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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2017 2:37:52 GMT
If the Roman Empire had not fallen, do you think we would be far more advanced technologically or do you think we might be stuck in a 3000 year period of technological stagnation, the Egyptians developed their technology fairly rapidly and seemed content to just maintain a level of stability that suited their needs.
Should we think the Romans would be that much different?
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Post by MCDemuth on Mar 13, 2017 3:06:54 GMT
There were many ancient cultures that had advanced knowledge, but for some reason or another, those cultured died out, or were destroyed... and that knowledge was lost with them.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented numerous technological devices, which never saw the light of day, and others had to re-invent them on their own, centuries later...
on Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson said: "If it hadn't been for the Dark Ages, we would be colonizing other planets right now.".
The Library of Alexandria contained knowledge which was destroyed. The Nazi's burned libraries worth of books in WWII. Supposedly there is a hall of records under the Sphinx which has yet to be discovered...
I believe that if history had been different, and if knowledge had survived and had been passed on to other cultures... We would infact be further along technology wise, and perhaps even be more enlightened.
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Post by tarathian123 on Mar 13, 2017 13:25:28 GMT
There has for many moons been a general belief that the peoples who occupied the geographical British Isles were uneducated savages before the Romans came to sort us all out. They were not, they were anything but.
When they finally did land the Romans found a civilisation that was thousands of years older than their own. The first question that should be asked is why did the Romans find the Isles so desirable that Roman Emperors risked so much to conquer them? Who were these island people so fiercely independent that they held up the Roman Army for a hundred years.
It has been a sad myth that real British history started with the Romans. Thankfully that myth is finally being binned.
So what did the Romans give Britain?
1. Roads? No they didn't. There were perfectly good roads before the Romans came, albeit not perhaps as sophisticated.
2. Language? No they didn't. There were perfectly good languages spoken around the Isles before Latin
3. Laws? No again. Laws weren't written down but they were there.
4. Civilisation. Absolutely not. Brits were civilised long before the Romans came. It was the Romans themselves who started all the barbarian nonsense. They marched across Europe labelling everythng they saw as "uncivilised". Britain particularly so. Why? Simply because they didn't understand it, nor did they care.
The peoples of the British Isles had been trading with Europe and beyond for thousands of years before the Romans came, particularly in copper and tin. They had devised farming techniques that were and still are unique to these Islands. They had organsational skills and production output in mining, farming, forestry, trading, on a scale that would stagger even modern organisations.
To answer the question that "would anything have changed had the Roman Empire not fallen?", I think that like any other peoples who have "invaded" these islands, the Romans would eventually have become Britainised, rather than Britons become Romanised. It was already happening before the fall of Rome. Would those Anglo-Romans have eventually defied Rome for independence? Difficult to say.
It's now believed that the Saxons didn't invade the land in hordes but their appearance was a gradual immigration and settling.
An interesting bigger "what if" would be the outcome of a hypothetical conflict between Norsemen (Vikings) and Anglo-Romans, and would we have had a Norman conquest?
One surety in my mind is that the peoples of the British Isles wouldn't have stagnated. They didn't in the fancifully and incorrectly named "Dark Ages". Much was happening in those times, and life and recovery after Roman decay in Britain moved on apace. What the Romans left behind was utilised to great effect. And as for technology, well humans are humans and technology seems to continue in whatever circumstances come along, many times driven by them, and is part of human endeavour. So no technological stagnation. But it could have veered to a different path. What that path would be, I have no idea.
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Post by politicidal on Mar 13, 2017 18:27:17 GMT
It's possible it could have morphed into something different like how the Byzantines gradually became their own thing. But I guess the next question is how much longer it would have lasted?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2017 2:48:03 GMT
My view is that we are the product of the lost knowledge and culture that occurred during the Greco-Roman upheaval in the 4th century that lead us into a period of cultural instability that we term the 'Dark Ages'.
What this upheaval created was a lasting myth of the 'Great Civilization' that was mourned for constantly by the leading intellectuals of the Middle Ages, on par with the Greeks view of a lost Atlantis that urged them on to a rediscovery of these halcyon days.
This questing back to bring forth a rebirth from it's ashes that discarded the native cynicism that the Roman Empire has acquired late in it's day for all things 'Roman' and becoming narrow-minded to everything but their own intimate daily success and failures as a culture and no longer striving forward into an uncharted destiny of future growth and greatness.
I do not believe that the Romans were dissatisfied enough with their daily standard of living to want to improve upon it that much, they had already mastered most of the technology that brought them adequate enough resources, they could control the forces of need but could not control the force of the population pressures that descended upon them.
The fall of the Roman Empire created a Western myth as great a Homer's Iliad that must of been retold and refashioned in wonder generation after generation until finally wealth and stability had arisen to the point during the Renaissance that allowed for this myth to be built into a greater reality by those who kept striving towards it.
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Post by tarathian123 on Mar 14, 2017 5:56:53 GMT
This was of course why the Roman Empire was doomed to collapse. Another reason was logistics. My post above centred on the British Isles, which became a drain on Roman capabilties, and was thus eventually abandoned to stem up needs on the continental empire. Even so it split into two halves, the Western, and the Eastern (Byzantine), which, as 'politicidal' says, "gradually became their own thing". Under various factions the Roman Empire continued, the Western empire finally taken over by the Goths under Theoderic the Great who when killing Odoacer (aka the First King of Italy) marked the end of the Western Empire (c.493). But all of this didn't stop technological advancements. Here is a timeline for inventions : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions Whether for good or ill, in war or peace, technological advancement has and will continue, and if the Roman Empire was still with us I've no doubt that such advancement would have continued. The term "Dark Ages" is a misnomer. As with today technology goes on and on. Even though we may not like much of it, we have to embrace it. I feel sure the Romans would have been forced to do likewise.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2017 3:02:59 GMT
This was of course why the Roman Empire was doomed to collapse. Another reason was logistics. My post above centred on the British Isles, which became a drain on Roman capabilties, and was thus eventually abandoned to stem up needs on the continental empire. Even so it split into two halves, the Western, and the Eastern (Byzantine), which, as 'politicidal' says, "gradually became their own thing". Under various factions the Roman Empire continued, the Western empire finally taken over by the Goths under Theoderic the Great who when killing Odoacer (aka the First King of Italy) marked the end of the Western Empire (c.493). But all of this didn't stop technological advancements. Here is a timeline for inventions : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions Whether for good or ill, in war or peace, technological advancement has and will continue, and if the Roman Empire was still with us I've no doubt that such advancement would have continued. The term "Dark Ages" is a misnomer. As with today technology goes on and on. Even though we may not like much of it, we have to embrace it. I feel sure the Romans would have been forced to do likewise. It appears from that list that most of the invention before the printing press seems like just refinements of existing technology, there is a definite leap in there in the 1600's almost like it is happening on another planet. This same quantum leap in technology is definitely missing in the more advanced ancient cultures. You seem to propose that technological advancement would still continue, this should be evident elsewhere, especially in China barring the changes in dynasties, it had perhaps the most stable culture the world has known? It is easy for me to place a continuing Roman Empire directly onto the same historic path as China which had the benefit of western trade to further influence it's development yet tried purposely to maintain a status quo policy in it's development. Another point in favor for removing the Roman Empire from the equation is the exponential increase in world trade and this is probably another key to the puzzle. No, for Europe especially there was a 'Dark Age' the vast descent from the fall of the Western Empire if we take the date 476, and a century later is quite stark and very depressing.
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Post by J.B. on Mar 15, 2017 11:09:20 GMT
The Western Roman Empire formally dissolved in 480 AD, with the death of Flavius Julius Nepos, the Western Emperor previous to Romulus Augustulus, who had been exiled to Dalmatia. Ruling from the region just east of Italy across the sea, Nepos was assassinated in 480, and Flavius Odoacer, the King of Italy at the time, saw a convenient political reason to invade Dalmatia and expand his new kingdom. Odoacer wasn't an emperor by title, but received some recognition as King by the Eastern Roman Empire. Meanwhile, up until around 486, General Syagrius in Gaul was still supposed to have been independent from the Franks, to a certain degree. He too fell, and probably only the North African Roman-Moorish Kingdom could have been an independent, previously Western Roman province.
The Eastern Roman Empire by all rights became the new singular Roman Empire after the decline of the Western half, with Emperor Justinian re-conquering many western territories through General Belisarius.
The Roman Empire really collapsed in 1453 AD, to the Ottoman Turks. Perhaps they never really had a chance to recover after the 1200s or 1300s. Constantinopolis is now Istanbul.
The most recent point of departure for the Roman (Often referred to as Byzantine by this point) Empire to succeed is at some point during the High Middle Ages, I believe. Circumstances were heavily against them with the Ottomans, and also the Seljuks before them. I am not well-versed in this particular period, but with continuously proper leadership and enjoying more successes in wars than historically, then yes, Romans would have had chances to continue as an Empire as late as modern times. It's worth noting that the Ottomans eventually became a primary problem for Balkan Slavs, Hungarians, Romanians, and Austrians, after defeating the Greeks and their by-then very culturally Hellenic Roman Empire, as well as minor states.
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Post by tarathian123 on Mar 15, 2017 11:24:29 GMT
@ eriknight
I quite agree, but technology usually is only refinements of existing technology. It depends on how one sees technology. These days we are used to seeing technology advancing at a rapid rate, mainly because of instant communication, which wasn't around at the period under discussion. But new technology i.e. new farming techniques, new weaponry, etc etc was happening all the time.
I disagree. It only appears stark because in comparison to Roman findings very little of this period has been found. Indeed until relatively recently not much work, research, excavations etc, was done on the period, even in Britain. That it was a "Dark Age" has only been assumed, in that nothing must have happened after the Romans left. In fact we are now discovering that a very great deal happened.
I will confess that I'm basing my writing on the research I've done on Britain. I'm not so au fait with the continental "Dark Age", but I imagine that there is much to learn there too.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2017 23:36:24 GMT
The most recent point of departure for the Roman (Often referred to as Byzantine by this point) Empire to succeed is at some point during the High Middle Ages, I believe. Circumstances were heavily against them with the Ottomans, and also the Seljuks before them. I am not well-versed in this particular period, but with continuously proper leadership and enjoying more successes in wars than historically, then yes, Romans would have had chances to continue as an Empire as late as modern times. It's worth noting that the Ottomans eventually became a primary problem for Balkan Slavs, Hungarians, Romanians, and Austrians, after defeating the Greeks and their by-then very culturally Hellenic Roman Empire, as well as minor states. In 900 AD the Saracens had almost complete control over the Mediterranean and had conquered Sicily and were invading and plundering Italy with impunity, sacked Rome twice and were set to squeeze Constantinople from both sides, it was only because of a strong force sent by Emperor Louis II of Germany that they were finally contained and expelled. History would be radically different if this event did not take place and Italy could of been easily conquered like Southern Spain, the Byzantines would surely have fallen, having no outlet for trade. That was a very important event because the Islamic expansion was a historic juggernaut that could of rewrote all of European history and the Roman Empire, even at it's height, would face a foe more formidable then even the Huns, as the total era of population under their rule was immense to draw from. Lucky for the Europeans and early Christianity, sectarian in-fighting and dynastic divisions had them fighting among themselves and for the most part they did not have the time or inclination to roll over a dis-unified Europe of petty waring states. But they definitely could have.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2017 23:57:51 GMT
I disagree. It only appears stark because in comparison to Roman findings very little of this period has been found. Indeed until relatively recently not much work, research, excavations etc, was done on the period, even in Britain. That it was a "Dark Age" has only been assumed, in that nothing must have happened after the Romans left. In fact we are now discovering that a very great deal happened. I will confess that I'm basing my writing on the research I've done on Britain. I'm not so au fait with the continental "Dark Age", but I imagine that there is much to learn there too. In 480, Pope Gelasius described great regions of Northern Italy as almost uninhabited, Rome, shrunk from 1.5 million to under 300,000 in a century, The early Christian zealots spent their days pulling down pagan temples and burning libraries throughout Greece, Asia Minor and the Middle East, Literacy fell below 1% and became for the most part the sole occupation of monks, great Roman buildings were abandoned and pulled down to build defensive structures, the roads were left in disrepair and the aqueducts fell into disuse. The Eastern Empire did thrive for another 1000 years but the pursuit of the Greek ideals of rational inquiry were looked upon with disfavor, Art and sculpture become crude and restrictive, philosophers were stoned in the streets, the sectarian in-fighting became a vicious civil war over competing doctrines. And Great Britain, the Britons having asked for aide from the Saxons to fight the Scottish (Picts) got more than they bargained for, as they decided to have this rich prize for themselves, which set off another 500 years of constant invasions and war and pestilence- to 1066 which finally decided it.
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Post by tarathian123 on Mar 16, 2017 4:26:56 GMT
@ eriknight
All very true, but aren't you getting off your original question?...which was:Poilitical stagnation does not necessarily mean technological stagnation.
The time of the Roman Empire wasn't particularly stable, there were wars constantly, both with squabbles over high command, and in the wider empire. There have always been wars. Wars tend to leave desolation and political vacuums in their wake.
Even today we have wars, and we've seen such vacuums as they occur. But they haven't stopped technological advancement. Indeed much technology has been geared towards war. A better sword, a better bow, a better cannon, better armour, better defences against better attacks.
True that the pace of technology was slower in the past than it is today, and most wouldn't perhaps notice the gradual changes as they happen, but they were there despite the carnage going on all around and the losses of learning on other aspects of knowledge. Nor would most perhaps consider such changes as technological advancement, but I certainly do.
Technology and war regardless of suffering go hand in glove. As WWII was raging the advancement of rocket technology was quickened, which subsequently led to putting men on the moon. When Neil Armstrong made that "step for mankind" little was thought of the first targets for such rockets which was to annihilate London, or of the slave labour which helped the moon-landings happen.
The Romans were certainly also very adept at using slave labour, and if you think that Roman technology was static over its 1,000 year tenure then I can only suggest you take a closer look. If the Empire hadn't fallen I've no doubt that its technology would have continued to advance.
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Post by politicidal on Mar 16, 2017 23:08:11 GMT
@ eriknight All very true, but aren't you getting off your original question?...which was:Poilitical stagnation does not necessarily mean technological stagnation. The time of the Roman Empire wasn't particularly stable, there were wars constantly, both with squabbles over high command, and in the wider empire. There have always been wars. Wars tend to leave desolation and political vacuums in their wake. Even today we have wars, and we've seen such vacuums as they occur. But they haven't stopped technological advancement. Indeed much technology has been geared towards war. A better sword, a better bow, a better cannon, better armour, better defences against better attacks.True that the pace of technology was slower in the past than it is today, and most wouldn't perhaps notice the gradual changes as they happen, but they were there despite the carnage going on all around and the losses of learning on other aspects of knowledge. Nor would most perhaps consider such changes as technological advancement, but I certainly do. Technology and war regardless of suffering go hand in glove. As WWII was raging the advancement of rocket technology was quickened, which subsequently led to putting men on the moon. When Neil Armstrong made that "step for mankind" little was thought of the first targets for such rockets which was to annihilate London, or of the slave labour which helped the moon-landings happen. The Romans were certainly also very adept at using slave labour, and if you think that Roman technology was static over its 1,000 year tenure then I can only suggest you take a closer look. If the Empire hadn't fallen I've no doubt that its technology would have continued to advance. "...You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." - Harry Lime (The Third Man, 1949).
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Post by tarathian123 on Mar 17, 2017 1:16:58 GMT
Exactly so. So whether the unstable Roman empire would have survived, or as it happened, eventually not, technologically speaking it wouldn't have counted for a tin of plums (which in itself (i.e.canning food) was I suppose a technological advancement (for Napoleon's Grande Armee I believe)) technology would have advanced. We even got the Swiss cuckoo clock. :-) But to be fair to the Swiss, they gave the world more than just a timepiece. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swiss_inventions_and_discoveriesSo technology continues to advance both in peace and in war, and on many fronts. Collectively the human mind transcends natural boundaries and is a curiosity machine. It's always looking to the beyond. Unless we nuke ourselves into zombies that won't change.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2017 2:19:24 GMT
Exactly so. So whether the unstable Roman empire would have survived, or as it happened, eventually not, technologically speaking it wouldn't have counted for a tin of plums (which in itself (i.e.canning food) was I suppose a technological advancement (for Napoleon's Grande Armee I believe)) technology would have advanced. We even got the Swiss cuckoo clock. :-) But to be fair to the Swiss, they gave the world more than just a timepiece. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swiss_inventions_and_discoveriesSo technology continues to advance both in peace and in war, and on many fronts. I do get your point about the advancing of Technology, so we will take the Roman Empire or the Romans themselves as far back as 753 BC. This is the most advanced tech that the Romans innovated for themselves- excluding the research and experimentation that had already taken place by the Greeks. Aqueducts Concrete Newspapers, Arch. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_technologySo we have a new building material, a distributed scroll and two applied engineering concepts. I don't see the direct line to the super-computer? Great Roman mathematicians? Great Roman Scientific theorists? Great Roman Literature (virgil-lol pimple on Homer's behind). Great Generals-Yes Great Orators-Yes Great Governors-Yes Rome was a slave-state economy and just like the Southern United States before the Civil War would be resistant to manufacturing and finding more efficient means of production. They would be very susceptible to wanting to preserve a system that brought them such success and wealth. Plus you are now applying the great technological advances that came after the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci etc.. and military engineering and advancement with advancing scientific methods that were already established without the thought of warfare as the initial application which was the pursuit of Knowledge. China has already shown us that a stable culture once successful will try to enforce this stability by restricting rapid changes that could upset the ruling social structure. Would require a better cultural model to prove otherwise.
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Post by tarathian123 on Mar 17, 2017 3:20:42 GMT
I did say that technology was slower in the past than it is today. As the years progressed technology would be faster and seen to be faster. What I'm arguing against is that technology would stagnate. It wouldn't, and didn't. And neither would it have stagnated under a continuing Roman Empire. The examples you give are of distinctive changes to architecture etc., which themselves perhaps took years and decades to develop. I guess what I'm talking about are everyday improvements over time which are not usually even classed as "technology", but indeed should be. For example Swiss timepieces, with different movements. They wouldn't be written down as "great achievements", but they happen. Alterations to housing designs, new farming techniques, animal husbandry, forestry, clothing and fashions, new culineries, new utensils, it goes on and on. Much of it slow to change, but change it does.
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