Romans vs. 19thcentury techs

[steveedster]

Ok. The Eskimos are making igloos. The Egyptians didn't. That clearly demonstrate Eskmos' architecture is far superior to Egyptians'.

Well actually if you put a group of egyptians and a group of eskimos in competition to build an ice building from scratch, YES the eskimos would build a better construction as they would have the knowledge!

In the same way YES the victorians were a more advanced people, however the Romans still possessed better knowledge on building large stadia, as they built them. Historical fact.

 

[Steph]

Well actually if you put a group of egyptians and a group of eskimos in competition to build an ice building from scratch, YES the eskimos would build a better construction as they would have the knowledge!

In the same way YES the victorians were a more advanced people, however the Romans still possessed better knowledge on building large stadia, as they built them. Historical fact.

It doesn't mean their technology is more advanced. Japan has no nuclear weapon. Pakistan has some. What country is the most technology advanced?

 

[Kal'thzar]

It doesn't mean their technology is more advanced. Japan has no nuclear weapon. Pakistan has some. What country is the most technology advanced?

At no point has steveedster generalised his point to all tech. hes simply stating that the romans did SOME things better, i.e. Stadia.

 

[Dachs]

It doesn't mean their technology is more advanced. Japan has no nuclear weapon. Pakistan has some. What country is the most technology advanced?

Ah, but the Japanese built fast-breeder reactors, use a good deal of nuclear energy, and they may be reversing their stance on nuclear weapons. However, I doubt that most Victorian Englishmen (for example) could build another Flavian Amphitheater.

 

[Riesstiu IV]

However, I doubt that most Victorian Englishmen (for example) could build another Flavian Amphitheater.

I doubt a Roman could build another Eiffel Tower.

 

[steveedster]

At no point has steveedster generalised his point to all tech. hes simply stating that the romans did SOME things better, i.e. Stadia.

Thank you, you get the point I was making exactly,

 

[Steph]

At no point has steveedster generalised his point to all tech. hes simply stating that the romans did SOME things better, i.e. Stadia.

Of course they did stadia better than Western Countries in 19th century, because the lattest did not build large stadium as is was of no purpose for them at the time.
Hence my analogy! Pakistan is making nuke, Japan is not. We cannot conclude that the nuclear tehnology of Pakistan is superior to Japan.

 

[steveedster]

Of course they did stadia better than Western Countries in 19th century, because the lattest did not build large stadium as is was of no purpose for them at the time.
Hence my analogy! Pakistan is making nuke, Japan is not. We cannot conclude that the nuclear tehnology of Pakistan is superior to Japan.

They did build some stadia in the mid victorian times, just not of the quality of roman ones, made of embankments and timber, they done this for a good while for cricket and football and rugby. it took victorian england a good 30-40 years to build stadia such as those built by the romans, which takes us to near the turn of the 20th century.

 

[Steph]

They did build some stadia in the mid victorian times, just not of the quality of roman ones, made of embankments and timber, they done this for a good while for cricket and football and rugby. it took victorian england a good 30-40 years to build stadia such as those built by the romans, which takes us to near the turn of the 20th century.

Again, for how long did the Romans had use of stadia before they build a large one?
If you say that between the first stadium build with wood in England and the first "Roman like" stadium 30-40 years were needed, it may also be because at the beginning only a small public was interested by sports, so smaller stadia were enough, but as the interest of the public grew, the public grew larger, and the need of more important stadium arise.
I think you are mixing the technical level needed to build a stadium, with the need to build one because of demande.

 

[steveedster]

Again, for how long did the Romans had use of stadia before they build a large one?
If you say that between the first stadium build with wood in England and the first "Roman like" stadium 30-40 years were needed, it may also be because at the beginning only a small public was interested by sports, so smaller stadia were enough, but as the interest of the public grew, the public grew larger, and the need of more important stadium arise.
I think you are mixing the technical level needed to build a stadium, with the need to build one because of demande.

Well yes and to be honest this whole argument is rather hard to put together as essentially we are the same civilisation as the victorian one, there has been no 'dark age' in between. So in the end yes our civilisation can build better stadia than the romans, but in history the victorian era has essentially ended by the time we leaned to build better stadia, i am sure you know what i mean, i do understand your points too steph.

 

[steveedster]

On another note, this story was on the bbc today, very interesting article about that ancient computer....



'the team says that the mechanism was "technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterwards". '

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6191462.stm

 

[Riesstiu IV]

Although interesting, computing capabilities and concepts of the 19th century far surpassed the Antikythera mechanism. Take for instance, Charles Babbage concept of the "Analytical Engine"

1834 - Babbage conceives, and begins to design, his decimal "Analytical Engine". A program for it was to be stored on read-only memory, in the form of punch cards. Babbage continued to work on the design for years, though after about 1840 design changes seem to have been minor. The machine would have operated on 40-digit numbers; the "mill" (CPU) would have had 2 main accumulators and some auxiliary ones for specific purposes, while the "store" (memory) would have held a thousand 50-digit numbers. There would have been several punch card readers, for both programs and data; the cards were to be chained and the motion of each chain reversible. The machine would have performed conditional jumps. There would also have been a form of microcoding: the meaning of instructions were to depend on the positioning of metal studs in a slotted barrel, called the "control barrel". The machine envisioned would have been capable of an addition in 3 seconds and a multiplication or division in 2-4 minutes. It was to be powered by a steam engine. No more than a few parts were actually built.

The 19th century also saw the widespread use of thing such as tabulating machines in everyday life and with the foundation of companies such as IBM, we can being to see the precursors to the electronic analog computers people are more familiar with.

 

[bob bobato]

Wikipedia says this:

"The Roman Empire had the most advanced set of technologies of their time which in most areas was lost during the turbulent eras of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Gradually, some of the technological feats of the Romans were rediscovered and/or improved upon and some others others - such as firearms, advanced sailing ship technologies and moveable type printing, went ahead of what the Romans had done by the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Era. However the roman technological feats of many different areas, like civil engineering, construction materials, transport technology, and some inventions such as the mechanical reaper went unmatched until the 19th century."
It also says that they had flush toilets. If you want to see the article, here the page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Roman_technology

 

[Stolen Rutters]

19th century world, no question at all. The concrete based buildings in Roman times were amazingly advanced were unreplicated and unequalled until the rediscovery of concrete in the 19th century, not to mention the stuff in the post just above ^^^, but much of the rest isn't comparable.

Naval? Vikings had way better tech (transport over ocean) and that was 9th century technology.
Agriculture? Even Europe's Middle Ages were better. horse collar, water wheels grinding wheat, iron plough. Romans use of iron in agriculture was extremely rare and grain was still processed by hand. I guess that reaper thing was still cool, but overall efficiency showed constant improvement.
Manufacturing? Europe surpassed Rome in most ways by the eleventh century. Textiles, industrial level gears, developments in water power. It only advanced from there.

Sewage and aqueducts were in use the whole time. Constantinople had a massive water system throughout antiquity... OK, since the Greek Speaking part of the Roman Empire survived into the 15th Century, let's call that for the Romans of the 15th Century. (They called themselves the Roman Empire until their ultimate end in 1453, but we call them the Byzantine Empire now. They can't complain that we changed their name after the fact to distinguish them from time the western half disintegrated after the Empire split into pieces.)

Oh, back to topic.

Machine tools, earth moving equipment, wood pulp, sextant, ocean transport, printing, weaving, spinning, labor saving devices of any stripe, electricity, literacy...

Actually, many parts of the 19th century world were still missing technology available to the Romans so there are numerous places around the world that wouldn't measure up to Imperial Rome, but if you are looking at the pinnacle of technology rather than what was universally available, even the 11th century was beyond what the Romans had dispersed except in a few limited technologies since technology was apparently more limited in scope during that era.

 

[bob bobato]

Lets just just agree to this:
The Romans were better than 1800 (not 1880, 1860, or 1810. 1800) at:
Land transport. Architecture. Sanitation. Civil engineering. Maybe medecine(i've read a few books that said this). Some mechanical things.

1800 was better at: War. Some mechanical things. Science.Probably medecine.
Theres probably a lot more techs, but I cant think of any.

I guess the 'more advanced' title really depends on what you think is more important.

Also, the romans didn't need that many mechanical things, because they had slaves. One roman had over 2000 , just in his villa. Think how many a farm, or mine or anything else like that would have. ( 2000 slaves copying the same book. End of the day, you have 2000 books).

And there were many roman techs that we don't know they had. We only know that the romans had the the mechanical reaper because we found it engraved on a stone. If we hadn't found that stone, people would probably think that who ever said the romans had a reaper was crazy. Also, lenses for magnification have been found in the ruins of many ancient cities, such as Nineveh. Maybe the romans had magnifying glasses. But we could only find out for sure when people invent a time machine.

And in many, non-tech related ways, the romans were more like us(meaning the West)that any other people. Many people cared more about the games that politics. The rich were getting richer, while the poor were getting poorer. Everyone knew that they were the most powerfull, advanced race in the world. Many people went on shopping sprees to stop being bored. People went to the baths (aka gym). Moral decay (marriage seing as 'legal adultery'). Religious cults prosper.Many people lived in arpartment buildings up to 7 stories high. I could go on.

(And just so you know, even though the romans couldn't build the eiffel tower, The greeks built the Pharos of Alexandria, which was about 500ft. tall (I know this is half as tall as the eiffel).The romans probably could also, so maybe they would have been able to build the eiffel tower out of stone, concrete or cement)

 

[Verbose]

As for flush toilets, that's not really advanced technology. Here's a 16th century design:

 

[Stolen Rutters]

@bob Agreed. Romans own any Architecture race by 1800. 1800 should have the capacity to dust Rome but they didn't really. The Sun King's Palace is the only example I can think of that might hold a candle. I was going to show Hagia Sofia as another, but once again that is Byzantine Roman Empire, the direct successors of Roman tech. It just highlights how much Architectural skill Rome had over anyone else.

The mechanical: Against England 1800, no contest... England on top. Against rest-of-the-world 1800, Rome might have a chance. Read Adam Smith for why I think this way. It may be 18th Royal Academy propaganda according to some, but it points out some real eye openers about relative state of the world in the 1770s. England already had her industrial revolution well underway by the mid to late 1700s but the rest of Europe and the US wouldn't follow until after 1800.

War: totally agree, 1800 whips Rome. Rifles lay waste to anything Rome could have put together in AD450.

Science: Newtonian Physics, Ben Franklin and his works with electricity, Copernicus already in antiquity... totally 1800.

Medicine: hard to tell. Life expectancy was all over the map in 1800 depending on where in the world you look, so the average global state of medicine may or may not have been better.

 

[Plotinus]

Although interesting, computing capabilities and concepts of the 19th century far surpassed the Antikythera mechanism. Take for instance, Charles Babbage concept of the "Analytical Engine"

In fact you don't have to look to the nineteenth century. The mechanical "computers" built by Leibniz and Pascal in the seventeenth century were far, far more complex than the Antikythera one. This is hardly unsurprising given that (a) metallurgical techniques were much better, and (b) mathematics and logic were far more advanced.

Wikipedia says this:

Who cares what Wikipedia says? Any six-year-old could go to Wikipedia right now and make it say that the Romans had space travel. It's a useful starting place to get information but you can't rely on it, especially not as evidence in an argument like this.

Romans own any Architecture race by 1800. 1800 should have the capacity to dust Rome but they didn't really. The Sun King's Palace is the only example I can think of that might hold a candle.

Medieval cathedrals have already been mentioned. The Romans were capable of building big buildings out of concrete, brick, and stone. But they hadn't discovered many principles of controlling stress and and bearing loads in any ways other than through thicker walls. So the Pharos at Alexandria was basically a big block. There's no way they could have built the Eiffel Tower or anything like it. Now it's interesting to note that they probably did have the means to work out the principles of Gothic architecture, if they'd applied some of Euclid's ideas to the task. It has been argued that one of the driving forces behind the development of Gothic architecture in the twelfth century was Adelard of Bath's translation of Euclid from Arabic.

The point of Gothic architecture is that instead of making your building bigger by making it more massive, you use vaulting, arches, flying buttresses, and other techniques to bear greater loads with smaller amounts of material. This lets you build something extremely tall but quite light. As a result, the great Gothic cathedrals are huge but very airy, with lots and lots of windows - compared to the older Romanesque ones, which are foreboding and dark.

The Romans could never have imagined an interior like this one:

 

[Steph]

And there were many roman techs that we don't know they had. We only know that the romans had the the mechanical reaper because we found it engraved on a stone.

Didn't they stole it from the Gauls?

 

[Stolen Rutters]

I guess the 'more advanced' title really depends on what you think is more important.

Also, the romans didn't need that many mechanical things, because they had slaves. One roman had over 2000 , just in his villa. Think how many a farm, or mine or anything else like that would have. ( 2000 slaves copying the same book. End of the day, you have 2000 books).

Is throwing 2,000 slaves at it really more advanced than a dozen men and a printing press doing the same thing in less time? Now I'm even more convinced that the general level of technology in 1800 was far superior in most comparisons.

I had forgot this part about Rome, that many of the impressive things they did was through sheer labor using simpler devices. I was looking at the fact that they did far more in Architecture, with simpler materials, and calling it more advanced technology, when what they really did was throw a lot more "lower tech" manpower and materials to accomplish the larger projects.