Post by Phil McGregorPost by PhantomViewPost by Phil McGregorPost by Ned LathamPost by PhantomViewI am at a bit of a loss to explain why Rome missed the boat.
Christianity stultified it.
Christianity had little or nothing to do with it.
The real problem was economic ... slavery.
By the early medieval period slavery was gone (or going) almost
everywhere in the Mediterranean world and its peripheries ... replaced
by Serfdom, which was more efficient, economically speaking, and that,
too, was being replaced, albeit slowly, by the end of the medieval
period in most places.
Slavery made mechanical and industrial innovation uneconomic in the
early, usually expensive, stages.
I have heard that proposition before, and to a degree
it may be a factor. However the most common impetus
for new and better sci/tech is MILITARY power. Rome
always wanted that, even after they went Christian.
There was a similar pressure on innovation in public building too, and
advancement continued in those areas until well into the Christian
period. But by Manzikert (1071) even those areas had dried up.
Post by Phil McGregorPost by PhantomViewNo, there was something else holding back the innovators.
Widespread ignorance. Much of what they needed to know from related
fields didn't exist any more. In Western Europe, blacksmiths, millers,
bowyers - tradies of all flavours, I guess - gradually improved their
tools and their skills and their product; and as much as they could
the armed forces did similar, but all of that was done without any
support or advice from the only well-educated people in society:
the Princes of the Church.
Post by Phil McGregorPost by PhantomViewNot sure exactly what though. I suspect the way money
and rewards and markets were organized was involved,
a structural barrier buried in the system.
True, to an extent. However, the problem was that the money, the real
money, was held by a landowning class (those of Senatorial status) or
a commercial class (the Equites) whose main aim was to make enough
money to buy enough land to become a member of the Senatorial Class
... and there was, therefore, an inherent prejudice against anything
that wasn't based on agriculture or rural activities.
Everyone's main aim was to become Emperor. Money was only one
consideration; effective muscle was never off the table, and
that means that both Emperor and wannabe had similar priorities
as far as military preparedness goes.
Post by Phil McGregorTHAT was the main 'structural barrier.'
The think was, landholding was both profitable AND safely so for the
simple reason of Slavery ... innovation outside of Agriculture was
risky and, as noted, expensive, and uneconomic, during the early
stages.
It was risky. It always was, and probably always will be, risky.
(And "uneconomic, during the early stages", whatever that means.)
Post by Phil McGregorYou could also argue that Rome's fairly rapid expansion to a very
large size made the status quo, socially AND technologically, more
stable as, as far as 'industry' was concerned, even low productivity
slave workers could swamp innovation and, in any case, low
productivity manufacturing methods ON AN EMPIRE WIDE BASIS coupled
with the strategic position of the Mediterranean to transport said
production cheaply and almost risk free with no internal customs
barriers meant that, again, in the initial stages of technological
development the expensive tech was swamped again.
Not even close. Because the Christians detroyed almost everything that
was a problem for Christian dogmna, no-one but the military ever
found a use for petroleum, which they found in the Middle East.
No scholar ever investigated it, or made a learned suggestion: about
the only thing the scholars were interested in wrt the military was
whether some new weapon or other was fit for use against Christians.
Rome was innovative for a long time. They learnt hydraulic engineering
from the Etruscans and they expanded that into city-wide water supply,
drainage and sewage (they even had public toilets). They learnt the
Greek spear-armed phalanx too, from the Etruscans, then developed the
gladius-armed legion-cohort. It was they who invented laying roads on
foundations, and underwater-setting cement.
But as Christianity befogged people's minds, all that went away.