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Offline DruMAX

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The demise of the ancient world
« on: September 11, 2006, 05:46:47 pm »
I was discussing ancient coins with a friend and he asked:

"How do you know it’s ancient?"

Well, first off let me say as a collector who has never seen first hand a horde or has never pulled a coin from the ground (though I have cleaned many dirty coins) I thought he was asking "How do I know the coins I buy are real ancient coins?"
It is a fear of mine that one day someone will do an investigative piece and will uncover that 99% of all ancient coins sold are fake...all the money I spend on ancient coins wasted. As a collector who has never seen coins pulled from the ground first hand, although far fetched, it is always a fear of mine that I am just being fooled by everyone...that my own issue I must deal with and one day I hope I am in a situation where I can go out and find these treasures myself and put my mind at ease that indeed there are so many ancient coins to be had at relatively cheap prices that I can buy a roman coin cheaper than many more modern coins of say the middle ages or early American.



But in the end, that’s not what he was asking... what he was asking was where is the cut off line between ancient and middle ages. I did some research and there are a lot of people with a lot of ideas and good reasons to back them up (most point to the end of the western roman empire) but I had a different opinion that I had not seen suggested though I am sure it has been somewhere.

In my humble opinion I think the ancient world ended somewhere around the rise of Islam (mid to late 600's A.D.) and I will tell you why I think this.

Islam changed the world, it was the last major religion to rise and when it did it quickly went on the march. We now have the last major monotheistic religion to rise and we also see the last vestiges of paganism well on its way out. The thorough Christianization of the west was well under way and had been for centuries by then and with the rise of Islam it seems to me that everything changed and we are still seeing the effects of the rise of Islam and the wests reactions to that religion and its followers. It was a new world, new sides were drawn.

It seems to me that almost as soon as Islam was established it began a series of conquests, early Islam seems to me as much an army as a religion it reads like a list of battles fought and it didnt take long for them to clash with Christianity and for the west to become involved. When the west became involved, it stayed involved and one could say the west is STILL involved in a struggle with Islam.

Islam is the reason for renewed cooperation between the western and eastern churches, it was the reason for cooperation between feudal states and helped the west hold onto a bit of cohesiveness. It gave western (Christian) nations a common purpose. Mostly gone were the pagans, now the western problem was the east that was eventually held by Muslims.

So I am thinking, because of the drastic change of directions, of geopolitical and social divisions that led directly to the crusades and into modern times...the rise of Islam, IMO, and the drastic changes it caused to the world and balance of powers...is a good point to end the ancient world. This is not saying Islam is bad, just saying its rise changed the world in a dramatic way.

Just a thought.

Offline frgreg

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2006, 09:14:10 pm »
There is no universally agreed upon threshold between antiquity and the Middle Ages.  I generally use the western date of 476 AD, the definitive fall of the Western Roman Empire.  Even that date is somewhat artificial; arguments could be made for a slightly different date.

Your dating is a good possibility for Byzantium; I would move it to the early 7th century and the fall of Jerusalem as the first major patriarchate to fall to Islam.

If we really took the argument further - what is the date for sub-Saharan Africa?  For the Far East?  The Americas?

Offline LordBest

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2006, 12:37:59 am »
476 is generally agreed to be the end of the Classical world, and I tend to agree with it. Others say teh end of the last great pagan cult, that of Isis when Justinian closed the temple at Philae. Personally I think the classical world died when in 476 but the death throes lasted another century or so.
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Offline Goodies

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2006, 09:15:34 pm »
This is not saying Islam is bad, just saying its rise changed the world in a dramatic way.

I don't agree islam should be used to set a boundary in any way. Too late. Rome and Romans as a source of cultural enlightenment had already died, well before the Constantine era. In fact, I regard the end of the northern/western "Classic world"to be roundabout the reign of Commodus, AD 193 it ends without a proper successor. Everything that occurred after that was gradual decline, political games, bribing tribesman to prevent war and corruption. This decline set out during the Severan dynasty and  can be seen in style and  silver content of the coins.

When we consider the eastern part of the Roman Empire, Byzantium should in my view be regarded as an extension of the eastern "Classic world". The Roman judiciary system was refined by Justinian, philosophy and art could florish in Byzantium well into Ottonian age (10th century).

As far as islam is concerned, as I see it, geographiclally spoken it only affected the Iberian peninsula early. Byzantium could not hold that part of the west. But it took until the 15th century before the Byzantium city itself was included into the Ottoman empire.

Early development of the Caliphate:



Source: Wikipedia - Umayyad

As you see, Spain was conquered before A.D. 750, but the Khalif was far from conquering Constantinople..

The Islam managed to prosper.. The Caliphate of Córdoba members of the same dynasty,  would rule between 929 and 1031 and mainly focussed activity on the Iberian peninsula. Great works of architecture and medicine were established. Until 950, the Holy Roman Empire exchanged ambassadors with Córdoba. The gold money of Cordoba has been imitated in Northern Europe well into the Carolingian age.

Meanwhile, Byzantium was at its greatest power in the 6th-7th century, its decline was not so fast. Real trouble began in 1204,

"In the approximately 1,000 years of the existence of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople had been besieged many times; it had been captured only twice, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and when the Byzantines retook it decades later: the crusaders had not originally set out to conquer the Empire, and the Byzantines re-established themselves in the city in 1261. In the following two centuries, the much-weakened empire was gradually taken piece by piece by a new threat, the Ottoman Empire. In 1453 the "empire" consisted of little more than the city of Constantinople itself and a portion of the Peloponnese"

So.. in my view, "our" classical world should end 193 AD, that is for Northern and Western Europe. It was followed by a period of corruption, anarchy  and dictatorship by the declining Roman empire, then the Dark Ages. These were actually a standstill in our realms, the "Classical world" as such was merely carved in stone and studied by those few adepts of culture that survived (eg translations, Anglo-Roman literature).

Now if "The Classical world" would include Byzantium, it would end 1204, the fourth crusade, "often described as one of the most profitable and disgraceful sacks of a city in history" ! Organizing it, Pope Innocent III ended the classical period in the east. It must be noted that this crusade could happen because of the East-West schism which dates back to 1054.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Schism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Constantinople

 :)
Lex

Offline ecoli

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #4 on: October 02, 2006, 10:45:26 pm »
Of course, if the ancient world includes the rest of the world, then I would say for China it could be argued that it ended in 1911.

Offline Goodies

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2006, 12:59:42 pm »
Yes, the geographical dependency was already mensioned

If we really took the argument further - what is the date for sub-Saharan Africa?  For the Far East?  The Americas?

I've just worked out two cases in above submit, that is for western Europe and for Turkey, regions north of the Mediterranian. Because of the coins I collect (Roman and Byzantine) these two regions are within my personal  interest and I know something of their history.

Maybe the terms "Ancient world" or "Classical world" should be considered (our, European) poetry in itself !

It may occur a strange question to people who come from different regions.. what period they consider their "Classical world". There has been a lot published about eg China, but in most Chinese heads "Classic China" starts some 8000-6000 years ago and ends with a revolution in the twentieth century. Similarly, a sub-Saharean might consider the period of colonial suppression as an important boundary in history, but we cannot simply project our notion of "Classical world" onto their situation and development previous to the 16th century.

We have Gibbon romanticism.. http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/home.html

 :)
Lex

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2006, 06:18:45 pm »
Sub-Saharan Africa would have a wide variety of different dates. In the 15th Century, Timbuktu was at a similar stage of development to London, it was the capital of a large and immensely wealthy empire, and it had a university which drew scholars from all over the continent. When white settlers arrived at the Cape, they found the San still effectively in the stone age.
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basemetal

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #7 on: October 03, 2006, 06:32:34 pm »
 The "demise" of "fall" of the roman empire is a subjective thing.
A roman in the time of say, Arcadius, if asked modern tv newscast style:
"So citizen, what do you think about the ongoing decline of the empire?"
He would have likely replied:

"Huh?"
or:
"What do you mean decline?  The marketplace is full of goods.  The people are fed.  Why in 4 days there are games in the amphitheatre and in 7 a bullbaiting exhibition.  I have some good copper in my purse, and my oldest daughter (13) is to be married in a month to the butcher.  Decline indeed"
or:
"What?!   Scipicious.....call the guard.  The barbarian rumormongers are about again."

Decline is hard to see from within when it is so gradual. And to the ancient roman eye, it must have been so gradual, excepting that same old tired news of pillaging and banditry on the roads, as to be invisible.
Excepting of course some graybeard who could just as easily been placed in 120 A.D. or other earlier date saying the inevitable just as in modern times:
"Citizens today.....why in my day........."
summed up with the also inevitable:
"And we were grateful.  Not like the youth of today"    [Wink]
   

Offline ecoli

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #8 on: October 03, 2006, 07:17:11 pm »
When Alaric sacked Rome, I doubt her citizens thought the decline of the Roman power was gradual...

Offline DruMAX

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #9 on: October 03, 2006, 07:47:30 pm »
That map of Muslim expansion and the relatively small amount of time it took to take that great expanse and the fact that in the end islam spread even further and kept hold of those areas makes me even more positive that the spread of islam made changes so drastic that it changed the world forever and ended the old world.

It seems to me that you are saying that the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire is the end of the Ancient world and I simply dont see that as true. I was also told by someone that the empire itself and its faulty, undefined nature was the beginning of the end of Rome (and the ancient world)...I dont think either were the end of the ancient world. Just an opinion of course.

basemetal

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #10 on: October 03, 2006, 10:56:03 pm »
 Very true ecoli.
Compared to other takings of cities, however the sack of rome on August 24, 410 was a "Sack Light" by contemporary standards.  That is not to say that by modern standards it was not barbaric and horrible.
COMPARED to contemporary conquests, it was, however not at brutal as most. Only a relative few were raped, killed and their possesions stolen.   The forces of Alaric showed restraint. By the standards of the time.
 They didn't even steal the gilded tiles off the palaces on the Palitine hill.  That was left to later visiting Byzantine roman emperors.  But you are in essence right. The sack of rome changed perceptions...for a while.  Until the sack of 454(?) A.D. rome apparantely recovered nicely.

Offline Goodies

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #11 on: October 04, 2006, 04:46:03 pm »
Quote
Until the sack of 454(?) A.D. rome apparantely recovered nicely.

Yeah the end actually came well before Augustulus.. in 455 AD, Rome was sacked brutally. Three days after Petronius Maximus' death on April 22, Gaiseric entered Rome with his army !

Just before, below coin was struck.. this item in CA remarkable lady she was !


Solidus, January 455, 4.44 g LICINIA EVD - OXIA P F AVG Facing bust wearing trabea crossed over stola, pearl necklace and diadem of pearls surmounted by central jewel.
Rev. VOT XXX - MVL - T XXXX Valentinian, in consular robes, and
Empress standing facing;

"Eudoxia was the only daughter of the long-reigning Eastern emperor Theodosius II and of his wife, the poetess Aelia Eudocia. She married the Western Emperor Valentinian III on 29 October 437, in Thessalonica. (..)

In 455, Valentinian was murdered, probably by his collaborator, Petronius Maximus. In the days that followed the death of the emperor, Petronius Maximus rose to the imperial power, and obliged Licinia Eudoxia to marry him, in order to strengthen his position. It is possible that Eudoxia, who was not happy of marrying the killer of her husband, called for the help of the African Vandals king Gaiseric, who had engaged one of his sons to Eudoxia's eldest daughter. Gaiseric moved to Rome very quickly. Petronius Maximus opted for fleeing, but he was killed by the mob of Rome. When the Vandals arrived in Rome, they sacked the city, and took, among the other prisoners, Eudoxia and her two daughters, Eudocia and Placidia. The three women stayed prisoners in Carthage for seven years, until a large ransom was payed by the Eastern Emperor Leo I. She and Placidia withdrew to Constantinople, but Eudocia stayed in Africa as wife of Huneric, Gaiseric's son, and was mother of Hilderic. Placidia later became the wife of Olybrius."

Wiki - Licinia Eudoxia

 ;)
Lex

vic9128

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2007, 09:33:37 pm »

 but I had a different opinion that I had not seen suggested though I am sure it has been somewhere.

In my humble opinion I think the ancient world ended somewhere around the rise of Islam (mid to late 600's A.D.)


This is called the Pirenne Thesis. Henri Pirenne brilliantly detailed his theory in Mohammed and Charlemagne written in 1935.

Pirenne dated the changes as taking place between 650-750, with the Merovingians. The last vestiges of the Roman Empire completely ended with the Carolingian dynasty, circa 800 A.D.

The biggest factor was not religion, but the control of the Mediterranean--"the ancient Roman sea had become the frontier between Islam and Christianity."

Bolt

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2007, 05:14:45 pm »
Just to be contrary, and slightly off the subject, does anyone think we are coming towards the end of the modern world as we know it?  :)

vic9128

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2007, 05:22:10 pm »
Just to be contrary, and slightly off the subject, does anyone think we are coming towards the end of the modern world as we know it?  :)

Many historians think so, and there have been a few books written on this topic. Here are two on my bookshelf:

The War of the World  Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West by Niall Ferguson

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers by Paul Kennedy

Offline slokind

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2007, 06:05:48 pm »
From another point of view, as I recall, Ernst Robert Curtius thought by mid 20 c. that the post-Renaissance world was coming to an end, and I can see that point of view.  Only, I'm not sure it wasn't Erich Auerbach who thought so, since I was reading them both at the same time, and it was a long time ago.  I can check. 
It's really much the same question.  I was thinking along such lines in the 1970s and again a couple of years ago that the inheritance of enlightenment was getting awfully dilute. 
Pat L.

Offline Cleisthenes

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #16 on: January 12, 2007, 07:26:41 am »
Here are two quotes that nicely iterate why all of us populate a world that seems to be changing somehow from the one with which we've grown accustomed, but paradoxically remains familiar.  The first quote could easily be written about every era in human history.  The second quote . . . well . . .

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity . . . ," Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." (attributed to Mark Twain).

Pat L.,
I studied Roland Barthes at the same time that I was studying Curtius and Auerbach, and the three seem to blend in my mind around the concept of the mimetic process.

 

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Offline moonmoth

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #17 on: January 12, 2007, 07:35:25 am »
Another interesting quotation:

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce."  Karl Marx.
"... A form of twisted symbolical bedsock ... the true purpose of which, as they realised at first glance, would never (alas) be revealed to mankind."

bruce61813

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #18 on: January 12, 2007, 12:26:21 pm »
Another way of looking at the start and end of eras, is to look where the predominate power was. You could start with the eastern middle east, move to Greece, then Rome, then there are some splits. Byzantium was short lived and small, Islam became a multinational  became a power, but China under the Khans dominated a very large area, southern Europe slowly followed by the wetern portions, power moved to north American after the First world War and stayed until after the Second war. This is a bit loose asnd jumbled, but it is also one way of looking at things. But it is also regional,

Bruce

vic9128

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #19 on: January 12, 2007, 01:22:11 pm »
Quote from: bruce61813 on January 12, 2007, 12:26:21 pm
Byzantium was short lived and small

The Byzantine Empire was far from short-lived. People disagree when the Byzantine Empire began (reign of Constantine 330 A.D., Theodosius I 379-395 A.D., or 476 A.D.) but it is plus or minus a 1,000 years before the Empire fell in 1453. A millenium is a pretty good run for an empire. The size varied, but at times it was quite large.

Heraclius

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #20 on: January 12, 2007, 02:32:48 pm »
A millenium is a long time indeed. Look at it another way: it has been roughly 550 years since Constantinople fell to the Turks; the empire was in existence more than 400 years longer than that, depending when you begin counting. For the people who lived during its time, it was all they or their ancestors had ever known, its existence assumed as the normal state of things. 

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #21 on: January 12, 2007, 06:16:23 pm »
As a point of comparison, a thousand years ago, England was ruled by Ethelred the Unready, the Danes had occupied the town of Sandwich, in Kent, and the Duke of Normandy was no threat to anyone but the king of France. The First Crusade was a couple of generations in the future, and the dominant civilisation in western Europe was that of Muslim Spain.
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basemetal

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #22 on: January 13, 2007, 12:47:19 am »
How lucky we are to view the history of the roman empire from hindsight..or is it postsight?

Ask a citizen of Rome in the time of Vespsasian what happend to the dream of the roman republic, and he would look around and say (if he were learned and literate)":

"Oh, you mean back when they had civil wars and such all the time?  Well yes, my father told me about that uncouth Vitellius, and that one..who was he...oh yes Galba, I think, and there was one other, I don't recall his name,  but that was short-lived and then the magnificent emperor Vespasian took controll and now look at us! The empire is secure, we are prosperous, and things are pretty good." He would have probably had no knowledge of Agustus Casear except in myth and legend.
Later:
"Well yes, those swinish barbarians want what we've got but the emperor Severan Period' target='_blank'>Septimus Severus is, as I speak in the field, giving them what for."
Even later:
"Hispania? Oh, that's a barbarian place. Always has been.  Rome however, is secure under the present emperor Diocletian.  The games are grand. Have you been to the Amphitheartre?
Even later:
"Well, I don't know but I'm throwing in with the forces against Maximus Thrax.  He's a barbarian. Never even been to Rome."
My point is, through over 700 years most people of Rome would have been agast at the idea that the roman empire was declining or at it's end.
The slow roll of history is,  like the growth of trees, too slow for most humans to grasp, except in hindsight.  Ask a citizen under  Leo VI, if he was part of the roman empire, and he would have looked at you oddly and said,
"Of course I am."
The same is true today.  I am an American. Were you to ask me...."Are you an American citizen? Is America strong?
I'd of course say:
"Yes of course, look at where we are in the world. We will endure for another _______years."
The truth is, America is not even our father's America anymore.  Change happens. We are too immersed in it too see.
The same was true for the roman citizen of any age.

Offline GMoneti

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #23 on: January 13, 2007, 01:55:40 am »
That's a good point Basemetal.  Most nations change within a generation, especially now with globalization speeding up the process and introducing change more quickly than ever. Also I think it's common for some people to idealize the past, while at the same time they do not wish they lived during that time.  There is a realization that today's values, morals, and life in general are better, but at the same time we want them to be even better, so we look to the distant past we know from literature to find this ideal.  And if we look closely, it's not always there.  Imperial Romans are often portrayed as unworthy, compared to their Republican predecessors, however is that really the case or is the perception such because the Republic is more distant in time and there is some type of nostalgia for its ideals?! This is valid throughout history in my opinion...longing for the good old days.  That is not to say we haven't degraded in some ways, but also there are many improvements in humanity I think.  I know, many events in the 20th century (and 21st?) don't seem to agree with me, but there is hope I think.  Who knows...I can't imagine what the Romans thought about the world 20 centuries in the future.  Even at that time the world was changing quickly enough, for at least some of them to ask themselves this question. 
Georgi

Offline gallienus1

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Re: The demise of the ancient world
« Reply #24 on: January 13, 2007, 08:16:48 am »
I agree with Basemetal, it is hard to see the true dimensions of gradual social change when you are part of it... But its not impossible. In my own country I have seen immigration profoundly change Australian culture. Only elements of pre 1950's national character survive and even it's western roots have been diluted. Of course this has not been entirely bad- but it has not been entirely good either. We are just different and still changing. I worry about loss of enlightenment concepts, such as individual liberty and humanitarianism. These gave the world moral values that allowed for the freeing of slaves, women's rights, children's rights and even animal's rights. The classical world ended because people slowly stopped believing in it's values. The reasons for this I think were-

1. Concentration of wealth and the resulting loss of an industrious middle class.

2. Climate change and over population in central Asia driving it's peoples westward, eventually causing vast migrations of western tribes that simply swamped Rome's ability to cope.

3. The destruction of paganism by the church which undermined classical culture.

4. Waste of resources as the church built monasteries and encouraged the people to look to the afterlife and their souls rather than take action to solve the desperate problems faced at the time.

My reasons for the fall of the classical world could easily apply now. The difference is that now there is a greater percentage of the population that is well educated and has some historical knowledge. Even so, that did not stop Nazism from taking over Germany, or intellectuals falling for communism in Russia, or fundamentalist Islam in Iran. I fear that we now find ourselves at a point in history where we could lose far more than we gain if we are not very, very careful.

Steve
 

 

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