Effects of a Roman Industrial Revolution

cw1865

Trade with the East

Hrmm. Is there any evidence that the trade with India was so extensive? Rome did export some things; wine, art, etc. And it has plenty of silver lying around; Dacia, Bohemia, and Germany (where it didnt' get to it OTL).

Apparently there is an historical reference to Roman Senators bemoaning the flow of gold to the East. In Pliny's Historiae Naturae: "India, China and the Arabian peninsula take one hundred million sesterces from our empire per annum at a conservative estimate: that is what our luxuries and women cost us. For what percentage of these imports is intended for sacrifices to the gods or the spirits of the dead?"

The problem with the Roman Empire develop the stream engine are one; fuel.

They had access to and did utilize coal using it obviously to heat water.

They might invent the steam engine, but would their society do anything with it?

I would postulate that the steam engine would've been invented to drain mines or to turn a mill that isn't running due to low water. If its invented with a purpose in mind, then its more likely to take hold.

Invention per se isn't all that important.

But it is obviously the condition precedent.

Afaik, the Japanese never invented steam engines or the like, but that didn't stop them copying European ones after learning of their existence in the 19C. By contrast, Turkey was right next door to Europe but made next to no use of the innovations there.

But Britain DID....I see no true fundamental differences in human productive potential between Classical Antiquity and Renaissance Europe [Late Antiquity/Dark Ages you see a marked decrease in living standards in Western Europe]. With the exception of gunpowder and firearms, the Europeans are doing NOTHING in 1600 that the Romans weren't capable of.

Is there any reason to suppose that there were fewer Turkish geniuses than European ones? Given that Medieval Islam had led the world in chemistry, astronomy, metallurgy and much else besides, there seems no reason to think so. More likely, the geniuses existed but just found no "market" for their ideas. Similarly, Chinese were (and are) probably just as bright as Japs, but 19C China didn't do what 19C Japan did. Industrialisation just didn't suit the vested interests there. Would the vested interests in Rome have been any different?

I think so, at the end of the day, the Roman state had the burden of protecting its frontiers. Rome fails because at the end of the day it simply cannot sustain this burden. By industrializing and increasing output per worker, the burden of defense becomes much easier for a society to bear.

You can see this when comparing Medieval land schemes (Knight's fees) with modern defense budgets. The US defense budget is very large, but as a total percent of GDP in 2000 (prior to the current conflicts) was around 3% of GDP. Compare this to medieval England: "A free peasant paid for field work around the same period could expect around 3d per day, or a much as £3-4 in a year, meaning that a knight's fee was about three to five times more than a peasant's average income." This is an ENORMOUS burden on a society.

With respect to the Turks, please read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_the_Ottoman_Empire#19th_Century

In comparison to Britain and the other European powers, the Ottoman Empire was known obviously as the 'Sick Man' because their overall productive potential did not reach the heights that they did in Britain or even in France. But when compared to pre-industrial societies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman–Saudi_War

The Turks were actually quite formidable.

Britain conquers something like 25% of the world's surface based on the productive potential of an island. All the Romans need to do is to keep the barbarians on the other side of the Rhine and the Danube. The scale of that problem is MUCH smaller in comparison to the power that Britain was able to exert. Even if Rome is able to reduce its agricultural work force by 10% and they are better able to harness the productive potential of their urban areas, that alone would have a major impact on the Roman/Barbarian conflicts.

"By the end of Augustus' reign, the imperial army numbered some 250,000 men, equally split between legionaries and auxiliaries 25 legions and ca. 250 auxiliary regiments). The numbers grew to a peak of about 450,000 by 211"
 
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Apparently there is an historical reference to Roman Senators bemoaning the flow of gold to the East. In Pliny's Historiae Naturae: "India, China and the Arabian peninsula take one hundred million sesterces from our empire per annum at a conservative estimate: that is what our luxuries and women cost us. For what percentage of these imports is intended for sacrifices to the gods or the spirits of the dead?"

I am not suerre whether Pliny''s moralism is an accurate indicator of an economic problem. For that matter, a gold drain to India isn't necessarily goign to cause deflation. Look at how much silver China sucked up in the 16th to 18th centuries, when Europe's currency base expanded
 

cw1865

Trade Deficit

I am not suerre whether Pliny''s moralism is an accurate indicator of an economic problem. For that matter, a gold drain to India isn't necessarily goign to cause deflation. Look at how much silver China sucked up in the 16th to 18th centuries, when Europe's currency base expanded

Well, Pliny apparently was of the opinion that trading gold for see-through silk for Roman women was not a good idea! I'm only citing it to show that indeed there was trade with India, at least Pliny indicates that its somewhat extensive. An advocate of the Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith) would suggest that focusing on the balance of trade is foolish.

Believe it or not we have this debate today, is the trade deficit that the US experiences a 'bad' thing?

Of course, Pliny could just be throwing a number out there to exaggerate to make his point.

Humanity's gold lust is a funny thing. And you're right, the side sending gold bullion out should experience a relative deflation and the side getting the gold should experience an inflation. Of course, the Romans experience in actuality an INFLATION, but mostly caused by debasing the coinage (the metallic standard equivalent of 'printing money')

They have found a fair number of Roman coins in India and apparently enough of them were in circulation there to influence how the Indians struck their own coins.
 
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I am not suerre whether Pliny''s moralism is an accurate indicator of an economic problem. For that matter, a gold drain to India isn't necessarily goign to cause deflation. Look at how much silver China sucked up in the 16th to 18th centuries, when Europe's currency base expanded

Most of that silver came out of mines in Spanish America. Rome doesn't have access to that.

And India wasn't the only place to which specie was flowing from the Western Empire (and when we talk of the "Fall of Rome," it is the Western Empire we are talking about, as the Eastern Empire continued for nearly 1,000 years afterward), although it was the only example I cited in the OP. Others were...

1) There was a huge trade in frankincense and myrrh from Southern Arabia, which were used in large quantities in religious rites all over the Roman Empire. Every time somebody made his required sacrifice to the Emperor, frankincense and myrrh were burned. It was also burned during funeral rites in order to mask the smell of burning corpses. It also was used in the making of perfume which was widely used among the upper classes. This was, again, a situation where the trade was mostly paid for in specie, creating a specie deficit.

2) There was a specie deficit between the Eastern and Western halves of the Empire itself. The west imported luxury goods from the Eastern Empire and paid for them largely in specie, since it did not produce goods which were of equal value which it could trade on a one-to-one basis.

And there were other examples.

Of course, the debasement of the coinage had other causes and was not entirely the result of these specie deficits. One major cause was the need to increase the money in circulation in order to pay for an expansion of the armies to meet the threat of the Sassanids and the Goths in the Third Century.

When I mentioned India, I didn't say it was the only cause of the debasement and hyperinflation. I mentioned it as an example of something that might be fixed by industrialization.
 
I am not suerre whether Pliny''s moralism is an accurate indicator of an economic problem. For that matter, a gold drain to India isn't necessarily goign to cause deflation. Look at how much silver China sucked up in the 16th to 18th centuries, when Europe's currency base expanded

The volume of trade could potentially be beneficial in time to industrialization, as it would allow merchant families/companies to acquire the vast sums of capital needed to pay for industrialization. However I don't think trade is the primary cause of the debasement of Rome's currency or the gradual faltering of its economy.

Said trade deficits wouldn't have been so serious, if Rome wasn't simultaneously being forced to pay tribute to periodic barbarian invasions as well as pay for the lingering costs of persistent civil wars. Said wars did much to undermine the productive powers of the Roman economy as the burden of the conflicts were felt entirely within its borders.

If Rome had a stable northern boarder, a more tranquil succession of power, and access either by trade or conquest to the the agricultural and mineral riches of Germany and central Europe, than its finances would be alot healthier.
 

cw1865

120 ships

I also think I read one reference to 120 ships leaving a certain Roman port on the Red Sea bound for India. I see the debasement occurring to cover the expenses of the Roman state.

For that matter, a gold drain to India isn't necessarily goign to cause deflation. Look at how much silver China sucked up in the 16th to 18th centuries, when Europe's currency base expanded

This is why an outflow of gold/silver will only cause a 'relative' deflation not necessarily a per se deflation [in other words the movement is deflationary although the end result may not be a de facto deflation]. Without the silver going to China, the monetary base would've simply expanded that much more and even then that money stock needs to be considered vis-a-vis its relative value of all the goods and services being produced in that economy.

The volume of trade could potentially be beneficial in time to industrialization, as it would allow merchant families/companies to acquire the vast sums of capital needed to pay for industrialization.

Yes, particularly so for a smaller nation like Britain - sucking in raw resources from its colonies and manufacturing products being sent abroad. Rome, like the US, covered a fairly extensive amount of land, and that growth could've been relatively autarkic in comparison with Britain's experience. In the Roman empire you could get coal from England, wool from Spain, grain from North Africa and then all you need is a city sitting at the mouth of a river where there are significant iron deposits up river (timber would help as well). The resources come into the city and then can go out to various points of the Empire.
 
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But Britain DID....I see no true fundamental differences in human productive potential between Classical Antiquity and Renaissance Europe


Agreed entirely - but nor was there any between Classical Antiquity and China, India, the Ottoman Empire, Persia or any number of other places - none of which ever produced anything resembling an Industrial revolution. Indeed, save for 19C Japan, none of them could even imitate it when it was thrust under their noses.

I still don't see why you are expecting Rome to develop like Britain rather than like those other societies. Sure it has frontiers to defend but no more than they. FTM, so had the Hellenistic States which existed for centuries before Rome's rise, but also never had industrial revolutions.

Indeed, if there is one valid rule of thumb about European industrial development, it seems to be that small or middling states did better than big ones. The big empires of the 17C - Turkey, Muscovy, Spain - lagged far behind Britain, and the first country outside Britain to industrialise wasn't any of the major powers, but little Belgium. Sounds to me as if the likeliest place for an earlier IR is ancient Japan, a smallish country which surely resembles Britain more than Rome does.
 

cw1865

Location

Agreed entirely - but nor was there any between Classical Antiquity and China, India, the Ottoman Empire, Persia or any number of other places - none of which ever produced anything resembling an Industrial revolution. Indeed, save for 19C Japan, none of them could even imitate it when it was thrust under their noses.

And even today, what percentage of the world's population is living on less than a $1 per day (its a large percentage)

I still don't see why you are expecting Rome to develop like Britain rather than like those other societies.

Because I perceive the technological leap to go down the learning curve of the Industrial Revolution as not being particularly dependent on time or place. I still see the growth as being the product of individual initiative rather than a national one. Whether that individual was in Britain, Belgium, Turkey, the Han Empire, or Japan; its simply a low probability event equally as likely in 50AD as 1700AD (though I tend to think that the early Medieval period there is significantly LESS probability), where calculating the exact possibility is impossible (there is no real statistical sample here)

The big empires of the 17C - Turkey, Muscovy, Spain - lagged far behind Britain, and the first country outside Britain to industrialise

I think that you're missing my point here; the Industrial Revolution created substantial growth. Lagging behind Britain means that relative to Britain you appear backwards. Nevertheless, even experiencing 1/10th the productivity gain still creates an infinitely more productive society than a pre-industrial one. If you compare modern Turkey (middle income country with a per capita GDP somewhere between 10-12K), with France, UK, Germany, US, Japan, et al. you'd say that Turkey is a laggard. Compared with a pre-industrial society, Turkey is infinitely more productive.

As I indicated by pointing to the medieval source that it took 5 peasants to support one knight. [off the top of my head I have no idea what that ratio was in the Roman empire]. Reduce that to 4:1 and your ability to field an army grows. And we can see this happen in England between say the Hundred Years' War and Britain's armies in WWI and WWII (and the conflicts in between)

http://www.ehs.org.uk/society/pdfs/Craft%204a.pdf

This particular paper suggests that the Industrial Revolution did not produce a 'takeoff' in productivity. And yet even with the modest gains from 1700-1760, you can compare the ability of the British Empire to project power (from the American point of view, Howe's arrival off of Staten Island is fairly impressive), compared with England's position vis-a-vis the Spanish Armada

wasn't any of the major powers, but little Belgium. Sounds to me as if the likeliest place for an earlier IR is ancient Japan, a smallish country which surely resembles Britain more than Rome does.

Both part of the Roman Empire of course, though I think Belgium was part of Gaul. Even if Rome's productivity grows at the much slower pace, akin to the Ottomans or Eastern Europe, the potential to field a larger army is clear.
 
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Please write the TL?

While the base idea is possible IMHO, and I would truly love to see the resultant TL, here's some information from the web regarding it.

First ever steam power (AFAIK)
http://www.dimdima.com/science/scie....asp?q_aid=156&q_title=The+First+Steam+Engine

There might be several reasons it didn't catch on - but one such is due to metallurgy and forging techniques.

The majority of Roman Steel (their less well-crafted homemade or even the more desirable steel from Noricum) was forged under low temperatures, genrally not exceeding 1000.

The first Iron tools were around as far back as 1200BC, but they weren't common. Bronze was easier to make, and suffered less corrosion than iron. Iron was valued as being harder, same weight, and able to endure more (ie hitting other people or things). Steel was more highly valued - witness the Romans reaction to the Noricum steel - but even this was faily low carbon steel and simply put - wasn't up to the task of containing high pressure gasses - welds yield, etc. This steel was forged fron iron blooms at relatively soft pressures and carbon content was largely incidental, resulting in pieces of varying brittleness. Yet this steel was superior to iron swords - the Romans noted that certain tribes could only swing their swords 2 or 3 times before having to step on them to bend them back straight.

For steam power, you would need metallurgy capable of producing true steel, or at least steel-iron, in desirable shapes - which required higher temperatures and/oor cast iron techniques (Cast iron in China at 500BC, but not in Europe until medieval ages).

Now, if the Romans were to raise the temperature of their forges, or start experimenting with the little buttons that occasionally occurred in the forges (which would have led to wootz steel - high carbon steel) or if they had gotten into casting steel (which would have required at least some working knowledge of the chemisty behind including carbon - ie that including smoke from charcoal made blades harder) then they may have been able to run with it.
On the other hand, there is recent evidence that a little village in Germanica had a High-Carbon steel punch in Roman times. There is also plenty of evidence that they literally had *everything* they needed for a working steam engine circa 350AD - albeit a crude one that might explode if a load was put one it - including pistons and force pumps.

So putting in railroads across Europe by 100AD might be a stretch, but
by 400AD?

Excellent article here on the history side of rome & steel...http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/am...l_greece_rome/steel_in_ancient_greece_an.html
Pretty decent blurb here (at bottom)
http://www.realarmorofgod.com/roman-swords-info.html
Best Wikipedia on Roman Tech overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_technology

Most of wikipedia turned out to be quite inadequate in describing Roman Iron/Steel Tech fyi -- had to dig a bit.

An industrial revolution in Rome? That's a TL I'll want to subscribe to.

Hope I've helped some!
 
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