How were Roman Engineers trained ?
Did they have colleges and schools as we understand them today, or was it more on the job training? Given the scale of the Roman Empire and vast size and scale of the buildings and infrastructure there would have to be some type of formal education process. What was it?
Since Middle Age Europe used a system of guilds, I would be surprised if this practice wasn’t carried over from the Roman Empire.
Stocktakers excepted.
Actually, guilds were an innovation of the Medieval period. A Roman ‘engineer’ would probably either have had an apprenticeship under a master in their field (stonemasonry, for instance), or would have learned engineering as part of their military training (Romans loved them some military engineering).
TheSeaOtter is correct: the Romans did not have anything we would call a Guild. This doesn’t mean they had no organization, of course, but it was a lot more varied and task-oriented. To wit:
Roman-era engineers were actually highly specialized, even more so than we would see today, precisely because the . So in an era when nearly everyone followed the profession of his father or learned the skills of her mother, apprenticeship was pretty much how you learned everything. Schools were uncommon outside of cities, and even then tended to be specialized in certain skills and mostly for the elite. The upside, however, was a lot of personal attention. A talented philosopher who taught public speaking could be the gateway to wealth, fame and power.
Of course, less public skills like masonry, various kinds of smithing, and architecture were passed along in the same way. Day-to-day training and practice led to some very effective works. An engineer would probably have had some facility with construction, and would intimately know how stone, wood, and dirt worked in context from having seen and used to on a daily basis for years. They might not be able to do mathematics (though some definitely could), but they knew that for a structure so high you needed a foundation so deep. And there were manuals and documents that laid out in decent detail how to do certain things, from which an intelligent person could often work out a way to do what they needed.
I’m interested in learning more about this. Any non-wiki sources?
Tons of resources (books) ThisUsernameIsForbidden. Cruize Amazon.
What I’ve read is that they were pretty well educated over a variety of topics. For example, roads. Roman roads were built to very specific specs, some still used today. Their width, the depth of the ditches on each side, composite material (gravel) on top, bridges, distance between break areas, etc… Romans wanted straight roads they could easily move troops on that wouldnt be washed out by storms. Persons using them paid a tax so they were also a source of revenue.
THEN, they also had to know law and legal issues since often they had to make a road go thru someones land and they had to know how to get the right to do so.
They also had to understand religion because they often had to build temples.
Yeah, but how were they trained? There must have been some kind of education and experience scheme. Was it a guild-type scheme? Did an allotted number of youths go to an academy for engineering? Was it mainly passed down through family members?
That’s what apprenticeship means. For that matter, that’s how medieval guilds worked. Guilds were originally merely loose organizations of people with similar skills and interests. They were as concerned at keeping non-family members (or non-favored friends) out of the guild as they were passing down the skills to their sons. Where are you getting academies from?
You were the one who brought up medieval guilds in the first place. What were your sources for that? And do you honestly think there are no sources online other than Wikipedia?
If you make a factual claim about something like, there was nothing like a guild until the middle ages, then you should have some kind of cite for that. And my “bringing-up” guilds was a guess about how they might have been trained, not a factual claim.
So other people need cites to back up obvious basic knowledge facts but when you do it we should understand it’s a guess pulled out of your ass with no grounding in history and let it pass?
Yeah, that’s gonna work.
I’m thinking aside from sheer nepotism, most engineering projects involved a lot of laborers and some were spotted for having a special something for engineering and were offered apprenticeships.
Not really, since a man’s apprentice wasn’t typically his son. Though it wasn’t uncommon for an apprentice to marry the master’s daughter, if he had one, and thus become part of the family.
No. People should point to a reference for facts that aren’t obvious.
Next dumb question?
Moderator Note
This being General Questions, you shouldn’t jump in with a wild guess on a subject you clearly know nothing about. We have a large number of experts here who can provide detailed information on many different subjects. From the GQ rules:
In the future, let’s hold off on guessing until people who might have some actual information have had a chance to answer. And don’t get snippy when people take you to task for a guess that is wrong.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
What kind of mathematics are you talking about, then?
Calculating the depth of the foundation from the height of the structure - not to mention the possible span of an arch - doesn’t count?
What I’ve seen about this stuff indicates they didn’t do a lot of arithmetic calculations, but they did use plane geometry very well, using strings and stakes to work out ratios at full size without numeric calculation. Very primitive hand driven analog computers in a sense. I’m sure depth of foundations were estimates based on experience and they would have had a preference for building on very solid ground. We may not know about all the failed foundations because the evidence is gone.
I don’t know much about how much we know about ancient Rome, but if there were academies would there be writings left from or about them?
Nothing like abusing your authority as a mod to weigh in on a thread dispute…
Allow me to point out a few idiocies in your post. 1. We are allowed to make guesses. 2. The guess hasn’t been shown to be wrong. 3. I’ll be snippy whenever I like.
You don’t like it then ban me.
I suggest this book, on the general topic.
Moderator Warning
Your post was in violation of GQ rules. Telling you that is part of my job as a moderator.
If you have a dispute about moderation, take it to ATMB. This is an official warning for being a jerk. And if you continue this behavior you’ll be banned soon enough.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator