump, and had no color on their skins at all.

It's fear and inadequacy, not reason, that is causing all this push back against the game having people of color and women not in chainmail bikinis with boobs the size of Egypt cooking and waiting on them.

Don't even bother arguing that it's alternate history and not history. I mean they'll complain about a woman in the army being historically inaccurate, but won't complain about a certain death of a major historical figure in Act 1 being historically inaccurate. Or the fact that Legio Victrix never severed in Asia Minor until after Caesar returned to Rome, but was raised in Hispania/Gaul for Caesar's Gaulic mission.

If this was really about historical inaccuracies you'd hear more people complain about those inaccuracies.

[Raven Ranks]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sentient Space Thomas:

wOmen Did NoT take pArT oF MilITary ExPeDiTioNS in AnCIent rOmE, tHeRes pLenTy of MaTerIal tHat coNfIrM this, main reason why i did not buy the game is its failure to even make any logical meaning towards its supposed plot. Woman joining the military or being part of it, by law, is actually preety recent, being from times of Napoleon, if i would guess. Not that its wrong, but stupid and not immersive for people with an actual graduation.

Correct. And even with the more recent idea of allowing women in the military, we absolutely do see them falling behind their male counterparts. Partly because biologically women simply aren't as psychically adept as men. It's this idea that, regardless of gender, both sexes are "the same". And of course if that were true, the human species would've died out a long time ago. People need to come to terms with basic science. Both genders equally play their role and are well represented within human history.

[A-94L542 Abyssal Admiral Lavelle]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tesc:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sentient Space Thomas:

wOmen Did NoT take pArT oF MilITary ExPeDiTioNS in AnCIent rOmE, tHeRes pLenTy of MaTerIal tHat coNfIrM this, main reason why i did not buy the game is its failure to even make any logical meaning towards its supposed plot. Woman joining the military or being part of it, by law, is actually preety recent, being from times of Napoleon, if i would guess. Not that its wrong, but stupid and not immersive for people with an actual graduation.

Correct. And even with the more recent idea of allowing women in the military, we absolutely do see them falling behind their male counterparts. Partly because biologically women simply aren't as psychically adept as men. It's this idea that, regardless of gender, both sexes are "the same". And of course if that were true, the human species would've died out a long time ago. People need to come to terms with basic science. Both genders equally play their role and are well represented within human history.

Primarily in Europe, but this still leaves the statement historically false, which is what this conversation pertains to. Ex: Every Chinese dynasty has a legend of an amazing female general/warrior. Chapters of female knights existed, but died out with its founding members.

But hey, I'm sure you would call all that fake and that woman can't achieve martial greatness, right? And I'm sure you will say it is all genetic and not hormonal. Actually, never-mind. Go on, I'll move it to my list of posts I read when I need a good laugh.

[Raven Ranks]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Fell on head:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Tesc:

Correct. And even with the more recent idea of allowing women in the military, we absolutely do see them falling behind their male counterparts. Partly because biologically women simply aren't as psychically adept as men. It's this idea that, regardless of gender, both sexes are "the same". And of course if that were true, the human species would've died out a long time ago. People need to come to terms with basic science. Both genders equally play their role and are well represented within human history.

Primarily in Europe, but this still leaves the statement historically false, which is what this conversation pertains to. Ex: Every Chinese dynasty has a legend of an amazing female general/warrior. Chapters of female knights existed, but died out with its founding members.

But hey, I'm sure you would call all that fake and that woman can't achieve martial greatness, right? And I'm sure you will say it is all genetic and not hormonal. Actually, never-mind. Go on, I'll move it to my list of posts I read when I need a good laugh.

Nobody ever said that women can't do any of the above. Simply that, from a biological standpoint, men have an advantage. That's it.

[Valerius]

Devil's in the detail and I meanwhile wrote a whole article about it, but I figure this is the wrong place for endless lines. So let's stick with the important core:

History and its quoters often mess up termini, it is that simple:
If you hear an historican say "Roman soldier" without any closer definition, you quickly learn that this person apparently generalises, which is a bad attitude for this profession. So why is "soldier" too blurry? Because it is the birth of discussion topics like this.

• Classical, caucasian looking Roman soldiers were so called "Legionaries".
  
• Foreigner soldiers of any different province than the Roman core were so called "Auxiliaries".

"Soldier", is just a layman's word to describe somethine either he doesn't know any better or he thinks the audience is incapable to remember/understand, which leads to a-lot-of misleading conclusions.

Both, the Legionaries and the Auxiliaries were technically soldiers. Yet the Legionaries were the so called elite, while Auxiliaries were modular assets to fit the specific Legion's needs.

Being a citizen of Rome alone didn't grant you a place in the Roman military. You needed to fit their needs, like not being a woman or having comparably obvious features on you that make you look different from the showcase Roman soldier.

If you insist that there were no black Roman soldiers you are partly wrong. There were black Auxiliaries, that were officially soldiers of the Roman Empire. The general, Roman Legion (not Auxiliar parts) didn't invite people of different origin to join them. Yet the world isn't that easy, so there might for sure have been reasons for an exception here and there. But. An exception doesn't change the rule.

Means for most of people, finding cases in which there's a black person being portraied as a "Roman soldier", if it really was a Legionary at all, it was most probably a rare emergency decision to do so or a very, very late time period in which the Roman empire was already crumbling and fighting for its very survival. In any case this shouldn't be mistaken as usual or standard occurance.

I try to explain this as emotionless as possible and not as a "we want you"-propaganda claim: By design the Legions were the "golden core and pride of Rome" as the Romans wanted to be seen/presented to the world. Even if you would judge it like that from nowadays POV, this wasn't that kinda racism from the bottom of their hearts, but simple display of how proud there were about their origin and to display this felt superiority within each Legion. Yet our society would judge them to act racist for this.

Nonetheless, differently looking people had a hard and often short life in Roman Legions as Auxiliaries, because of them being viewed as cheap and expendable, to weaken the enemy, find possible traps/ambushes and were replaced as regularly. Any support personnel or foreigner recruits were to be stored in Auxiliar units.

There are exceptions for everything anywhere in history to be found, this is just how the world works, but that's it. Exceptions and if you dig deep enough, you may really find some in a time span of about 500 years. Natural.

The second objective to unknot this topic would be to point out the terminus "black person". Every serious researcher you find will tell you that nowadays POV for what's a black person is much different from that the Romans thought. We are imprisoned to the separation idea of skin colour. Yet the thing was less complicated to the romans:
You have the elitary, Roman society on one hand and you have the Barbarian tribes on the other one. Like: Latin speakers and inferior foreigners.
Even with gained citizenship: If you looked different than expected for the Legeionaries' standards you were sent to the Auxiliaries. That simple.

As much as things get romanticised in games and films, I don't think any of us would really have wished to be part of the barbarian faction back in the days, no matter what skin colour. Wasn't their time to thrive.

Let's focus on modding and playing the actual game instead, Legionaries and citizens of Rome. We have a really well-executed game to play. One of a kind I though I'd never see again since AoD.

Ɣalete.

[Velamont]

All of the above is true but I have more realistic question - why does it have to be that 1 in 10000 case? Why nowdays it's so unpopular to make a basic character and give them personality though context and interactions? Why does it have to be a an angry black dude and "sneaky" archer girl? I'm just tired at this point.