Roman Resources

[Frank Petrexa]

The realty is the world, thru it's technology, produces enough food for to feed a population of 8 billion people. Prior to industrialization that wasn't possible despite the MANPOWER put into agriculture. Pre-industrialized societies had regular problems feeding themselves never mind producing and shipping excess to other populations. Starvation was a very real issue (and YES I know people face starvation on this planet everyday, what WE have is a distribution issue not a quantity issue) on an annual basis.

One needs to factor in both improved fertilizer and improved seeds too. Fertilizer today is basically mined (phosphorous, natural gas wells)--then the mined inputs are processed further in an energy-intensive way. Seeds involve the risk of monoculture and therefore susceptibility to disease and insects. That's why there are seed banks--people are worried something will happen. Banana producers are very concerned about fungi--some varieties are already gone--and are working hard to develop new clones.
Organic techniques will help, but probably won't scale enough. All we can do is learn as much as we can and be as smart as we can (which THE MARKET usually doesn't encourage until things get so bad people are willing to pay a whole lot to make them better) and pay attention.
I guess we are eventually going to eat food synthesized using solar energy and recycled atoms. But that's probably a ways out.

 

[willowfall]

At least, counting the numbers of regiments could have given an estimation of the strength of the opposing force. Next survey would be estimating how far the flags are apart from each other. A greater distance could mean that the regimental strenght could be rather high (you better quickly develop a cunning defence plan), or that the enemy is approaching with a terribly thin line, trying to give a perception of strength, but actually being very vulnerable in case of counterattack (start with outflanking and then 'chew' the whole line; see Frederick the Great's victory at Leuthen).

Having been in the pre-modern (reenacting) field several times I always marvel at how theory somehow falls down in the face of reality and of course observation requires 'the high ground'. And before optics a Roman General would have been very limited it what he would see of the battlefield, especially after the action started. Probably why they trained so hard down to a tactical (manipular) level. They knew once battle was joined they had to rely on the line officer right there to make the right decision.

My brother tells a pretty funny story about an Antietam reenactment in the Cornfield. As they advanced LOS became extremely limited due to the height of the corn (my brother stands 6' 4") at one point he looks back over his shoulder and realizes that his company had somehow broken thru the Confederate line (without making any contact with them) and was behind a Reb unit to their right. He called to his Captain and pointed. Without thinking about the Captained wheeled the company on my brother (1st Corporal) and hit the Rebs from the rear. The Rebs were smart enough to react appropriately, broke and ran and in the ensuing confusion my brother's company lost contact with the rest of their battalion.

While we (non-combat vets) tend to think of battles in a macro sense he said it drove home to him how isolated a battle gets in a personal sense and how you lose awareness of everything around you.

Imagine how much harder it was when the enemy was stabbing distance away and you are wearing a helmet that limits sight and hearing.

kisses

willowfall

 

[Rias]

something for roman squirrel alcoholic:
https://www.msn.com/pl-pl/wiadomosc...sedgntp&cvid=c46d8618aac84166b5638a637811577b

 

[malins]

While an interesting exercise in trying to define an issue I'm not sure it really has any real world relevance.
The realty is the world, thru it's technology, produces enough food for to feed a population of 8 billion people. Prior to industrialization that wasn't possible...

I'd say it might be seen as a little mental exercise to remind us what all that energy does, which we're often not aware of from day to day.

And what the consequences of some of the 'degrowth' ideas popular in certain circles would be.

I know people face starvation on this planet everyday, what WE have is a distribution issue not a quantity issue

Actually even in very poor regions, famine nowadays mostly just happens either when there's a civil/internal war going on / or a government is intentionally using poverty as an instrument of power. Ethiopia(Tigray) and Yemen for instance wouldn't have famine without war. At peace, usually even the distribution part works nowadays.

There is a burgeoning middle class all around the world because of energy

Access to energy also can make political freedoms more acheivable. (and again some degrowth types quite obviously would like to do away with middle classes...)

From a Roman viewpoint, a civilization without slaves just wasn't plausible.
Later European colonial powers tended to get righteous about slavery insofar as it had become marginal for their economic systems.

Once someone's livelihood no longer depends on violating someone elses' rights it suddenly becomes a lot easier to respect those rights...

This doesn't really mean those cultures were morally inherently superior to their predecessors, or other contemporary cultures that kept on slaving (say the Ottomans), rather industrialization made the adoption of such morals plausible and the defense of slavery more difficult. Pretty much the same goes for child labor etc.

That of course doesn't mean industrialization universally & directly leads to such improvements ... automating large parts of the textile production process through the 18th & early 19th century made it possible to process much more raw material, since before that clothes production had been strictly labor-constrained. So only through automation (plus also improved trade networks) did the demand for e.g. cotton hugely increase (most of it was processed in English textile mills), that turned it into a marvelous 'cash crop' which displaced others; but since the picking process wasn't as accessible to automation as spinning and weaving ... creating also an incentive to extend and expand slavery.

And to circle this back to the Romans, they built cranes

Of course, the Romans weren't stupid and knew about devices that either saved labor, or leveraged muscle labor to do things it otherwise couldn't. They did also know about waterwheels and such. It's just that compared to the level of organization, and availability of what we'd call 'capital' today ... they didn't go very far with it. And it does seem plausible that this does have to do with availability of slaves and the framework of using them had something to do with that.

 

[Naraku]

The Romans were capable of building factories:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...d-16-water-wheels-used-make-food-sailors.html
This resembles the sort of water powered factories seen during the early days of the industrial revolution. However, with so much slave labor available, there really was no incentive to expand on this sort of technology. A similar situation existed in the Antebellum South: massive amounts of slave labor perpetuated an agrarian economy and stifled industrialization.

 

[Loxuru]

The Romans were capable of building factories:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...d-16-water-wheels-used-make-food-sailors.html
This resembles the sort of water powered factories seen during the early days of the industrial revolution. However, with so much slave labor available, there really was no incentive to expand on this sort of technology. A similar situation existed in the Antebellum South: massive amounts of slave labor perpetuated an agrarian economy and stifled industrialization.

During the first century AD, Hero of Alexandria, one of the greatest engineers of Antiquity, did experiments with steam power. Imagine, the Romans turning it into a useful and widespread source of power, and its possible implications on history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria

 

[malins]

Anyway yes, water power it really has a long history. For instance water-driven hammer mills spread in Europe during the 1100's but they'd existed elsewhere before. Of course using water power back in the day was dependent on local pressure differences - that is, a small brook coming down from the hills was useful; a giant wide river through a plain (like the lower rhine, the Nile or Yangtse) not so much.

Now one task the Romans faced as many other cultures was ... they did a lot of mining, and mines often flood. So pumping water out of mines is a frequent challenge. The Romans of course did it with series of slave-driven pumps. Much later on, from the late 1600's on pumping water from mines was the first large scale application of steam power (really taking off with the Newcomen design, a.k.a engine for lifting water by fire).

Now one thing of course is if you have a steam engine and use it to pump out water from a mine, you need to feed the steam engine with something to generate the heat and early steam angines were voracious.

if you were to cut wood for that you have the problem that wood is a low-density resource and once taken, it takes a while to grow back. So that means that rather quickly your clear-cut area around the mine radiates further out & you will be bringing in firewood from far away. This puts you up against the pre-industrial transport dilemma - moving any bulky resource over land got very expensive very quick.

If you were bringing in lots of wood from far away with human & animal muscle power (and the beasts ate a lot of grain) just in order to burn the wood for your steam engine to lift water ... you might as well have the muscle on site and feed the beasts right away with the grain and have them drive the pumps.
(Now wood could of course easily be rafted down along navigable waterways at low cost, but your mine was probably not right beside a major river)

Coal of course is much more energy dense. And you can exploit a lot of it from one mine, instead of having to import it from an ever expanding land area. So if you happened to have a coal mine nearby, or ideally, if what you were running in the first place was a coal mine, then it makes a lot more sense. You are just sacrificing some part of your production to keep your mine working. No ox-drawn wagons and lumberjacks required.

But for that to make sense you already had to have a situation were coal mining was happening at scale.

Once you had a profitable use case there would be incentive to improve the engines and find other use cases. For instance some of them were used in connection with water-driven mechanics: They would pump the water back up again!
Such improvements was were the Watt engine came from. For there onward you got a drop-in replacement for any application that needed rotary power which was anything driven by water-wheels before. That suddenly made mechanization independent of location leading to a huge multiplication of installations; the continuing improvement finally made the engines light enough to use for propulsion which then resolved the transport dilemma - the next order of magnitude expansion.

But all of these steps only happen if the previous one makes sense and has incentives for it to happen.
And a lot of this requires tech and knowledge that the Romans simply didn't have - much of it metallurgy.

As for the aeolipile, it's a dead end and there's no path from it towards the designs that later made steam power useful.

The aeolipile is basically a reaction engine (thrust from a jet of steam) and can best be compared to the Catherine wheel-type firework.
(Where you put firework rockets at the end of a wheel pointing in opposite directions and upon lighting them it goes whoosh).

It scales miserably when you enlarge it and the only way to make it more powerful is really increasing the pressure inordinately and what you get is a low-torque fast-spinning engine that chokes up on the friction of any power transmission, unless you have insane pressure and low-friction precision transmission which is something you can only do when you've already completed your industrial revolution and then it's still at best an edge-case application. I think something like this was used for a 19th century centrifuge.

But you can't kickstart a labor-saving industry with this.

Now of course there is a great application that uses reaction to a jet of steam, it's kind of the aeolipile reversed, that's the gas turbine.
While the idea was documented in the late 18th century it took till the 1890s for it to become a productive implementation, using the technology of an already very advanced stage of industrialization. Trying to start with gas turbines from scratch with antique or medieval tech is also hopeless.

The big advantage of 18th century steam engines was that they produced high torque from low pressure steam with somewhat coarse machining (but still far ahead of anything the Romans could do); the Newcomen engine actually used the power of vacuum not high pressure, and it got more effective when you made it bigger.

The aeolipile was re-invented several times in history, the Byzantines and Ottomans had steam-driven novelties, but in each situation where that happened it always remained a curiosity - the Greeks & Romans didn't miss out on industrialization because they overlooked the aeolipile's labor-saving potential, that potential wasn't really there. The slave tending to the fire that drove the aeolipile would always be able to exert more power with his bare hands.

 

[Loxuru]

And a lot of this requires tech and knowledge that the Romans simply didn't have - much of it metallurgy.

This could have been a limiting factor indeed.

ou are just sacrificing some part of your production to keep your mine working. No ox-drawn wagons and lumberjacks required.

Correct : coal mines used an anverage of 10% of their production to keep themselves running. Not only for pumping water, but for running the shafts, areation, pressurised air and later on also electricity.

what you get is a low-torque fast-spinning engine that chokes up on the friction of any power transmission, unless you have insane pressure and low-friction precision transmission which is something you can only do when you've already completed your industrial revolution and then it's still at best an edge-case application.

Early steam engines (before electricity came up), drove a big wheel and used a system of rotating axles and drive belts to bring the power to the machines. Sizing of the wheels over which the belts ran, acted as a transmission. I think, since the Romans mastered crane technology (allowing one man to lift 60x his own weight), which is comarable to transmission technology, they could have come up with the idea too.

 

[malins]

they could have come up with the idea too.

The transmission is not the problem, they had stuff like this

the problem is you are not going to drive this with the "pffff...." minimal torque from an aeolipile.

And in fact the early widespread industrial applications of steam engines ( 1720's onwards) mostly didn't drive wheels (the cycle of the Newcomen engine was very slow, maybe one cycle per 5 seconds or so, and only had one power stroke - the downstroke driven by atmospheric pressure ) ... this was fine for pumping though.

 

[Loxuru]

The transmission is not the problem, they had stuff like this
View attachment 1269306
the problem is you are not going to drive this with the "pffff...." minimal torque from an aeolipile.

And in fact the early widespread industrial applications of steam engines ( 1720's onwards) mostly didn't drive wheels (the cycle of the Newcomen engine was very slow, maybe one cycle per 5 seconds or so, and only had one power stroke - the downstroke driven by atmospheric pressure ) ... this was fine for pumping though.

That's right. But the requirments for driving machines in a weaving or spinning mill, were more stringent. The constant output of the engine became crucial, for a steady working rate. Such was less important in draining a coal mine. That's when James Watt's improvements came into the picture (eg. the 'governor' regulating steam flow rate). Before electricity, the only way to transmit the power of the steam to the engines was a big wheel connected withthese driving belts to the engines. A constant revolution rate of the first wheel was essential.

 

[willowfall]

Part of the conversation that is missing here is that in economies that rely on slave labor have INCENTIVES to stick with the slave labor.

Sometimes it is political -

You have conquered or defeated a group and you want to relocate some (all) of the population you can't just dump them in spot "X" as you'll unbalance the local economy and potentially the power structure if you don't make them a lower class.

You can't leave them in place under their current leadership as that provides resources for the defeated group to try round #2.

Also in a barter economy a defeated society will not have the monetary resources to pay the winner either tribute or 'reparations'. Paying in goods that have to be moved by wagon takes resources the conqueror doesn't want to invest or have whereas self propelled goods (slaves\livestock) can move on their own under guard.

Technology (until recently) generally replaced animal\human power yet in an agrarian society (and virtually all societies were until the period between WWI & II) dislocated human power had to do something to earn a living or it starved to death. Or worse discontent lead to revolts. Technology is only a good thing if the majority of the displaced manpower can be turned into some other useful labor force. Which is something ancient societies lacked.

A scifi writer named H Beam Piper wrote back in the 1960s a short story called "A Slave is a Slave" set in the far future that was centered around some of these issues.

kisses

willowfall

 

[Loxuru]

There could be another political factor. There is discussion among historians, why in China, although technologically advanced on Europe for centuries, there has not been an industrial revolution, using steam power. One strong explanation is that European countries were involved in a competition against each other, while China did not. Europe had spirits that questionned everything there had been : science, philosophy, religion,... China had not. Chinese society sought stability, European progress.
My thought : perhaps, the Roman Empire was in a similar position as China 1800 years later : no competition, no spirits that challenged the system. Roman society had slaves, and no spirits to question slavery as a source of power. Even Christianity could no do so initially : they kept Rome as their capital and simply replaced the Emperor by the Pope. a continuation of what existed. Only when the whole social edifice collapsed, started a new and long search to change and progress.

 

[willowfall]

There could be another political factor. There is discussion among historians, why in China, although technologically advanced on Europe for centuries, there has not been an industrial revolution, using steam power. One strong explanation is that European countries were involved in a competition against each other, while China did not. Europe had spirits that questionned everything there had been : science, philosophy, religion,... China had not. Chinese society sought stability, European progress.
My thought : perhaps, the Roman Empire was in a similar position as China 1800 years later : no competition, no spirits that challenged the system. Roman society had slaves, and no spirits to question slavery as a source of power. Even Christianity could no do so initially : they kept Rome as their capital and simply replaced the Emperor by the Pope. a continuation of what existed. Only when the whole social edifice collapsed, started a new and long search to change and progress.

I've seen that theory before and tend to agree with it.

Competition (for resources, mates, whatever) drives humans forward where as established wealth tends to breed complacency (The first generation makes it, the second enjoys it, the third loses it).

Ancient China had no military competitors (virtually all their wars were internal consolidating the empire) and was (relatively) self-sufficient resource wise. Innovations would only tend to upset the 'order' of things (and the power of those in power).

Rome by the time of Augustus really had no serious competition (military or political) that could threaten the core of the empire. Again was relatively self-sufficient resource wise and other than a vague sense they should be ruling Alexander's old "empire" in Asia there really wasn't anything out there worth fighting over.

Where as Europe as it came out of the "Dark Ages" (a term which is now in discredit) was a hodge-podge of competing polities which also had to fend off an aggressive new "empire" in Islam. Any technological innovation that improved the economy or military could be a serious advantage and since they were all packed together a secret didn't stay a secret for long so you had to get your next edge before the current one was obsolete. The inability for any one power to 'corner the market' kept the cycle going.

Both Rome and China didn't have that pressure.

So to bring it back full cycle to slavery a society either had to destroy the excess conquered population or put them to work (earning their keep as it were) in a subservient position to the conquerors. Also many slaves were also convicts and since they didn't believe in long term incarceration at state expense they were made into slaves. Anything that upset that calculation (and the position of those in power which by the way included ordinary free peoples) would have been discouraged.

Which also brings us back to, at its base, slavery is economic not sexual. Sex is just a side benefit for the owners.

kisses

willowfall

 

[Barbaria1]

I've seen that theory before and tend to agree with it.

Competition (for resources, mates, whatever) drives humans forward where as established wealth tends to breed complacency (The first generation makes it, the second enjoys it, the third loses it).

Ancient China had no military competitors (virtually all their wars were internal consolidating the empire) and was (relatively) self-sufficient resource wise. Innovations would only tend to upset the 'order' of things (and the power of those in power).

Rome by the time of Augustus really had no serious competition (military or political) that could threaten the core of the empire. Again was relatively self-sufficient resource wise and other than a vague sense they should be ruling Alexander's old "empire" in Asia there really wasn't anything out there worth fighting over.

Where as Europe as it came out of the "Dark Ages" (a term which is now in discredit) was a hodge-podge of competing polities which also had to fend off an aggressive new "empire" in Islam. Any technological innovation that improved the economy or military could be a serious advantage and since they were all packed together a secret didn't stay a secret for long so you had to get your next edge before the current one was obsolete. The inability for any one power to 'corner the market' kept the cycle going.

Both Rome and China didn't have that pressure.

So to bring it back full cycle to slavery a society either had to destroy the excess conquered population or put them to work (earning their keep as it were) in a subservient position to the conquerors. Also many slaves were also convicts and since they didn't believe in long term incarceration at state expense they were made into slaves. Anything that upset that calculation (and the position of those in power which by the way included ordinary free peoples) would have been discouraged.

Which also brings us back to, at its base, slavery is economic not sexual. Sex is just a side benefit for the owners.

kisses

willowfall

So how does Nazi Germany’s WWII dependence on slave labor (Russian POWs, Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, nationals from occupied countries, etc.) fit into this? Is it different as a form of political repression, economic necessity for an embattled state, racism, or what? Or does it fit into the understanding stated above?

 

[Loxuru]

So how does Nazi Germany’s WWII dependence on slave labor (Russian POWs, Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, nationals from occupied countries, etc.) fit into this? Is it different as a form of political repression, economic necessity for an embattled state, racism, or what? Or does it fit into the understanding stated above?

POW's and captives from conquered contries have always been used for forced labour, for the specific war needs of their captors.
Basically, in Nazi germany, they were state slaves, 'leased' to private companies, sometimes. But these slaves built among the most advanced weapons Germany had developed, such as ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, jet fighters, etc..; This slave labour was rather a makeshift solution to replace the millions of workers drafted by the army, in a specific need of a war economy. Slave labour in the German war industry became a prominent and efficient system, after Albert Speer became minister of industry, and reorganised it, leading to a quadrupling of the production. So, the context was totally different.

 

[willowfall]

So how does Nazi Germany’s WWII dependence on slave labor (Russian POWs, Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, nationals from occupied countries, etc.) fit into this? Is it different as a form of political repression, economic necessity for an embattled state, racism, or what? Or does it fit into the understanding stated above?

A couple of different things at work here. POWs are a completely separate category. Under international law POWs can be put to work (but not in a directly military related occupation) as long as they are "paid". So for example Axis prisoners in both the US and Canada were used as agricultural laborers in those countries during WWII. Also historically (and the Romans did this) POWs could be enlisted in your military. In most cases however those units would be used far away from their homeland to prevent them from defecting back. (An interesting historical side note is there was always a tale about 2 Roman legions being captured during one of the various "Persian Empire" wars and shipped to the eastern end of that empire to serve as military colonists. It was poopooed for a long time until recent genetic studies showed a large amount of Mediterranean DNA in indigenous populations in Asia and western China.)

In Nazi Germany the slave labor was used (as pointed out by Loxuru) to replace native labor that had been conscripted into the military. To give an idea of Germany's manpower problem both the US and USSR put about 12 million men under arms. On a much smaller population base Germany put some 11 million under arms including in 1944 and 45 young teenagers. There was just no one left to do the manual labor that accompanies even a hi tech industrial society. Also Germany was NOT as efficiently industrialized as say the US or even the UK. Where as the US produced so many trucks they could not only provide for their own needs but also their allies (Most Soviet trucks were build in the US or UK). Even at the end of the war Germany was still dependent of horses to move most of its supplies and some of its artillery.

kisses

willowfall

 

[RacingRodent]

Also historically (and the Romans did this) POWs could be enlisted in your military. In most cases however those units would be used far away from their homeland to prevent them from defecting back.

This sort of thing happened at least as late as 1756 when Frederick the Great conscripted defeated soldiers of Saxony to form 10 regiments under Prussian officers. However as you pointed out if they had the native lingo they had the opportunity to desert, which opportunity most of these reluctant Prussians availed themselves of.

 

[Loxuru]

There was just no one left to do the manual labor that accompanies even a hi tech industrial society. Also Germany was NOT as efficiently industrialized as say the US or even the UK.

Furthermore, because of ideological concerns, the Nazi views on the role of women in society, Germany was much more reluctant to employ women in industrial production than e.g. the UK and the US to replace the men at the front.

 

[malins]

So how does Nazi Germany’s WWII dependence on slave labor (Russian POWs, Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, nationals from occupied countries, etc.) fit into this?

Another thing to consider is ... Roman slavery was part of an economic system that lasted for many many generations.

Unsustainable in the very long term (over a number of centuries) due to diminishing returns ... when the effort of acquiring new slaves exceeded the profit they'd generate.

The economy of Nazi Germany on the other hand was a bonfire combusting resources & people (others and its own) - in the beginning of the war, with the hope that victory would pay back everything, as the war became clearly unwinnable just a desperate attempt to uphold the system a little longer. In fact even the Nazi economy as it was before they began hostilities, would have led to a rather quick financial collapse, which was one of the reasons why the leadership saw a very slim window of opportunity to start their war.

 

[willowfall]

Another thing to consider is ... Roman slavery was part of an economic system that lasted for many many generations.

Unsustainable in the very long term (over a number of centuries) due to diminishing returns ... when the effort of acquiring new slaves exceeded the profit they'd generate.

I believe, based on my readings (and some actual experience), that slavery was actually a very sustainable institution until the industrial revolution got into full swing.

For example in the production of cotton in America it was picked by hand and then the fibers were separated from the seeds by hand. Extremely low skill labor intensive (one reason why cotton was not a yeoman farm product). Along comes the cotton gin and BAM you have a machine doing the labor of dozens of workers, doesn't get sick and doesn't need a day off to recuperate. Then they invent the mechanical cotton picker and more laborers are out of work.

In my own experience I have used horses to plow fields and harvest corn. The miracle of the 2 bottom sulky plow pulled by a team horses allowed a farmer to put a lot more land into crops cultivation than they could using a single bottom plow pulled by a single horse (or ox or humans). The same thing with a corn harvester. A single harvester can do in minutes (cutting and binding the corn into bundles) what might take a 10 person crew a couple of hours to do.

And the above are 19th century inventions, so it took 1500 years to move agricultural technology significantly beyond what Ancient cultures were capable of and start to replace manpower with mechanical power in agriculture (the worlds biggest industry at that time).

Then of course there is labor issue. Prior to WWI (and even somewhat WWII) even in the western world most people were involved as labor in agriculture. And often a 'farm worker' and their family(s) lived with the farmer as part of their compensation. The difference between a 'farmer' and a 'farm laborer' was who had the ability to own land, not a level of skill or knowledge. Realistically the difference between a pre-modern employee and a slave was whether or not one could leave your employment or not. The "costs" were not significantly different.

What made slavery unviable (it might viable today except for morality, example migrant farm workers in the US are a mobile paid unskilled labor force, other than morality what keeps them from being slaves?) is western liberal philosophical evolution. And even that was a matter of convenience. For example the British love to point out that slavery was made illegal in the UK in 1772 and take that as a moral high ground. The inconvenient fact they (often) leave out is that slavery was not abolished in the less "civilized" parts of the Empire until the 1830s. Barely 30 years before it's demise in the US.

The history of officially sanctioned economic slavery stretches back before the dawn of recorded human history. Its existence and usage is multiples in length of time of the relatively recent attempts (say 200 or so years) to outlaw it world wide.

kisses

willowfall