The Ship Model Forum

by **Werner** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 2:06 am

Gerarddm wrote:James Burke, in his TV show Connections, once drew a thread from the Plague to modern computers. Pretty fascinating stuff.

Burke was as usual, a bit too glib for reality. A worthy cause, buy a little short of the goal.

Gerarddm wrote: Barbara Tuchman, in her brilliant A Distant Mirror, notes that "in October 1347, two months after the fall of Calais, Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars. The ships had come from the Black Sea port of Caffa in the Crimea, where the Genoese maintained a trading post."

"Other infected ships from the Levant carried it to Genoa and Venice".

A Distant Mirror ought to be required reading in every high school in the English Speaking World. It is a wonderful work; if not quite professional historical literature, it is 200 times more approachable.

by **chuck** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:44 am

Gerarddm wrote:
John Keegan BTW notes that Genghis Khan was "credited with great administrative ability but it was extractive, not stabilising, designed to support the nomad way of life, not change it." .

What Ganghis Khan envisioned for his own Mongols is not the point. The point is he created a continent spanning environment in which other, previously settled people, under Mongol control, could conduct commerce and trade more easily, more extensively, more free from such frictions as banditry and local extraction of bribes, and more conducive to exchange of ideas across cultures and religions, than has ever existed across such a large region in Eurasia heartlands before. Without the Mongol empire Marco Polo would never have made it to China. Indeed not since when the Han Empire and the Roman empire lost touch with each other at around 3rd century BC have the Eurasia continent come so close to becoming a single commerce system.

by **Gerarddm** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:29 am

James Burke, in his TV show Connections, once drew a thread from the Plague to modern computers. Pretty fascinating stuff.

Barbara Tuchman, in her brilliant A Distant Mirror, notes that "in October 1347, two months after the fall of Calais, Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars. The ships had come from the Black Sea port of Caffa in the Crimea, where the Genoese maintained a trading post."

"Other infected ships from the Levant carried it to Genoa and Venice".

John Keegan BTW notes that Genghis Khan was "credited with great administrative ability but it was extractive, not stabilising, designed to support the nomad way of life, not change it." Tamerlane, who came 150 years after him, spread even more terror than Genghis did ( towers of skulls, etc.), lacked similar talents and "destroyed the foundations of anything he might have built upon". Contrast that to the Roman Empire.

by **chuck** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 10:50 pm

In fairness to the Mongols, once done with their sport, the Mongols often proved to be considerably more enlightened and skillful administrators than the supposedly more civilized lands they conquered had ever before seen. Trade and commerce would flourish under the Mongols as it had never flourished before in most parts of Mongol occupied territory; for the first time since before the fall of Roman empire the entire stretch between Mediterranean coast in the west and Beijing in the east was open to efficient and unimpeded land commerce. The Mongol conquest likely sped up the movement of many parts of medieval world towards modernity.

Of course the Mongols were also credited with bringing the plague to the Western world, which easily wiped out more people than the Mongols ever killed through violence. But then again, some people have argued, and I suspect Jorit would disagree, that the Plague induced demographic changes in the western world was more instrumental to its later emergency from medieval economic and social order than re-exposure to classical concepts transmitted through the Byzantines and the Arabs.

Anyway you look at it, the Mongol conquest was a pivotal event in the history of the world whose ramifications are far greater then the popular image of an short but chaotic era of destructive barbarian violence might have suggested.

by **bengtsson** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:28 pm

The Mongols had a sport in which they encircled a certain area [fairly large] and closed the circle killing anything and everything that existed large enough to be worth a sword blow, an arrow or spear tip. Mostly animals, but this tradition carried over to some of their operation against people. Ask the citizens of Kiev whose bones littered the country outside Kiev for generations. It was this threat that kept Russian princes paying tribute for many generations. The Russian people were also carried off as slaves by the break up states of the former Golden Horde. Slav and slave may have a connection as words. Rus or berusning means intoxication in Swedish. Rusdryck means Liquor. A possible Scandianvian allusion to the Great Russian love of drink. Also this may have to do with the Swedish influence on the rise of Russia via viking control of the great river routes of Russia. Way off topic eh?

Bob B.

by **chuck** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:35 pm

I think during the Helenistic era the Romans were distinguished only by slight edges in organizational efficiency, consistency of purpose, and institutionalized tactical flexibility. There was no distinct Roman edge in brutality or violence. Each of those edges the Romans enjoy were slight enough such that they can, and were, reversed on many occasions by gifted opponents such as Hannibal. But on the whole the Romans enjoyed those advantages a little more frequently, and their effects were cumulative. So after prolonged periods and repeated applications these advantages left the Romans at a considerably superior position overall.

by **JWintjes** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:28 pm

Gerarddm wrote:John Keegan in On Warfare points out that the Roman prediliction for going out almost every year and inflict horrifying violence upon somebody bordered on the 'pathological'.

He also notes IIRC that the sheer ferocity of their campaigns was not equalled until the Mongols cruised through Eurasia; sometimes even the local dogs were quartered.

Roman military tenacity is shown by the anecdote that a Roman legion appared to besiege a fortified city; the city elders told them that they had food, water and arms to last for ten years. Supposedly the Roman general laconically replied, then we'll be here 11 years.

Yep.

It's not called "pathological", it's called "effective".

One has to admit, though, that in terms of ferocity the Romans were little different to others in the ancient world - apart from being much more efficient. Greek warfare on Sicily routinely included both widespread killing in and total deportation of whole cities. Had the Greeks had the means of the Romans at their disposal, they'd probably been similarly effective.

Jorit

by **Gerarddm** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:14 pm

John Keegan in On Warfare points out that the Roman prediliction for going out almost every year and inflict horrifying violence upon somebody bordered on the 'pathological'.

He also notes IIRC that the sheer ferocity of their campaigns was not equalled until the Mongols cruised through Eurasia; sometimes even the local dogs were quartered.

Roman military tenacity is shown by the anecdote that a Roman legion appared to besiege a fortified city; the city elders told them that they had food, water and arms to last for ten years. Supposedly the Roman general laconically replied, then we'll be here 11 years.

by **JWintjes** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 5:21 pm

chuck wrote: Were it not for engineers conceiving of things genuinely new, you, sir, would still be squatting naked in a cave, trying to strip raw flesh from ends of a rabbit bone with your oversize incisors while contemplating how little your miserable, brutish, and short life would change in the few years that remains to you before you die of old age at 35. So give thanks to the ingenuity of engineers every time you find your house warmer than the snow outside, your books more than just squiggles written into sand, and your trips to the nearest hovel not a death struggle through wilderness. In fact, give thanks to the ingenuity of an engineer every time you touch anything that is not part of your own body.

[Muttering] Impudent so-called Historian! [/Mutter]

Somehow your definition of "engineer" seems to be pretty, uhm, broad, or is it?

By the way, the only way to give thanks to the "ingenuity" of engineers is by knowing about what they did in the past - and who can do that? An engineer?

Jorit

by **JWintjes** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 5:17 pm

chuck wrote: Actually, the comments about Roman trade deficit has something to say about this too. It is said that throughout the history of the Empire, silver was worth much less relative to gold in Rome than in China. This difference in relative value of the 2 metals on 2 ends of a long indirect trade route powered an even stronger flow of silver out of Rome than gold, and drove up the value of silver in Rome. Because this trade was through middlemen, it continued unabated throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods almost heedless of upheaval in the middle east and disruptions in direct contact.

Ehm, unfortunately what little we do know about Roman fiscal matters is that the dramatic drop in metal content was mainly due to a huge increase in the number of coins issued. There is no hard evidence for a "flow of silver" out of the Roman empire.

Generally one should exert extreme care about speculating wildly about Roman economy, both because we're burdened with modern thinking about economy and because we simply have far too little data about pretty much anything.

Look, at the beginning of the second century Trajan begins to send out correctores in municipal cities, apparently to help them to get their finances back in order. All we can see is that there was apparently a problem, but we have no idea what the problem was, how they tried to solve it (What did correctores do? What exactly were their powers? Were they simply a means to reign directly into the provinces, or to bypass the level of the provincial administration?) and whether it actually worked. As a matter of fact, we know next to nothing about the economies of municipal cities, which is a pity, because these were at the core of the economic potential of the Roman empire.

The main thrust was Rome depleted its store of precious metals over the course of the empire because value of Roman export was much lower than value of Roman import, and Rome was never able to modify the condition of the trade to redress this imbalance. So Rome went from precious metal rich in 1AD to precious metal poor by 400 AD.

Ok, once again - speaking of "Roman import" and "Roman export" is extremely modernistic.

Roman economy did not work that way, indeed in a way there is no "Roman economy" as a whole; for a merchant in Palmyra trading with, say, Babylon is probably cheaper in terms of taxes than with Paris.

As far as can currently be seen the main reason for the sharp decline of the third century is directly connected with the dramatic increase in military expenditure. If you look at the way the donativa and the soldiers' salaries went through the ceiling from Septimius Severus onwards you'll begin to get the picture.

Jorit

by **chuck** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 5:10 pm

JWintjes wrote:
You really think that an engineer can conceive things genuinely new? Funny choice of words - as I said above, I have a good excuse. What's yours?

Were it not for engineers conceiving of things genuinely new, you, sir, would still be squatting naked in a cave, trying to strip raw flesh from ends of a rabbit bone with your oversize incisors while contemplating how little your miserable, brutish, and short life would change in the few years that remains to you before you die of old age at 35. So give thanks to the ingenuity of engineers every time you find your house warmer than the snow outside, your books more than just squiggles written into sand, and your trips to the nearest hovel not a death struggle through wilderness. In fact, give thanks to the ingenuity of an engineer every time you touch anything that is not part of your own body.

[Muttering] Impudent so-called Historian! [/Mutter]

JWintjes wrote:

Actually, we do talk about the Gauls, don't we?

Only indirectly in the context of professional basketball teams, and then mispronounced.

by **chuck** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:08 pm

JWintjes wrote: 4) The main issue are coins like the denarius and antonianius - silver coins! Gold has precious little to do with the problem of the debasement of the currency, not the least so because gold coins were not widely circulated, but rather used to pay fro troops or for foreign policy purposes.
Jorit

Actually, the comments about Roman trade deficit has something to say about this too. It is said that throughout the history of the Empire, silver was worth much less relative to gold in Rome than in China. This difference in relative value of the 2 metals on 2 ends of a long indirect trade route powered an even stronger flow of silver out of Rome than gold, and drove up the value of silver in Rome. Because this trade was through middlemen, it continued unabated throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods almost heedless of upheaval in the middle east and disruptions in direct contact.

The main thrust was Rome depleted its store of precious metals over the course of the empire because value of Roman export was much lower than value of Roman import, and Rome was never able to modify the condition of the trade to redress this imbalance. So Rome went from precious metal rich in 1AD to precious metal poor by 400 AD. The poverty in precious metals in the western world would not be redressed until the Spanish came back from Mexico and Peru.

by **bengtsson** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:25 am

JWintjes wrote:

Oh, and I'd be careful about King Arthur - there is pretty little (ie nothing ) to substantiate the Arturius-theory.

Jorit

Correct, he is legend. I have never taken seriously the Arthur legend. But the legend is based on something. A Roman Britain is thought to be the basis for the legend. But of course no one at this point in time can resolve that. Still, one of my favorite periods of history is Roman Britain. Little written records exist, a few sentences at most. But the archaeological record is rich and shows a well run, rather wealthy and peaceful society. The rare outbreak of violence came when Roman border troops were weak or distracted by events elsewhere in the Empire. The Celts were always waiting to swoop down and grab some loot and women. In later Roman times, Britain was a place of great villa building as it was fairly secure from the Barbarian ravages of Gaul and elsewhere.
The end of Roman Britain is mostly a mystery, but food for the imagination. But we know who prevailed in the end, thus we have England.

Bob B.

by **JWintjes** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:33 am

Werner wrote:
Ultimately, the only solution for such a crisis is for a country to "grow it's way" out with new companies, new work and new competition, not caps on wages and prices, which essentially "freeze-dried" the economy for six years or so.

Exactly.

The problem for the Romans was that they not only did not know about that, their economy was very different from ours, which is why modern economic theories are rarely useful in explaining what happened in antiquity.

Jorit

by **Werner** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:18 am

JWintjes wrote: 3) This debasement of the most important coins causes a huge inflation - prices go through the ceiling, and the only two solutions the Romans came up with (produce even more coins or capping prices by imperial decree) both didn't work.

Interesting that these techniques are both considered viable as late as the 60s and 70s of the 20th Century. Johnson paid for the Vietnam War by printing money without any backing, and Nixon used "Wage & Price" controls to try to counter the immense inflationary pressure the additional cash put on the economy.

Ultimately, the only solution for such a crisis is for a country to "grow it's way" out with new companies, new work and new competition, not caps on wages and prices, which essentially "freeze-dried" the economy for six years or so.

Reagan proved a government could spend all it wanted, and on the most unproductive things, if the tax burden is low enough to encourage steady economic growth, something lost on one of the current candidates for US high office. With the current overall tax rate hovering around 50%, we are right at the "tipping point". Expiration of the tax breaks now in place in the next years will put the USA into a strong contraction, while an additional decrease of taxes (say 4-5%) will multiply tax revenue manifold as new business spends the money over and over. People keep making the mistake in thinking that economic growth and tax cuts are a "zero sum" equation, when it has been proven over and over that they're not.

by **Walt** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:09 am

Gerarddm wrote:What's with 'Gomer'?

The first time I heard that was out of the mouth of Randy Cunningham to describe his takedown of 'Col.Toon', and the thought crossed my mind that it was a dangerously arrogant attitude to have toward a wily enemy. Gomer my ass.

The same can be said about the Taliban and various ilk. Fanatic and crazier than Ned's hatband they may be, but 'Gomer' implies dumb and if they were dumb we wouldn't have lost so many troopers.

By the way, I wonder if Cunningham, sitting in jail for corruption, feels like a 'Gomer' himself these days?

In "Navy Specops" early on the term "Gomer" was applied to all the Bad guys in Afganistan for lack of another term. When I was in Vietnam "Gomer" or Gomer Pyle" , "Charlie" ( for VC) etc.was a term of endearment that we sometimes called the VC and NVA and some Marines

. these as well as many other not so politically correct names, terms that were mostly used in WW2 and Korea to discribe Asian people.. 'Gomer" is a reference to their stupidity. My Son has different nicknames for the Taliban but they are not fit for this board,,, hence I will use "Gomer".. I first heard this term from my Son back in 2001 and I said the same thing you did about the VC and NVA. I guess somethings never change. I do believe the term is no longer popular for the Taliban as over time some "Very original and creative nicknames" have arrisen many of which are non PC terms .
BTW the Taliban Fighter may be brave and dangerous but from all I've heard as a whole as well as their midlevel leadership they are pretty dumb. Ask a Afganistan Vet I'm sure they will enlighten us all.
Also Randy Cunningham had the right to call his enemy anyname he wished, he earned that right. He was showing his lack of respect for the NVA pilots who were rather dumb and easy targets "on the whole" with a few exceptions like the Gomer he refered to.

Unless you walked a mile in their shoes it sometimes is best not to judge them so harshly eh?

It's like my signature translates..

by **JWintjes** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 5:23 am

chuck wrote: It's been said in some accounts of history of commerce that Rome ran a large and continuous trade deficit in the trade in silk, spice and other luxury goods. Roman accounts from about 200 AD were used to corroborate this. The empire continuously exported large amounts of bullion to the east to offset lack of exportable trade goods that's desired there. When aggregated over the about 490 years of the western empire's existence, the hemorrhage in gold amounted to about 7000 tons, which represented the vast majority of the gold that existed in western world, and a very large portion of the estimated 15000 tons that has been mined in the whole world up to that time. When one takes this into account, then it seems much easier to see why there is such debasement of coinage in the later empire, and why the western world was financially so poor after the end of the western empire.

Interesting explanation, but it still remains a bizarre idea, mainly because it is based very, very strange concepts - to put it politely - of how the Roman empire operated both on a political and on a commercial level.

Let's put a few key facts on the debasement of coinage in the Roman empire straight:

1) It's a phenomenon that begins in the early 3rd century roundabout at the end of the Severan dynasty. It's not a late antique phenomenon; late antique emperors (like Diocletian) have to cope with something they don't fully understand and the magnitude of which has been increased manifold by the crisis of empire.

2) The inflation that plagues the third century is caused by a dramatic increase in coin production, which in turn causes a slump both in coin weight and in metal content. Generally speaking, during the fifty years after Septimius Severus, denarii and antonianii lose very roughly about a third in weight, with metal content falling from roundabout 50% to less than 5%.

3) This debasement of the most important coins causes a huge inflation - prices go through the ceiling, and the only two solutions the Romans came up with (produce even more coins or capping prices by imperial decree) both didn't work.

4) The main issue are coins like the denarius and antonianius - silver coins! Gold has precious little to do with the problem of the debasement of the currency, not the least so because gold coins were not widely circulated, but rather used to pay fro troops or for foreign policy purposes.

Finally, at the end of the 5th century the Western world was not "financially poor". Economy based on the circulation of money simply had broken down, which is something different.

Jorit

by **JWintjes** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 5:00 am

chuck wrote: Pity your imagination always lags behind your vocabulary.

Hey, at least I have a good excuse for my lack of language skills - I kannicht spreken da Inglish da gut...

I suppose this is what distinguishes bookworms from those who can actually conceive of things genuinely new.

You really think that an engineer can conceive things genuinely new? Funny choice of words - as I said above, I have a good excuse. What's yours?

But I needn't have made such an admission if I had been willing to sink so low as you and cited myself myself as authority.

Hey, are there any other authorities worth to be mentioned?

By the way, nice choice of words again...

Actually, if the Jews had imitated the Gauls in not having a system of writing, we wouldn't be talking about Jews today either.

Actually, we do talk about the Gauls, don't we?

I guess adamantly refusing to accommodate and tenaciously holding on to mis-transcribed version of village disputes and tribal myths are behaviors that possess their own Darwinian survival value in the right circumstances.

Interesting theory - I wonder whether the Romans saw it that way...

Jorit

by **JWintjes** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 4:51 am

bengtsson wrote:
It was those bloody English that spoiled the party. That ,and the non-romaized Celts living in Ireland and modern day Scotland. In the later Roman period in Britain it was said the people had forgotten the art of war,the peace had been for so many generations. King Arthur was a Roman Britain who opposed the barbarian invasions. But, when war is your business, as it was with many Celts and English, well the end was in sight.

Actually, by all accounts the Romans spoiled their own party. Certainly it is the constant civil wars that plagued the Western part of the Empire from the very end of the 4th century onwards that took an enormous toll on military resources. Had Constantine III not been content, at least for the time being, with remaining in Gaul and Britain, things may well have played out differently. As it came, what limitanei units remained in Britain soon turned into warbands under local leadedrs, lacking a central military authority. Yet even after Constantine II. defeat all was not lost - had events in Gaul in the middle of the fifth century turned out differently, order in Britain may well have been restored.

Unfortunately, that was not to be, and at the beginning of the sixth century civilization was well below what the Romans found in Britain when Claudius invaded the islands.

Oh, and I'd be careful about King Arthur - there is pretty little (ie nothing

) to substantiate the Arturius-theory.

Jorit

by **Werner** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 11:25 pm

chuck wrote:Actually, if the Jews had imitated the Guals in not having a system of witting, we wouldn't be talking about Jews today either.

I thought the Guals were killed by an alliance of the Jaffa and Stargate Command.

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