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How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

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Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#141

Post by ghaff »

mywittyname wrote: post #117
xyzzyz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milling grain, hammering wrought iron, crushing ore etc. There were plenty of uses of mechanized power even in antiquity, and the ancients realized that through use of water wheels.

I don't think the OP is saying that there wasn't a need for mechanized power, just that it wasn't profitable to get that power from steam. Water wheels have no fuel costs, and very little ongoing maintenance costs. A steam engine that could be built in antiquity would be incredibly expensive in both respects. So even if the technology existed, there would be little economic incentive to use it over a water wheels, si…

Even in the late 19th century, areas with fast moving water (like the Northeast US) tended to use water power for mills rather than steam.

Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#142

Post by Koshkin »

Fenrisulfr wrote: post #3

There's a great book about the progression of clothing, textiles, and fabric being scarce and expensive to commonplace and cheap. It runs through the various technological innovations (think cotton gin, but plenty more), culture, and economics. The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel. Great quote about Viking sail ships: "Viking Age sail 100 meters square took 154 kilometers (60 miles) of yarn. Working eight h…

> 154 kilometers (60 miles)

154 km = 95.7 mi

Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#143

Post by ajuc »

KineticLensman wrote: post #136
xyzzyz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milling grain, hammering wrought iron, crushing ore etc. There were plenty of uses of mechanized power even in antiquity, and the ancients realized that through use of water wheels.

> Milling grain, hammering wrought iron, crushing ore etc Are these actually feasible with a large low-pressure steam engine of the sort that the Greeks could have actually constructed? Remember that the early real steam engines were only just powerful enough to slowly lift buckets of water. [Edit] - good answers below - thanks! But I think the question of economic viability still stands. As pointed out elsewhere, a…

Water hammer is a big lever that has a hammer on one side and a big bucket of water on the other side. Bucket gets filed by a water stream, gets heavier than the hammer and lifts it, and then at the lowest point (of the bucket) it is mounted in such way that the water spills and the hammer drops, resetting the machine. No precision technology needed, they could do it in stone age.

You can do the same thing with fireplace and water and it's certainly doable with ancient technology, but I'm not sure it's worth it when you have more running water than industry needs anyway.

Another thing they could do is Heron's steam turbine geared in such a way that it does useful work. Also not sure if it's worth it.

This trick (using low power to lift the hammer slowly and dropping it quickly) can be adapted to use any inefficient power source - hamster powered mills are possible ;)

Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#144

Post by jacobolus »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #140
Telemakhos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can multiply numbers, of arbitrary size. And I can do it in a few seconds using just a stylus and tablet. So could a Roman or Greek. He'd just need a counting board and some stones. He could probably do it faster than you, as well. Anyone using an abacus today could perform almost exactly the same algorithms, with the added convenience of having beads on rods in a frame instead of an unwieldy counting board and s…

Ok but we know about zero!

Anyone with a counting board also has zeros, as empty places with no counters, and ancient people had no problem understanding and using the concept of zero in calculations (though most probably would not have considered zero a “number” per se). They just didn’t write explicit zeros in their permanent serialization format.

But there are certainly plenty of mathematical ideas and tools ancient people didn’t know about: they didn’t have a convenient method of manipulating algebraic expressions and equations; they had only the most rudimentary version of differential/integral calculus; they didn’t have group theory, linear algebra, complex analysis, etc.

Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#145

Post by ghaff »

showerst wrote: post #129
jaclaz wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the best example (IMHO): >how concrete and mortar actually work Would you tell Roman engineers how to deal with those? (they actually invented it, and - for certain applications - their concrete is still superior to modern one)

I was thinking in terms of ancient Greece like the GP mentioned. That said, Romans invented and pioneered concrete, but they didn't really understand how or why it worked, it was just centuries of excellent trial and error. They also had problems replicating it out of base materials other than volcanic ash. Now that said I have my doubts that there are that many people on earth who could build better concrete for a g…

In general, as someone else mentioned in the context of agriculture, the low-hanging fruit are probably innovations that aren't especially complicated or require possibly uncommon elements and other material. Stirrups for example in Europe. Also mostly abstract (but possibly useful) scientific and medical knowledge.

Anything that requires a long technology tree to implement effectively is going to be hard.

Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#146

Post by burntoutfire »

ajuc wrote: post #70
xyzzyz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The poor would typically make their own clothes. This was of course very labor intensive, but back in the day, benefits from division of labor weren’t that huge, and the poor often did not have better employment opportunities (that’s why they were poor in the first place).

90%+ worked in farming, and in farming depending on the climate over the year you had months with nothing to do vs months with 16 hours of work a day. The whole system was designed around making sure few people starved and work was distributed around somewhat sensibly with such wild seasonal swings of labour shortage and surplus. So yeah, DIY all the way.

Yep. My grandmother's family in rural Poland was still making all their their clothes (from their homegrown linen and sheep) in 1930s.

Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#147

Post by aksss »

rolleiflex wrote: post #51

Not the author, don't know him, no connection – but I caught a glimpse somewhere on the blog that he is currently unemployed. As an open-source maintainer, I feel like it is my duty to plug him so he can perhaps get some patrons or donations, the blog is great. https://www.bookandsword.com/support/ He is also not a software engineer or in tech in any meaningful way, so his 'tip to total income' ratio is probably off…

His blog had a mildly interesting post on rereading one of the SM Sterling novels, Against the Tide of Years. I really enjoyed those books, and in the comments it appears SM Sterling is actually there engaging, which is very cool!

Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#149

Post by pixodaros »

rolleiflex wrote: post #51

Not the author, don't know him, no connection – but I caught a glimpse somewhere on the blog that he is currently unemployed. As an open-source maintainer, I feel like it is my duty to plug him so he can perhaps get some patrons or donations, the blog is great. https://www.bookandsword.com/support/ He is also not a software engineer or in tech in any meaningful way, so his 'tip to total income' ratio is probably off…

Thanks! I updated the link on the blog post and on my support page to point to my Canadian paypal account which is more accessible while I am overseas than my Austrian paypal account.

I think the issues funding open-source are very similar to the issues funding writing.

Re: How much did a tunic cost in the Roman Empire? (2021)

#150

Post by thaumasiotes »

shuntress wrote: post #138
mywittyname wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the OP is saying that there wasn't a need for mechanized power, just that it wasn't profitable to get that power from steam. Water wheels have no fuel costs, and very little ongoing maintenance costs. A steam engine that could be built in antiquity would be incredibly expensive in both respects. So even if the technology existed, there would be little economic incentive to use it over a water wheels, si…

Simple solution: Military industry. Some generals would likely find a mobile mill stone quite useful. When your centuria loot a conquered land they can now take raw grains in addition to processed flour without being tied down to the local stationary mills.

> Some generals would likely find a mobile mill stone quite useful. When your centuria loot a conquered land they can now take raw grains in addition to processed flour without being tied down to the local stationary mills.

Not in the slightest. The legion on the march has no use for a millstone because nobody's eating bread. They would never carry processed flour, because it spoils quickly. They carried raw grain and made porridge from it.

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