In regards to the Imperial Roman MIC

[IronsightSniper]

Hi Dracko, and welcome to RAT.

I am curious as to the Roman MIC, in general. [..]I know of the fabricae that were in of the camps of the legionaries, but asides from the general purpose of the fabricae, I know not more of it. So, if possible, please expound on that specifically.

Please specify a bit more. Don't expect to launch a generalistic question and expect an essay in return. :wink:

As an aside, and not necessarily on-topic thought, how would of Rome sustained a hypothetical Industrial Age revolution? [..] it also became apparent, that the Romans too, had an early onset of advancements in agricultural technologies, and thus, if Rome had not fell, Europe may perhaps have a similar population to pre-1950's China [..]Without floffing about in my aforementioned bias, I am wondering, again as an aside, how Rome would of "coped", or rather, spur on an Industrial Revolution in their time.

How can we draw any parallels between the 4th c. western Roman Empire and China in the 1950s? Rome was not an effective state, it has been unfavourably compared to modern Zimbabwe in the sense of government effectiveness. There was no way that any Roman ruler ('government' would be to much here) could effectively enforce such a population policy. Furthermore, it was not the 'mere accident' of Rome 'falling' that prevented your predictions of European demographic development, but rather the other way around. Rome fell due to a number of factors, some of them being a drop in population, also due to a number of factors (war, economics, climate). The Western Empire was not equipped enough to keep itself together, whereas the east barely managed to hang on.
Therefore, there can be no question as to the conditions for anything like an Industrial revolution - even if the knowledge had been there, there was no educational system, no understanding of economics, no grasp of effective government (not even a working succession system).

Ah, I thought I was being quite specific! In any case, I am curious as to how the Roman MIC "worked". Before you say anything of it being vague, allow me to expound on that specifically. I am curious, that because I know that the annual Roman Iron production was a bit over 80,000 tonnes in some periods of the Empire, and that as the post-Marian army was professional (and Government supplied), where did all that iron go to? Only so much iron is required to make a gladius, a piece of segmentata, but the amount required to make a set of arms and armor, for the most part, is only required once every few years as it is unlikely the one would entirely lose his armor. Though in campaign I'd suspect that the rate of production would increase to compensate for the replenishment of troops that are being recruited, that still leaves a whole lotta iron out there, and I'm curious as to where else it went.

You can actually draw a parallel between 4th century Roman Empire and pre-1950's China, in that, both of them were at the forefront of agricultural technologies of their day. If you looked at the seed-yield ratio, even compensating for the less energy dense grain that the Romans grew, the Romans grew about the same amount of calories as the Chinese grew in their hay day, and my speculation was that if the Romans had not fell, and if Europe had not forgotten the advancements in agriculture that the Romans developed, perhaps the post-Roman civilizations could of been as populated as China in the modern day, as China's sustaining use of advanced agriculture is one of the few reasons attributed to their massive population.

People who have looked seriously at the Hellenistic and High Imperial worlds, and Song China, and the 17th century Dutch, and the 19th century UK seem to lean towards the theory that contextual things in the UK produced a movement of machine science in a place and time where it was possible to develop steam engines and complicated machinery. In other words, the First Industrial Revolution wasn't an inevitable result of a few economic statistics, but something which happened in very specific circumstances. Ian Morris has some brief comments in his new book.

I'm not sure if military-industrial complex is the right concept in the ancient world, since most ancient artisans worked in small businesses. I'm not sure if even the collegium fabrum in a large town would have the power to convince the local governor to buy more swords and horseshoes than he was already planning to.

Ah. I admit I was naive to assume that Industrial revolutions were inevitable to several socio-economic indicators. In any case, another question I had in regards to the Roman "MIC" was what of the quality control? I hear stories of the Qin dynasty where apparently one artisan's crossbow trigger would fit on another artisan's crossbow, and from a documentary I watched "What the Romans did for us - Invasion", they hypothesized (or perhaps it's been elevated to a theory now?) that the palisades and other parts of the castra was pre-fabricated by different artisans, and that despite minute inconsistencies, the work of two artisans seemed to join well together. Was standardization like that, applied to other hardware, such as a gladius or the pointy end of a pilum? Also, was there perhaps a standard to which each Imperial gladius had to adhere to or other guide lines of the sort?