This is a topic I've wanted to cover for a long time! Given its complexity we opted for a long-form discussion style to really dive into the details (and even then, this is a quite abridged take on the topic). Hope you enjoy! Also be sure to check out the medieval survival/strategy/sim game Bellwright: rebrand.ly/invictabellwright
@JIMMY-THE-JEW-FROM-PHILLY
3 ай бұрын
This is an old debate and even before I watch your video I can comment on this. Slavery was so important and cheap that if they had machines doing the work of slaves, slaves would no longer be necessary and that would pose an incredible social problem in the form of more slave revolts but it was more than that. Since it was a slave based economy, despite seeming like a semi capitalist, semi socialist agrarian, society, people didn't think in terms of labor saving machines in the way we see it. The economy was based on scarcity as it is today, except the Western world hasn't dealt with famine in a long time and the price of grain was central to ancient economies but Roman society collapsed, IMHO, because of devaluing currency while there was more silver and gold flowing east than back to the West. A massive trade imbalance caused this as well as new sources of silver and gold drying up. Romans spent itself into ruin. Their taxes often only covered the cost of maintaining security. We can debate the Fall of the Roman Empire forever and it wasn't just one thing but if you have an upper class pissing away cash on luxuries and you aren't getting enough revenue, and you can't pay for the defence of the borders under increasing pressure while people's faith in the value of currency and quality of leadership wanes, it's a perfect recipe for a disaster and I'm sure people knew it was coming. I warn any person looking into the past to not view their world through modern eyes and project our views of the world into people in the past. Ancient people were so superstitious they couldn't understand the natural world and invented a god for every thing in their world except us Jews. Romans even started to not trust the gods and sought other faiths, which Christianity gave them. The Byzantine and Sassinid empire exhausted themselves fighting leaving the West and Near East open for a new power Islam to take hold but slavery continued into the 19th century. If you read Adam Smith's wealth of nations he demonstrated that slaves cost more to. Acquire and maintain than free labor and he did predict a civil war because there would finally be a time where it was better to have a poor free labor class vs expensive slaves. The South didn't have slaves in the same numbers as Romans to keep replacing. The were an investment vs expendable. So by 1860, the world was finally ready to end slavery and I have to admit that the emancipation proclamation was to destroy the Southern economy and not based on a moral decision. It was instead a military one. During the peninsula campaign in Virginia, slaves were first listed as contraband and Newport News VA was ground zero for the first instance of this major event in human history. Remember that it took until 164 years ago for our society to do something about the evil of slavery but it still exists in the Congo where pygmies are owned by other black people and despite a superficial ban on slavery, it still exists in Islamic society. China was caught with slaves in Africa already. Hamas forced Jewish hostages to clean their house and apartment to reenact the Qur'an. It's still human perception that rules the slave world. Congoese say they refuse to give up pygmy slaves because it's a status symbol. Romans could never perceive their world without slaves as do cultures that exist today!
@Denasgurman
3 ай бұрын
How could you dare speaking about the industrial revolution and pretend explaining what led to it without saying the word capitalism ? How in the world ? People left the farms and founded factories ? What kind of liberal fairy tale is that ? Villages were burnt by land owners, with people in it. You ever heard of the enclosure ? The sacralization of private property ?
@Denasgurman
3 ай бұрын
How could you dare speaking about the industrial revolution and pretend explaining what led to it without saying the word capitalism ? How in the world ? People left the farms and founded factories ? What kind of liberal fairy tale is that ? Villages were burnt by self proclamed land owners, with people in it. Have you ever heard of the enclosures ?
@TheRezro
3 ай бұрын
What if Roman empire wold survive until Industrial Revolution? It is simple. It did. Balcanization of Rome was direct result of changes in technology.
@TheRezro
3 ай бұрын
If we would want simulate realistic tech progression in video games. Then there is something like concept of disruptive technologies. So some inventions actually cause negative effects, changing how things are done. The classic example. The ironworks! Contrary to popular believes iron weapon was at least initially weaker then bronze counterparts, but it was way cheaper and did not demand complex trade networks to gain ingredients. So when it was popularized, Bronze Age empires lost they advantage with many small tribes who rapidly could gain equal armament in large numbers. This put the in long run disadvantage leading to Bronze Age collapse (among things). Same with development of feudalism. It basically hammer your tax revenue, but you gain huge buff to bottom up agricultural development. It is basically what did kill Rome. Most players would not like rapidly lost abilities, as such games cheat keeping only positive changes.
@MM22966
3 ай бұрын
Stirrups. It's always the stirrups that mess with me. People riding horses for thousands of years, working with leather, and metal. Everybody looking for the best way to bonk somebody from a horse...and they try everything BUT simply attaching a pair of looped ropes to each side of the bottom of the saddle until...what? 750 AD? As a kid, that told me tech was not linear or inevitable.
@larsrons7937
3 ай бұрын
Somewhere I read that reconstructional archaeologist (and illustrator) Peter Connolly's experiments with the Roman four-horned saddle proved it to be very good at keeping the rider in the saddle. You could even slide down on the side of the horse without falling off by securing your leg under one of the horns. The Romans were among the first to use the solid saddle tree, a necessary prerequisite for using stirrups because of the weight destribution on the horse's back.
@ihl0700677525
3 ай бұрын
Tribalism (in this case, clan system). The thing that hold back many civilizations for thousands of years. You can never became industrial society with tribalism. Tribalism tied vast majority of the people to one clan and to one region, making modern concept of corporation, complex supply chain, mass worker migration, and mass mechanization/industrialization nigh impossible to implement. Thing is, Roman society was tribal in nature. Rennaisance era Western Europe and Ming China were IMO the only major civilizations managed to evolve out of tribalism by the 16th century.
@mutteringmale
3 ай бұрын
Uh, everyone forgets that huge fact that most western civilizations in Europe didn't need stirrups, because they didn't need horses for combat. Horses are only in their forte' in open areas, like plains and steppes. So, no need to invent stirrups. But, the people who needed to invent them, the Scythians/Parthians et al, did so. Stirrups only became important to western civ through their use in Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantium when the western mounted "Knights" discovered their great use in combat. Thus, the Byzantines needed them because they were getting inundated by plains people WITH stirrups from the east and north east.
@jangtheconqueror
3 ай бұрын
@@mutteringmale It's not so much that they didn't need horses as it is that the East just used them more heavily and in a way where stirrups benefitted them. Obviously they used horses heavily, for horse archery. They can't keep any hands on the rein when shooting, so a stirrup helps in providing stability as well as control over the horse in the absence of hands. For the Macedonians and Romans, they usually had one hand free for the reins because they weren't really doing anything where a second hand would benefit them, so stirrups are less needed. But it would have been nice I'm sure and perhaps enabled a greater variety of tactics. To note, they used cavalry to cover and/or attack the flanks, and many a battle was determined by the use of these cavalry. So to say that horses weren't needed is very inaccurate.
@mutteringmale
3 ай бұрын
I didn't say they didn't need horses, but horses were like Maseratis in price for the average peasant and mules!!! More than horses. Peasants had to with oxen, which were much more suited to farm work anyway. That's why horses were the sign of wealth and usually only the nobility rode them.
@2whostruckjohn
3 ай бұрын
An unappreciated factor is the addition of Western Hemisphere crops. Potatoes are the most critical crop brought to the Eastern Hemisphere, and became a critical food source in the 18th century.
@anthonyanderson9326
3 ай бұрын
@@2whostruckjohn great point.
@RamGutta
3 ай бұрын
for real man, I'm indian and I feel bad for my ancestors because potato curries are fire, and we use tomatoes in basically every meal nowadays
@RovingTroll
3 ай бұрын
That combined with nitrogen fixation methods developed during the 1800s. The industrial revolution was also a revolution in chemistry.
@Xazamas
3 ай бұрын
@@RovingTroll Even before that, Britain had an "agricultural revolution" before the industrial one due to innovations like Four Field Rotation, better plows and other tools. This was arguably a prerequisite to the Industrial Revolution, as it raised the amount of surplus food, allowing cities to grow.
@mutteringmale
3 ай бұрын
What does that have to do with the Romans? All root crops saved millions of lives during the 100 years war and such, but that came much later.
@someguycalledCh0wdah
3 ай бұрын
The steam engine was way more advanced and complicated to produce than most people realize Just the ability to produce a waterproof boiler was actually a huge feat
@cdev2117
2 ай бұрын
I once had a look at a period copy of the construction drawings for a Patentee type locomotive from the 1830s. Way, WAY, more complex then people might assume.
@_kalia
2 ай бұрын
@@cdev2117 To be fair, locomotives are a very advanced steam machine. Early stationary engines were much much simpler.
@someguycalledCh0wdah
2 ай бұрын
@_kalia thry also couldn't do much because they were wildly inefficient, we had rudimentary steam engines for way longer than they actually served a functional purpose other than scientific novelty
@lesfreresdelaquote1176
2 ай бұрын
@@someguycalledCh0wdah Actually the main problem of steam engine was metallurgy. For instance, Cugnot's fardier from 1770 used a very crude boiler and a very very primitive engine, and it worked, but was hampered by the use of copper and cast iron, which made it very heavy and quite brittle. What changed the game was the discovery of actual chemistry (thanks to Lavoisier) and the use of coal, which led to a better understanding of how to create a much more efficient steel metallurgy. Stream engines have been known to at least 2000 years by then, but the metals to handle it didn't exist before the end of the XVIIIth century. The use of much more reliable, lighter metals allowed for the creation of much more refined engines.
@christinacody8653
2 ай бұрын
There's a small rail line of historical rail trains here. One of the (now) three trains is a steam train. The cost to fix it is enormous. In part because of the experts but more, because there are specialized parts that aren't made anymore and they used extremely specialized wrenches.
@Fearmylogic
3 ай бұрын
something else not mentioned, that puts together both Material science and steam, Is that While steam is AMAZING, It's damn near useless on an industrial scale without PRESSURE. You need a way to not just make steam, but to contain it, and have it create a lot of pressure, so it can push things like pistons with enough force to move something heavy ( or move itself, like a train ). And to be able to contain those pressures, you need the metallurgy to make vessels that can contain that pressure. That means not just the vessel walls, but things like if it used any kind of rivets, or any other connection with another piece of metal, to form the shape. Then you also need seals that can handle the heat, and hold back the pressure. And that's just the vessel. There's more to a steam engine than just the vessel. The pipes, connection of one pipe to another, Springs to make automatic opening and closing valves There's a chance someone could have easily tried to scale up that spinning steam toy, to do work, but the experiments would have failed, due to them not being able to build up enough pressure to do enough work, to make it all worth it. Many of these different things that they did or did not know and use, are all intertwined, and build on each other. A true industrial revolution would have required quite a lot of different sciences all coming together, to make the entire revolution happen. But, it's super fun to think about just how close they were, or were not, and in what ways they were more advanced than we though, and in the ways they were no where near close.
@_kalia
2 ай бұрын
@@Fearmylogic A Newcomen style engine would certainly be possible in terms of pressure, since it worked at low-single-digit PSI and the negative pressure of condensing steam. High pressure steam was a later development even in the irl industrial revolution due to the difficulty in containing it, but Newcomen engines could have boilers made from relatively primitive materials and methods. That said, the other issue you run into with a Newcomen engine is that you need a wide piston to generate decent force from such low pressure, and that wasn't really possible until tools were invented for making sufficiently cylindrical bores of that size.
@xmaniac99
2 ай бұрын
Romans had heat distribution substations in use which had thermal chambers, also see the excavations on Herculaneum of some of the more recent finds.
@Velereonics
2 ай бұрын
think of how many deaths there were due to not knowing about mechanical load
@Sorter43
2 ай бұрын
Gauge blocks or Johansen blocks were also a major breakthrough that enabled allowed much greater precision between multiple locations.
@personeater747
2 ай бұрын
early steam engines were soldered copper, humans have been soldering since mesopotamia and rome had access to high quality copper, as well as stronger metals if needed. had someone had the vision, they surely could have overcome the obstacles in front of them with a lifetime or two of engineering. the science was a small barrier compared to the economic base. near all the workers in rome were tied up in agriculture, so there was nobody to fill the supply chains industrial society needed. in 1800 only 35% of brits farmed, for context, with the others selling their labor mostly. and even in that context, it was the bourgeois and petty bourgeois who lead the economic shifts that brought about capitalism, and rome had very very few of these classes, instead having mostly patricians, plebs, and slaves. I wont delve too far in but those classes had incentives that lead them to more efficient production and forming a different relationship between workers and work, those incentives were absent from rome.
@robertjarman3703
3 ай бұрын
The medieval period too with its proto industrialization from the late 1400s on would be another good topic on the theme of industry.
@TheRedBaron1917
3 ай бұрын
The rise of the Burgher middle class and the development of labour saving presses and mills was the foundation of European manufacturing
@mhdfrb9971
3 ай бұрын
That would be the Venetian Republic
@mutteringmale
3 ай бұрын
To have industrial or any kind of technological massive advances you need several things. A long period of good government and no major external threats.] For example, Caesar Augustus, greatest period of peace and prosperity in all the Roman empire. But, if he had come along a couple of hundred years later, even he couldn't have saved Rome.
@arx3516
3 ай бұрын
The roman empire had the political unification and money to make things happen. The "proto industrialization" of 15th century DID eventually lead to the actual industrial revolution.
@tj-co9go
2 ай бұрын
@@mhdfrb9971 I have heard claimed that the Arsenale was a proto-industrial manufacturing facility. That they discovered how to organise each step of production like on an assembly line, by dividing them into workshops and teams dedicated to a certain task. Then these parts of ships would be kept in reserve, which then could finally be quickly assembled and combined into a new ship in a day. It was one of the most closely guarded secret of the repuclic of Venice.
@thecashier930
3 ай бұрын
I don't think I can put into words how much I love these well prepared discussion videos. Combined with looking at the "unsexy" topics like logistics and industry is just wonderful.
@MesaperProductions
3 ай бұрын
Invicta does a hella good job!
@MrWolfstar8
2 ай бұрын
Roman didn’t have the scientific revolution. They had Greek science but it was primitive and incomplete.
@stasi0238
2 ай бұрын
@@MrWolfstar8"primitive" 😂😂
@andrelegeant88
3 ай бұрын
The answer is, very far away. I long thought they could have industrialized, but I've been convinced industrialization required an incredibly precise environment. Namely, a situation where it was economical to develop a steam powered water pump. That only happened because Britain needed coal after depleting its forests, and it was economical to use an inefficient pump to remove water from coal mines, using the very coal to power it.
@jpaulc441
3 ай бұрын
If the elites were worried a steam powered ship would make rowing slaves unnecessary and hurt the slave market profits, a psychopath like Caligula might burn slaves instead of coal! 😊
@TheTrueAdept
3 ай бұрын
That and all the required intervening discoveries in metallurgy.
@andrelegeant88
3 ай бұрын
@@TheTrueAdept 💯 You needed cannon technology
@Sean.Cordes
3 ай бұрын
Not just that, but all the technology was largely contingent on both other tech developments, AND on the necessity and demand to use such tech innovations. Like, the Byzantines had steam engines on a small scale with their automata, but they didnt have any need or reason to upscale that technology, and they didnt have the metallurgy to do it on an industrial scale, among other issues.
@turkeytrac1
3 ай бұрын
Except that in great Britain and Europe they'd been using water powered vacuum pumps to clear mines for at least 2 centuries before steam powered water pumps. They needed more power to pump from greater depths, it had zilch to do with GB cutting down its trees
@mboyer68
2 ай бұрын
I had a quote posted in my office it read "innovation is a conundrum, it rests when things are good, it thrives on anarchy and chaos". And I think that's valid, and it goes along with another quote "war is the mother of all invention".
@stasi0238
2 ай бұрын
@@mboyer68 time is the mother of knowledge
@redakteur3613
Ай бұрын
The wrongest quote ever. Not the first one not the second
@jamesgravil9162
Ай бұрын
@@redakteur3613 Indeed. Necessity is the mother of invention. But war does tend to be pretty good at creating necessity.
@redakteur3613
Ай бұрын
@@jamesgravil9162 you are trying to convince yourself in your worldview which doesn’t have anything to do with reality
@Anankin12
Ай бұрын
@@mboyer68 and both are correct and wrong at the same time. While the most "inventive" periods are well aligned with war time, plenty of inventions or discoveries couldn't have been made in wartime due to the sheer scale of them requiring international collaboration, or the investment of resources into something apparently completely useless.
@briantarigan7685
3 ай бұрын
honestly man, the absolute best thing about this video is that you guys explained with absolute detail about the factors that caused Industrial revolution and debunking the "Gamingfication" of progress and technological development, because too many times, so many people doesn't understand that it takes far FAR more than just a few fancy tool to start Industrial revolution still related to the context of the Video, although not related to the Roman empire, my country, Republic of Indonesia is part of a newly industrialized country, Indonesia is part of G20, 60% of Indonesian population now lives in urban areas, and Indonesia's manufacturing output, being the absolute largest in southeast asia and one of the top 10 largest in the world still keep increasing rapidly especially due to government's downstreaming program, linking all these factors that you guys already explained with the history of Indonesia's economic development, i can see it all far more clearly now.
@GreenBlueWalkthrough
3 ай бұрын
That's a facly though as can and don't are two very different things... For exemple only 3 nations or so have made their own 5th gen fighter jets and two are second world meaning they are 30 years or more behind behind the first world nations in every measureable way... But only 1 is first world... Under the falcy you assume they can't because take Germany for exemple they culatorlly are anti war and lack the budget to design one... I and the gamers say they easly have the tech they just choose not to... as if they can't how can't they?
@raigarmullerson4838
3 ай бұрын
@@GreenBlueWalkthrough You spelled "ACKUHYALLY" wrong
@ls200076
3 ай бұрын
@@raigarmullerson4838lmao
@RADICALFLOAT95
2 ай бұрын
Brianarigan l actually cannot express how genuinely criminaly underated this comment actually is and this world actually genuinely needs more people actually like you in this world and community actually genuinely needs more people actually like you in this world and you actually couldn't have said that actually any better than me lol and long live China and Indonesian friendship ❤😂🎉🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🤝🇮🇩🇮🇩🇮🇩
@RADICALFLOAT95
2 ай бұрын
@@raigarmullerson4838yes but actually no
@GenStallion
3 ай бұрын
I love how a 2 hr video has been up for less than 20 minutes, and the keyboards warriors are already throwing in.
@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE
3 ай бұрын
It's a topic mulled over by many. My take is that England common law and property rights is why the industrial revolution could only have happened in Britain first
@mutteringmale
3 ай бұрын
Maybe because this is the only large place left in the world where you can still voice an opinion, even if google censors many of us? I dream of a day of an absolutely free internet, not one run by the fascisti at gogle.
@OrlandoDibiskitt
3 ай бұрын
Its a really, really interesting subject tho'... so many "what ifs" to consider :)
@OrlandoDibiskitt
3 ай бұрын
@@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE I think it could have happened in ancient Greece had they shared their knowledge amongst the different states. (they had a crappy steam engine but also the tech' to design condensers, valves etc..) I think we can go back to to Henry the 8th and his excommunication from the Catholic church. That made it possible for science to flourish, eventually ending in the enlightenment.
@JD-wf2hu
3 ай бұрын
You don't watch KZitem at 5x speed? 😂
@MM22966
3 ай бұрын
There was social aspects, too. To get enough concentrated/extra labor to get an industrial revolution started, they almost would have HAD to loosen their slave-based economy. I can't imagine that would be easy or possible for the golden era of imperial Rome.
@micahstoodley2488
3 ай бұрын
@@mutteringmale Nobody said others didn’t. Why are you so desperate to defend Roman/western slavery unprompted lol.
@chillin5703
3 ай бұрын
The romans were not the only society with manumission. This is a common trait. Southern slaves were not "culled" to any reasonable degree... @@mutteringmale
@mutteringmale
3 ай бұрын
@@chillin5703 Yes they were. Certain slaves were moved into the categories of "house Ni.......s" and Field Nig....s". The master determine who got to share a shack and "marry" each other. The trip over culled all the weak. The trip by the arabs to the slave pens on the coast of africa culled them. The biggest culling was when black tribes enslaved other black tribes to sell to the Arabs. They killed all the children, the weak, the old and the maimed for the coffle. Look up "coffle". Almost none of this is taught in our horrible, censored, fake news history classes in the west. BTW. where they were held in Africa was called a "factory". Most of this is censored on goowghol.
@mf9463
3 ай бұрын
Generally slaves are bad for an economy. However many of the free inhabitants of Rome were non-citizens as well, it is very wrong to lump non-citizens and citizens into the same pot as well. It is basically an Empire with inbuilt socially determined colonies which is quite powerful again.
@mutteringmale
3 ай бұрын
@@mf9463 That is the PC version of history taught in the last 40 years. Careful what you read and who read it to you, and what agenda did they have or unknowingly have, which are 99% of the deadbeat teachers of the teacher's union. Slaves are NOT bad for the economy. Slavery is a bad thing, but that's a very western-centric viewpoint, just as any arab with his little slave boys in Kandahar slave market Afghanistan for little boys.
@lionelbourgeois6445
3 ай бұрын
Watching this video and playing Rome Total War, good time.
@johnfroehling5653
2 ай бұрын
The massive amount of tiny factors that need to align is staggering. The importance of screw threads, potatoes, tree types, and so many other things in helping.
@mateuszbanaszak4671
3 ай бұрын
Most YTbers : *10-30 minutes* Invicta : *110 MINUTES*
@Le_Mef
Ай бұрын
Something that lives rent free in my head: The technological relationship between roman roads and the established standards of the automotive industry. To this day, we can't escape the design choices that were made centuries ago.
@android175
Ай бұрын
Elaborate?
@Le_Mef
Ай бұрын
@@android175 Horses. The width of horses.
@android175
Ай бұрын
@@Le_Mef ohh thats a good one.
@johngalt3940
Ай бұрын
Modern roads are great, all the damage is done by trucks. If we didn’t have trucks roads could last long.
@KasumiRINA
Ай бұрын
@@Le_Mef oh you mean those super tight streets in Italy and old towns of France and the like...
@Wyattinous
3 ай бұрын
1:16 BRO I NEVER SEEN YOUR FACE BEFORE YOUR ✨HANDSOME✨
@jan79306
3 ай бұрын
One thing that I have to comment on is the topic of the steam turbine. As an engineer, it really grinds my gears when people say that 'the Romans missed just one step to inventing a turbine' and follow it by justifying a myriad of reasons for why it didn't happen, without considering just how difficult this supposed 'one step' actually is. I understand that not everyone is aware of it, but I've seen it so often now that I'm just tired of it NGL. I think the best explanation I found for this is a video by the engineering guy, linked below. kzitem.info/news/bejne/jm6ivoydcZaIe6Asi=vhvthPzgbtXGD9xe. I think that this topic in particular is also one of the 'not enough changes to other technological and scientific spheres of development'. Anyway, I'll end my rant here, great video as always.
@admiral_franz_von_hipper5436
2 ай бұрын
Imo, the invention of the steam turbine is the transition into the modern world. The steam expansion engine was the primary engine type up to the 1910s and fits more of the “industrial” period. Surprisingly, it is the rise of the dreadnought battleship and the arms race of that class that advanced steam turbine technology. Steam turbines are still the peak of energy conversion engines today.
@panan7777
2 ай бұрын
I am a mechanical engineer AND fabricator, that can do most of the metal work sheet or solid, hand and machine work in my shop. Transport me in the Roman times and I could not do much, because even the tech from 200 years ago IS COMPLICATED involving a LOT of BIG machinery of all kinds, labs, measuring equipment, hell, decimal system and unified measuring system was not invented. Try multiplying in roman numerals. NO GO.
@Ferkiwi
2 ай бұрын
Yes! They say that tech trees are not realistic... but it's the most accurate representation I can think of. Technologies do have dependencies among themselves, some discoveries make easier to discover others, and of course its not "linear", but tech trees also do not necessarily behave linearly, you can leave one area underdeveloped and focus on other ones, it's just that then you will most likely have some technologies blocked off that might prevent further development significantly. Notice how after we landed on the moon, the technology did not progress much further when it comes to achieving human exploration of space, but that research allowed us to unlock a lot of other (seemingly unrelated) tech that has been used to bump progress in many fields on Earth. Things like satellites were revolutionary for many spheres of our technology, topography, military, communications, weather control, research in pollution, the internet, etc. A lot of technologies like that work transversally.. think for example of computer technology, it made other fields advance in ways that would have simply not been possible.
@GeorgeMonet
Ай бұрын
@@panan7777 You might not be able to right away. However once you start teaching other Romans about more modern systems, science and engineering then you would see a large amount of innovation and change.
@KaiHung-wv3ul
3 ай бұрын
In reality, probably not close at all. To have an industrial revolution, you must have a society where the incentive to invest in industry is high. Rome's massive amount of slaves hold them back in this regard, as there is no incentive to invest in industry if human labour is dirt cheap. Also, I don't think it could have stopped Rome's fall, which was mostly caused by internal factors such as inflation and political instability.
@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE
3 ай бұрын
English property rights and common law
@egoalter1276
3 ай бұрын
Considering the industrial recolution started in an idependent Scotland, no.
@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE
3 ай бұрын
@@egoalter1276 England/Scotland and the legal system was English common law the reason why we were great is because of the union
@ZOMBIEo07
2 ай бұрын
@@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE Industrial revolution benefited almost exclusivly England. The investments in Scotland by London were the absolute minimum. The union prevented Scotland from forming trade deals with foreign nations and establishing its own industry.
@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE
2 ай бұрын
@@ZOMBIEo07 I agree with you and that disparity was felt in England too from north to south. I'm saying without Wales, Scotland and Ireland...what would England be. I believe in an equal union as peers a Confederate Union where what you're saying would be possible.
@kevting4512
3 ай бұрын
The Romans: Why should we increase production? No one is going to buy our locally made fish sauce. The Hans: Cheng! Increase steel productions! We have orders to some Laowai in the west!
@davidjames2659
3 ай бұрын
Loved this format, between the back and forth and visual elements. Super well done gents, love your stuff normally, but this is next level history nerd.
@XMarkxyz
3 ай бұрын
1:18:00 Engineer here, the thing about steam bein able to take more and more heat is not about storing but about the change of pressure you get and how fast it changes, this thing is called superheating and it's used only in the more advanced stema engines like 2nd industrial revolution timeframe, not for sure on the Newcommen engine where most power don't even come from the steam expansion but it's condensation afterwards and the counterpressure from the Atmosphere and so it's sometimes called Newcommen atmospheric engine.
@janegarnham
Ай бұрын
i love the ‘ engineer here’s opening 😂.
@geog26
15 күн бұрын
the fireless locomotive, which runs on stored steam independently pre-generated. An example is the Solar Steam Train project in california that tries to revive the tek
@gilburtfilburt8779
2 ай бұрын
As an engineer, I can point out a million things that prevented the romans from getting a working steam engine, but the most important one in my opinion was lacking the philosophy of science. That is to say, a philosophy that doesn't hand out a theory on how the world works, but one that hands out a method for finding out how the world works systematically; you could never build a locomotive with Aristotle's physics model. Like, you can give the 5th grader explanation on how a steam piston works to a roman, and I'm pretty sure they would understand phase transitions from water to steam, pressure working on a moving cylinder head, pistons attached to crankshafts turning oscillating motion into cyclical motion. What that Roman is going to be lacking is everything beyond that understanding. Ideal gas law, temperature and pressure relationships, specific heat, latent heat, heat of vaporization, energy, enthalpy, entropy, every single other boring value and relationship that is measured or derived through constant experimentation and measurement by the engineers and scientists of the industrial revolution. Lacking this language means that the romans wouldn't know what things they need to look to maximize or minimize, they wouldn't know what levers to pull to achieve the desired results, and they wouldn't even know what things to measure or test to see if they even made a better product at the end of it all. This is also ignoring the advances in metallurgical understanding to make these engines, as well as advances in precision manufacturing and measurement that are unimaginably important at every step along this process. All of this derives from a change in the philosophy of the natural world that created an understanding of how things worked that was obtained exclusively from observations and derived properties. I think this change is an incredibly underrated factor that lead to the industrial revolution, and one critically lacking in the Roman empire.
@MrWolfstar8
2 ай бұрын
The Romans had Greek science which was the first time science was invented. Unfortunately for the Greeks were convinced that vacuums were impossible. No vacuum force then no steam piston and no practical steam engine. The key development in the English stream engine was the scientific experiments on vacuums and they were able to confirm vacuums produce force. This allowed for the development of the piston. The scientific revolution made the practical steam engine possible.
@tomh9553
Ай бұрын
Could you also say there’s been a cultural shift? There’s probably a clearer awareness of our history and a greater desire to advance technology than ever before.
@punishedbarca761
Ай бұрын
@@tomh9553 possibly, but that also might be due to the ease of access of information. Global literacy, the internet, pop science using click bait to educate TikTok viewers. It could be cultural but it's also so widespread that it seems more like a natural side effect of having every documentary/research paper/book available to you while you're on the toilet.
@sachazalac5573
Ай бұрын
I just wanted to point out around 37:17, you mention gmo’s as seed selection. In agricultural biology, those are 2 distinct things. One is plant breeding (selective processing), the other genetic manipulation (gene splicing). Everyone that does agriculture practices plant breeding, GMO is lab built super-species, not natural pedigree refinement.
@mybigsteaminjohn4027
Ай бұрын
No. GMO is simply any Genetically Modified Organism. And Breeding in any capacity does fall under that umbrella term
@drandren9093
3 ай бұрын
Love how you took a more serious, well thought out, and documentary style approach to this video as compared to purely entertainment/animation!
@ruperthart5190
2 ай бұрын
I think you have overstated the idea that technological advancement/ progress is not linear. For almost every category you judged, the result was always Rome didn't have 1600 years of extra "accumulated knowledge" - well I reckon accumulated knowledge is the same as good old fashioned linear iterative technological advancement. I would argue that technological advance is absolutely linear because it is done iteratively, small improvements on each generation of a technology and the odd paradigm shift (which is only possible due to the previous iterative technological advancements). I totally agree that other factors like social pressures / upheaval or environmental factors etc. have a limiting or even negative effect, slowing or reversing technological advancement and that there is no guarantee that any one societies technology will reach any particular level by any particular time (indeed the new world never invented the wheel for example). So I think technological advance is somewhat linear...if wonky and chaotic... basically I would always bet that after more time passes technology has probably improved...I think there is some logic to expecting a later civilization to have a more advanced technology.
@marcusathome
2 ай бұрын
Conclusive summary, great video! Yet I'm missing one aspect here: Information recording, reproduction and distribution, of which the invention of paper and the printing press is crucial. And although the Romans certainly had the skills to build the printing press, there was no paper yet to print on.
@ryanaegis3544
18 күн бұрын
Paper existed at least two thousand years before in Egyupt, and never went extinct.
@marcusathome
Күн бұрын
@@ryanaegis3544 Paper != papyrus. The surface of papyrus is to uneven to print on. It was manufactured in a time consuming manual process and too expensive to be used in quantities.
@TheBrickMasterB
2 ай бұрын
The primary faction I'm writing for in my fictional setting is largely based on Rome, so this video is tremendously helpful for me figuring out a few of the nitty-gritty details I want to include in passing dialogue or exposition in my story. Thank you so much for this, this is impossibly helpful!
@19ate4
3 ай бұрын
It only took 6000 hours to go from the 1st car to the 1st plane
@anonUK
3 ай бұрын
First car-1886 First plane-1903. Did you mean "days"?
@XMarkxyz
3 ай бұрын
It took only 66 years from the first plane to putting foot on the moon
@christopherbelanger6612
3 ай бұрын
@@anonUK He meant days. It's roughly 6000 days for 7 years
@Bern_il_Cinq
3 ай бұрын
Different tech trees bro
@auspiciouskaktus2692
3 ай бұрын
@christopherbelanger6612 Break it down for me how you can get 6000 days out of 7 years. I'm genuinely curious how you thought about this.
@doyen6409
3 ай бұрын
Could you please link sources in the description?
@InvictaHistory
3 ай бұрын
Ill work on adding that. This was our main source for much of it "The Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World" g.co/kgs/4UvuRBv
@pyeitme508
3 ай бұрын
Wow@@InvictaHistory
@tanjiro2507
3 ай бұрын
@@InvictaHistorythanks you.
@doyen6409
3 ай бұрын
@@InvictaHistory Thank you!
@inthefade
2 ай бұрын
Awesome. I want that book.
@slartybarfastb3648
3 ай бұрын
Great presentation! Modern people typically view history through the modern contextual lens. It's refreshing to see these past people acknowledged as being smart and resourceful. We don't know what we don't know until we know we didn't know. A similar video will be made about us 300 years from now. Hopefully.
@Cara-39
3 ай бұрын
Ancient Rome's achievements have long been admired and acknowledged, which is why it continues to be relevant all these many centuries later.
@slartybarfastb3648
3 ай бұрын
@Cara-39 Yes, but not my point. For example, Rome had many slaves. It was an accepted class of civilization. Were they evil or was it a function of that time's current industrial requirement? We would call it evil. They would call it necessary. If you asked the slaves (mostly Europeans), they would have called it their lot in life. Or, rebelled.
@rubenjames7345
3 ай бұрын
The dual host dialogue format makes a smooth presentation delivery difficult, but this was still very informative. Thank you.
@BrianJames-d9y
2 ай бұрын
When you started speaking to paradigm shifts, I was brought back to my History of Science classes as an undergrad. It's amazing how apparent and subtle truly revolutionary ideas are after the fact. Being locked into a paradigm can be a significant barrier to innovation.
@jayayerson8819
3 ай бұрын
@InvictaHistory 33:40 Major historical oversight: People didn't start moving into the cities willingly in England. People were thrown off their land by their landlords, in order to grow cash crops (especially wool), knowing that factories in the cities needed labour (and likely some of them were shareholders). The burning down of peasant houses is where we get the term 'fired'. It's not unique, either - in Russia, St Petersburg specifically had workers directed there by the Tsar. 1:28:00 Also for goodness sake, 1500C is not 50% hotter than 1000C. 0C is ~273K (same unit size, but starts at absolute zero). And because you asked engineers to @ you, steam is not a battery, it's a force transfer mechanism.
@inthefade
2 ай бұрын
But what he means by a "battery" is that you can store energy continuously until it is needed. There is no functional limit to the energy that you can put into it, besides the strength of the vessel, until you want to use that energy. Short of a flywheel there isn't anything comparable that could be made in that era to store energy that I can think of.
@Lock484
2 ай бұрын
Another major flaw at 33:15. In hundreds of PERCENT yes, but that is definitely not 10*, 20* or 30* or even 400(!) times 😳. From I've I've quickly googled and a paper written by a university of California historian Gregory Clark, the output per farm worker in Britain from 1300 to 1850 increased about 4.4* or 440%.
@ZhangWeiMenacing
Ай бұрын
do not disrespect Romanovs
@jsherpa25
3 ай бұрын
Omg alternate history on the Roman Empire by Invicta!!!! My day is made 🎉
@DSlyde
3 ай бұрын
This was great but there were a few times where the reasoning boils down to "because they didn't" instead of reasons with actual predictive power. I think it's largely a polish issue - they're trying to cram a topic you could write a series of books on into a reasonable length video and do it in a conversational style, so it's to be expected, but its jarring when the majority of the content was so solid.
@NameNotAlreadyTaken2
2 ай бұрын
The development of engines happened together with the development of calculus. I can't imagine developing calculus using roman numerals.
@Ukitake13thDivision
2 ай бұрын
I'm thankful this video was recommended to me. First time I heard about the idea of Romans being somehow industrialised was in Second Image in Alabaster, a short story by Polish author Marek Huberath. Really enjoying those talks. Thank you.
@lcjester16
2 ай бұрын
Honestly love coming across these type of videos
@JK50with10
3 ай бұрын
The 1815 map of the British Empire is somewhat misleading as it doesn't show the possessions of the British East India Company, which owned most of India and bits of China. So whilst what became British India wasn't technically owned by the British state in 1815, it was in practice a British possession administered by a private company.
@tegbolddos
2 ай бұрын
Romans had hot water heaters and indoor plumbing.
@alexanderren1097
3 ай бұрын
Great video! I’d love to see a video on this topic but about China. From what I’ve read recently, it seems to me that the Song Dynasty was very close to an industrial revolution around 1100 until they were conquered by a nomadic steppe people
@mgrimes
2 ай бұрын
Who else is watching this……… just in case you get transported but in time to the Roman Empire, and can make it live forever.
@Idk-cb5qg
3 ай бұрын
Now do one on how close the Song dynasty was to industrialisation
@TheAnanaki
2 ай бұрын
Imo you kind of need your society to go through a Renaissance or at very least an Enlightenment period before you can pull off and industrial revolution. For an IR you need to raise the floor on the level of basic education your average citizen has, they also need to be liberated and free to pursue their own desires. Without this you likely wouldn't have much innovation due to a lack of competition. And advancements would likely be well kept secrets guarded by guilds. You need educated and free people and you need free trade. You need capitalism.
@harrisonlucero74
2 ай бұрын
It's amazing how well put together this is for education! You and other youtubers of the same caliber are such a massive resource!
@SeanEustace-zk3mc
Ай бұрын
I don’t remember who it was. I think it was Marcus Aurelius that mentioned not having windmills because it would put slaves out of work so they kind of were kicking themselves in the feet and plenty of the younger. He’s talking about companion planting or crop rotation. I’m not sure one or the other. Socrates, shows you how to build a roof at a particular angle to let light in in the winter and keep it out in the summer. This was in memorabilia I believe and was an answer to the wood shortage in Athens at the time. Horodatus tells us that the phridgians had greenhouses and Xenophone tells us in the Anabasis that the same fans had an ingenious way of preserving milk with wax and bottles. Xenophone tells us also in Cyclopedia that the Persians had assembly lines to build shoes 500 years before Christ. And plenty of the elder tells us about a flying saucer, shooting off sparks above Rome, which she describes as a polished shield. I can’t remember whether it was plenty of the younger or Tacitus, who talked about having his slave read books to him while they took a chariot to his summer or winter home, which means they were listening to audiobooks while driving. Just a few other things that you can pick up if you actually bothered to read the classics and while I’m at it, Joseph tells us that the temple in Jerusalem had those little pokey things on the roof to keep pigeons off. So there you go as Solomon would have it there’s nothing new under the sun.
@torin13666
3 ай бұрын
Apart from how impressive and outright fascinating this is (thank you guys, that was really awesome) - I think Miro should sponsor you 😀 I’ve used it a lot as a PM for project plans, flowcharts, you name it. But what you guys have there is MASSIVE 😀😉 keep up the good work 🤘
@3Dirae
2 ай бұрын
It’s always odd to me when Greek inventions are attributed to Rome when convenient, presumably just because Rome admired their culture and eventually annexed Greece. This is the first time I have heard anybody credit Rome for the Antikythera Mechanism. There is no evidence that they replicated it, there is no evidence that they even understood how it worked. Right after explaining that tech is not linear, lol
@lorddervish212quinterosara6
3 ай бұрын
Such a well researched video, great work man
@Lachgummei
2 ай бұрын
I've had this talk with a friend lately and he came up with a somewhat funny solution. His reasoning was slaves. They never had the need to invent machines since they got cheap laborforce already. And even if there was somebody proposing a steamengine to the senate, the slave agenda - which was certainly strong in the Roman world - most likely vetoed against it.
@yourdailybeats1127
3 ай бұрын
The "absolute" rule of roman emperors was not really there for a lot of emperors the senate had eminence authority at times while other emperors would curb stomp their power. The problem wasn't a counterbalance to the absolute rule. that's fine. It's the lack of true inheritance laws and an outdated bureaucracy that was set up by an unstable senate, which was itself was designed for a city state with very little real government restructuring outside of the provincial reforms
@mutteringmale
3 ай бұрын
Just like today, the senate is a pestilence fostered on us by well meaning but ignorant signers of the constitution who learned nothing about Roman history, except what they read their British centric classes in the "classics". The greatest empires in the world and the longest periods of prosperity has always been benevolent, intelligent dictatorships. Democracy is very short term aberration in history, and soon to be forgotten as the horrible very short termed experiment in democracy in Athens led to cannibalism, Athens burning to the ground and the diaspora of thousands who had two nickels to rub together fled screaming to other safer spaces where the voting mob couldn't get to them. We see the same thing here in USA, where the two nickel holders are fleeing screaming out of big cities and liberal run areas to safer and better areas in the USA.
@KamiTenchi
2 ай бұрын
The Roman Empire becoming steampunk would've been so cool.
@JimNZ
2 ай бұрын
I'm playing CIV VI with the Romans... and was asking myself exactly these kind of questions. So cool you elaborated a video about this!!
@sallyjones5391
2 ай бұрын
@Invicta were there other pre-industrial countries that came close to having an Industrial Age before Britain?
@musashi.miyamoyo
2 ай бұрын
Rome fell in 1453… so closer than most people realize.
@amirreza6088
2 ай бұрын
@@musashi.miyamoyo what do u mean
@adlfm
Ай бұрын
@@musashi.miyamoyo more like 1204
@adlfm
Ай бұрын
@@amirreza6088😂
@marcobeardo985
Ай бұрын
@@amirreza6088 It's when Eastern Roman Empire ended up.
@QoraxAudio
2 ай бұрын
Ever since I got interested in history, back when I was 10 years old, I always claimed that: had the Romans invented the lathe (not that ancient one for wood, but one for metal), then the industrial revolution would've happened about 1500 years earlier. The lathe was smithable with the technology of their time, especially the later period, when they were using the first blast furnaces copied from the chinese to produce better quality metals. People used to think that it was a ridiculous idea when I was a kid, but it seems that this theory is getting more and more support lately, but idk what changed peoples minds... The lathe is considered "the mother of all tools" for good reason! It's just that the population has to "see the potential" of these technologies... if people don't care to change or even don't want to, there won't be change/development.
@Cara-39
3 ай бұрын
Why is this a popular topic lately - a new book discussing it? In a nutshell, Ancient Rome was nowhere near an industrial revolution.
@jwhi419
3 ай бұрын
Very old idea. Probably started with conversations about the library of Alexandria lost knowledge or whatever bla bla. How much more afvanced tech would've compounded. It's a very ignorant of the world pre internet era type question. Basically several paths lead to this kind of thinking. I guess youtube ancient history videos started in... Eh idk.
@OrlandoDibiskitt
3 ай бұрын
I disagree, (relatively anyway), as all of the required technology was inherited from the Greeks. I guess the Romans didn't have the required "mind set" though.. at one point they declared "science" to be un-masculine and un-Roman. I do the Greeks could have industrialised if there was a more centralised govenment however.
@OrlandoDibiskitt
3 ай бұрын
@@jwhi419 I don't think its ignorant at all. The technology was most certainly available. It would simply have taken the "predominance of precipitating factors" to bring those technologies together, (just as it did In Britain).
@Cara-39
3 ай бұрын
I know this isn't a new topic, I was asking why it's popular now as many channels have posted videos abt it recently, which didn't seem like a coincidence. This often happens when a new book or study goes viral. As to whether or not Rome was close to industrialization, the answer is no. Most ppl think abt the technical aspect but the main catalyst for the Industrial Revolution was Britain's Agricultural Revolution, which saw a massive increase in food production that allowed enough ppl to stop farming for a living and work in various trades, manufacturing, trading...etc. Throughout much of human history, 80%+ of the population were subsistence farmers and the lack of surplus food meant bad harvests, crop failures, farm destruction during conflict...etc could doom the entire society to starvation. Preventing famine was one of the main priorities and society wasn't able to move forward to industrialization until Britian (the first country to industrialize) figured it out and spread the info to Europe.
@jwhi419
3 ай бұрын
@@OrlandoDibiskitt im talking about people alive today coming up with the idea that these ancient societies were more advanced than they were
@juzoli
3 ай бұрын
The video started great, but ended up being disappointing. There are like 5 reasons (probably more) why industrial revolution was started (which could all be compared to the Roman situation). After half an hour, I thought it will go through all reasons. But instead, it stopped at the 2nd one, and was stuck there all along. And it is not even the most important reason... This whole video is pretty much about Roman technology for 1.5 hours, without touching the real reasons of the industrial revolution...
@SwordFighterPKN
3 ай бұрын
slaves were cheap so why would a society industrialize to improve labor.
@crimsonguy8696
3 ай бұрын
Why would Eli Whitney invent the cotton gin, which spurred slavery into a new phase of economic growth in the US? See, machinery and capitalization simply increases the efficiency of workers; it doesnt matter whether those workers are employees or slaves ti the ones who own the company assets. I mean, it might matter morally, i just mean by the numbers.
@JunnoStromboli
3 ай бұрын
Video starts at 22:00
@TheMDJ2000
3 ай бұрын
I'm an engineer, not an expert on the Industrial Revolution, but I would have thought you would also need elements such as: * Metrology, with measuring instruments capable of resolution to thousands of an inch/hundredths of a millimetre * A culture and procedures for inspection and quality (for interchangeability) * Thread systems, including tapered and buttress threads * Machines to build machines, i.e. quality lathes and milling machines * Drawing standards, including dimensional tolerancing would be great * Test facilities, machines and methods * Plain bearing materials, eg. phosphor bronze, white metal All of these things are really required AT THE SAME TIME. Ideally you would also want to have the concept of zero, Newtonian physics, algebra, calculus, thermodynamics (vital for efficient steam engines), test facilities, machines and methods etc etc, otherwise you're relying on trial and error. All of these were available to the pioneers of the industrial revolution (although thermodynamics came a bit later, in the 19th century).
@arthurswanson3285
2 ай бұрын
Engineer here also. You've got me thinking... their numeral system was far too clumsy for higher level mathematics. I'm sure you'd need an Arabic style number system to get started.
@emilsohn1671
2 ай бұрын
Yeah I agree. The Romans were not that close from what at least I know. The absence of calculus was a major drawback for them. The renaissance era Europe was more advanced than the Roman empire despite some modern myths and they had the better pre-requisites for the industrial revolution.
@Enderfine354
2 ай бұрын
Engineer with a histroical hobby. Standards for technical drawing was one such accumelated knowledge. It was a little revolution on its own! Many credit Leonardo da Vinci with its origin, but it can be proofen that after da Vincis life, technical drawings that still had no standard were (mostly) made specifically to copy the older (medival/before the first standards) style. This was by chance also one of the reasons, one of my favorite books on Technological Innovations in history, marks one of its cut off points, before 1500! For those of you deeply interested in learning more about the accumulated Knowledge that appeared before the industrial revolution and can read german(!), there exists an old book from 1996, called "Europäische Technik im Mittelalter 800-1400". It is a comprehensive compendium(582 pages + 60 pages of source credits), that goes in depth on the many innovations that happened in Europe from 800 to 1400.
@Enderfine354
2 ай бұрын
@@arthurswanson3285 no, I woudnt say that they were needed. Arabic stile number systems, where used in acadimia already from 1300 onwards and the old roman system coudnt really be called clumsy. It was more then enough to help create the first banking houses. I can only speak on this in the german culture context, but the arabic numerals only found wide spread addoption after 1530s (thanks to a certain book form 1522) and the big banking house (I know of the Fugger at least doing it) existed befor that and even still a bit after that the fugger are proven to have still used the roman system of the calculation table. This system was very much enough to create some of the most wealthy merchant families there were before the wide spread change to the arabic numeral system, so it is difficult to say. For academic purposes the change had already long happened and I would say that in a way this proves that the calculation system has less to no impact on what we would call the first industrial revolution. It had more to essential of an impact on the later industrial revolutions. So we need to be clear here about which industrial revolution we speak.
@arthurswanson3285
2 ай бұрын
@@Enderfine354 There is a reason algebraic and later higher-order mathematics built on arabic numbers, whereas roman numerals are only found in 1970s movies and tv year credits these days.The notation doesnt capture the cyclic repetition of number patterns and cant be extended easily beyond 4 or 5 digits without serious mental overhead. It doesnt capture the abstraction and pattern of scaling inherent in numbers at all. Try to do floating point math, interest rates, or orbitial mechanics in roman notation. I'll wait.
@ciuyr2510
3 ай бұрын
SteamPunk Romans! I LOVE IT!
@frodofredo7747
2 ай бұрын
This has been my greatest What If in history ever since i learned about the massive waterwheel mill complex
@dziosdzynes7663
3 ай бұрын
These dudes had literal napalm almost 1500 years ago..
@SkyFly19853
3 ай бұрын
That video is really useful for Civ like video game I am developing.
@Ali1961-b9s
2 ай бұрын
The Romans didn't have zero. Their maths was extremely cumbersome. You need an easy system and proper schooling to spread it.
@1Kurgan1
2 ай бұрын
I was really hoping for more of a discussion on the projection of the Roman empire had it not collapsed. Rather than a "it wasn't possible and would take 1600 more years". I do appreciate the video, but the discussion is always about if the Roman empire had not collapsed how much sooner this all would have happened. And in my opinion, it definitely would have been sooner, the dark ages are called that for a reason, it was a recession.
@RainedOnParade
3 ай бұрын
Tldw: they weren’t because slavery
@armandom.s.1844
3 ай бұрын
I think calling Rome "not a stable anything" is quite an exaggeration, as we take only into consideration the period from 30 BCE to 180 CE aprox. when it comes to study if Rome could have been industrialized. The timespawn of pax romana covers more or less the same ammount of time passed since the origins of Industrial Revolution up to the internet. Most industrial states, if not all, have experienced some type of stress to its political stability or great conflict from Napoleonic wars, nationalist revolts or World War that put the whole nation into risk of economic or social collapse, or just disappearance. Rome never suffered, by the scope of pax romana, anything more dangerous than just government changes, low scale civil war or border raids.
@chillin5703
3 ай бұрын
The point is the "origins of the industrial revolution" lie before the actual start of that revolution. It was preconditioned by centuries of miscellaneous developments that happened to converge onto that arbitrarily defined (as in, defined by us) shift. Most industrial states may experience some amounts of conflict, but most industrial states did not _create_ the industrial revolution: they existed at time point when it was already underway. The UK, the state from which the industrial revolution and most of its original technologies emerged, was essentially devoid of internal armed conflicts, and instead the beneficiary of large leisurely classes who actively sought to make more efficient the means of production using the tools and scientific theories of the last multiple centuries to drive profit. The Roman empire, even during its "pax", was wracked by internal revolts. Those were not "small affairs", and could destroy regional economies. Preceding the "pax" was 70 years of endemic civil wars. During it, romans experienced not only revolts but regime shifts. These facts _do create_ instability and can ripple. When the people with the money and funds to support the developments leading to industrialization, actively can see their resource and trade investments destroyed by such far away conflicts...
@mkvalor
2 ай бұрын
I'm kind of surprised it didn't come up much earlier -- the role of the printing press and the mass communication that invention provided. Ancient Rome had nothing of the sort. This initiated a flourishing of literacy and education among broader strata of society. It facilitated a healthy competition among intellectuals to publish and to refute one another.
@colonelhammerhead3025
3 ай бұрын
Roma Invicta
@tomray8765
2 ай бұрын
A lot of what Romans lacked were just a few "key Ideas" and some knowledge. Romans had PISTON driven water pumps which could have inspired practical steam engines. There are also SOME technologies that could have been developed outright without a lot of previous tech to back it up--- Like a phonograph or sound recording. A drum with a needle imbedded on it could be used to make a grove in an impressionable surface like wax or metal foil. Threads would not be needed to guide it as a foil strip could simply be pulled under the needle with a kind of "reel to reel" mechanism and the sound amplified with a megaphone. (That would be interesting for one to build such a device today). Electricity could have also have been experimented with. Short range telephones would make their own power from only coils magnets and diaphragms .Voltaic piles developed, or even hand cranked "dynamos", could power electric powered telegraphs, and it also would be possible to build spark gap radio transmitters and receivers.---- perhaps more important as a shortage of copper wire might limit a big telegraph network. It is ALL simply a matter of experimental knowledge, if the principle behind it is known or not.
@larsrons7937
3 ай бұрын
Wow, an almost 2 hours marathon on such an interesting topic. I've only just started, but this is going to be exciting.☕
@Easterhands
2 ай бұрын
Constantly falling back on the 'they didn't have 1600 years of development' excuse is kind of frustrating because the whole point of the thought exercise is determining if they could have shortcuted any of those 1600 years by being a super powerful civilization way earlier than Britain. You talk about their inability to comprehend modern ideas and in the same breath bring up Democritus and his early atomic theory. That right there is a perfect example of thought lost to time due to the fall of The Roman empire.
@MIKE_THE_BRUMMIE
3 ай бұрын
The issue was their social and legal systems not the technology. The British concept of property rights is why we took the lead.
@LesChorizosExpat
Ай бұрын
A factor nobody take into consideration, the right person's being born at the right time with the right amount of knowledge! (Newton, Leonardo Da Vinci, Poincaré, Openheimer, etc. Etc.) Without a single one of those inventor, scientist, doctor, etc. the world would be a different place!
@Cute_Maxi
3 ай бұрын
Rome never fell... it became a church.
@darkghost2388
2 ай бұрын
@@Cute_Maxi can you elaborate?
@1v966
2 ай бұрын
@@darkghost2388 I've heard this take once, methinks. Empires don't disappear, they linger in the form of social institutions in societies that follow. Rome became the (Catholic) church, Britain became a bank, etc.
@upsidewalks
2 ай бұрын
I personally prefer to think that the Roman Empire fell in 1204
@PrebleStreetRecords
2 ай бұрын
@@1v966 I’d place a bet that America will linger in the future as Hollywood/the entertainment industry.
@daveo2992
2 ай бұрын
Don't forget the funny mustache man of ww2 was trying to revive and continue the Roman Empire, not only did he just straight up say it but look at their imagery and their architecture they planned for their future cities
@SimFoxSim
Ай бұрын
"Sun never sets"... You know that this phrase has nothing to do with Britain or so called British Empire... Original is "el imperio en el que nunca se pone el sol", language and date - early XVI century well exclude England, let alone Britain. In fact it was coined for the empire of Charles V (Carlos I) brother of the first wife of Henry VIII.
@Free_Russian
3 ай бұрын
Huge (and I mean HUGE) problem with possible industrial revolution in Roman Empire were Roman Numbers. Practically all science (mechanics, electromagnetism, hydro- and aerodynamics) were based on Sir Isaac Newton's works on Calculus. Meanwhile, even basic arithmetic operations with Roman numbers were bulky and complex. Scholars of the time considered positional numeral systems (and especially zero) as "violating the harmony and beauty" of Roman numbers. This would seriously slow, if not stop development of mathematical and physical foundation of the possible Industrial Revolution.
@turkeytrac1
3 ай бұрын
Except the bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio how flew at Kittyhawk, didn't know calculus, neither did James Watt, Richard travithick, or the roman engineers who built the siphons that allowed water to be transported from one elevation up to another in their aqueducts. Most of what have today has foundation in mechanical, hands on tinkering, not Newton.
@Free_Russian
3 ай бұрын
@@turkeytrac1 Exactly that's why Wright's motorbike engine with wings flew only 90 seconds. In order to make an airplane from a entertaining curiosity to a game-changing civil and military tool required works of dozens of world-class scientists and engineers. Airfoil and wing design, material science promising the flyer withstanding climbing and dive, engine technology offering longer flight and lifting biggel payload, development of wind tunnels that allowed testing new aircraft on the ground were extremely science-heavy achievements. No bicycle mechanic without education achieve it in hundreds years. Same about electricity. The way from salon tricks with magnets to electric generator was impossible without works of Faraday and Maxwell, and based on their works Edison and Tesla developed first power distribution systems. All four were greatest scientists of their times, and all had a deep scientific or engineering background.
@TheRealTorG
2 ай бұрын
It's interesting to see how many "modern" technologies were utilized as curiosities and novelties by ancient cultures. I wonder if future anthropologists living in levitating cities will see modern magnetic desk toys in a similar fashion.
@lifigrugru6396
3 ай бұрын
The square based citys have flaws to. Like its wind trap and made airfows stronger and faster. The main bottlenec in citybuilding is road weid's from foot to horse, to cart, to tram, 3-4-5 lane, bicycle... Citis tend to grow organicly organised to important functions not to plans.
@tyrannusspissamentum4423
2 ай бұрын
For being an "intellectual" this dude just mixed up GMO (genetically modified organism) and Genetically Engineered Organism, they're NOT the same. That was some clown ish...
@romulus3345
3 ай бұрын
How close were Romans to walking on the moon?
@blackshard641
3 ай бұрын
@@romulus3345 about 384,400 km
@jpaulc441
3 ай бұрын
Have you seen HBO's Rome? There's a scene where the two main characters are looking up at the stars and wonder what they are... but can't ever visit them because they're "hundreds of miles away". They then suggest travelling there on the back of a giant bird.
@AndrewMaKrayKyer
3 ай бұрын
@@jpaulc441Pullo, you fool! It doesn’t work like that!
@MisterOcclusion
3 ай бұрын
Rome can into space?
@MarioP9511
2 ай бұрын
In 1500 if they hadn't fallen.
@juzoli
3 ай бұрын
Great video, what you are saying is good, but it is very incomplete. You are focusing way too much on technology, and completely missed what might've been the most important, the legal and financial system. The industrial revolution is more of a mindset, rather than just technology. The main form of production in the medieval era, was the guild system. In the guilds, artisans or craftsmans were manufacturing products. One person was responsible for one product, from start to finish. The guilds were providing protection by blocking competition, so they could keep prices high, and the efficiency low. They were not motivated to make improvements. Had they alow competition, they could easily improve their output by a lot, without any new technology, just by specializing on subtasks instead of the whole product, and forming a production line. This is the real foundation of industrial revolution, not the machines. With good incentive, innovation would've also come, bringing automation. The start of industrial revolution is often attributed to steam machine, which is false. The first machine was actually the Spinning Jenny, to automate textile production. Its technology was absolutely possible in Ancient Rome. So the real difference which enabled the industrial revolution wasn't technology, but legal background. I mentioned free competition above. But what it really means, is comprehensive property rights. - You had full control over your wealth, your business and your tools. And maybe the first time in the known history, it wasn't just a privilege for the elites, but a basic right of everyone. Starting a business paid off, because you could rely on it without anyone taking it away from you, and you could also keep the profit. - With the end of feudalism/oligarchy, the main form of getting wealthy is not to please yhe king anymore, but to start your business. - A unique innovation, which not required any technology, was to spearate business life from personal life. Before that, you had to take personal responsibility, so if your business failed, then your family went bankrupt. In a modern economy, you can take risks, because your business is separated from you, if it goes bankrupt, you don't need to use your own wealth to pay off its debt. - Banks are extremely important. Reliable banks are the main source of capital. There is no industrial revolution without banks. And the banks of Ancient Rome were very primitive compared to the banks of England. These are all keys to the industrial revolution, and neither of these need any special technology they might've not invented yet. But the lack of banks alone is enough to block the industrial revolution. Basically what Rome needed was capitalism. Had they have capitalism, they could have industrial revolution. Oh, and one more thing. This above explain how to increase supply and production by a lot. But it is pointless, if there is no demand. England had the New World (a.k.a: America), which had a huge demand for such products. Rome didn't have that. Neither do China, which was also technologically developed, but lucked the above.
@Magplar
3 ай бұрын
steampunk romans would go so hard
@phyrr2
2 ай бұрын
People forget the largest factor - Materials Technology. Which is also influenced by availability, time investment, geopolitical stability, cultural interest/aversion. If for instance you took a "Jade Society" like in South America where metal was more scarce and/or never brought to bear electrical discovery, their technology would have skewed in a much different direction. This is one of the ideas for Megalithic ancient cultures - the fact they could literally make drill holes and "scoop" marks out of 120-200 ton megalithic stones, transport them hundreds of miles and erect them and piece them together with what should be unattainable precision, contributes to the argument of a completely different "Technology Tree" if you will. In the end it's also ingenuity, which is most creative in scarcity but again is also very much affected by all the other factors above. There can also be other types of tech revolutions, not necessarily "industrial". Reason being is that much of the tech skyrockets once the populace reaches a semi-sedentary quality of life state of living. Go back to the Jade Society - if they could've reached a high standard of living without metal, their free time for R&D would've stayed closer to its original path based on their presumed needs and desires. Which easily would've resulted in materials technology sans metal that we perhaps couldn't even fathom in our own current technological world. Yes they are patterns and tendencies. But it's just like the color spectrum - remove any one of the 3 basic colors and you're going to only have this or that portion of what's available to you. Just to throw in a wrench, NOW imagine if humans had different senses, or had hearing as their #1 sense and visual as #2 or #3? How do you think it would've changed everything at that? I'd bet that be an even more exponentially different path than anything else you could shake out of the mixing bag.
@tyrant-den884
3 ай бұрын
This did not need to be a two hour podcast
@GreenBlueWalkthrough
3 ай бұрын
I believe this begs the question how dark were the dark ages soly tech wise? It was on an socityal and output level but a tech one? Like if the romans managed to come on for another 300 years would they then be able to have an industrial revution of their own?
@christopherzantiotis
3 ай бұрын
It wasn’t until 212AD under the Emperor Caracalla that everyone within the Roman Empire became Roman (granted Roman citizenship). Therefore the inventions of specific people should not be disregarded and fall under the umbrella of Roman until 212AD, as they would have considered themselves their own ethnos/civilization until that date. ‘Almost’ all of those inventions or innovations that you both attributed to ‘Rome’, were actually made or started in the Ancient Hellenic or Hellenistic world. Rome simply appropriated that information/technology for its own empire building purposes. Keep in mind that ‘Rome’ appropriated/incorporated Ancient Hellenic culture/civilization and made in part of theirs. Roman education was in almost all respects (that we know of) Hellenic in nature. Aristocratic Roman families sent their children to Greece or got Greeks/Hellenes to teach their children in Rome, so they would get an Hellenic education. Greek was also the only other official language besides Latin, all others were considered barbaric. In fact, Greek was the language of Science, technology and in many cases literature too. To speak Greek in Rome was a sign of good breeding and educational achievement… the language of the elite Romans in other words. >85% of what you mentioned were Hellenic achievements, not Roman. Greek achievements cannot be considered Roman until 212AD when one could argue that their identity changed… which still is a matter of debate considering that the eastern part of the Roman empire barely changed culturally and linguistically from the Hellenistic period through to the Roman period. Greco-Roman is a better term to use than simply Roman, at least to discuss this topic of technological and cultural achievements.
@ironinthesoul9680
3 ай бұрын
No
@christopherzantiotis
3 ай бұрын
@@ironinthesoul9680 that’s an amazing refutation, based on thorough research an incite 😂
@ironinthesoul9680
3 ай бұрын
To say that Romans were influenced by the Hellenistic world is of course completely correct, but to try and pass it as "the Greek invented everything" is totally misleading. The Greeks of the Roman Imperial era were themselves influenced by the Romans as they accepted their domination, and could contribute to the culture and science under roman framework and stability. Also, Hellenistic culture itself was a mix of Ellenic, Egyptian, Macedonian and Persian culture, so not Greek entirely. It was Rome that was able to provide a climate of peace and secure conditions for progress, whichever part of its empire the ideas came from, and Rome objectively was the engine for the big scale inventions and applications
@christopherzantiotis
3 ай бұрын
@@ironinthesoul9680 I never claimed they invented everything… so good strawmaning. Things like the cranes, watermills, the antikythera mechanism, pistons, pumps as found in the hydraulis, the erophile, that automatic arrow machine/mechanism as examples… they are not found in Egypt or Persia, etc. Just assuming Greeks were influenced or copied things from these aforementioned civilizations without any evidence is very intellectually lazy and deceptive. Please provide sources for your assertions. And don’t give me Herodotus, who has been labeled by many as the father of lies. In other words his words have to be taken with a massive grain of salt. Also please tell me the significant things that the Greeks were influenced by from the Romans. Provide sources if you can. Also, you separated Macedonian and Greek… I’ve been to see the crowns and treasures of the Argead Dynasty of Phillip in (guess where…) Northern Greece. Please tell me about the culture, language and religion of the ‘Macedonians’. I’d love to know who these people are in your imagination.
@sharonjuniorchess
2 ай бұрын
As the empire expanded the logistical administration became more complicated and resources were stretched just keeping everyone fed and paid. Their numerical system was very cumbersome and in need of streamlining into the powers of 10 columns. Ultimately the inability to communicate with their furthest outreaches quickly & effectively contributed to their demise. But their engineers were second to none.
@ChrisJones-xd1re
2 ай бұрын
37:00 Time to stop watching. Stating that genetically modifying organisms (GMO) is the same thing as farmers selecting crop strains is too large an inaccuracy to assume any other content is also factual.
@josebaturamos
Ай бұрын
The reason why, although they discovered steam, it was not used is simply slave labor. The technology was perceived as too expensive for a job that was already becoming cheap, the gradual elimination of slaves was what allowed an increase in mechanization and the search for energy sources.
@patriot9487
3 ай бұрын
I'm writing a novel with basically this premise, so I am so excited to sit down and watch this whole thing! Keep it up!
@MikeHunt-fo3ow
3 ай бұрын
is there animals in it?
@patriot9487
3 ай бұрын
@@MikeHunt-fo3ow what do you mean by animals?
@slartybarfastb3648
3 ай бұрын
That's great! Not as easy as it sounds. Stay true to your premise and tell the story as you want it told. People will enjoy the story more if it's your story, than if you try to make it the story you think they'll enjoy.
@MikeHunt-fo3ow
3 ай бұрын
@@patriot9487 you know animals furry critters that bite
@aleks5405
2 ай бұрын
The key difference to these is slavery. Rome had no reason to invent machines. Britain had a tradition that had evolved into a principle. We can thank the Empire for abolition of global slave trade, industrialisation and the American civil war. Without William the conqueror and his ban on slavery in order to earn quick buck from fines, we would still be using wooden ships.
@DecedentPP
2 ай бұрын
I clicked on this video asuming I will chuckle at how dum this alt history video will be(because many of other alt videos). I was mistaken, the video was greatly researched, well organised and they went to the subject in a right way. From the very start I was so happy how they first remove some important misconceptions and they put is in to right frame to not think from our modern view. They also went into all of the right subjects and they did it in only under 2 h, witch is relatively fast. The biggest take from the video - They weren't so close because they didnt have concept of modern scientific model. Great video, keep it up.
@quarterpounderwithcheese3178
2 ай бұрын
it wouldnt ever happen because theyre an ancient civilization fundamentally built on martial might above all, not logistical prowess or technological advancement, though they excelled in both. Carthage was much more favorable to logistical and technical genius, and wouldve been economically freer and incentivized to pursue scientific advancements to expand their trade empire, but they all dieded. In the end, Rome was always going to fail because they only advanced as far as the corrupt Senate needed to for the aristocrats to stay fat and happy by keeping the plebians and slaves from rebeling and nothing more while their bussyboys fed them grapes all day.
@faarsight
2 ай бұрын
I think you're being too deterministic, it's easy to find reasons for why things had to happen roughly the way they did after the fact. But personally I believe that reality is far more chaotic than that and that really all that would have been required for the Romans to have an Industrial/Scientific revolution is the right people at the right time having the right ideas. And some more stability maybe.
@toadwine7654
2 ай бұрын
very far away. like in ww2 we picture german arms as advanced and blitzy. but they used insane numbers of horses. and their vehicles wasnt made in vast factories but in small garages in old medieval cities. like dan carlin talks about. in ww2 japan. the zero factory., is in such a medieval place that they have to move the planes from factory to airstrip with oxen.
@davidmcintyre8145
Ай бұрын
The biggest issue against Rome developing a more industrial system was actually the nature of Rome and the Roman empire. As long as the empire had slaves to do the work and as an expansionist power that also used a tribute system there would never be a shortage of slaves because even if a newly conquered nation had no other wealth to loot it had people who could be sold and no matter how poor a province was it had people who could be sold. While it is possible that Rome could have fielded large calibre air weapons(think USS Vesuvius)or steam powered armoured vehicles or ships(the screw was after all known and had been for centuries)or used railways as mass transport they had no impetus to do so. For Rome as in the Greek states things like steam engines or steam powered air weapons were toys they had other means other than machinery to get work done. In addition in a military sense and Rome was a militaristic state there was no true rival to what Rome already had except China so other than deploying pump powered flame throwers as infantry weapons they did not need to use any new tech
@TotalRookie_LV
2 ай бұрын
I suspect technology alone is not enough for development. Was private initiative rewarded in Rome? What about competition? What comes to my mind is China - once advanced, yet later lagging behind the capitalist Europe. Rome might have went a similar path of stagnation, being the dominant force in the region, it would become content and with no motivation for technological arms race, unlike that of cut-throat competition among states of ragtag Europe on the upper level and private companies on lower one.
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