Challenge: Industrial Revolution in Ancient Greece

A little known (the world in general) fact is that the Ancient Greeks had created complex machinery. They built a rig for raising and lowering actors onto stages. Priests used one to part people from their money. It was only a matter of time before some enterprising Greek, likely a stagehand, tried to applying the concept to a more productive endeavor.

However, the Romans, not seeing anything particularly useful about these machines, destroyed them, setting progress back a thousand years.

What would it take to give the Greeks enough time to discover the industrial value of the machine, and what would its effects be? Bonus points if it also includes the steam engine.
 
The first and most crucial ingridient is a radical change in the way Greek Thinking and culture operates . Secondly , Slavery was a massive disincentive to Industrialisation . By removing the Bottlenecks in resources that was a strong incentive for the industrial revolution in OTL Europe through an abundance of cheap and free labour , the incentive to develop into an economy resembling an Industiral one by our standards were greatly diminished .

The Greeks do not need time , but rather a change in thinking . ( Ok , enough time for the sufficient cultural and socio-economic changes to allow for their inventions to go beyond mere curiousities ).

The main reason why the Romans failed to build upon the Greeks Achievements was because there was NO PRESSURE for them do so . Why bother investing decades or centuries in perfecting Steam Power whose potentials would take decades to be even conceived of( Which Europe took , ) when there's an abundance of cheap labour to do the dirty work?
It is a very long leap from a prototype steam engine to Steam Engines for Mines to the Railroad . While the advantages might seem obvious with the benefit of hindsight , without it , it would take massive sustained Stimulus and prolonged Bottlenecks in resources for the Steam Engine to be as widely used as say , 19th Century Victorian England or Late 19th Century Germany .

On a related note , we might as well also ask why the Chinese Did not industrialise before Europe , despite having such a massive Technological headstart at the dawn of the 15th Century .
 
Its not just machine tech either, its agricultural advances that decrease the amount of labor needed to feed populations (ie the end of subsistance farming), and increase urban populations. Also the commercial/legal framework that encourage the creation of business. And don't forget political sophistication that allows the above to occur.
 
The first and most crucial ingridient is a radical change in the way Greek Thinking and culture operates . Secondly , Slavery was a massive disincentive to Industrialisation . By removing the Bottlenecks in resources that was a strong incentive for the industrial revolution in OTL Europe through an abundance of cheap and free labour , the incentive to develop into an economy resembling an Industiral one by our standards were greatly diminished.

Slavery was still prevalent, albeit on the decline, when the Industrial Revolution occurred in OTL, so Greek slavery couldn't be the sum cause. The cotton gin did revitalize slavery in the US after all.
 
Slavery was still prevalent, albeit on the decline, when the Industrial Revolution occurred in OTL, so Greek slavery couldn't be the sum cause. The cotton gin did revitalize slavery in the US after all.

Not White European Enslavement on maninland Europe itself .Any attempts to trace the roots of the European Industrial revolution would require an examination of the Socio-Economic Circumstances of 17th to 18th Century Europe , not America ( ofcourse , that does not mean that American Bullion and resources were not crucial too). And secondly , many of the inventions that did led to the industrial revolution could have never ever been developed ( Steam power comes to mind) without the unique set of cultural mentalities and Socio-Economic Circumstances that actually created the incentive .

Think of it this way: Why would I want to take a huge gamble and spend enormous resources and decades in developing Steam Power to do the job if a slave could do it far more cheaply and with far more ( Aparrent mind you ) reliabily?

I'm not arguing Slavery as a Sole Cause . Culture has a massive effect too . It must be understood that the Greek Mindset is extremely removed from the Modern way of thinking . Explaining it is going to be a little difficult for me , so , this link might be of interest.
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/HeroAndLoon.htm
 
There's no real chance for the Greeks to industrialize unless you kill off Aristotle, and remove the dependence on slavery. In many ways the first century of industrialization was less efficient than a slave economy. And with a thriving slave-based economy the Greco-Roman world would not adopt a less efficient method.

Also the Greeks did not have the math to optimize the outputs of steam engines or most other machines. Culturally they stuck to geometry and a fear of the void, and without the concepts of zero and infinity there was no way to get the higher math that demanded it. The only way that I could see to get towards that is to kill off Aristotle and let the rival theories fight it out throughout the Hellenistic Age. Perhaps then Archimedes or a later mathematician would then continue his work on inscribing areas and infinite sums without Aristotelean influence.
 
ewribody gets stuck on that acient greek steam engine thing, wich is silly
in acient times, just as in the 18th/19th centurry the cheapest way to get usefull labour done by machines is simple kinetic water or wind power

the first mechanised textile factiories were hidro powered, like water mills

greeks could use more windmill power

but simply to get to a point at wich they even consider this so many things are necesary that the source of power or available tehnology is the last thing anione should worry about
first you need to drastically change greek economy, then increase the need for manufactured goods, then increase the production of manufactured goods to the point when someone starts thinking of a way to make the job easier or faster by using tehnology, then get someone to make the idea of a mechanical contraption as something really usefull in a economic sence, videly known, and before all that happens a few centuries of sociall development are necesary

maybe a plague that decimates the avalable labor pool could help, or a diferent economic/demografic situation in greek colonies
 
Did the Greeks have banks? Without a banking system, prospective industrialists cannot be loaned the capital to experiment with new inventions.
 
Did the Greeks have banks? Without a banking system, prospective industrialists cannot be loaned the capital to experiment with new inventions.

They did, but the business was hardly as sophisticated as medieval or early modern banking. Not to mention the factthat the most important collateral on loans - land and family members - could be lost to the lender through political pressure in most states. Property rights were not as secure in the polis state as they were in the kingdoms of early modern Europe.
 
First, Greeks need to accept that zero does exist so they can do the algebra that is necessary for complex engineering.
 
First, Greeks need to accept that zero does exist so they can do the algebra that is necessary for complex engineering.

Pythagoras seems to have done quite well. Thing is, you don't need terribly complex mathematics to industrialise. It helps, but at the point where it becomes a necessity, you already have a heavily industrialised socioety.
 
Yes, that's true. Basic industrialization could occur using only the geometric kind of mathematics that the Greeks used. However, the process would be held back as long as the existence of zero was denied. I suppose you could argue that industrialization might provide the catalyst which induces reform in traditional Greek approaches to mathematics.
 
I don't think the math is necessary to get going. People have created a lot of new things with out really understanding the math behind it. It's a lot slower without the proper math, but very much possible.

I agree with most everyone on the slavery bit. The other thing really needed is better metallurgy. Stronger metals to take the stress of machines.

One of the most interesting things about the dark ages is how the constant warfare advanced metallurgy to the point of the Industrial Revolution.
 
They did, but the business was hardly as sophisticated as medieval or early modern banking. Not to mention the factthat the most important collateral on loans - land and family members - could be lost to the lender through political pressure in most states. Property rights were not as secure in the polis state as they were in the kingdoms of early modern Europe.

Did this change by the Roman era? I could've sworn I read a paper recently that argued that Rome's banking system was at least as advanced as the medieval era.
 
Did this change by the Roman era? I could've sworn I read a paper recently that argued that Rome's banking system was at least as advanced as the medieval era.

I suspect Classicists tend to underestimate the complexity and efficiency of late medieval banking. But yes, this did change - Hellenistic and Roman banking already was a great deal more sophisticated than the fairly straighforward classical model. In the world of the polic, it was close to impossible to build truly cross-border structures the way that the bankers of Hellenistic rulers and the knights of Rome could. Someone like Herod Atticus or Marcus Crassus would have been inconceivable in Pericles' Athens.
 

Ak-84

Banned
Greeks could not have had an industrial revolution any more than the Tang or the Abassiad Arabs, each who was more scientifically advanced than them.

Making a ball rotate due to steam is one thing, indeed the power of steam was known to many one, translating that into a railway, or even a machine which can undertake useful applications is a big step, and they needed to have knowledge in many more fields then what they did . Metallurgy is one, reduction gears is another, thermodynamics, the various pressure law etc.
 
Greeks could not have had an industrial revolution any more than the Tang or the Abassiad Arabs, each who was more scientifically advanced than them.

Making a ball rotate due to steam is one thing, indeed the power of steam was known to many one, translating that into a railway, or even a machine which can undertake useful applications is a big step, and they needed to have knowledge in many more fields then what they did . Metallurgy is one, reduction gears is another, thermodynamics, the various pressure law etc.

I never actually said that using the steam engine was needed for the challenge, merely that it would be a good bonus.
 
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