What if some enterprising Ancient Greek invented the printing press, say around 300 BC? How would this affect the subsequent course of history?
WI: The printing press invented in Ancient Greece?
- Thread starter Fabius Maximus
- Start date
Its worth noting that the press was invented in response to the abundance of paper to wrte on and shortage of scribes to write on it.
Emperor RyRy
Banned
We would know of the great explorer Pytheas of Massila, who is said to have travelled to Ultimate Thule, or what most historians agree is Iceland. His book "On the Ocean" has been lost, but was such a hit that it is referenced in dozens of other works.
Sorry, I just found out about him, and I'm a but obsessed.
Sorry, I just found out about him, and I'm a but obsessed.
There are loads of very interesting-sounding books that have been lost. I myself would love to have had the Emperor Claudius's work on the history and language of the Etruscans survive to the present. But there were many MANY other lost works that sound very intriguing, from the little we know about them.
Penny for The Guy
Banned
Movable type not enough
As noted above, movable type is not enough. The right kind of paper is needed, as also the right sort of ink.
Martin Padway in Lest Darkness Fall had a time figuring out what had to be done, and he knew what he was aiming for.
What developments on ancient Greece would lead to such an invention?
As noted above, movable type is not enough. The right kind of paper is needed, as also the right sort of ink.
Martin Padway in Lest Darkness Fall had a time figuring out what had to be done, and he knew what he was aiming for.
What developments on ancient Greece would lead to such an invention?
I wonder if paper would follow from printing; papyrus wasn't that expensive; in Egypt it was arguably cheap enough to not be a luxury good. But in the rest of the classical world, you'd run into a problem soon enough.
But printing seems hard to develop. I think it's telling that a goldsmith was the person who got printing going in Western Europe; it requires a lot of precision metalwork. Were the Greeks up to the task?
But printing seems hard to develop. I think it's telling that a goldsmith was the person who got printing going in Western Europe; it requires a lot of precision metalwork. Were the Greeks up to the task?
Possibly not. Fine metalwork was one of the areas where, according to Jacques Le Goff, the Middle Ages had seen considerable progress relative to the Classical Times. I suppose that they could manage with wood or, dunno, copper perhaps, (the former being what the Chinese had started their own press industry with) although it would be considerably less efficient, esp. if combined with a lack of relatively cheap writing materials. Now, in Hellenistic Egypt papyrus was probably still plentiful enough, so if movable type with wooden blocks is invented, say, in Alexandria under the early Ptolemies, it may be workable (that time window actually gives you a chance of royal patronage, that may turn useful to kickstart the whole thing) but overall I don't see it having the world-changing impact it had with Gutenberg (wooden block press was widespread in Asia before movable type, and in some cases even after, but it does not appear to have produced the sort of impact that movable type had in Europe).
I am referring to the changes in cultural attitudes than manifested in Europe in correlation with the relatively rapid spread of the printing press. Press very likely facilitated and reinforced some cultural trends usually labeled under the name of "Ranaissance", although I am positive it didn't cause them.
I agree however that this point should be treaded carefully.
What would be the incentive to invent a printing press? Where would the inspiration for it come from? Was literacy widespread enough in Ancient Greece to make mass book production worthwhile or necessary?
Most accounts I've seen take the opposite route -- that large-scale paper production got its biggest impetus from the invention of the printing press. Demand created the supply IOW.
ETA: Hmmm. My 1,000th post. Whodathunk.
Printing came after paper though, right? So even if supply ended up increasing to meet printing's sdemand, paper was still a big step over parchment.
Government bureacracy? The Ptolemies had a very centralized and efficient bureacracy, this seems like just the thing they would like. It would also help them in their quest to get a copy of every book ever written into Alexandria.
Woodblock printing and movable wooden type would solve many of the problems with metalwork being references. Metallic type might emerge in mid-to-late Rome or the post-Roman era but probably not before. A derivative of the Cyrus Cylinder might inspire ancient Greece to make a means of mass-producing clay tablets using a stone "Press" which, with proper craftsmanship, could include movable type and evolve into a cloth or vellum medium.
Rome could easily finance a large-scale endeavor to manufacture and spread the technology starting with government needs for decrees and recordkeeping, especially for taxes or deeds with blank spaces as a sort of 1040 or legalese form. That would allow for archives and larger libraries to store works that might survive into the modern era. As for the lost works referenced, let us hope they find the treasure of the Kremlin at some point.
Rome could easily finance a large-scale endeavor to manufacture and spread the technology starting with government needs for decrees and recordkeeping, especially for taxes or deeds with blank spaces as a sort of 1040 or legalese form. That would allow for archives and larger libraries to store works that might survive into the modern era. As for the lost works referenced, let us hope they find the treasure of the Kremlin at some point.
RousseauX
Donor
One of the biggest problems is how you make the technology commercially viable.
In 1500s Europe there was one simple text you can mass print (the bible) and everyone wants to read, keep in mind that the majority of the population would be illiterate, what kind of things would you use the printing press -for-?
The problem is that the very nature of the printing press favors copying the same thing over and over again, how you really do the same with government documents like you could with one static text?