T/S: The Roman Empire vs. The Aztec Empire

i prefer the 'tecs. i like the tearing hearts/snake god thing myself, more exotic.

plus the aztecs had predators as gods!

Vs.

http://www.dandi.me.uk/IMAGES/Gallery/mythology/Quetzalcoatl.jpg

Obviously Queztacoatl's the hardest.

The Roman version of male virility was "if you can penetrate it, it's manly," with no particular male/female taboos except "don't always be the guy penetrated." I wish this had survived into modern times, so instead of Republican homophobia we'd have big burly conservatives telling us all about how they love to fuck people up the ass. Now that's firm leadership.

The Aztecs? I hate to be blatantly biased toward the West but...they were equally (if not more so) as bloodthirsty as the Romans, they wiped out whole nations just as the Romans (and later the Spanish) did, and they had the misfortune to lose more to diseases than Cortez' steel. Sucks to be them.

He fought for Rome. He fought for wine. He fought for manly penetration of small boys. Screw the snakes.

http://planetavp.com/images/avpmovie/avpmovieart15.jpg

YOU"VE DISCOVERED THE SECRETS OF THE MATRIX. COMMENCE KUNG FU BATTLE!

We have cannons too.

QUETZALCOATL The Feathered Serpent. The Precious Twin who lifts the sun out of darkness, god of the winds and the breath of life, First Lord of the Toltecs. Lawgiver, civilizer, creator of the calender. Demons tempted Quetzalcoatl constantly to commit murder and human sacrifice, but his love was too great for him to succumb. To atone for great sins, Quetzcoatl threw himself on a funeral pyre, where his ashes rose to the heavens as a flock of birds carrying his heart to the star Venus. A frieze in the palace at Teotihuacan shows his first entry into the world in the shape of a chrysalis, from which he struggles to emerge as a butterfly, the symbol of perfection. Quetzalcoatl is by far the most compassionate of the Aztec gods -- he only demands one human sacrifice a year.

versus

http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/ulysses312.jpg

http://www.vh1.com/shared/media/images/sn_legacy/sonicnet/assetmedia/bands/images/857_9425.jpg

http://empire-state-building.visit-new-york-city.com/Empire-State-Building-4.jpg

And maybe Mercury Rev.

so what's the deal - the roman empire included england but not ireland or scotland? why?

because the Irish and the Scots were fucking nails :p

obv Gibbon would have a more comprehensive answer.

the roman empire did extend into present-day Scotland - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_Wall - but they were never able to fully conquer the Picts

uh aztecs didn't chew coca compadre

that was the incas

The Romans may not have harvested human sacrifices from among their conquered neighbors, but they did practice mass crucifixion when the mood struck them. About a push, I'd say.

I'm sad all the pictures in this thread are gone

^^^

nobody in the early part of this thread seemed to know much about the Aztecs huh

someone on ilx recently recommended this book series and it's like lots of maps and maybe one of them was maps of the roman empire? does anyone have any idea what i'm talking about?

it was a caek thing but i can't find it; maybe ask on caek's corner?

Penguin atlases by Colin McEvedy.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Penguin-Atlas-Ancient-History/dp/0140513485

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/04/why-roman-concrete-still-stands-strong-while-modern-version-decays
So it turns of sea-water is the secret missing ingredient to Roman concrete.

Roman concrete combined volcanic ash, lime, volcanic rock and seawater. That final ingredient, it turns out, is key. The unusual combination of ingredients actually gets stronger as new minerals form over millennia.

miss the romans, don't get the aztecs. mayans seem more agreeable.

Roman concrete sounds amazing.
The dark ages really were terrible huh

The day I went to B+Q and said: I don't want any of this modern shit, I want some Roman concrete mix and I'll take a few drums of seawater.

for the base of your Tzompantli.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/archaeologists-uncover-tenochtitlans-legendary-tower-of-skulls/

Good topic of conversation at the BBQ: "Well this tower of skulls was a nightmare to put together, but I haven't been burgled since I put it up and pretty much all the thugs in the neighbourhood daren't even look at me askance these days"

happy 570th to the fall of the eastern roman empire

Is that according to the Julian calendar or the Gregorian?

sorry for the eastern roman empire but i'm built different

I listened to an interview with Charles Mann on 1491 15 years on last night. He talked about a few books as he went along including one on the Triple Alliance from Nahuatl sources or maybe more the fall of the Triple Alliance. Part of the point being Aztec was an externally imposed name which its population wouldn't have used.
I haven't had a chance to find the section of the podcast I was listening to. I was mobile at the time walking back from somewhere which is why I didn't make a note at the time.
But am interested in finding out what the book was. I think Mann was also talking about slavery in pre contact South Americabut think it was a different author.

FRom what I'm seeing the book may be Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest Matthew Restall
it was definitely him that wrote it. I found the section of the podcast again though McCann doesn't mention a book I think.
He also mentions a couple of other books The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
by Andrés Reséndez and one by a female author which I need to find again also looking at slavery. Managed to note the names down as I was walking around town this time.

I just transformed Charles C Mann into he name McCann for some reason. Argh, drained after a hot day out

looking at comment earlier in the thread, apparently Rome did consider invading Ireland but thought it was a step to far for their budget. They did se up trade with the population though, a talk I attended just before the pandemic mentioned a semi permanent Roman representative set up within a port in Ireland that people were trading from. Also the amount of what would be Irish people who joined the Roman army also that the beginning of the adoption of the Latin alphabet may date back to that instead of it being centuries later as I'd imagined.

also I'm just listening to an interview with Matthew Restall
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1818zjhD9wEV4u1iqcwBYV?si=75eee58ff7624090

Tacitus, and subsequently historians like Gibbon, claimed that the only reason Agricola didn't try to conquer Ireland was that the emperor Domitian didn't want him getting any more kudos

Is there an equivalent history of the Aztecs as there is for the Roman Empire (Gibbon)?

now there's a thread idea

xp Probably several since it was a thing of prestige for the Spanish. THere are certainly accounts from supporting players of the era. But as with a lot of things those who wrote the history didn't have the most objective perspective.
So writers like Restall and Mann and others are having to reexamine sources. Restall is looking at Nahuatl sources which seems interesting. I saw a couple of webinars a couple of years ago where people were looking at new technology that could search written texts from the era so better collate statistics etc. & that was with a heavy focus on mesoamerican texts from this era and slightly later. Would have more universal usage, not heard about it in a while so assuming its still developing.

Spanish accounts of the time are likely to be pretty racist . Counterting initial astonishment at how advanced the societies they encountered were. Also trying to make themselves more central to action, while i've just heard Restall talking about there being about 500 Spanish and thousands of native troops who already had there own agendas. Also could change from ally to non ally dependent on their own agendas. I just read teh book On Savage Shores talking about native americans visiting the old world which was at least partially at their own will as ambassadors etc and people trying to curry favour with the Spanish

I think the Aztec or Mexica empire or the triple alliance was not likely to be held in as much prestige as Rome was in its aftermath. Population were like brown which doesn't make Europeans flock to memorialise it. At least not in the early modern age, I assume taht is improving now since there are a number of books looking at the history of how the situation came about, I think they are less interested in valorising it in a similar way. Trying to be more objective than trying to make it look so much like a beacon of civilisation, historians are having to deal with ideas like human sacrifice and widespread slavery etc as part of teh picture. But it is being written and reexamined etc.

I also think the Spanish burned a load of the texts taht had been written since they must be devil driven since they represented the wrong religion. Shame, would be good to get more of their own perspective. Can't have burnt everything if people like Restall and Andrés Reséndez are able to go back and use papers as resources. THink I do need to look more into what has survived.

It is a crazy fact to me that the descendants of Moctezuma Xocoyotzin, emperor of the Aztecs at the time of Cortes, still exist as a noble family with the hereditary title of "duke of Moctezuma de Tultengo"... in Spain, not Mexico... since the latter abolished its aristocracy. pic.twitter.com/bCk7qC3DIG

— Tristan S. Rapp (@Hieraaetus) June 4, 2023

So I'm reading a trashy historical novel for book club which has what I'd call a traditional view on its decadence - a corrupt ruling class obsessed with large, lavish banquets and sexual promiscuity.

I recall picking up, here and there, mentions that this is not accurate - which is not to say that wealthy Romans weren't hedonists, but that this was hardly a major factor in the decline, and historians focused on it were more projecting based on the moral anxieties of their own period. That sounds instinctively right to me, but I really haven't done much research.

Any thoughts on what the current consensus is?

On ROME's decadence if that wasn't clear. A trashy aztec novel sounds fun, tho would prob turn out more racist than the book I'm reading.

I'm a fan of narratives that turn cliches upside down - Middle Ages being an obscurantist era that saw little development before Oh Hello Michelangelo, when in truth they had their own little renaissances and many advances that paved the way to Enlightenment, that sort of thing.

I only have a view of Rome from school and novels, but my impression is that decadence in general is a means to an end and closely related to power (political, business). In Rome, it can only be the richest and most powerful who can have tasted it, or soldiers after battles. It also depends on what you call decadence: we sometimes project taboos back in time, such as marrying kin, homosexuality, ephebophilia, brothels.

Philosophically, what we now call hedonism goes back Epicure but was actually closely related to other ancient Greek schools of thinking (Stoicism, Skepticism): virtue and justice are pleasures which lead to peace of mind. Rome made Stoicism into a way of life (Seneca) and idealized discipline. They had a whole legal system that was strict and included laws against adultery. Most people were humble and poor, and probably had too much worry to abandon themselves fully to pleasure and lavishness.

At the same time, I also imagine Romans were not prudish or puritans and had no false inhibitions, but I tend to think it's healthy not to consider pleasure shameful.

I have to go back to work but there's no shortage of resources for a nuanced view. Wiki has a dozen-pages-long article on sexuality in Ancient Rome for example.

You can come to my Venereum for a more in-depth chat later though

My understanding of contemporary theories of "decline" is that there's a lot of debate about what constitutes decline and whether the Empire "fell" or it's more accurate to say it transmuted into different political forms, but inasmuch as the Empire did decline the major factor was a form of inflation brought on by an inability for the system to maintain economic balance without continuing territorial expansion.

Ok, I'm still not working

"Just as notorious was that party arranged for Metellus Scipio when he was consul and for the people's tribunes—by Gemellus, their tribunicial errand boy. He was a free man by birth, but twisted by his business to play the servant's role. Society gave a collective blush: he established a whorehouse in his own house, and pimped out Mucia and Flavia, each of them notable for her father and husband, along with the aristocratic boy Saturninus. Bodies in shameless submission, ready to come for a game of drunken sex! A banquet not for honoring consul and tribunes, but indicting them! (Valerius Maximus, 1st century)"

"According to Suetonius, Tiberius had a vast collection of sex manuals and erotic art, including a painting of the mythological huntress Atalanta performing oral sex on Meleager, a work that the emperor regarded as worth more than a million sesterces."

"Lucretius recommends "doggy style" (a tergo) for couples trying to conceive, because it mimics the natural procreative sex of animals"

"In his retreat at Capri, he put together a bedroom that was the theater of his secret debauches. There he assembled from all over companies of male and female prostitutes, and inventors of monstrous couplings (which he called spintriae), so that, intertwining themselves and forming a triple chain (triplici serie connexi), they mutually prostituted themselves in front of him to fire up his flagging desires. (Suetonius, 2nd century)"

"But don't you fail your lady, hoisting bigger sails, and don't let her get ahead of you on the track either; race to the finish together: that's when pleasure is full, when man and woman lie there, equally vanquished." (Ovid, 1st century BC)

At least humanity is not getting old

Tiberius was a notorious perv tbf.

“The Fall of the Roman Empire was brought about by decadence” is a funny position to take when the sole official religion by then was Christianity.

Somebody posted this here recently

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/07/government-privatization-feudalism/682888/

This from Acoup looks at how Gladiator II depicts the traditional idea of 'decadence', and how it's almost completely the opposite of what actually happened to the Severan dynasty: https://acoup.blog/2024/12/13/collections-nitpicking-gladiator-ii-part-ii/. Rome was much more torn apart by a bunch of manly man generals who fought and made war because that's all they knew how to do (sorta).

Read a summerish article about the fall of Rome and birth of national identities that brought this thread to mind again. I'll try to summarize a few ideas:
- The main idea is that opposing Rome and so-called Barbarians is erroneous. Rome was relying on various tribes to secure its frontiers along the Rhine and Danube through diplomatic alliances called foedus (as in, federate states).
- Said tribes were interested in becoming Roman citizens and integrating the Roman army or acquiring status. There were consuls and generals of the Roman army from various origins. At the start of the Vth century, Rome relied on mercenaries for up to three quarters of its army.
- For example Alaric, who was the first to sack Rome in 410 was originally a Goth and became a Roman soldier. The Goths originally joined the Roman Empire to defend themselves against the Huns, before their mutiny inflicted a severe defeat to Rome (at Andrinople, 380) which led to a new foedus installing them south of the Danube river in the present-day Balkans.
- So there was no contradiction in being both a so-called Barbarian and Roman citizen. As the Empire declined over centuries, there was a slow process of assimilation that eventually gave birth to new identities. One of the original myths of the Franks shows a mish-mash of Roman influences (Eneid), in clear opposition to groups beyond the Rhine.
- The lack of written sources from the IVth century onwards is partly due to new physical supports replacing stone engravings: papyrus is perishable, calf skin is expensive. Plus you can't trust copists.

(Continued)
- Actually, when king Odoacer deposes the last emperor of Occident Romulus Augustulus and spares his life, they have in common that both their fathers (Orestes and Edeko) have lived at the court of Attila the Hun. This is documented by Priscus, our best source for a depiction of Attila.
- Before that, the future Roman Emperor Aetius also spent time with the Huns and Goths as a high-level prisoner, and will later use their skills to submit his enemies, notably killing king Gunther at Worms (Borbetomagus), an episode later remembered in the song of the Nibelungen. Eventually, Aetius defeats Attila at the Catalaunic Plains: it's two coalitions, the army of Aetius is mostly Wisigoths and Franks, the army of Attila was mostly not Huns.
- Aetius, nicknamed "last of the Romans", is assassinated by Valentinian III. Things come full circle when Valentinian III is avenged by two bodyguards of Aetius, who were both... Huns.

To be true, Odoacer's ethnic origin is disputed and it could be a different Edeko. But historians also note there was fluidity at the time between Germanic/Goth and Scythian/Huns since the Huns occupied areas north of Ravenna / Constantinople (the two Roman capitals) for decades.

notably killing king Gunther at Worms (Borbetomagus)

^^^summarise ilx in one good sentence fragment

Can report Gunther is alive and well

Will I ever find a job in Austria again with so many powerful enemies in Russia and Serbia? pic.twitter.com/62GxTHYU3d

— Gunther Fehlinger-Jahn (@GunterFehlinger) August 5, 2025