Why didn't the Romans invent steam engines?

[pete_mcfarlane]

Ours didn't last as long as theirs, perhaps because whatever else the Romans were, they do not seem to have been racists and had a very tolerant attitude to religious beliefs, Christians and Jews running foul of Roman City bylaws...

A lot of their tolerance of local religions seems to have worked by mapping Roman gods on to the local ones, since most polytheistic religions seem to have a similar set of deities (a god of war, a fertility goddess, and so on). The pick and mix nature of polytheism (where you can worship whichever gods from the pantheon take your fancy with a large degree of freedom) also tends to reduce the chances of conflict with people whose religion is slightly different from yours. 

 

Judaism and Christianity don't fit in to this pattern and so were strange and alien to the Romans. There's a story of how Pompey the Great forced his way in to the inner sanctum of the Temple in Jerusalem, expecting to find out once and for all what the mysterious God of the Jews looked like, and was horrified when he didn't find the giant statue he was expecting. The concept of a religion that doesn't build statues of its gods being completely beyond his comprehension. 

[Nearholmer]

It's an interestingly Romano-centric view that the Empire collapsed because the Romans themselves became 'debased'.

 

Another way of looking at it would surely be to say that the cultures (yes, they were) that overran them had acquired sufficient energy and vitality to do so.

 

Wild guess would be that it was actually a combination of 'rot from within', ludicrous overstretch, and the vitality of the opposition, rather than any single factor that led to decline and fall ...... but I haven't read Gibbon, so I don't even have his view.

[Classsix T]

As I hinted Kevin, the Germanic tribes had more than a little to do with it, but had they advanced enough militarily to defeat Rome without the State having become weakened from within, for whatever reason?

 

C6T.

 

Edit. That does look as if I've answered my own question! What I mean is, Rome had comfortably fended off incursion for centuries. Nothing leads me to believe the Northern tribes had become suddenly smarter, either tactically or through weaponry, so the fault must surely lie with the Romans, no?

Edited November 30, 2017 by Classsix T

[pete_mcfarlane]

I found this quite an interesting overview of Roman thinking:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grand-Strategy-Roman-Empire-Century/dp/1421419459/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1512049701&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=the+gran+stategy+of+the+roman+empire

[JSpencer]

Back to the question.

 

The answer lays partly in the ability to make accurate barrels needed for cylinders - a technology which had been gently perfected over a few hundred years that came from for cannons.

 

The Romans had no cannons - but the last part of their once big empire was destroyed by them.

[The Johnster]

Christianity played it's part as well. once Constantine had converted the Empire by Imperial Decree (on his death bed so he didn't have to deal with the consequences), the view that all men were equal under one god became the only one acceptable and slavery could no longer be tolerated; the economic collapse of the western empire was inevitable from that point.  The worst excesses that Gibbon bemoans had actually taken place a couple of centuries earlier!

[Smiffy2]

Back to the question.

 

The answer lays partly in the ability to make accurate barrels needed for cylinders - a technology which had been gently perfected over a few hundred years that came from for cannons.

 

The Romans had no cannons - but the last part of their once big empire was destroyed by them.

 

Yes. There could be no cannon until gunpowder was invented in the 9th century in China. The exploitation of black powder led to new techniques of metal casting (based on bell casting practices) and accurate boring (using improved metals). Both of these techniques moved across easily to casting cylinder blocks and pistons, and of course they improved with time and practice. The steam engine, and eventually the steam locomotive, represent the accumulation and merging of a number of techniques which were maturing in the eighteenth century.

I have often wondered what extra progress had been made if Henry VIII had really spent the proceeds of the dissolution of the monasteries on education (he endowed a measly 39 grammar schools and some university colleges) instead of plugging holes in his leaking coffers.

[Smiffy2]

Christianity played it's part as well. once Constantine had converted the Empire by Imperial Decree (on his death bed so he didn't have to deal with the consequences), the view that all men were equal under one god became the only one acceptable and slavery could no longer be tolerated; the economic collapse of the western empire was inevitable from that point.  The worst excesses that Gibbon bemoans had actually taken place a couple of centuries earlier!

Although the adoption of Christianity did lead to some improvements in the lives of slaves, it didn't immediately lead to the end of slavery. It lasted into the second half of the ninth century.

[Classsix T]

And the rest! Slavery never went away, whilst serfdom, tied employment and taxation without any right to vote lasted much longer. Not by definition slavery per se, but not far removed from it.

 

C6T.

Edited December 1, 2017 by Classsix T

[rockershovel]

I was always taught at school, that the huge population influxes which eventually over-ran the Western Roman Empire were driven by population expansion, which always seemed to me to have the great merit of making sense. Why WOULD a German tribesman with a family to feed and a home to build, devote so much time and effort to such a venture? Why WOULD a Norseman undertake such long, dangerous voyages in ships which represented such a major investment? "Because he thought it might ease or resolve an intolerable or untenable situation" seems a good answer.

[jjb1970]

The reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire is a vast topic and hugely complex. Especially if it is considered properly, i.e. recognising that the Eastern half of the Empire outlived the other half by around 1000 years. The very nature of the Empire is a topic in its own right. Nowadays it is remembered as an Eastern and a Western Empire but this is not correct as it was a single Empire ruled by two co-equal courts (the Western court of which was not based in Rome, after 402AD it was Ravenna, and before Ravenna it was Milan).

 

If viewing it through the conventional (albeit incorrect) Western European perspective dating things to 476AD that is still a hugely complex subject. The Empire made a remarkable recovery from the crises of the third century and it is generally forgotten that as late as 363AD, little more than 100 years before the fall of the West, Julian led a Roman army of around 80,000 in an invasion of Sassanid Persia which came very close to taking the capital city of Ctesiphon.

 

The Germanisation of the Empire was a causal factor, but it is also true that a major reason the West resisted the German tribes as long as they did was largely down to a Germanised army led in no small part by Romanised German generals. The last great general and leader of the Western half of the Empire, Flavius Aetius, was of German descent. He was one of those innumerable men given the appellation "Last of the Roman's", and was more deserving of it than most. His great victory of the Catalaunian Fields/Chalons occurred little more than twenty years before the fall of the West.

 

One pivotal factor was that the Western Army never really recovered from the mauling it received at the hands of Theodosius the Great in the civil war near the end of the fourth century. All of the oft cited causes played some part, particularly the migration of the Germanic tries across the Rhine and Danube. Economic decline and the decline of a monetised economy was important and the pernicious effects of taxation and concentration of wealth in the hands of elites that increasingly saw their future in terms of local power and politics and not of the Empire. The frequent civil wars were catastrophic, particularly that between Theodosius and Maximus followed by Eugenius. The decline of the Roman army (partly because of economic decline) in the West combined with what troops were available being utilised to squabble over the Imperial throne left the frontiers increasingly undefended which further exacerbated the problem of Germanic migration into the Empire. Societal changes caused by population decline and Christianity and the increasing allure of the church for wealthy and educated Romans in preference to serving the state had a baleful influence. Oddly given the modern image of Christianity as a tolerant and gentle religion the Christians of the fourth and fifth century were anything but tolerant and gentle. All of these things played their part, and other factors besides. You could argue for years about the weighting of the various factors.

 

For those interested I'd recommend the books of J.B.Bury, I consider his works to be the most satisfying on the subject overall. I'd also recommend that people take an interest in the Eastern half of the Empire (AKA the Byzantine Empire) which is a truly fascinating subject which has been woefully misrepresented and judged by Western historians.

Edited December 1, 2017 by jjb1970

[PatB]

My understanding of the lead issue is that it wasn't so much the incidental ingestion of lead from pipes and pottery glazes that caused problems but the deliberate addition of lead salts to food and drink as flavouring/sweetening agents. I forget which lead salt but carbonate rings a bell.

 

On the subject of lead glazes, be wary of any bright red, orange or yellow pottery that doesn't specifically state that it's lead and cadmium free. In theory food safe lead glazes are possible but I tend towards scepticism, especially considering the source of most commercial pottery these days.

[Ozexpatriate]

Christianity played it's part as well. once Constantine had converted the Empire by Imperial Decree (on his death bed so he didn't have to deal with the consequences), the view that all men were equal under one god became the only one acceptable and slavery could no longer be tolerated; the economic collapse of the western empire was inevitable from that point.  The worst excesses that Gibbon bemoans had actually taken place a couple of centuries earlier!

Although the adoption of Christianity did lead to some improvements in the lives of slaves, it didn't immediately lead to the end of slavery. It lasted into the second half of the ninth century.

And the rest! Slavery never went away, whilst serfdom, tied employment and taxation without any right to vote lasted much longer. Not by definition slavery per se, but not far removed from it.

Slavery was never eliminated in the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire, which as noted was officially Christian after 313.

 

Slavery remained legal in parts of the "Christian" world at least until 1865.  It was only banned in the British Empire as of 1833, and even in that case there were certain exemptions which remained in force for ten more years.

 

The later, modern colonial period (up to 1914) enslaved (all but in name) peoples of India, China and Africa, and I'm really not including modern interpretations of 'economic slavery' or human trafficking which of course are with us still.

 

Leviticus 25:44 was long lasting in it's influence, but that of course has nothing to do with steam engines.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[rockershovel]

Since they’ve been mentioned as “taking up the baton of learning and technology”, it might be observed that the Islamic world ALSO failed to invent the steam engine. They didn’t have coal, but they DID have oil, and the early years of oil drilling were VERY basic stuff which could have been developed at any time from classical antiquity onwards.

 

Living in a world where hydraulic engineering had a VERY long history, bronze was well known and some areas provided abundant timber, you’d think they had all the necessary conditions?

 

The Chinese didn’t manage it, either, despite their millennia of opportunity..

Edited December 2, 2017 by rockershovel

[Big James]

Even after the fall of the western Roman Empire the various barbarian kingdoms all saw themselves as continueing it. They kept the senate and Roman Way of life. They just eliminated the title of emperor and called themselves king. Paid homage to the eastern emperor as the sole emperor. It was only when the east set out in wars of conquest did it bring an end to the ancient institutions of the empire eg the senate and we can say the western empire had officially ended.

 

Big james

[melmerby]

The Romans had level crossings.

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/Pompeii_BW_2013-05-13_10-11-47_DxO.jpg/1280px-Pompeii_BW_2013-05-13_10-11-47_DxO.jpg

 

That's actually a pedestrian crossing of a "waggonway" in Pompeii, another in the background, used to avoid having to drag your toga in the crap when you cross the road!

 

Keith

[Colin_McLeod]

Early "zebra" stripes!

Forerunner of this perhaps:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10213569883738085&id=1132395675

[Fenman]

...

Slavery remained legal in parts of the "Christian" world at least until 1865. It was only banned in the British Empire as of 1833

...

Slavery was only finally abolished in Brazil (at least legally) in 1888.

 

Paul

[Smiffy2]

Slavery was only finally abolished in Brazil (at least legally) in 1888.

 

Paul

 

Which was not, if memory serves, part of the Roman Empire!

[rockershovel]

Zebra, zebra, zebrum

Zebrora, zebrorum, zebris!

[rockershovel]

“... there was a king, and his name was Arthur!”

 

The fading prestige of Rome lingered on well into medieval times. Many of the early Breton romances tell of Arthur sacking Rome, fighting Roman tribunes and the like. Their building stones were quarried from the structures which dotted the landscape.

 

The standing armies which arose in the 1600s, as states realised that they needed a monopoly on the control of violence, were based on Roman writings; if you want to know how far an infantryman can march in a day, and what he can carry, and how much fodder you need for your cavalry, and how far THEY can range, Roman writers like Marius will tell you.

[ardbealach]

If the Romans had invented steam locomotives would a Pacific wheel arrangement have been IV-VI-II?  Salvete!

[Colin_McLeod]

With the model version running on XVIS mm track.

[Nearholmer]

The theme of 'What HAVEN'T the Romans ever done for us?' is presumably an expandable, perhaps even infinite, one.

 

So, apart from the steam engine, jet airliners, personal computers, electric lighting, a system of numerals with a zero, gunpowder, and atomic fission, what haven't the Romans ever done for us?

[Compound2632]

Isn't it somebody with a beard? 

 

Poster misread a few years back: "Conan the Barber".