>4) Water driven textile factories which could evolve into steam driven ditto.
This sounds to be true of "high class" slaves such as tutors and the equivalent of house slaves in the American South.The economic need was there, although it would have required a keen business eye to identify it. While slave power was plentiful, jobs of high power required a large number of workers. Workers that needed to be fed, clothed, and given shelter. Roman slaves were not the same as their American counterparts 1200 years later. Rather than being thought of as livestock, slaves were considered high-end appliances. Rather than receiving all of the respect of an ox or pig, Roman slaves were thought of the same way we think of our TVs, our smartphones, our stoves. They were kept in good condition so that they could work hard. And that made them expensive.
The steam engine is vastly overstated as a catalyst for the industrial revolution. The first phase of the industrial revolution basically didn't involve the steam engine at all.Oh, and for the TL;DR: The Romans almost got steam power; Heron had 90% of the technology, and the Roman Empire would have amplified the speed of the Revolution. My timeline starts at the RED word.
Why would there be increased population above OTL as the result of the first couple decades of industrialization?The Roman Empire begins to feel the first impacts of industrialization, but not nearly as much as her neighbors. An increased population provides more men for the army, increased productivity provides them with more than enough arms, and the Roman knack for infrastructure combined with railways allows for troop transport faster than ever seen before by a factor of 10.
Historically the machine which triggered the revolution in textile manufacturing was not powered by the steam engine, it was based on the mechanical clock developed in the Middle Ages and powered by the Watermill.By his death in 90 CE he has changed the world forever. From his mechanical shows grew large plants for mass-producing textiles and grinding grain as the raw materials float down the Nile, all powered by his piston engine.
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about industrialization. Labour scarcities do not trigger industrialization (it does help end feudalism though).Maybe we can have a really nasty plague dry up all the labor. That would develop mills which steam power would apply nicely to.
I'd be interested in more intelligent discussion of the possibility of widespread Roman horse-drawn wooden rails and semaphore. Sounds really feasible and helpful, but a missed opportunity OTL.
>So the obvious question is how this manages to go at any useful speed while pulling something (or carrying a heavy load) at a comparable cost for the amount of work to doing it by horse.
I'm not saying it's impossible, it just sounds . . . rather hard to picture. Even with the plans of the handcart illustrating how its built, that doesn't offer a lot indicating useful locomotive power.
>You need an excess of labour for industrialization because you need people to work in the factories at the same time as needing farmers to feed them. Each farmer only produces so much surplus, therefore you either need some sort of agricultural revolution to increase agricultural productivity, or you need more farmers.
>The Romans knew how to harness the power of falling water and the Greeks were at least aware of the mechanical power of steam.
Yes, this is an example of labour intensive agriculture. Latifundia requires a lot of manpower to run and would produce less if you divert people from it.>
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What about the latifundia, huge slave based estates? Apparently they produced a lot of agricultural products on an industrial scale.
That's why I find the horse-drawn rail and the semaphore possibilities so intriguing. They are both pretty valuable and they aren't the sorts of problems that can be simplified much by throwing more labor at them.
Could you have one with Papyrus? Also, didn't the Chinese invent paper in the second century BC? Maybe paper could disseminate into the Roman empire through an ambitious Marco Polo like trader.
>That gives me a thought: When exactly did the Muslim countries introduce paper? They were closer to China after all.
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For what it's worth, I've read that the eighth century Ottomans learned to make paper from Chinese prisoners.