Casualty ratios

[JWintjes]

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

[bengtsson]

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.

[chuck]

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.

[chuck]

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]

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

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

[JWintjes]

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

[JWintjes]

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

[Gerarddm]

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.

[JWintjes]

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

[chuck]

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.

[bengtsson]

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.

[chuck]

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.

[Gerarddm]

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.

[chuck]

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.

[Werner]

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.

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.