# How come Rome never entered the Industrial age? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 19, 2002, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831 "2002-06-19T11:13:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/41 "2012-02-11T07:18:40Z")
This thread seems like a good example for not automatically locking Zombie Threads. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/42 "2012-02-11T07:30:56Z")
Indeed. I am somewhat amazed at just about everyone in this thread (before **AK84** ) ascribing Rome’s failure to industrialize to some sort of lack of motivation (due, in its turn, to a slave society, or superstitious religion, or what have you), as though if only they could have been bothered the Romans could have had a space program. No they could not. Technological innovations, new tools and techniques, cannot be made without previously invented tools and techniques, which themselves could not have been made without other tools and techniques invented earlier, and so on back to the earliest stone axes. Some of these individual innovations, of which there have been millions over the course of human history, might not have been very spectacular or impressive, even in their own time, but they may nevertheless have been vital for later, more impressive (and thus remembered) innovations to take place. The Romans were nowhere near the stage where they could have mass produced practically useful steam engines, or Spinning Jennies, or whatever, even if someone had conceived of them. For one thing, as **AK84** points out, they did not have the metallurgical and metalworking skills (or rather techniques and tools), but there were doubtless lots of other necessary techniques and tools that they also did not have. If I do not forestall them, someone would probably now mention Hero’s steam turbine. It was too small to be of any practical use, and could not have been scaled up given Roman levels of metalworking technology. Actually, even in the 18th century, we only got practical steam engines, suitable for powering factories and locomotives, because James Watt, who came up with the design was able to partner with ironmaster Matthew Boulton, who was the only person (or one of very few) who knew (because he had recently figured it out) how to cast steel cylinders strong enough to withstand the pressures generated by a Watt engine of sufficient size and power to be useful, and, of course, Boulton’s ability to do that depended on the ironmasters before him who had developed the methods of making the right sort of steel in large enough batches of consistent quality (and so on and so on, back and back). And, of course, the industrial revolution also depended on fairly recently developed scientific knowledge - it is not an accident that it followed close on the heels of the scientific revolution - and scientific innovation also depends on the sometimes much less spectacular (and so less remembered) innovations that have preceded them. Newton could not have revolutionized physics with out the work of Galileo, Descartes and Kepler in the generation before him. They in turn depended on other intellectual innovations (Galileo, for instance, on medieval impetus theory - those monks [mostly friars, actually] may not have made a lot of spectacular and impressive scientific innovations, but they were not completely wasting their time - Kepler and Descartes on medieval Islamic optical theory, amongst other things), which depended on other innovations in a chain going back to the thinkers of ancient times. Galileo and Newton would not have been possible without Aristotle (and Aristotle himself would not have been possible without earlier Greek, Egyptian and Mesopotamian innovators), and James Watt and the mills of Lancashire would not have been possible without Newton. The Romans simply did not have the technological or intellectual resources. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/43 "2012-02-11T07:51:30Z")
I agree; it’s the small innovations that have lasting consequences, that are the game-changers. In our time, it’s things like printed circuits, Kevlar, Nomex, Goretex, Tyvek, and UAV’s. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/44 "2012-02-11T08:14:04Z")
Excellent analysis, **njtt**! None of the innovations that we take for granted now could have come into existence without the technology of its predecessors. But what if the Roman Empire had decided to become a more mercantile culture? I posit that one change may have well changed everything. If making money rather than winning in The Games became paramount, wouldn’t invention have become more useful? But, as to the OP, I must agree with the consensus on this. Slavery is a pernicious cultural cancer. It eats at the masters as well as the slaves. We have seen this and our shared history stands a stark reminder of why we should never allow this in any modern culture. But, you all know slavery still exists. And little or no thought is given to it by almost everyone I know. We can say, but it is ‘way over there’, but it exists nevertheless. Is a human less so because they are in a remote land? Because you will never meet them? Because they are different from you? It is easy to vilify Rome or the CSA for slavery. But before you do, consider your actions and how they might affect the many enslaved people scattered around the planet. I have no answers, but I know that when we pretend that slavery ‘went away way back then’ we perpetuate an ongoing ring of criminal entities who have no remorse, no guilt, no conscience and are almost inhuman. OK, yes, I went off on a minrant. Mea Culpa. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/45 "2012-02-11T08:16:43Z")
Am I the only one now who really wants to read a steampunk story set in ancient Rome? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/46 "2012-02-11T08:43:07Z")
Cool thread, zombie or not. It reminds me of an article I read years ago inspired by the discovery that the assembly line had been invented in ancient Rome (in an aqueduct powered factory) that asked why they hadn’t advanced, and why there was only one assembly line - no one imitated the innovation. One of the answers given was that they simply didn’t have the modern concept of progress as being desirable, or even of “progress” at all really. In a modern society if someone comes up with a better way of doing things people will imitate him, and those who want to stay with “traditional ways” have to argue why that’s desirable. In ancient times it typically wouldn’t even occur to anyone to imitate a better way of doing things. They didn’t have the fundamental idea that doing things more efficiently or productively is _desirable_. A related example used was the longbow and the wars between France and England. There was a historical pattern where when the English brought lots of bowmen they’d win a battle, and that they’d lose when they didn’t. A modern person faced with such a situation would say “Look at the pattern here! Well, we obviously need to make a point of bringing along lots of bowmen!” For the people of the time though that never occurred to them; it wasn’t opposed by any traditionalists, it just never occurred to anyone to look at what their victories & losses had in common and improve their battle tactics. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/47 "2012-02-11T09:08:45Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Indeed. > If I do not forestall them, someone would probably now mention Hero’s steam turbine. It was too small to be of any practical use, and could not have been scaled up given Roman levels of metalworking technology. Actually, even in the 18th century, we only got practical steam engines, suitable for powering factories and locomotives, because James Watt, who came up with the design was able to partner with ironmaster Matthew Boulton, who was the only person (or one of very few) who knew (because he had recently figured it out) how to cast steel cylinders strong enough to withstand the pressures generated by a Watt engine of sufficient size and power to be useful, and, of course, Boulton’s ability to do that depended on the ironmasters before him who had developed the methods of making the right sort of steel in large enough batches of consistent quality (and so on and so on, back and back). Re Heron is there any evidence that he actually made any of his (admittedly quite clever) inventions or were they just drawings? Also, Roman (and Greek) metallurgy were poor even by the standards of the day (to be fair, the Romans were cognizant of that fact and attempted to remedy it). I am pretty sure one of the reasons that the spinning ball did not catch on even as a toy was that it tended to blow up on occasion. ---
**Author:** ![Manduck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manduck/32/256_2.png) [@Manduck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manduck)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/48 "2012-02-11T09:22:52Z")
Didn’t the Romans invent concrete? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/49 "2012-02-11T10:02:59Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Re Heron is there any evidence that he actually made any of his (admittedly quite clever) inventions or were they just drawings? I don’t know if there is any direct evidence (my guess would be, no), but, of course, that is not evidence that they _weren’t_ made. Many of the things in his book (not the steam turbine) seem to have been devices designed to be installed in some temple, to impress the rubes, and part them from their cash. As I understand it, Alexandria, at that time, was choc-a-bloc with little temples of all sorts of religions (or cults), most of them probably with some sort of roots in the traditional beliefs of one or other of the conquered peoples of the empire, but probably some also little more than scams. This being so, there would probably have been a real market for many of the machines Hero describes (moving statues of gods, and the like, and, IIRC a coin operated fortune telling machine). Also, many of the machines described worked by hydraulics, which _was_ a technology the Romans had some skill with. The Hermetic writings (like Hero, probably from Roman Egypt, but I think a bit later) contain stories of how the ancient Egyptian priests had magic that enabled them to bring the statues of the gods to life. It seems plausible that this might be a legend based on someone’s experiences of the mechanical statues of Hero, or of someone like him, but misdated back many centuries to the era of the Pharoahs. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/50 "2012-02-11T10:17:05Z")
Incidentally, did the fact that America, in its early decades, was a slave owning society prevent Americans from being innovative in technology and in other areas? I don’t think so. The moral case against slavery is quite strong enough to stand on its own. It does not need to be buttressed by unverifiable speculations about how the institution _might_ have stifled some spirit of innovation that otherwise _might_ have existed. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/51 "2012-02-11T11:17:02Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > The Hermetic writings (like Hero, probably from Roman Egypt, but I think a bit later) contain stories of how the ancient Egyptian priests had magic that enabled them to bring the statues of the gods to life. It seems plausible that this might be a legend based on someone’s experiences of the mechanical statues of Hero, or of someone like him, but misdated back many centuries to the era of the Pharoahs. True, but there are simpler ways to make that happen, then Herons drawings. Its likely that if he made such items living as he was in the second city of the Empire, they would have spread to Rome at least. I suspect he was a Hellenic Da Vinci. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/52 "2012-02-11T11:33:57Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Incidentally, did the fact that America, in its early decades, was a slave owning society prevent Americans from being innovative in technology and in other areas? I don’t think so. Yes, it did - in slaveowning regions. They fell farther and farther behind, and suffered from the same problem the Romans & Greeks had where the educated class developed a taboo against actually doing any work personally. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/53 "2012-02-11T16:15:39Z")
> [@galrion](#): > > InAs an aside, this is one of the reasons the US has focused on military technology, it didn’t have the numbers of the Soviet Union and needed “force multipliers” in order to gain even an equal footing. The U.S. focused on military technology because it had the resources to do so. NATO had the Soviets outnumbered. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/54 "2012-02-11T17:58:24Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Yes, it did - in slaveowning regions. They fell farther and farther behind, and suffered from the same problem the Romans & Greeks had where the educated class developed a taboo against actually doing any work personally. That’s a huge oversimplification, and in any case only applied between about 1840 and 1860. It also overlooks many attempts to develop southern industry. Slavery didn’t erally cause the problem. Wealth did. The easiest and most efficient way to get an income lay in farming, not trade or manufactures. The result was that the population boomed less, and wealth had a harder time penetrating to some of the most rural areas, while the more “industrial-scale” cotton-based agricultural zones had extensive transit networks and easy access to trade and urban amenities. > [@](#): > > A related example used was the longbow and the wars between France and England. There was a historical pattern where when the English brought lots of bowmen they’d win a battle, and that they’d lose when they didn’t. A modern person faced with such a situation would say “Look at the pattern here! Well, we obviously need to make a point of bringing along lots of bowmen!” For the people of the time though that never occurred to them; it wasn’t opposed by any traditionalists, it just never occurred to anyone to look at what their victories & losses had in common and improve their battle tactics. No. Based on their tactics, they knew damn well that the longbow was a very useful weapon. It also came with many drawbacks. It wasn’t useful for raiding, because the men who practiced it couldn’t master the horse. Soldiers who used it needed a good long open stretch to be effective. And it was expensive weapon made for an individual from specific trees by mastercraftsmen. Then you had to pay the soldiers, and in any case there were never enough of them. It took years to make a skilled longbowmen, and virtually the entire adult male population of Wales was one. Even with that, you couldn’t field an infinite force of them. There were only so many available, they had to be paid (quite well for the time), and they often needed to run their own farms and make little longbowmen-in-training and so couldn’t stay away forever. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/55 "2012-02-11T20:33:06Z")
> [@Truth\_Seeker](#): > > In a sense, the OP is asking the wrong question. The real question is what caused Europe to industrialize? The explosion in science and technology was a unique event. Forget Rome. Why didn’t it happen in China or Baghdad? One obvious innovation was the invention of printing. This led to knowledge that was more widespread by orders of magnitude. This also meant that literacy was more widespread, since there were books around to read. There was also the earlier invention of eyeglasses, which meant that the people who could read, retained the ability for decades longer. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/56 "2012-02-11T21:29:50Z")
> [@Truth\_Seeker](#): > > The Romans, however, were great at technology but lousy at science. The Chinese, I believe, had a similar problem. They had some great inventions, but they never seemed to have hit upon the scientific method. As a result, they never learned to “connect the dots” so to speak. I’m going to steal this, because it’s a better way of saying what I teach. ---
**Author:** ![Toffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e19adc/32.png) [@Toffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toffe)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/57 "2012-02-11T22:09:49Z")
Fascinating thread, this! I’d like to make two observations: In the early 1800s, Rio de Janeiro was without a sewer system of any kind. Sewage treatment consisted of slaves carrying buckets of waste to the nearest beach (now tourist destinations 🙂 ) and chucking the contents into the sea. With so many slaves, there was simply no need to develop engineered sanitation, apart from the health benefit (which the – relatively speaking, for a European power – backwards Portuguese didn’t much believe in). Sanitation was only developed through a system of public works, to make the Crown seem more glorious and powerful. Essentially, although the Portuguese empire existed in the industrial age, slavery held engineering back. For the locals to fund engineering works for improved sanitation, they would both have to essentially throw away their own investment into their personal slaves, and accept that they’d be paying for all other slave-owning citizens to be ahead of them by having their slaves available for other duties without having paid for the engineering project. Economically, there wasn’t even any real incentive for the government to carry out these works. Rio’s sewage and storm drain systems remain inadequate. It’s the same for the Romans: engineering and industrialisation diminishes the worth of slaves, and raises the question of what to do with them all later. Brazil similarly depended on slavery, and only abolished slavery in 1888. As far as materials: I agree that better metallurgy is essential for industrialisation, but this could have been developed if necessary. Roman concrete structures still stand today, while modern concrete is, relatively speaking, crap. Why? Because the Romans made the still-standing structures to be monuments to their glory, sparing no expense in the materials selected for concrete. Modern concrete has to be economical rather than eternal, and so utilises lower-quality ingredients, while remaining “good enough” for our purposes. In metallurgy, however, what was the Roman incentive to improve their ironworking? Their armour and swords were “good enough” for their armies, while cheap enough to be produced in enormous quantities. Thus, even in the late empire, Roman armies could still regularly thrash opponents in a regular battle; the problem was funding enough armies to protect all fronts. Furthermore, crap iron actually served their cause – IIRC the pilum (javelin) had a poor spearhead such that it would typically bend back or break after being thrown, thereby rendering it useless to the enemy (no point throwing it back). Advances in metallurgy were driven by the need for better weapons – armour-defeating swords, cannons, and guns – and by the need for better armour due to the development of better weapons. In post-Charlemagne Europe, with the whole continent a battlefield between somewhat equally-matched opponents, this development was essential, while Roman armies could consistently beat all comers given sufficient numbers and proper strategy and tactics. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2012, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/58 "2012-02-11T23:10:32Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > I’m going to steal this, because it’s a better way of saying what I teach. Wrong, though. The Chinese were quite good at science - they had a large class of educated people with leisure time. They _sucked_ at engineering. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/59 "2012-02-12T00:50:35Z")
> [@Manduck](#): > > Didn’t the Romans invent concrete? Yes, but they neglected to invent rebar. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831/60 "2012-02-12T04:52:48Z")
> [@Toffe](#): > > As far as materials: I agree that better metallurgy is essential for industrialisation, but this could have been developed if necessary. Roman concrete structures still stand today, while modern concrete is, relatively speaking, crap. Why? Because the Romans made the still-standing structures to be monuments to their glory, sparing no expense in the materials selected for concrete. Modern concrete has to be economical rather than eternal, and so utilises lower-quality ingredients, while remaining “good enough” for our purposes. In metallurgy, however, what was the Roman incentive to improve their ironworking? Their armour and swords were “good enough” for their armies, while cheap enough to be produced in enormous quantities. Thus, even in the late empire, Roman armies could still regularly thrash opponents in a regular battle; the problem was funding enough armies to protect all fronts. Furthermore, crap iron actually served their cause – IIRC the pilum (javelin) had a poor spearhead such that it would typically bend back or break after being thrown, thereby rendering it useless to the enemy (no point throwing it back). Advances in metallurgy were driven by the need for better weapons – armour-defeating swords, cannons, and guns – and by the need for better armour due to the development of better weapons. In post-Charlemagne Europe, with the whole continent a battlefield between somewhat equally-matched opponents, this development was essential, while Roman armies could consistently beat all comers given sufficient numbers and proper strategy and tactics. Ok firstly while I am not an expert on the subject, I would have to disagree with the notion that the Romans could have mastered metalworking to the extent necessary for an industrial revolution. First their technology in that sephere was poor even for that era. Secondly and more importantly their were several additional steps that the Romans would have had to make to even be able to able to make the materials needed and they did not and could not have had the knowledge for most or even all of them. For example, the best furnaces of the time (which were not Roman) were about 200C too cold to make steel or Iron or even Bronze of the type to make cannons, never mind boilers. To takle an analogy, the [Indians](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysorean_rockets) of the 18th century employed Rockets quite successfully. Yet no one would argue that “they could have” gotten to the moon if they wanted. There are literally hundreds of steps before the V-2 never mind the Vostock or Saturn V. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-rome-never-entered-the-industrial-age/114831.md?page=4)