Hadrian's Consolidation - reboot
- Thread starter Hecatee
- Start date
Hecatee
Donor
it's threadmarked, and here is a copyFair enough. I'll just have to find the latest map then.
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Alauna Civitas, Caledonia, April 250
Hecatee
Donor
Alauna Civitas, Caledonia, April 250
The storm raged against the stone walls of the houses of Alauna Civitas : rain fell from the sky and caused rivers to appear in the streets, and even hailstones hit the roofs from time to time. Chimneys belched smoke, the inhabitants trying to keep warm despite the unseasonably cold weather which made the farmers anxious for their crops.
In one house however the warmth in the room made it comfortable and dry. Titus Prigonus Cicero, the great-grand son of the famous defender of the town in the time of the divine Marcus Aurelius, enjoyed the heat coming from his newly devised stove.
Prigonos Cicero had not only inherited a name and lands from his glorious ancestor, but also a passion for tinkering and inventing that had led him to become a machinator. He’d followed the civilian career for a number of years before retiring to his domain in Caledonia. The rugged landscape had always appealed to him, and the house he had in town was his favourite property despite the fact he had a nice villa a day’s walk to the south of town.
His latest invention was derived from work his friend Titus Aelius Alauda had done on furnaces for his famous automobile, except his was not going to move anytime soon… Made of cast iron, it was an efficient design that limited smoke inside the house, required less fuel that traditional fireplaces and provided more heat by creating a longer path for the cold air that could thus gather more heat and bring the temperature to more comfortable heights.
This was in fact his third prototype, and by far the most efficient. His neighbors had noticed that the tiles of his roof had been the only ones in town not to get frosted or covered in snow and in fact two tavern owners had come and bought his first, less efficient prototypes to heat their great rooms.
Sensing an opportunity, Prigonus Cicero had already ordered the necessary pieces for two dozen more stoves from a number of local smiths and he’d also sent letters to his former colleagues currently serving tours in the region to extol the merits of his invention, those being mainly the lesser need for fuel and the much better diffusion of warmth due to both the circuit of air and the cast iron’s own properties. His cook had also noticed that it was also very good to cook either directly on the iron or in cast iron pots and pans set on top of the stove.
In fact he could just smell the next meal being readied, a hearty soup. Really the next version should have a oven to prepare fresh bread and other recipes… He’d create this special kitchen variant, it would certainly also become an instant hit…
The storm raged against the stone walls of the houses of Alauna Civitas : rain fell from the sky and caused rivers to appear in the streets, and even hailstones hit the roofs from time to time. Chimneys belched smoke, the inhabitants trying to keep warm despite the unseasonably cold weather which made the farmers anxious for their crops.
In one house however the warmth in the room made it comfortable and dry. Titus Prigonus Cicero, the great-grand son of the famous defender of the town in the time of the divine Marcus Aurelius, enjoyed the heat coming from his newly devised stove.
Prigonos Cicero had not only inherited a name and lands from his glorious ancestor, but also a passion for tinkering and inventing that had led him to become a machinator. He’d followed the civilian career for a number of years before retiring to his domain in Caledonia. The rugged landscape had always appealed to him, and the house he had in town was his favourite property despite the fact he had a nice villa a day’s walk to the south of town.
His latest invention was derived from work his friend Titus Aelius Alauda had done on furnaces for his famous automobile, except his was not going to move anytime soon… Made of cast iron, it was an efficient design that limited smoke inside the house, required less fuel that traditional fireplaces and provided more heat by creating a longer path for the cold air that could thus gather more heat and bring the temperature to more comfortable heights.
This was in fact his third prototype, and by far the most efficient. His neighbors had noticed that the tiles of his roof had been the only ones in town not to get frosted or covered in snow and in fact two tavern owners had come and bought his first, less efficient prototypes to heat their great rooms.
Sensing an opportunity, Prigonus Cicero had already ordered the necessary pieces for two dozen more stoves from a number of local smiths and he’d also sent letters to his former colleagues currently serving tours in the region to extol the merits of his invention, those being mainly the lesser need for fuel and the much better diffusion of warmth due to both the circuit of air and the cast iron’s own properties. His cook had also noticed that it was also very good to cook either directly on the iron or in cast iron pots and pans set on top of the stove.
In fact he could just smell the next meal being readied, a hearty soup. Really the next version should have a oven to prepare fresh bread and other recipes… He’d create this special kitchen variant, it would certainly also become an instant hit…
The next revolution to come will be in the area of cooking and cuisine, I see...
Hecatee
Donor
More of a kind of Franklin stove (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_stove) which has the unexpected added benefice of greatly reducing fuel needed, and thus helps prevent a degree of deforestation, an important thing in many areas of the empire. We know from, amongst other, inscriptions in Lebanon that the Emperors had a direct hand in the management of the empire's wood stock, the spreading of this invention (and of the idea that one can revolution fireplace !) will thus be of great importance to the Empire's economy.
A more efficient stove is going to open up the north eastern frontier a little bit easier, makes the eastern European winters a bit easier to withstand
Derek Pullem
Donor
Wouldn't some bright spark think of hooking one of these up to an existing hypocaust? A bit like a prototype Aga / Rayburn
Hecatee
Donor
Yes certainly, and possibly even go all the way to heated bath tub using lead plumbing set inside the massonry , I mean you got a few thousand men in the empire whose job it is to invent this kind of applications and make them.widely availlable. One big advantaged of fast information transmition and.slow merchandises transport is less commercial competition and more prestige competition, thus less reasons to hide one's accomplishments. No patents here... and no desire for them either !
Just the near perfect situation 4 the continuous improvement of scientific thinking and new and improved technology! I really love @Hecatee how you show the gradual improvement of the everyday life of the Roman empire and it's the people
Amazing job!!!
SuperZtar64
Banned
What's the Roman economy like in AD 250?
In AD 150, the Roman GDP was approximately $85 billion USD, any estimates as to the Roman GDP now? GDP per capita? Has it risen at all?
What about the population of the empire?
In AD 150, the Roman GDP was approximately $85 billion USD, any estimates as to the Roman GDP now? GDP per capita? Has it risen at all?
What about the population of the empire?
Hecatee
Donor
I'm no expert and I'm currently in Austria for a conference so I don't have all my sources at hand, also working on my tablet I could not find previous discussions of population earlier in the thread, but I'd say that the population is now around 85 to 90 millions. Multiples reasons for that :
- lots more territories for the Empire than OTL
- about one century of growth since OTL peak population of around 70 millions inhabitants
- better medical care in urban context leading to somewhat improved children survival rate
- better agricultural methods allow the support of a larger population
As for GDP it is totaly outside of my competence to calculate one but it has certainly risen due to a larger population and the improvement of river and canal trade and the introduction of numerous production improvements. Also there is a much better circulation of money (less thesaurisation) and no 3rd century crisis... : GDP could well flirt with 100 billion $ if not more
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Tabularium, Rome, July 252
Hecatee
Donor
Tabularium, Rome, July 252
Time had come, there was no way around it. All of the office of the Censors knew it and dreaded it. An immense amount of work had been invested in it during half a decade and had delivered an enormous amount of documentation. Now that the first copy of the final report was there in front of the assembled clerks no one seemed to want to touch it by fear of damaging or loosing it.
The office of the censors had become a permanent institution almost a century earlier, after Titus Manlius Caledonius, a man from the era of the divine Marcus Aurelius that those in this office honoured with a respect bordering on the deification, had proven time and again that good information helped deliver good decisions.
This meant that the Census, formerly the collection of data on all the citizens of the empire for tax assessment and voting purpose, had been enlarged and the staff in charge of it had become a permanent entity although the censors themselves, all former consul ordinarius serving in pairs, rotated every five year, at the delivery of the new census to the emperor.
The importance of the task had grown so crucial that five new quaestorships had also been created, one year positions for men wanting to enter the Senate, enlarging the pool of candidates for the higher functions.
One of them was responsible for the collection of the birth and death registers, an innovation thirty year old which collected the data at the district level : every birth and dead, even of stillborn children, even of slaves, had to be communicated.
The information about the name of the parents, their age, their status, the month of the birth and the status of the child was registered in a roll to be kept at the local archive. Once a year, in mid september, a copy was sent to the pagus with a global summary of all the births and death of the year, with a summary by age category and another one by status of the persons born or dead.
In the pagus the local reports would be bundled and summarized in a table of which a copy would be kept locally and published while another copy would be sent to the province no later than mid-october. Yet, although the official report was yearly, every pagus magistrate knew that it was better to collect data once a month, both to compare with the yearly records and to be able to answer should a district record be lost to any cause : this way there were not too many discrepanties of the records.
At the provincial level new summaries would be made and sent to the diocesis capital where one of the quaestors affected to each vicarius would make sure to have all the data collected by mid-november. Of course some diocesian quaestors had more work than other, but with less than 150 provinces for 17 diocesis none was overwhelmed… Most of the work had already been done at the lower level by the pagus authorities !
There the data was once more summarized but also included into larger tables showing the trends for the diocesis using all the data collected since the beginning of the available records. The clerks in charge of the work had some time as the reports had to be ready for march and the end of the quaestor’s mandate. Given the time necessary for the travel, the 17 diocesian reports arrived only in April in Rome, where the final compilation happened.
Another one of the new quaestor of the tabularium was in charge of a second important report which made the tally of public buildings and private dwellings. The chain of reporting was similar to the one for population, with each district sending a tally of the buildings, by category, present in the territory with a triple classification with regard to the size of the building, its occupation and its condition : was it new (less than five years old), in good repair, derelict or ruined ?
The report was important because it allowed the procurator rei machinatorum and the magistrates to intervene when a district or a pagus showed too many empty, derelict or ruined buildings. It was also used when the emperor had to decide whether or not to allay taxes for a certain period following a catastrophe, and it allowed Rome to see whether reconstructions efforts were going well after such an event.
A third quaestor was in charge of the mapping effort. His task was to keep up to date maps of each province for the use of the central administration. New roads and new towns had to appear, as well as record of how many vici and city there were in each district. Slowly the nature of maps had evolved, getting more precise thanks to the work of dedicated geometer in the staff of each procurator rei machinatorum.
Experiments in how to accurately depict a territory had given birth to new types of representations which showed forests, mountains, settlements, rivers and roads and used code to describe other features such as the potential navigability of opportunity to ford, seasonal or permanent, of a given river. Those codes had slowly been standardized across the provinces, and new concepts such as keys to maps had been developed. This departement of the census office was highly sought after because the Emperors were usually most interested in the production of the service.
The two other quaestors attached to the office were in charge respectively of the tax statistics, which worked a lot with other departments and the officials in charge of tax collection in the provinces, and of the production of the main report and keeping of archives, who directed a number of scribes who made sure older documents were copied before they crumbled into dust and made the new report.
Called the Chronicon censorum, it was the sum of the work of all those magistrates and their staff and gave the emperor an idea of the state of the empire. A side business had also appeared with copies of the Chronicon being made available for sale, with a number of scribes dedicated to the task of reproducing it. Senators and members of the equestrian order would then bid to get the available copies, the most fresh a Chronicon being the most useful it was for those who wanted to explore new markets and business opportunities…
For the state it was a great business because the proceed from the sales more than covered the cost of operating the Tabularium, ensuring the staff got an extra bonus money and that the state got an splendid tool available.
Time had come, there was no way around it. All of the office of the Censors knew it and dreaded it. An immense amount of work had been invested in it during half a decade and had delivered an enormous amount of documentation. Now that the first copy of the final report was there in front of the assembled clerks no one seemed to want to touch it by fear of damaging or loosing it.
The office of the censors had become a permanent institution almost a century earlier, after Titus Manlius Caledonius, a man from the era of the divine Marcus Aurelius that those in this office honoured with a respect bordering on the deification, had proven time and again that good information helped deliver good decisions.
This meant that the Census, formerly the collection of data on all the citizens of the empire for tax assessment and voting purpose, had been enlarged and the staff in charge of it had become a permanent entity although the censors themselves, all former consul ordinarius serving in pairs, rotated every five year, at the delivery of the new census to the emperor.
The importance of the task had grown so crucial that five new quaestorships had also been created, one year positions for men wanting to enter the Senate, enlarging the pool of candidates for the higher functions.
One of them was responsible for the collection of the birth and death registers, an innovation thirty year old which collected the data at the district level : every birth and dead, even of stillborn children, even of slaves, had to be communicated.
The information about the name of the parents, their age, their status, the month of the birth and the status of the child was registered in a roll to be kept at the local archive. Once a year, in mid september, a copy was sent to the pagus with a global summary of all the births and death of the year, with a summary by age category and another one by status of the persons born or dead.
In the pagus the local reports would be bundled and summarized in a table of which a copy would be kept locally and published while another copy would be sent to the province no later than mid-october. Yet, although the official report was yearly, every pagus magistrate knew that it was better to collect data once a month, both to compare with the yearly records and to be able to answer should a district record be lost to any cause : this way there were not too many discrepanties of the records.
At the provincial level new summaries would be made and sent to the diocesis capital where one of the quaestors affected to each vicarius would make sure to have all the data collected by mid-november. Of course some diocesian quaestors had more work than other, but with less than 150 provinces for 17 diocesis none was overwhelmed… Most of the work had already been done at the lower level by the pagus authorities !
There the data was once more summarized but also included into larger tables showing the trends for the diocesis using all the data collected since the beginning of the available records. The clerks in charge of the work had some time as the reports had to be ready for march and the end of the quaestor’s mandate. Given the time necessary for the travel, the 17 diocesian reports arrived only in April in Rome, where the final compilation happened.
Another one of the new quaestor of the tabularium was in charge of a second important report which made the tally of public buildings and private dwellings. The chain of reporting was similar to the one for population, with each district sending a tally of the buildings, by category, present in the territory with a triple classification with regard to the size of the building, its occupation and its condition : was it new (less than five years old), in good repair, derelict or ruined ?
The report was important because it allowed the procurator rei machinatorum and the magistrates to intervene when a district or a pagus showed too many empty, derelict or ruined buildings. It was also used when the emperor had to decide whether or not to allay taxes for a certain period following a catastrophe, and it allowed Rome to see whether reconstructions efforts were going well after such an event.
A third quaestor was in charge of the mapping effort. His task was to keep up to date maps of each province for the use of the central administration. New roads and new towns had to appear, as well as record of how many vici and city there were in each district. Slowly the nature of maps had evolved, getting more precise thanks to the work of dedicated geometer in the staff of each procurator rei machinatorum.
Experiments in how to accurately depict a territory had given birth to new types of representations which showed forests, mountains, settlements, rivers and roads and used code to describe other features such as the potential navigability of opportunity to ford, seasonal or permanent, of a given river. Those codes had slowly been standardized across the provinces, and new concepts such as keys to maps had been developed. This departement of the census office was highly sought after because the Emperors were usually most interested in the production of the service.
The two other quaestors attached to the office were in charge respectively of the tax statistics, which worked a lot with other departments and the officials in charge of tax collection in the provinces, and of the production of the main report and keeping of archives, who directed a number of scribes who made sure older documents were copied before they crumbled into dust and made the new report.
Called the Chronicon censorum, it was the sum of the work of all those magistrates and their staff and gave the emperor an idea of the state of the empire. A side business had also appeared with copies of the Chronicon being made available for sale, with a number of scribes dedicated to the task of reproducing it. Senators and members of the equestrian order would then bid to get the available copies, the most fresh a Chronicon being the most useful it was for those who wanted to explore new markets and business opportunities…
For the state it was a great business because the proceed from the sales more than covered the cost of operating the Tabularium, ensuring the staff got an extra bonus money and that the state got an splendid tool available.
Derek Pullem
Donor
OK - now we have a prima facie NEED for duplication. How long till the first printing presses?
Woodblock printing should be known from the Roman contacts in Serica - perhaps an early introduction as a duplication method for key documents. Not moveable type as such but it won't be long before someone joins the dots (literally).
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with all this information being collected at the lower levels I wouldn't be surprised if merchants aren't trying to get it at the provincial level like the senators are at the imperial level. That kind of information would be just as valuable to an ambitious merchant trying to expand in his local area.
Glyndwr01
Banned
Sound like it's time for movable type and printing to be invented?
A stone mason after carving some letters in a stone block has a clumsy worker tip molten lead into the carvings and the letters that are cast amuse him and he gives them to his children to play with, who stamp out letters with some ink they "find".
A stone mason after carving some letters in a stone block has a clumsy worker tip molten lead into the carvings and the letters that are cast amuse him and he gives them to his children to play with, who stamp out letters with some ink they "find".
Hecatee
Donor
Yes, the idea is very near, the main issues are ink and paper. Printing on papyrus is not really good, and parchment would be very, very costly... Also it is my understanding that plant-based ancient ink may not be the best to print either.
Note that we've already had the idea of printing blocks tested earlier in the timeline, but it has not spread (yet).
You can bet on it !
Except the letters would then be "in the wrong direction"...
