ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Roman empire.

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It was kind of like the empire in Star Wars,

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except Roman storm troopers wore skirts.

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Yeah. They were kinda... funny-looking.

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Not all in white.

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[ mumbles ]

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You done reading?

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[ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ]

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And we're done. Okay.

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The "personality" that the speaker describes can be characterized

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as one - efficient, two - expressive,

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three - adventurous.

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And here are the potential answers.

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Hmm. Which? Which? One, two, three?

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Couple of 'em? All of 'em? None of 'em? What do you think?

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All right, well, the speaker tells us that Romans distrusted

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personality, so we know that the speaker is defining this

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artistic temperament by everything he thinks Romans are not.

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Yeah.

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Options A and B claim that one - efficiency is

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a characteristic of the personality the author is describing.

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But we're gonna have to disagree with both choices.

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Efficiency was something Romans thought was cool,

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not something they thought was weird and suspect.

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The speaker specifically tells us that the empire strove to have

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efficient soldiers rather than poets and painters.

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Guess pretty pictures weren't so helpful when trying to conquer the New World.

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Now onto option D, which claims that the distrusted personality is

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solely made up of three - adventurousness.

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Well, we know it's at least partly right, because according to the speaker,

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Romans didn't love adventures of the spirit.

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Can we just point out that that statement is a little questionable? Hmm? Hmm?

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Maybe they weren't artistically adventurous, but they did build one of the biggest

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empires, like, ever.

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That had to have taken a certain kind of adventurous spirit, you know?

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Well, whatevs.

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It's clear that this question is using "adventurous" in a slightly different context.

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So D is just almost right.

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The trouble with D, however, is that it leaves out two - expressive.

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The speaker tells us that the Romans preferred practical forms

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to expressive ones, choosing to borrow art instead of create it.

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This tells us that C is the right answer.

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According to the speaker, both expressiveness and adventurousness were

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part of the artistic personality that Romans so mistrusted.

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Anybody else get the feeling that this author is a Roman hater? Hmm? Hmm?

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Not illegal?

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