Steampunk Rome: How would the world look like if Rome had industrialized? 

I was literally thinking a few days ago a design for a Roman ship with a furnace/turbine that had the potential to revolutionize sea trade in the Mediterranean (and even to Britannia and India🤔). How incredible would it have been if ships were capable of sailing through any wind, manned with fewer crewmen, and a potential for more Trade supplies? I know the Romans weren’t the best sailors but it might have enriched them while pushing them towards more merchants (and an increase in capitalism in the long term). Gratias Dominus

This was awesome!

no, even if rome wasnt corporate military entity from romulus (ask the sabinian women how many elderly and children, or really anyone else other than military aged men, they saw when first time in their new home...) society instead of a civil partnership one (u can hardly make it more obvious than how long u had to be a full-blown solider to get citizenship...) Iamblichus states: “It would be in conformity with the divine law to preserve memory of the human and divine precepts exposed by Pythagoras, and not to share their wisdom with those who do not have a purified soul. Because it is not right to reveal to these people what has been acquired with great efforts, as it is not right to reveal the Eleusinian Mysteries to the uninitiated. Those who do it are equally impious and ungodly”. Flavius Sallustius- who received in Eleusis the salt of life and was one of the closest and most faithful friends of the emperor Julian - says: “Besides, to wish to teach the whole truth about the gods to all produces contempt in the foolish, because they cannot understand, and lack of zeal in the good, whereas to conceal the truth by myths prevents the contempt of the foolish, and compels the good to practice philosophy”. Vettius Valens, a great initiated as well, who lived during the second century AD in his Anthology, talks about the necessity of secrecy: “I adjure you, my most precious brother, and you, initiates into this mystic art, by the starry vault of Heaven and by the twelve-fold circle, by the Sun, the Moon, and the five wandering stars by whom all of life is guided, and by Providence itself and Holy Fate, to preserve these matters in secret and not to share them with the vulgar, but only with those worthy of them and able to preserve and requite them as they deserve. I adjure you to bestow on me, Valens, your guide, eternal and noble fame, particularly since you are aware that I alone ungrudgingly illuminated this part of the truth which had never before been explicated by anyone” Plotinus, the supreme Platonic Philosopher, who was initiated into the Sacred Mysteries of the Two Goddesses, in his Enneads wrote: “ This is the purport of that rule of our mysteries: Nothing Divulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is not to be made a common story, the holy things may not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not himself attained to see” paraphrasing the great emperor Julian, was justified in the thought of the ancients by the fact that: “Nature itself loves to hide, and truth cannot be perceived without effort: those who have found this truth must not reveal it with excessive ease to others and expose it in too explicit words. The truth, divine by nature, and which gives great power to those who possess it, is too high for vulgar and vile men; they do not deserve to possess it, and moreover they may despise it, if they achieve it without any effort: therefore, it must be kept away from them. The truth surpasses the faculties of ordinary men: only well-prepared and well-educated men can be aware of it”. (who nevertheless held out underage boys) According to Eustathius, there were secret arsenals in Rhodes, to which the public had no access, and those who violated their doors without authorization were put to death. Peisistratos looted all the papyri of the Ptah temple ('tech' god, originally egyptian word) in memphis for his library just to mysteriously burn down with it (homer wasnt even touched). When the greeks and romans got the goths in face and everything it turned out to mean, theyve been asking for it for centuries, just like the egyptians, who got the greeks and romans...

the best way to answer this is if you would have asked what if Jupitarianism or Greek Mythology would have industrialised

Cool video, What if Ancient Carthage had industrialized? I think this idea and the Steampunk Industrialized Rome idea of this video should have whole alternate history novels and video games exploring them in a lot of detail :)) . Since they are both very fascinating scenarios in alternate history. (Also What if Ancient Greece industrialised?)

If Heron's workshop could have made contact with early Indian mathematicians...

@@eljanrimsa5843 if the romans could have just seen that the aeolipile could have been turned into a steam engine they could have created a steam powered boat and made contact with India and Indian mathematics and even China for trade and Chinese intellectual achievements.

@@eljanrimsa5843 - They were in contact: Rome had vibrant trade relations with India. But mathematics is clearly not enough, else India would have industrialized first... or the Muslim World. It's not a single issue and definitely not one of mere mathematics or other abstract issues.

Roman engineering was actually quite good (even without zero or algebra). They could have advanced much further if it weren't for the fact that they were a slave society. Basically they didn't need technology so they didn't bother. It was a social bottleneck rather than a scientific or mathematical one.

Thats not actually a problem

The Han would claim they invented it like they do everything lmao

Steam tech was nearly discovers by the ancient Greeks. And the Byzantines knew about the hydraulic piston. But this is a problem we often see when technology is ahead of science: the principles are poorly understood, and it is then difficult for inventors to see potential applications.

I'm not sure, the Persians didn't seem to be interested in innovation until the Muslim era.

@@hdufort steam tech was discovered by the Greeks. Specifically Hero of Alexandria. Unfortunately, they considered it as a novelty

@@BillyBasd That's why I wrote "nearly discovered". They came very close to understand that steam can be used to move something. The only steam contraption that Hero built was interesting but it was not possible to feed additional water into the vessel, nor was it possible to transmit the rotational movement to something else through a gear or a strap.

Ludicrous arrant nonsense.

I think that depends on what form Roman civilization would've taken. But generally unity and globalization make for a better society than isolationism and division. So a unified Roman society would probably be better than the fragmented world of the middle ages which is still being mended to this day. Then again, if this Roman Empire was as tyrannical as the Late Roman Empire of our timeline, then we could end up in a situation similar to China right now.

This is such a bad take, but I understand it given how bleak things seem today.

they would've definitely been some violent tyranny during either of the world wars.

@@acidducks9476A part of the Roman Empire would have broke off and it would have been the war world of their world.

All Hail the Empire

And yet, did not.

Maybe in an alternate universe, they did, assuming the many worlds theory is correct.

Perhaps all they needed was a labor shortage

_This_ , this is where this timeline should have started, the combining of steam with pistons, not some dangerous executive toy (which is about what the Aeolipile amounts to).

No, they did not. This is an argument I've heard before, and it speaks to a severe misunderstanding of the conditions necessary for the industrial revolution to thrive. Steam engines require specific tolerances and machining in order to be used safely and reliably. If you ever want to see what happens when a steam engine does not meet those tolerances, just look at what a boiler explosion does. Its not pretty. Steam technology in 19th Century Britain was only made possible by the presence of new and advanced metallurgy and smelting techniques which the Romans did not have. Technology, mind you, that was perfected in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Era. Roman steel was chemically and structurally inferior to later Medieval steel. And the reasons are simple. After the Roman Empire collapsed, so too did much of their knowledge. As a result, smiths in the "Dark Ages" and Middle Ages had to develop their own way of producing good quality steel. This turned into a greater focus on innovation and improvement over conventional steel making, such that by the 17th and 18th Centuries, countries were able to produce the sort of quality iron and steel necessary to facilitate the creation of steam engines. However, there are non-technology related factors at play as well. As the industrial revolution did not emerge in a vacuum, rather it emerged in a very specific economic and commercial environment. The discovery of the New World (a discovery spurned on by European desires to avoid the Ottoman monopoly on trade in the East) and the subsequent Age of Exploration opened a plethora of new markets for European traders. Whole continents were now open for the selling of European goods, and the buying of local commodities. As this trade picked up, so too did the financial infrastructure necessary to sustain it. The Mongols had brought double entry book-keeping to Europe, which allowed for the creation of more sophisticated banking ledgers and accounting statements, thus facilitating the creation of proper banks, and thus debt markets, while the Dutch had pioneered the creation of stock ownership in state-owned trading companies to raise capital for their trade expeditions to the East Indies, thus creating equity markets. By the 18th Century, debt and equity markets were well established across much of Europe, in particular the British Empire. All of which coincided with a rapid growth in demand for European exports in Africa, Asia and the American colonies. European colonies were supplying raw materials that European countries did not have, and this opened the door to manufacturing them into goods to be sold on the global markets. The most prominent material was cotton. Produced in the American colonies, cotton could be refined into textiles, the demand for which had grown exponentially as many Asian countries, seeking to catch up with the Europeans, had started to demand European clothing as part of their own modernization efforts. To keep up with this rapid demand, textile manufacturers began expanding their operations, hiring more staff, setting up in bigger manufactories, and purchasing more and more specialized equipment. All of this further coincided with the development of functional and reliable steam engines, made possible with the aforementioned advancements in metallurgy, and with the now well established debt and equity markets, textile producers were able to gain the immediate financial capital necessary to produce these new but expensive machines, in bulk. Whereas in the past they would not have been able to do so. Thus, as the textile industry grew in size, so too did the demand for textile machines, and the demand for the coal necessary to power those machines. And as the demand for coal grew, machines were created to facilitate the mining and transportation of that coal. This led to the emergence of a new, wealthier middle class, which led to increased demand for a whole host of consumer products, which led to other industries following suit, and all of that snowballed in the 19th Century to where we are now. All of this required events, innovations, and ideas which were simply not present in the Roman Empire. And the perfect show of this is the Aeolipile. The Romans produced a steam engine... and then what? What problem would it solve that the Romans had not already found a solution for? The spinning jenny allowed textile manufacturers to spin textiles in a fraction of the time of a traditional loom. What did the aeolipile do besides look cool? Even if the Romans figured out a use, none of the conditions necessary to create the sophisticated debt and equity markets required to finance the industrialization of typical workshops were there. None of the metallurgy tech to make large scale, safe and reliable steam engines were there. Many of these innovations didn't even come from Europe. Double entry book-keeping, which was absolutely critical to the development of any financial infrastructure, came from the Mongols. Innovations in metallurgy came from the Germans and Arabs. The reality is, the Romans had reached the peak of what they would be capable of accomplishing. Their economy worked for them and for the world they lived in. Industrialization paid its dividends because the manufacturers who invested in new technologies were able to recoup their money from the massive amount of global demand for their products. The Romans, conversely did not live in a globalized economy. At most, they had limited contact with China through a handful of trading expeditions and the Silk Road. And while some of their traders made it surprisingly far, as far as Vietnam, the trade was ultimately restricted to silk and spices. Most of what they traded were agricultural goods, and nowhere near the quantity of the Industrial Revolution. Even if individual manufacturers had the money and tech to build steam engines, so what? They drop all this money, incur the inevitably increase in both variable and fixed costs for their business, only to sell the same amount of goods they've always sold, but now with less profit because their costs have gone up due to the maintenance of these fancy new machines, and their financial situation has worsened due to the heavy debt they've likely incurred buying these machines. It simply does not make economic or financial sense.

Agreed, we can look to the late 19th Century for some things (For example Railroad stations and metro stations with better aesthetics been used and this is just one example).

So true! Certain cities today are eyesores compared to places like Pompeii or Herculaneum. Even in their ruined state, they still have a certain beauty to them.

@@Zeerich-yx9po I partially agree with your point. True, there was poverty and filth in Roman cities. But, you should consider the forum, the baths, and the theatre. These were beautiful public spaces that were accessible to both the rich and the poor. Roman cities were also extremely well designed with paved streets, sewers, and aqueducts.

honestly yes , but i my self like early industrial era type of buildings like look up the Canberra rejected city design by Ernest Gimson and tell me that isn't a beautiful city

@@c4_ro Reminds me of MARKETTOWNS NZ! Hope MARKETTOWNS NZ will have their projects built :-)

You can power a steam engine with a wood fire, but it's less practical than coal for a locomotive.

Nah, the big issue with the Aeolipile is that it _is_ no more than a toy, it can be used to demonstrate the potential of expanding steam, but can't capitalise on it.

Also the development of classical physics started during the reinansseance.

"Medieval Britain was already a major exporter of mineral coal (especially through Newcastle) which gave rise to coking coal to smelt iron *without charcoal (which was unknown before the early 18th century*" (emphasis added. Not true. "All indigenous African iron smelting processes are variants of the bloomery process. A much wider range of bloomery smelting processes has been recorded on the African continent than elsewhere in the Old World, probably because bloomeries remained in use into the 20th century in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, whereas in Europe and most parts of Asia they were replaced by the blast furnace before most varieties of bloomeries could be recorded. W.W. Cline's compilation of eye-witness records of bloomery iron smelting over the past 250 years in Africa is invaluable, and has been supplemented by more recent ethnoarchaeological and archaeological studies. Furnaces used in the 19th and 20th centuries ranges from small bowl furnaces, dug down from the ground surface and powered by bellows, through bellows-powered shaft furnaces up to 1.5 m tall, to 6.5m natural-draft furnaces (i.e. furnaces designed to operate without bellows at all). ... *The fuel used was invariably charcoal*, and the products were the bloom (a solid mass of iron) and slag (a liquid waste product). African ironworkers regularly produced inhomogeneous steel blooms, especially in the large natural-draft furnaces. " ... "There is also evidence that *carbon steel* was made in Western Tanzania by the ancestors of the Haya people as early as 2,300-2,000 years ago by a complex process of "pre-heating" allowing temperatures inside a furnace to reach up to 1800 °C." (above from Wikipedia)

@@kalinystazvoruna8702 What I actually said is that before the early 18th century when coke made of mineral coal was developed in Britain charcoal was the only fuel used in iron smelting all over the world. So you just misunderstood what I wrote.

The water turbine is in fact simpler than the steam engine AFAIK and it is a fact that water mills of sometimes very complex tech were used before the industrial revolution to power all kinds of manufactures, most notably smithies. However electricity demands a rather sophisticated science the Romans and Medievals lacked.

they werent even close to using electricity

​​​@@Blox117 the use of electricity was discovered like 50 years after the begining if the Industrial revolution, of Rome industrialed they could've absoloutely started using electricity

Love to read the book if you ever make it

but war leads to technological inovation

@@piglin469 yes, but that innovation is compounded on when the developed techs can be applied to the private market. That usually doesn't happen until peace is achieved.

@@KermRiv I guess

@@piglin469 Historically, war more often leads to a Dark Age due to the destruction of civilizations, people and their knowledge. WWII was a vast exception to this rule.

@@SouthwesternEagle I mean I see it

Interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing !

​@@Maiorianus_Sebastiansay could you make a video on what if rome became a interstellar empire civilization

Hello Jay Uno, thank you very much for the comment, it is highly appreciated :) These are really good topic suggestions, I have immediately noted them down. I already had planned at least one video abou the decline of Art and craftsmanship in the later roman empire, especially starting in the 4th century, but yes, how it is possibly connected to the Antonine Plagues seems highly interesting. Will investigate! Since I have already collected 200 topics though, it might take a while until we come to that specific topic XD

@@Maiorianus_Sebastian that sounds awesome! I mean, you really could make an entire series on the effects of the Antonine Plague and include discussion on Galen, Marcus Aurelius’ doctor. Even if it takes awhile for you to get to it, I’ll enjoy watching all your videos, thanks again!

​@@Maiorianus_Sebastianplease make a video on what would happened if rome became a interstellar civilization

You pur sand to cut the stone, no need of a super strong blade.

Just 1 culture and so many lost 😫

So basically indistinguishable from current globalist Society

@@Laotzu.Goldbug If that's the case I'm glad the West fell.

@@septimiusseverus343 simmer down now larper.

@@septimiusseverus343 yes long live the Eastern Roman Empire

if rome reaches china then gunpowder is possible

Rome wouldve have had to go through a huge and i mean huge cultural and governmental change to survive very long after industrialization, it was very authoritarian and industrialized authoritarian states dont typically last longer than a life time

@@Zeerich-yx9po i mean yeah, maybe you’re right but authoritarian nations tend to make alot of really dumb mistakes though, like chinas one child policy for example because of that chinas population is expected to be cut in half by 2050 or by the end of the century i don’t remember what the article said plus its economy is collapsing rn even though they keep saying theyre doing great but you might be right idk im not gonna pretend im an expert

Mate the Western roman empire was only a thing due to the crisis of the third century read some fucking history

Yeah I would definitely like a TV show set in the late migration/ early medieval peroid but it has renissance technology, like muskets, pike squares, and full armor. It would get so fascinating seeing Germanic kingdoms like visigoths, ostrogoths, Gepids, Frank's, and Alemanni fighting each other like they were in the 1400s lol.

Thanks for the friendly words and for the intelligent commentary!

​@@Maiorianus_Sebastiancan you make a video on how the world would look like if roman became a intergalactic space traveling civilization

@@Maiorianus_Sebastian Invention of black powder is even "simpler" than the steam engine. If someone has such powder, first, of course, catapults/ballistas shoot "bombs" at opponents, but we should also expect the development of firearms. Another thing that seems relatively easy to discover or invent is the convex airfoil. It is true that in those technological realities the construction of engine-powered airplanes was rather impossible, but gliders made of wood and canvas with a glide ratio of approximately 10 were easily within the capabilities of the Romans. Also hot air balloons. That would be interesting.

I have my reference: Medieval Machines (1974) by Jean Gimpel; Forge and Waterwheel (1996) by Frances and Joseph Gies; Techniques and Civilization (1934) by Lewis Mumford; Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962) by Lynn White.

This.

"Fiat" economic transactions were gaining ground in the Roman Empire. There is quite a lot of evidence that trading was conducted with paper bonds etc. Money-lending guilds existed since Hellenistic times and banking would develop quite easily.

I second the motion

Ancient Rome was nothing like China in our timeline. China was insular. They had already started building the Great Wall of China as early as the 7th century BC. While Chinese borders have always been defensive, Rome’s were expanding.

Yes, Rome lacked a number of key precursors for capitalism that slowly evolved throughout the Middle Ages, particularly in the Republic and early Imperial years. Individualism, the balance and distribution of power, fierce and perpetual internal competition at the local level, property rights, the rule of law, and bureaucratisation of government to name a few. Roman merchants were regarded with suspicion and disdain by the senatorial patrician class, whereas in the Middle Ages they were indispensable to the royalty for financing and the tax revenues they generated. I remember someone once describing a major difference between these two eras - that the biggest Roman cities were political centres that also hosted economic activity, whereas the biggest medieval cities were economic centres that also hosted political activity. In that sense Rome was much less exceptional than medieval Europe, and shared much in common economically, societally and politically with other Eurasian empires such as the Persians and Chinese.

@@ruraledition Rome stopped expanding by the time of Trajan

@@ruraledition the vast majority of the Empire's years were spent defending, not expanding

Hello ! Well, since I named this channel after Majorian, I would aid him, warn him of the traitors at Carthago Nova, saving his fleet and help him to retake Africa from the Vandals. I would also warn him of Ricimer's treachery :) That might be an interesting timeline.

@@Maiorianus_Sebastian Thanks for the answer. I am happy that you stay true to Majorian, most of the time I ask people they ends up saying something like: "Emperor/Commander X is my favorite, but I am picking Caesar" so it is good to see someone not taking the boring answer.

I'd help Vercingetorix defeat Caesar the Tyrant.

Had Vercingetorix won, Europe wouldn't have been the super power we know in our timeline. The Gaul and Celtic tribes didn't have the same mindset as the civilised Greeks and Romans. They would've certainly developed, but would've taken a much longer time. Precious time in which a foreign power could subdue the Europeans (the Mongols were close in doing just that)​@@Anaris10

Or to simply put, it is not the question what would have happened if Heron would understand what they potential was of his steam-toy but: why did he and others not see it? See my remarks above as (a begin of) an answer.

The Renaissance, that happened in Italy and that was patronised by Pope Leo X born Giovanni De Medici, from what word Medicine, was derived, could not have happened if Da Vinci did not enter the basement archives to autopsy bodies of the Medici family who were dying of unknown disease displaying similar symptoms. Until then, the archives and records had never been accessed by a member of the public. Da Vinci has been dubbed a genius, an inventor and a scientist. He was a Renaissance man. Renaissance means rebirth. The Renaissance was the rebirth of Ancient Roman technology that only he had access to and that he shared amongst his contemporaries and colleagues. I imagine that he could not have understood everything that he came across in his pursuit of information about medicine and healing that could have helped the Medici family. But he certainly grasped and understood the concept of flying. And he was obsessed about inventing flying machines. There is even a Renaissance painting by Domenico Ghirlandaio called Madonna 1473, that depicts a UFO flying in the background.

@@ruraledition - sure, true-ish and interesting history. But what has this to do with the discussed subject? Just curious.

Pretty much this. A good example is the Chinese having to learn modern firearms from Europeans despite inventing them over half a millenia earlier

"I understood that reference" - Captain America Oh, and "The Emperor Protects"

read some of it i agree with you. i find it more likely that rome would develop a fascist ideology then democracy. Everything within Rome. Nothing against Rome. Nothing outside of Rome

@@King.Leonidas Fascism is in a way, a proto monarchy, which is very similar to what Roman emperors were, and in fact, later became (Sort of, during the Byzantine Era). So it's not far fetched. Likewise Fascism did sprout from trying to emulate Rome, still the Romans were a pre ideological society, they had no need for ideology, as they had religion and philosophy to guide them, so if anything, they'd probably continue to develop those.

Good comment

Heumarkt, Forum Faeni :-)

Thanks a lot :) Yes, that timeline would be absolutely fascinating and nothing like ours.

I would think that something the electrical technology might actually reinvigorate the declining enthusiasm for the worship of Jupiter and perhaps made Summanus mainstream if people associated electricity with night time lighting. Or perhaps Latona as Goddess of Light would become a mainstream cult.