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Evaluation of Roman Science
#1
An article in the NY Times (based on a study from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University) featured a Roman "computer" with bronze gears and dials which dated from the 2nd century B.C. It said the instrument "calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the moon and planetary motions.." In light of this find, and all of the Roman developments in military weaponry and engineering of many kinds, my question is this:

Is it possible that if Rome had not fallen, that it may have evolved into a modern Industrial Revolution within several hundred years?

Thank you in advance for your responses.
Victoria
I love the name of honor more than I fear death. Julius Caesar
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#2
Quote:Is it possible that if Rome had not fallen, that it may have evolved into a modern Industrial Revolution within several hundred years?

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Considering that the eastern half of the Roman Empire continued along nicely for another 900 or so years after the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire, but didn't experience an industrial revolution leads me to think Rome would not have done so either had it not fallen.

That does raise an interesting question: Why didn't the Eastern Roman Empire experience more technological advancement, given how long it lasted? Was technological progress impeded by the growing influence of Christianity?
L. Cornelius Scaeva (Jim Miller)
Legio VI VPF

"[The Romans understood] it is not walls that protect men but men that protect walls" - Strabo
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#3
Quote:Is it possible that if Rome had not fallen, that it may have evolved into a modern Industrial Revolution within several hundred years?
Many scholars are of the opinion that the system of slavery prevented any ancient industrial revolution, as no machine was as cheap as a slave. Further its generally recognized that a capitalistic society with a modern bureaucracy is needed to propagate an industrial revolution. So its not a technical matter.
The principle of the steam machine for example was already known in the 3rd century BC. Hero of Alexandria developed many machines, which didn't spread, as there was apart from single applications no use for them.
[size=85:2j3qgc52]- Carsten -[/size]
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#4
Quote:
Ygraine:2qbkxpxo Wrote:That does raise an interesting question: Why didn't the Eastern Roman Empire experience more technological advancement, given how long it lasted? Was technological progress impeded by the growing influence of Christianity?

lol! To quote a grand master, ''To a dengerous place will this train of thought lead us''

Id be careful with what you say here these days.

Anyway, my opinion is that had the empire remained intact (as in no west/east divide), devoid of civil wars, with fairly safe borders, and maybe given another 500 years, I think we would be 500 years ahed than we are right now.

Perhaps im biased, perhaps its wishful thinking, but I do think the fall of the western empire did throw us back considerably. Other factors as mentioned above such as slave ownership, catholicism, war, and so on obviously also took their toll.

My 2 cents.
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#5
Ask whatever questions you will and fear no reprisals.

You're thinking of the Antikythera mechanism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Didn't think either Gibbonese "Christianity did it" or Finley's "Slavery did it" was all that popular any more.

There is a giant thread on this subject already (lack of technological progress in the roman empire).

Technological development in premodern times did, however, in my opinion, often had little to do with the halls of scholars. As late as the early 20th century, many natural scientists prided themselves on working on things that had "no practical application whatsoever" (sic C.P. Snow, who in 1959 accounts that is his youth several physics professors had held to this tenet) - the entry of the state into systematic applied science - based development, with a few rare forerunners (and of course rewards for someone who invented something useful - after the fact, and outside government control or guidance), was around WW1. In antiquity, the middle ages and the early modern period, the technologists were often rather faceless individuals; the only reason we remember the goldsmith Gutenberg was probably because he was the inventor of the machine that would eventually change all that.

There is no current consensus on what builds or develops technology. Stability seems like a poor candidate, though: development seems to thrive on somewhat turbulent social conditions and competition (although this, of course, is just another theory) - if continuity and social stability was the deciding factor, the chinese would be colonizing Alpha Centauri by now Big Grin . From the 1950s on the old bias that the medieval world was technologically primitive was exploded, and from the 1970 on Finley (et.al.)'s observations on roman technological primitiveness (or rather, slow developmentness) gets whittled away.

A roman industrial revolution seems unlikely (see Greene 1990, among others), just as a medieval industrial revolution (se Cipolla's hypothesis and his many detractors.) seems to have been overenthusiastic. The early modern period, or Sung China, all have had their obstacles to the sort of developments that occured in England in the 18th/19th century. Steam power was probably known earlier than Hero and was in fact utilized in things like household applications (I have seen a 13th century device that used steam heated by the cooking oven to turn a cooking spit, with the steam coming from a so-called "Aeolian head"), and waterpower was used in many industrial processes from the ancient world until today, but it is only in industrial revolution britain that we see...well...the industrial revolution.

I think this is one of those areas where we will never have a proper answer. Considering how weak the sources are on the roman period (and subsequently less weak, but still weak, on the medieval, and (less weak than medieval, but still weak) early modern until the growth of the bureaucracies), and that even the causes of the industrial revolution in well-documented 19th century England are so hotly debated (Capitalism? Bureaucracy? Urban population? Protestantism? Magic Elves?) I think this subject is one that's gonna keep the scholars and the laymen awake at night with no real solution for years to come.
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#6
I have some issues with the notion that the absence of industrial revolution was somehow a fault of the Classical world. What about its absence in Europe? Certainly no period was more enlightened than the Enlightenment, yet no industry was put forth on a grand scale, there was no social transformation and upheaval every ten years. Romans did as well as the pre-industrial Europeans did. They had technology and built on and expanded the industrial base, built water wheels even in such university towns as Athens, and were expanding technologically on an ever larger scale. Building the baths of Caracalla was no mean feat, an impossibility for a technically-starved civilization. There's nothing anti-industrial about these chained water wheels at Arles.

There's a window into alternate history in the example of the Byzantine Empire, where nothing impressive was built after the Hagia Sophia, for the succeeding 800 years. That is different from the earlier Roman Empire, where greater and greater buildings were constructed on an ever-larger scale.
Multi viri et feminae philosophiam antiquam conservant.

James S.
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#7
The romans were pre-industrial europeans themselves.

Is there any notion that it is a fault? Scientific knowledge, and even practical engineering, did not necessarily in any part of the world lead to an industrial revolution. The Enlightenment was contemporary with the height of the triangular slave trade, which is, to put it mildly, rather unenlightened - the anti-slavery movement was only tangential to enlightenment philosophy, beginning in fringe religious groups such as the Quakers. As i commented, natural scientists had a rather non-practical attitude for a long time - some argue World War 1. It bears remembering that, as I recall it, Surgery did not enter the universities as a discipline until the 19th century - before that it was, as it had been in the ancient and medieval worlds, a craft - taught at some craft schools, but much more commonly from master to apprentice. When Danish-Norwegian King Christian IV tried to let the barber-surgeons form a university faculty in the early 17th century, for entirely practical reasons - standarizing their training, increasing the respect for the craft, etc - it was vigorously resisted by the medical faculties at the University of Copenhagen: no grubby little surgeon who did not know proper latin (for shame!) was going to be admitted to the University staff, no siree, no matter how essential his skills would have been to the medical professionals there.

As I wrote, the Finleyan thesis has been weakened lately - the history of rome, as of any period, changes constantly as new discoveries are made and old are re-interpreted. I would also say that a walk around Istanbul should dispel any notion that nothing impressive was built after the age of Justinian, althought that was the last big building spree in the city.
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#8
L. Sprague de Camp once suggested that if one development could have made an Industrial Revolution possible in ancient times, it would have been a good patent law. I think its also worth bearing in mind that Europe had reinvented most ancient technologies, and supplemented them with all the inventions of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, by the time the Industrial Revolution got going. I agree with the point that until the nineteenth century natural philosopy didn't have much to do with the sort of practical science (mostly what we would call engineering) used to build and invent things.
Nullis in verba

I have not checked this forum frequently since 2013, but I hope that these old posts have some value. I now have a blog on books, swords, and the curious things humans do with them.
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#9
Quote:I have some issues with the notion that the absence of industrial revolution was somehow a fault of the Classical world. What about its absence in Europe? Certainly no period was more enlightened than the Enlightenment, yet no industry was put forth on a grand scale, there was no social transformation and upheaval every ten years. Romans did as well as the pre-industrial Europeans did. They had technology and built on and expanded the industrial base, built water wheels even in such university towns as Athens, and were expanding technologically on an ever larger scale. Building the baths of Caracalla was no mean feat, an impossibility for a technically-starved civilization. There's nothing anti-industrial about these chained water wheels at Arles.

There's a window into alternate history in the example of the Byzantine Empire, where nothing impressive was built after the Hagia Sophia, for the succeeding 800 years. That is different from the earlier Roman Empire, where greater and greater buildings were constructed on an ever-larger scale.


There is also the fact that how many years were the Byzantines around where they werent one or two defeats from total destruction. The Eastern Empire once Islam came along was on the ropes perpetually and things were not that much better for them against the Persian Empire.

One has to wonder if one of the kep requirements for technolical progression is a growing and hungry (for more) middle class. The upper classes have what they need and slaves to provide it. The lower classes are scraping along so barely that they can think of nothing beyond surviving day to day. Only a strong middle class with some stability yet a hunger to move higher really will generate the need for strong technological progression.
Timothy Hanna
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#10
In order for an industrial revolution to occur, there has to be an economy in place to support it. Capitalism and modern economics had their beginnings in the Low Countries and later the British Isles in the 16th-17th centuries. It's not as exciting as battles, but inventions like insurance, double-entry bookkeeping and limited partnerships are as important to an industrial revolution as thinking up new machines. Likewise oceangoing ships (the technological marvel of their day) that can carry manufactured goods and bring back raw materials. To buy machinery you have to be able to borrow money and you have to have a good business plan in order to pay back the debt while still making a profit, which you may then plow back into new machinery. Once the mentality has taken hold, suddenly everybody is thinking up new machines.
Pecunia non olet
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#11
Quote:One has to wonder if one of the kep requirements for technolical progression is a growing and hungry (for more) middle class. The upper classes have what they need and slaves to provide it. The lower classes are scraping along so barely that they can think of nothing beyond surviving day to day. Only a strong middle class with some stability yet a hunger to move higher really will generate the need for strong technological progression.

Yes but why couldn't Byzantines at least keep inventing new machines, to repel those invaders? Why is it that, having been bequeathed Roman military structure and technology, they did so little with it that they themselves were technologically overtaken by Western Europeans fresh out of the middle Ages.

No, I think the fault lies with the Byzantine mindset which was so interested in mysticism and saint's lives, as well with as the political order (as you say) which was stagnant and un-promising. There's a term for it these days, byzantine, signifying something so labyrinthine and prone with treachery and corruption, that it baffles basic understanding.
Multi viri et feminae philosophiam antiquam conservant.

James S.
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#12
Quote:Yes but why couldn't Byzantines at least keep inventing new machines, to repel those invaders? Why is it that, having been bequeathed Roman military structure and technology, they did so little with it that they themselves were technologically overtaken by Western Europeans fresh out of the middle Ages.

No, I think the fault lies with the Byzantine mindset which was so interested in mysticism and saint's lives, as well with as the political order (as you say) which was stagnant and un-promising. There's a term for it these days, byzantine, signifying something so labyrinthine and prone with treachery and corruption, that it baffles basic understanding.

http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=22249
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
A A A DESEDO DESEDO!
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#13
Well...they Byzantines did invent new machines for war. Or at least improved upon older models. For example, Chevedden has written a lengthy article on the technological development of the counterweight trebuchet, and while his conclusion that it was byzantine emperor Manuel Komnennos who personally designed the rope-assisted counterweight might perhaps be a bit much to swallow, he clearly shows that its development was not tied to one place or region, but the result of additions made to its design over time in the greek, latin and muslim (although his argument for a strong influence there rests a bit too much on linguistics for my taste), worlds.

The "Byzantine mindset" isn't really something that serious scholars take as a credo anymore - too many holes have been poked in Gibbon's theories over the years, and they weren't all that strong to begin with. These days, the only ones following those lines are layman writers like Freeman, who really need to update their reading lists.
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#14
Quote:Well...they Byzantines did invent new machines for war. Or at least improved upon older models. For example, Chevedden has written a lengthy article on the technological development of the counterweight trebuchet, and while his conclusion that it was byzantine emperor Manuel Komnennos who personally designed the rope-assisted counterweight might perhaps be a bit much to swallow, he clearly shows that its development was not tied to one place or region, but the result of additions made to its design over time in the greek, latin and muslim (although his argument for a strong influence there rests a bit too much on linguistics for my taste), worlds.

The "Byzantine mindset" isn't really something that serious scholars take as a credo anymore - too many holes have been poked in Gibbon's theories over the years, and they weren't all that strong to begin with. These days, the only ones following those lines are layman writers like Freeman, who really need to update their reading lists.
Do you know of any other medieval inventions from Greek Christiendom? (You can count things like watermills and latteen sails which were known in the Iron Age but became common and important in the Middle Ages). I don't know enough about Byzantine technology to have a sense of how fast or slowlt it developed, and it sounds like you do know.

Offhand, I can think of the fire siphon as an invention and the stirrup, frame-first shipbuilding, and traction trebuchet as borrowings or shared inventions. All those are rather early, though, ...
Nullis in verba

I have not checked this forum frequently since 2013, but I hope that these old posts have some value. I now have a blog on books, swords, and the curious things humans do with them.
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#15
I've recently come across an extremely fascinating anonymous treatise from the 4th century AD entitled De Rebus Bellicis (which of all things even has a Wiki page, here). It contains a whole host of fairly ingenious inventions, such as a mobile ballista different from the already known manuballista; another ballista of such strength that the bolt would cross the span of the Danube river, and this machine having been already built and tested as the author says; and mechanically paddled ships powered by oxen, with circular wheels exactly like the steam ships of the 19th century.

Representation in a medieval manuscript: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:De_R ... iature.JPG


These and other machines were explained in the context of already-existing inventions and previously-tried experiments, which leads me to say that the book on Roman science hasn't properly been written yet.
Multi viri et feminae philosophiam antiquam conservant.

James S.
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