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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)

#201

Post by kazazes »

retrac wrote: post #19
lumost wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s curious, if you go back in time far enough with all knowledge from the present, you’d surely arrive at a point where you still need to work your entire life to bring one component of one innovation to life. Even then, the innovation would be unlikely to survive your death due to other missing parts of the supply chain. Try building a musket in Ancient Greece, you’d need to start with building the steel supply ch…

Yes, you wouldn't be building a steam engine with the tools of Greek artisans in antiquity, not even the ones who built the Antikythera mechanism. But we do know some things that would seem like crazy hacks to the ancients. For example, I know a simple trick. I can multiply numbers, of arbitrary size. And I can do it in a few seconds using just a stylus and tablet. This would have blown the minds of a learned Roman o…

Enticed by the wiki, I went to buy of off eBay and ended up finding the author's personal library copy with his bookplate.

Will find a friend when I'm finished, as well.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/304333942417

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

#202

Post by jacobolus »

dredmorbius wrote: post #197
jacobolus wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes that is true, but if you don’t have a permanent written record of the computation, that takes away a lot of the advantage of written arithmetic. You may as well just use your counting board.

Not permanent, but a record that could be shown as the computation was performed, and until the slate itself was erased. Obviously, where a permanent record is desired, permenent media would be used. My point was that there were cheap alternatives to parchment and paper for quick work.

A wax or clay tablet or flat patch of dirt and a stick, piece of bark or wood and charcoal, etc. don’t have enough advantage for anyone to bother organizing their accounting or calculation system around them. They are on the whole inferior to the existing system. Trying to introduce them to people 2000+ years ago might have a chance, but it would be a tough sell.

The thing that really spread Hindu numbers around the world was access to paper.

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

#203

Post by dredmorbius »

hprotagonist wrote: post #2

Something that continually just blows my mind is how new spinning wheels are. The most plausible range of time of arrival of the wheel in European contexts is between the mid-1200s to about 1340, which means that textiles produced previously to that were made with drop spindles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindle_(textiles)#Hand_spindl... That includes things like clothing, but it also includes more staggering ide…

Even knitting dates back only to about 1100 AD, which somewhat staggers me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_knitting

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

#204

Post by narrator »

wongarsu wrote: post #11

> So a linen weaver would need to work for (500 / 2×40 to 500 / 2×20) 6 to 12 days to earn the price of the simplest linen tunic So translating to modern wages (in US/Western Europe) somewhere between $500 and $1500 for the simplest tunic, or between $7000 and $21000 for the finest quality. That certainly puts the practice of robbers to take people's clothes into perspective.

The enormous cost of clothes is why people in the bible tearing their clothes when they were extremely upset was such a big deal. It'd be like someone today throwing their smartphone in the ocean.

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

#205

Post by Ericson2314 »

naniwaduni wrote: post #196
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost of those luxury items don't come from the cost of making them. That's not entirely true, especially when it comes to haute couture. For example, clothes made by a French fashion house may take tens/hundreds of hours to make, at Western European salaries. Yes, agreed, the markup puts the cost into the stratosphere, but the point is that clothes made like this would need to cost thousands of dollars at minim…

Clothes made by a French fashion house don't cost a lot because they're labor-intensive to make: they're labor-intensive to make because that costs a lot.

Very useful things like big nuclear power plants and subways face somewhat similar issues, though of course the starting point has more unavoidable difficulty.

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

#206

Post by BurningFrog »

wongarsu wrote: post #11

> So a linen weaver would need to work for (500 / 2×40 to 500 / 2×20) 6 to 12 days to earn the price of the simplest linen tunic So translating to modern wages (in US/Western Europe) somewhere between $500 and $1500 for the simplest tunic, or between $7000 and $21000 for the finest quality. That certainly puts the practice of robbers to take people's clothes into perspective.

You're only 1-4 generations removed from ancestors who only owned one set of clothing, not necessarily including shoes.

Something that's stuck in my mind is how prosperity in India, not that many decades ago, meant that women could wash one Sari in the river without being naked, since they now owned two.

When I see people complaining about too much "disposable" clothing, I am not impressed.

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

#207

Post by thaumasiotes »

ardit33 wrote: post #198
nabilhat wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That certainly puts the practice of robbers to take people's clothes into perspective. Cloth was so valuable that the words for both the robber and the extremely valuable robes they stole and plundered share a common origin: https://www.etymonline.com/word/robe#etymonline_v_15128

Yep, in Albanian: Rrobe, means "Cloth". Same origin. It means that 'rober' came from the meaning of 'cloth taker'.

Actually the opposite - the root refers to loot and "robbery" is the direct development from it. Robes the clothing are named after robbery the act of generic theft, not the other way around.

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

#208

Post by dredmorbius »

jacobolus wrote: post #202
dredmorbius wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not permanent, but a record that could be shown as the computation was performed, and until the slate itself was erased. Obviously, where a permanent record is desired, permenent media would be used. My point was that there were cheap alternatives to parchment and paper for quick work.

A wax or clay tablet or flat patch of dirt and a stick, piece of bark or wood and charcoal, etc. don’t have enough advantage for anyone to bother organizing their accounting or calculation system around them. They are on the whole inferior to the existing system. Trying to introduce them to people 2000+ years ago might have a chance, but it would be a tough sell. The thing that really spread Hindu numbers around the…

Is there any evidence / record that Hindu / Arabic numerals and paper co-dispersed?

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

#209

Post by philipswood »

gruez wrote: post #53
robbomacrae wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not build a printing press? All you really need to do is carve some wood. As expensive as tunics were, books were much more so. Copying the bible would have taken several months (if not years) of labour. And the ability and control to spread such knowledge faster than others would not only be very lucrative but a source of great power.

>Why not build a printing press? All you really need to do is carve some wood The printing press seems to be far more complex than just "carve some wood". Otherwise I find it hard to believe that it took until 1400AD for people to figure out how to make large stamps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press#Gutenberg's_pre...

I also read somewhere that a good deal of his innovation was also in finding inks suitable for the process.

A lot of existing inks at the time where suitable for writing not pressing.

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

#210

Post by asdff »

causi wrote: post #159
wongarsu wrote: post #11

> So a linen weaver would need to work for (500 / 2×40 to 500 / 2×20) 6 to 12 days to earn the price of the simplest linen tunic So translating to modern wages (in US/Western Europe) somewhere between $500 and $1500 for the simplest tunic, or between $7000 and $21000 for the finest quality. That certainly puts the practice of robbers to take people's clothes into perspective.

I wonder how the longevity compares. Would a tunic last much longer than a modern pair of jeans?

Even a modern pair of jeans sent to ancient rome would last longer than a modern pair of genes today. All the washing and drying we do is what makes your jeans go threadbare in the knees in a few years time.
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