romanaunovelthingofdoom babble - army and imperial society
i was originally going to babble about the imperial gov't and general social structure and etc (sort of), and then i got distracted.... and now i'm watching when in rome week on the history channel. they're doing a show on the coliseum right now, and i have to say, i love the fact that even now we can't figure out how some of the engineering worked. like, the retractable awning? still no clear clue how they did that. as you could probably guess, my inner architecture geek is just over the moon. they could apparently empty the place in twelve minutes, too. it could hold 80,000 people. and archeologists have found remains of 101 water fountains and two really large restrooms. that is just really fucking cool.
oddly enough i don't feel a burning desire to watch the series about rome on hbo....
anyway. have some worldbabble. as always, everything is subject to change without notice, and feel free to make comments, ask questions, point and laugh, or tell me where i've utterly contradicted myself and am making no sense whatsoever.
first a note about the army and prostitution:
the armies have camp followers, also called camp women or comfort women [1]. "camp women" is used mostly to mean women who do random "women's jobs" for the troops - laundry, cooking, that kind of thing. soldiers are supposed to be self-sufficient, and in general they really can take care of themselves, but sometimes they want someone else to deal with the little things. camp women tend to be older and don't follow the army on campaigns so much. camp followers and comfort women are prostitutes, basically. prostitution's legal, mostly so the gov't can collect taxes from brothels and etc. the army doesn't encourage camp followers, but they don't really discourage them either. i mean, soldiers gotta be happy, right? following the army on campaigns can get really horrifically dangerous, tho, and the military makes it crystal clear that they won't be responsible for the lives of anyone who isn't a soldier or somehow legitimately attached to the army. you can make a living as a camp follower, but you're completely on your own.
camp followers in places with sizable garrisons sometimes group together in brothels, and in big cities there might be a separate district that caters just to military men.
of course, this doesn't mean that soldiers don't occasionally turn to each other for comfort. your common footsoldier or cavalry soldier learns to a. be quiet in the middle of the night, and b. ignore his fellow soldiers getting it on with each other.
and now some babble about imperial society:
imperial government, like the imperial pantheon, is organized kind of like a big family. the emperor is dad, and his word is law. all citizens are like his children, and thus his responsibility. after all, the first social construct you know is your family. kids are under the control of their fathers until they reach adulthood, which is eighteen for boys and thirteen for girls. girls are considered adults as soon as they start bleeding - for them adulthood means they can have kids. parents don't generally marry their daughters off that young, mostly because thirteen-year-olds are more likely to die in childbirth than eighteen-year-olds or twenty-three-year-olds, and if she's going to die with her first baby there's no point in marrying her off yet. women exist kind of as baby factories and keepers-of-the-household, altho they can hold down jobs. farmers' wives work the fields, craftsmen's wives help them run their shops, merchant's wives sometimes keep the books. women aren't allowed in the army, can't run for public office, and are under their father's control until they get married and are then under their husband's control, but they can keep at least some of the money they make and are allowed to own and inherit property, and if they get divorced they can keep their jobs and whatever goods they brought to the marriage or bought with their own money while they were married. a divorce is really hard to get, tho. (i still have to work out what the grounds are. adultery, but i think it depends on who you are and who you adulter with. i kind of doubt a one-night-stand is punishable by divorce.)
the empire is a fairly tolerant society - they don't care what you do in your own home, as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. :D they're certainly not repressed, they just have a clear line between public life and private life. they're not big on pda. couples holding hands in the street is about as far as they go. but if a guy wants to screw his slaves, his wife, and the boy who brings the mail, hey, more power to him, as long as he keeps it in his house. paying for sex is socially acceptable - prostitution being legal and all - but you're supposed to be sleeping with your wife too.
it's also a very pragmatic and bureacratic society. the empire's huge and has to be very tightly administered. taxes are collected regularly, roads are maintained, people are educated, the army is trained and maintained and sent out to keep the peace and conquer lands. everything kind of centers on how much it costs to do something and how much it will earn you if you do it. it's not the most artistic society, altho they have great art and architecture and some celebrated writers and poets. but the real accomplishments of the empire are in engineering and medicine and, uh, war. and all the administration and organization you need to keep a huge-ass empire running and profitable. and as long as you pay your taxes and swear loyalty to the emperor and don't make trouble, they don't care what you do.
of course, this is all the empire at its peak, or the empire as it should be. by the time my story takes place, the empire's in a decline and not everything works the way it should.
when i started typing this, the history channel was showing the coliseum. now they're doing slaves and gladiators, and in between was a show about sex and the common (and not-so-common) roman. very distracting. interesting, tho.
[1] during ww2, "comfort women" were korean women forced to serve the japanese army as sex slaves. that's not what i mean. my comfort women get paid.
oddly enough i don't feel a burning desire to watch the series about rome on hbo....
anyway. have some worldbabble. as always, everything is subject to change without notice, and feel free to make comments, ask questions, point and laugh, or tell me where i've utterly contradicted myself and am making no sense whatsoever.
first a note about the army and prostitution:
the armies have camp followers, also called camp women or comfort women [1]. "camp women" is used mostly to mean women who do random "women's jobs" for the troops - laundry, cooking, that kind of thing. soldiers are supposed to be self-sufficient, and in general they really can take care of themselves, but sometimes they want someone else to deal with the little things. camp women tend to be older and don't follow the army on campaigns so much. camp followers and comfort women are prostitutes, basically. prostitution's legal, mostly so the gov't can collect taxes from brothels and etc. the army doesn't encourage camp followers, but they don't really discourage them either. i mean, soldiers gotta be happy, right? following the army on campaigns can get really horrifically dangerous, tho, and the military makes it crystal clear that they won't be responsible for the lives of anyone who isn't a soldier or somehow legitimately attached to the army. you can make a living as a camp follower, but you're completely on your own.
camp followers in places with sizable garrisons sometimes group together in brothels, and in big cities there might be a separate district that caters just to military men.
of course, this doesn't mean that soldiers don't occasionally turn to each other for comfort. your common footsoldier or cavalry soldier learns to a. be quiet in the middle of the night, and b. ignore his fellow soldiers getting it on with each other.
and now some babble about imperial society:
imperial government, like the imperial pantheon, is organized kind of like a big family. the emperor is dad, and his word is law. all citizens are like his children, and thus his responsibility. after all, the first social construct you know is your family. kids are under the control of their fathers until they reach adulthood, which is eighteen for boys and thirteen for girls. girls are considered adults as soon as they start bleeding - for them adulthood means they can have kids. parents don't generally marry their daughters off that young, mostly because thirteen-year-olds are more likely to die in childbirth than eighteen-year-olds or twenty-three-year-olds, and if she's going to die with her first baby there's no point in marrying her off yet. women exist kind of as baby factories and keepers-of-the-household, altho they can hold down jobs. farmers' wives work the fields, craftsmen's wives help them run their shops, merchant's wives sometimes keep the books. women aren't allowed in the army, can't run for public office, and are under their father's control until they get married and are then under their husband's control, but they can keep at least some of the money they make and are allowed to own and inherit property, and if they get divorced they can keep their jobs and whatever goods they brought to the marriage or bought with their own money while they were married. a divorce is really hard to get, tho. (i still have to work out what the grounds are. adultery, but i think it depends on who you are and who you adulter with. i kind of doubt a one-night-stand is punishable by divorce.)
the empire is a fairly tolerant society - they don't care what you do in your own home, as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses. :D they're certainly not repressed, they just have a clear line between public life and private life. they're not big on pda. couples holding hands in the street is about as far as they go. but if a guy wants to screw his slaves, his wife, and the boy who brings the mail, hey, more power to him, as long as he keeps it in his house. paying for sex is socially acceptable - prostitution being legal and all - but you're supposed to be sleeping with your wife too.
it's also a very pragmatic and bureacratic society. the empire's huge and has to be very tightly administered. taxes are collected regularly, roads are maintained, people are educated, the army is trained and maintained and sent out to keep the peace and conquer lands. everything kind of centers on how much it costs to do something and how much it will earn you if you do it. it's not the most artistic society, altho they have great art and architecture and some celebrated writers and poets. but the real accomplishments of the empire are in engineering and medicine and, uh, war. and all the administration and organization you need to keep a huge-ass empire running and profitable. and as long as you pay your taxes and swear loyalty to the emperor and don't make trouble, they don't care what you do.
of course, this is all the empire at its peak, or the empire as it should be. by the time my story takes place, the empire's in a decline and not everything works the way it should.
when i started typing this, the history channel was showing the coliseum. now they're doing slaves and gladiators, and in between was a show about sex and the common (and not-so-common) roman. very distracting. interesting, tho.
[1] during ww2, "comfort women" were korean women forced to serve the japanese army as sex slaves. that's not what i mean. my comfort women get paid.