Queequeg's 'Special' Threads: Roman-Persian edition

[The Minsky Moment]

No, I got your point. My problem is that I dont' really agree with it. If the roman period discouraged labor saving innovation, why do we see a profusion of water mills springing up? Not just the mill at arles, or signs that the Romans were using water power for things like stonecutting.

In fact, we don't see a "profusion" of water mills showing up, even though water mills were a well-established technology from the Hellenistic period and perhaps even earlier.  The Arles watermill was a state project , not something built and used by a private landowner.  And this is typical - the Roman water mills that have been excavated were large scale enterprises fed by aqueduct.  Of course, it is possible that private, smaller mills were ubiquitous and we just haven't found them  due to deterioration.  But that wouldn't explain why written sources from the period don't mention them.  Later in the period we do see monastaries building them, but that is a very different story.

There is no question that when it came to state funded construction projects, the Romans were very innovative, and used technology to save on labor where appropriate.  But the particular subject I mentioned was the conduct of private landlords in the Late Empire.  Because they could control large quantities of bound labor, they simply didn't have the incentive to adopt certain kinds of innovations that would permit greater labor efficiency in production.  And the evidence is that they didn't.

[alfred russel]

I read Einhart's biography--but a long time ago.

In the modern day, how many people could tell you about world war I with any degree of accuracy despite universal literacy, education, and free libraries (supplemented by the internet)? Or about the British form of government at the time of the revolution (roughly the time from the end of Charlemagne's life to the end of the Ostrogoths)?

I'm not arguing with you, you are much better informed than me anyway, I'm just skeptical that people of the time were especially historically aware. And to the exent they were, it was through Church institutions that had badly warped any memory of historic rome.

[The Minsky Moment]

In the modern day, how many people could tell you about world war I with any degree of accuracy despite universal literacy, education, and free libraries (supplemented by the internet)? Or about the British form of government at the time of the revolution (roughly the time from the end of Charlemagne's life to the end of the Ostrogoths)?

I'm not arguing with you, you are much better informed than me anyway, I'm just skeptical that people of the time were especially historically aware. And to the exent they were, it was through Church institutions that had badly warped any memory of historic rome.

Of course I am not claiming that Charlemagne understood the true historical nature of his model.   His view of antiquity was framed by the nature of the few works he had access to as filtered through the prejudices and ideological views of his teachers.

[PDH]

I would have to say that Karl did indeed have an historical awareness, framed by the learning he had. He is one of those amazing people that appear, and his intellect was quite powerful.  Einhard did not have to do much (mostly personal life details) to show how remarkable Charles really was.

[garbon]

In the modern day, how many people could tell you about world war I with any degree of accuracy despite universal literacy, education, and free libraries (supplemented by the internet)? Or about the British form of government at the time of the revolution (roughly the time from the end of Charlemagne's life to the end of the Ostrogoths)?

How many people really spend time (and want to spend time) wanting to study those things?

[Queequeg]

I was making a point from a Malthusian perspective. Malthus was looking at things in terms of a long term steady state: the relationship between population and wealth would adjust so that the wealth per person limited net population growth to zero. His point being that the technological advancement of his times with the higher population density didn't improve people's lives: the general living standards in which people lived were, as in the past, bad enough so that net population growth stayed at zero.

Taking Malthus's notions and equating population growth to general living standards, Rome did not have a steady population through its history. It had a period of significant increase, and a period of significant decrease. In a premodern society where subsistence level existence was common and other data is lacking, I tend to think that population growth is one of the better indicators we have of general living conditions.

Most people in pre-modern agricultural societies live a marginal existence, living on very low calorie, protein deficient diets.  Look at modern Pakistan, Africa or Mao's China. In comparison, the pre-agricultural people tend to have a far more varied, healthy diet composed of things besides bread, beans and (worst of all) bread or corn.  The average European grew taller during the Dark Ages, same after the Plague. 

[alfred russel]

I was making a point from a Malthusian perspective. Malthus was looking at things in terms of a long term steady state: the relationship between population and wealth would adjust so that the wealth per person limited net population growth to zero. His point being that the technological advancement of his times with the higher population density didn't improve people's lives: the general living standards in which people lived were, as in the past, bad enough so that net population growth stayed at zero.

Taking Malthus's notions and equating population growth to general living standards, Rome did not have a steady population through its history. It had a period of significant increase, and a period of significant decrease. In a premodern society where subsistence level existence was common and other data is lacking, I tend to think that population growth is one of the better indicators we have of general living conditions.

Most people in pre-modern agricultural societies live a marginal existence, living on very low calorie, protein deficient diets.  Look at modern Pakistan, Africa or Mao's China. In comparison, the pre-agricultural people tend to have a far more varied, healthy diet composed of things besides bread, beans and (worst of all) bread or corn.  The average European grew taller during the Dark Ages, same after the Plague.

I don't understand what the connection is to pre-agricultural people is--neither the roman empire nor dark age europeans existed in such a state.

[Neil]

I was making a point from a Malthusian perspective. Malthus was looking at things in terms of a long term steady state: the relationship between population and wealth would adjust so that the wealth per person limited net population growth to zero. His point being that the technological advancement of his times with the higher population density didn't improve people's lives: the general living standards in which people lived were, as in the past, bad enough so that net population growth stayed at zero.

Taking Malthus's notions and equating population growth to general living standards, Rome did not have a steady population through its history. It had a period of significant increase, and a period of significant decrease. In a premodern society where subsistence level existence was common and other data is lacking, I tend to think that population growth is one of the better indicators we have of general living conditions.

Most people in pre-modern agricultural societies live a marginal existence, living on very low calorie, protein deficient diets.  Look at modern Pakistan, Africa or Mao's China. In comparison, the pre-agricultural people tend to have a far more varied, healthy diet composed of things besides bread, beans and (worst of all) bread or corn.  The average European grew taller during the Dark Ages, same after the Plague.

Maybe, but more preagricultural people were also eaten by wolves.

[alfred russel]

Most people in pre-modern agricultural societies live a marginal existence, living on very low calorie, protein deficient diets.  Look at modern Pakistan, Africa or Mao's China. In comparison, the pre-agricultural people tend to have a far more varied, healthy diet composed of things besides bread, beans and (worst of all) bread or corn.  The average European grew taller during the Dark Ages, same after the Plague.

Spellus--I found this paper, which you may be interested in:

http://eh.net/XIIICongress/cd/papers/70Koepke348.pdf

It seems like a fairly crappy paper, but it examines archeological evidence of changes in roman height from the first through the fourth century. It finds that they do decline, but that the average height actually exceeds the average height in the 19th century in Bavaria.

That makes me question the validity of a study showing that height increased during the Dark Ages.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

only speaking for north-western gaul here but archaeological finds show that even the common farmer seemed to have access to a certain amount of luxury goods and imports during the roman period. Not abundantly so but enough to show up on our radar.
All of that cuts off at the end of the 4th century (at least, in sofar as anything was left) as most small settlements in the region seem to come to an end during the late 4th and early 5th centuries (often violently so) after which they're replaced by germanic settlers or not at all (with the new people preferring to create new settlements instead).
But it appears that for a decent amount of the roman period the farmers lived in a slightly better situation than subsistence.

[Faeelin]

In fact, we don't see a "profusion" of water mills showing up, even though water mills were a well-established technology from the Hellenistic period and perhaps even earlier.  The Arles watermill was a state project , not something built and used by a private landowner.  And this is typical - the Roman water mills that have been excavated were large scale enterprises fed by aqueduct.  Of course, it is possible that private, smaller mills were ubiquitous and we just haven't found them  due to deterioration.  But that wouldn't explain why written sources from the period don't mention them.  Later in the period we do see monastaries building them, but that is a very different story.

Allow me to dissent here. First, they pop up in the oddest places. Vitriuvius writes about them, for instance; we have paeans from the first century BC about them; and apparently they were common enough that the Edict of Diocletian lists them along with other types of mills (hand, oxen, etc.) Moreover, they're found across the breadth of the Empire Empire, from Hadrian's Wall to Athens.

Were they as common as they were in 1066 England? Maybe not, but I'll note that we have no census of, say, Gaul to use as a comparison. And we know that the Romans were using them for a range of engineering tasks.

I dunno if I'd go so far as Oleson deoes in his book on the topic, but the evidence certainly no longer bears out stagnant Romans.

There is no question that when it came to state funded construction projects, the Romans were very innovative, and used technology to save on labor where appropriate.  But the particular subject I mentioned was the conduct of private landlords in the Late Empire.  Because they could control large quantities of bound labor, they simply didn't have the incentive to adopt certain kinds of innovations that would permit greater labor efficiency in production.  And the evidence is that they didn't.

Could they control arge quantitites of bound labor? That's not the first impression from a series of edciicts saying, "Hey, you must adopt your father's job."

[saskganesh]

one thing the medieval society had which the romans did not was monasteries. in a lot of ways, these functioned as agricultural colleges. despite severe limits in communications, ideas did disseminate. by 1300, estimates are that population tripled in western europe from roman times. not all of this was technology, but improved husbandry, crop selection and rotation.

the romans were not very good farmers.

[The Minsky Moment]

We know that as a legal matter, the coloni were bound to the land they worked.  In the Late Empire, there are laws and edicts enforcing this obligations, and records of complaints of coloni evading and becoming bandits.  I understand some argue that this demonstrates that the landowners could not control the coloni.  To my mind, that is like arguing that because after every financial scandal new anti-fraud laws are passed, and that despite that there are always new frauds popping up, that one can conclude that every banker is committing fraud.  All that the laws concerning evasion demonstrate is that many coloni found their lives sufficiently unbearable that they wanted to leave and that some would even dare severe legal sanction to do so.  It doesn't show that this was a ubiquitous problem.  It certainly doesn't show the landowners couldn't control them; on the contrary it shows that they had powerful coercive means at their disposal to enforce such control. 

It is true that in large groups of coloni in fringe areas ran off during the more chaotic period of the barbarian incursion; but this just reinforces that basic point that the fall of Roman civilization, while devastating to the civites who many moderns naturally identify with, may have been viewed in a more ambiguous light by other social class.