Could Augustus have had a canal built across the Suez? Should he have?

[Monoriu]

In which grade, if ever, were you taught to think for yourself?

In Secondary four, or grade 10, there was an Economics and Public Affairs course.  I was particularly good at that one because it required us to state our position and argue for the pros and cons.  I was a very lazy student    That course did not require so much studying.  But it should be noted that the majority of students took the "Economics" course instead.  Only the elite schools would pick Economics and Public Affairs. 

[jimmy olsen]

10,000 workers for the Suez canal in Roman times seem no where near adequate to me.  The Sui dynasty used like five million peasants to build the Grand Canal.  Even if ancient sources exaggerated the real number by ten times, that's still half a million workers.

Hadrian's Wall was more than 3/4ths the length of this proposed canal and it was built by 15,000 legionaries in six years. A fortified wall seems a much more complex feat than digging a ditch. This canal doesn't require locks. You just need to move earth.

Professional construction workers, which the legions were as much as they were soldiers, are obviously vastly more capable and motivated than peasant conscripts.

[Admiral Yi]

Hadrian's wall, from the photos I've seen, looks like some kids decided to shovel some dirt in a sand box.

[Monoriu]

The actual Suez Canal project, built in the 19th century with much more advanced technology than ancient Rome, used a lot more than 10,000 people.

The excavation took some 10 years, with forced labour (corvée) being employed until 1864 to dig out the canal.[57] Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given period, that more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed,[49][58] and that tens of thousands of labourers died, many of them from cholera and similar epidemics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal#Construction_by_the_Suez_Canal_Company

[jimmy olsen]

The actual Suez Canal project, built in the 19th century with much more advanced technology than ancient Rome, used a lot more than 10,000 people.

The excavation took some 10 years, with forced labour (corvée) being employed until 1864 to dig out the canal.[57] Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given period, that more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed,[49][58] and that tens of thousands of labourers died, many of them from cholera and similar epidemics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Canal#Construction_by_the_Suez_Canal_Company

And it was massively larger than what would be needed for Iron Age triremes. So, it's not apples and oranges.

[Jacob]

Hadrian's Wall was more than 3/4ths the length of this proposed canal and it was built by 15,000 legionaries in six years. A fortified wall seems a much more complex feat than digging a ditch. This canal doesn't require locks. You just need to move earth.

I think that calling a canal "a ditch" may be underestimating the civil engineering requirements.

[The Minsky Moment]

Rather interesting to check around about what source material exists concerning the Roman trade with India and Arabia. The Roman Empire was obviously quite big and had an extensive bureaucracy for an ancient polity and the trade was quite significant.  Yet there are basically just 3 original sources for the scope of the Eastern trade that the literature seems to cite over and over:
(1) a passage in Pliny's Natural History that indicates Rome generated 100 million sesterces of revenue annually - a sizable amount but a lot less than the 1 billion claimed with McLoughlin.
(2) a reference in Strabo to 120 Roman ships sailing the trade route annually.
(3) a second century papyrus found in south-western India documenting a trade finance transaction for a shipment of Indian goods to Rome - the "Vienna Papyrus"

The literature  I saw focused a lot on the Vienna papyrus.  It documents the shipment in considerable detail and values the shipment at 7 million sesterces.  Multiply that by Strabo's 120 ships and you get 840 million - not that far from McLoughlin''s 1 billion.  Of course there are lot of questionable assumptions there.

Focusing on the specific question of a canal though - the shipment documented in the papyrus was landed at a Red Sea port and carried by camel to Coptos - a city on the bank of the Nile. So the trade benefit of the canal would be eliminating to camel trans-shipment to Coptos. 

The papyrus indicates the cost of the trip to Coptos was 20 talents, or about 640,000 seterces.  An enormous sum, but considering the likely need for heavy security as well as many trained cameleers perhaps not that surprising.  Still as big as that cost was, it was just 9 percent of the total value of the cargo.  So the overall economic impact of a canal, while not insignificant, doesn't seem to be worthwhile enough to justify the project.

The bigger picture is that even though the luxury trade was valuable in cash terms, the heart of the Roman economy was the grain and olive oil trades and the heart of the fiscal system was the land tax. From a security perspective, the grain trade was obviously a much higher priority than spices and incense.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I thought that the 100m Pliny mentioned was the deficit on the trade which had to be paid in silver and gold. The trade was certainly very one-sided with India and China wanting mainly bullion and consuming little from the West.

I think this article is reliable and has quite a lot of info on the trade : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187936651630032X

[The Minsky Moment]

That's correct  on Pliny, I meant to say that total value of the trade which would have been approximately equal to the monetary deficit, since the Romans presumably would have paid for goods in coin.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, and perhaps the Asian merchants would use Roman money to buy whatever Roman products they wanted as they would have a surplus of such specie and it would be readily accepted.

[jimmy olsen]

An enormous sum, but considering the likely need for heavy security as well as many trained cameleers perhaps not that surprising.  Still as big as that cost was, it was just 9 percent of the total value of the cargo.  So the overall economic impact of a canal, while not insignificant, doesn't seem to be worthwhile enough to justify the project.

The bigger picture is that even though the luxury trade was valuable in cash terms, the heart of the Roman economy was the grain and olive oil trades and the heart of the fiscal system was the land tax. From a security perspective, the grain trade was obviously a much higher priority than spices and incense.

While I do think that the canal would have significant economic benefits, I'm not arguing that any Emperor would build the canal with that in mind.

An Emperor would build it so that they could more easily support attempts to conquer the wealthy city states of the Red Sea, the Kingdom of Saba (Yemen) and the Kingdom of Auxum (Ethiopia).

Which would not only add gold mines, frankincense and myrrh to the Empire, but would also clear out the pirates that infest the Sea. That, as much as a canal that was accessible year round, would encourage trade.   

[Threviel]

The empire was already over-extended and had enough to do with just holding on to what they had already conquered.

[Maladict]

Iirc the northern Red Sea has unfavourable sailing conditions, hence the southern ports (Berenike and the other one on the latitude of Memphis) were preferred, continuing trade overland to the Nile.

[jimmy olsen]

The empire was already over-extended and had enough to do with just holding on to what they had already conquered.

The Empire held onto everything it conquered besides Germania until 270.

It was the civil wars and inflation of the 3rd century that put them on the road to collapse.

None of that applies to the Principate under Augustus.

[Maladict]

The empire was already over-extended and had enough to do with just holding on to what they had already conquered.

The Empire held onto everything it conquered besides Germania until 270.

It was the civil wars and inflation of the 3rd century that put them on the road to collapse.

None of that applies to the Principate under Augustus.

Hadrian gave up Mesopotamia for being indefensible. Parts of Dacia, too, and the Scottish lowlands.
Direct rule in Armenia had already been lost under Trajan.