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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)

#71

Post by throwaway0a5e »

robbomacrae wrote: post #38
retrac wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

A book on agricultural developments post-antiquity to the industrial revolution would be a far more immediate source of power. Less starving -> more surplus -> more specialization of labor and societal development -> goto(1).

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

#72

Post by qwytw »

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.

An average worker in Ancient Rome is not really comparable to a worker in a modern country (e.g he likely would had spent >50% of his income on food, so equivalent wage would probably below the minimum wage in US).

The prices in Diocletian's degree don't really make much sense, e.g. for 40 Denarii you could buy ~5 pounds of beef or only 8 pounds of rye/barley. So likely the price for tunics is quite a bit higher than the real market price. Based on 1st AD prices/wages a tunic cost 15 sestertii which is equal to around 3-4 days wage (a "worker" likely earned ~ 4 sestertii per day)

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

#73

Post by samatman »

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...

Woodblock printing was invented in the 7th century in Tang China.

The prerequisite for economic printing is paper, and the tech tree for paper is reproducible from Roman conditions. The production of vellum is measured in years, scribes were barely the limiting factor on text production.

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

#74

Post by smhenderson »

ghaff wrote: post #34
rsecora wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and getting the finance to start the journey will be problematic. The elevator pitch for the musket will sound like black magic.

In ancient Greece, I wouldn't be surprised if a crossbow (a bow that can be used with relatively little training!) wouldn't be more useful than very primitive firearms.

Ancient Greece had the ballista as early as 400 BC so this also wouldn't have seemed that magic or mysterious to them as well.

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

#75

Post by ben_w »

Shaanie wrote: post #13
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…

I wonder which modern information would be actually useful a thousand years ago. Things like electricity, cumbustion engine etc wouldn't be very useful, but perhaps something steam-powered? One low-hanging fruit would be sterilization and hand-washing for medical operations, at least.

As someone mentioned on a different thread, a printing press would make a massive difference. The wine presses of 1022 were people standing on grapes in a box, so that could be significantly improved too.

Significant steam power (so not that ancient Greek toy) might prove too difficult for the engineering of the era, but a pressure cooker might be possible as it’s allowed to leak.

Screw cutting lathes, and in particular the guided toolpaths to make the output reliable and consistent, would be a big deal.

Might be able to bootstrap enough magnets and wires for basic electricity, at which point you can make much better compasses — the Chinese were the first to go beyond lodestones and that was about 1000 years ago — and electricity makes electroplating possible and some acids (e.g. hydrochloric) and alkalis (e.g. sodium hydroxide) basically trivial.

Float glass would radically increase the size and quality of individual windows panes. Knowing that lead oxide reduces the melting point would make manufacture much easier.

Wikipedia’s list of medieval technology has some interesting surprises: apparently wheelbarrows are only about 850 years old, hourglasses and segmented arch bridges only about 680 years old.

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

#76

Post by ftth_finland »

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…

If you are into alternative history, Eric Flint does an optimistic, entertaining and lighthearted take on both Ancient Rome and the 17th century.

The first book from the 17th century series, 1632, is downloadable for free from Baen books.

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

#77

Post by tristor »

rahimiali wrote: post #48

This sentence stood out to me most: “executioners often claimed the clothes that their clients wore to the execution”. The word “client” is what shook me.

> The word “client” is what shook me.

Executioners in the past would often be paid by the people they were set to execute or their families. That payment included the cost of taking care of the body afterwards, and in many cases a fee for services as the alternative to an executioner was usually much more grim and painful, whereas a good executioner guaranteed a quicky and nearly painless death.

There's a fascinating video on YouTube by a channel called Weird History with more on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQqdoJ5rfT4

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

#78

Post by bryanrasmussen »

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…

Yeah Lest Darkness Fall the optimistic, knowledge from the future makes you powerful view of things - which really the hero was an academic who knew a lot about Rome of the period but also had lots of practical knowledge that he managed to make use of to improve his initial position of actually being made a slave.

The less optimistic version would be this https://grapevine.is/mag/articles/2014/10/08/the-american-so...

on edit: removed a not that should not have been there

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

#79

Post by soperj »

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…

You'd have to cut the trees, get them from the forest to the build site, and then make lumber out of them and dry them. Can't imagine it would be that much different.

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

#80

Post by unemphysbro »

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…

I'd imagine creating uniform and robust ball-bearings is not an easy feat.
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