Greece &

Rome,
Vol.
47,
No.
2,
October 2000
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
By
NEVILLE MORLEY
1. The Steam Revolution in Ancient Rome
It was never a
foregone
conclusion that the Roman
Empire
should have
made
any significant
use of steam
power.
The basic
principles
of the
steam
engine
were
certainly
known
by
the mid-first
century A.D.,
as
seen in the 'wind-ball'
(aiolipile)
described
by
Hero of Alexandria in his
treatise on Pneumatica.1 Hero's
device,
in which a
copper sphere
was
made to rotate
by jets
of stream when the reservoir of water underneath
was heated to
boiling point, clearly
demonstrated that steam could serve
as a source of
propulsion.
It
was,
admittedly,
a
very
inefficient
design:
in
modern
reconstructions,
either too much steam
escaped through
the
joints
or the
joints
had to be made so
tight
that friction became a serious
problem.
Such deficiencies were
by
no means
insurmountable,
and all
the other elements
necessary
for the construction of a
working
steam
engine
-
pistons, cylinders,
an effective valve mechanism - can be found
in Hero's
writings
or in those of his
contemporaries.
However,
as has often been
pointed
out
by
historians of
technology,
innovation is
always
less
important
than the
adoption
of
innovation;
see
for
example
the Gallic
reaping machine,
described
by Pliny
but
never,
so
far as we
know, widely
used.2 At first it seemed more than
likely
that
Hero's device would suffer a similar fate. At the
beginning
of his work he
characterized the inventions he described as 'some of them useful
everyday applications,
others
quite
remarkable
effects',
and it is
prob-
ably significant
that he offered no
suggestions
as to the
practical
application
of his windball.3 There is no evidence that
anyone
else at
the time was interested in
developing
it as
anything
other than a
toy.
This attitude of indifference does not
appear
to be due to the fabled
disdain of the ancients for the
practical application
of their discoveries -
comments found in the
writings
of both Hero and Vitruvius make it
quite
clear that
they
are interested in the
utility
of
many
of the devices
they
describe
-
so much as the lack of
any
obvious use for a steam
engine.4
Such a statement
may
seem
strange
to
us,
familiar as we are with the
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
dramatic
impact
of steam
power
on the
economy
and
society
of
nineteenth-century
Britain and
America;
its usefulness seems over-
whelmingly
obvious.5 To understand the attitude of the
ancients,
it is
important
for us to be
wary
of our
assumptions
about
technological
development;
above
all,
of the idea that
people
will
eagerly adopt
innovations with the aim of
saving
time and labour in the
production
process.
Such an
assumption
is natural in a
capitalist economy,
where
labour is commoditized and the
capitalist's profits depend
on as much
work as
possible being
carried out within a
given
time
by
each
labourer. In the ancient
world, however,
free
wage
labour was little
used
(except
for casual labour at the
harvest); peasants
relied on their
own and their
family's
labour while the rich tended to
rely
on various
forms of
dependent
labour
(slave, tenants, serfs),
and so neither would
have
thought
of labour in terms of a
commodity,
as
something
that
needed to be saved.6 In other
words, they
had no obvious motive for
adopting
or
developing
a machine that did the same work as a man or
an
animal, only slightly
faster. The mere existence of an innovation
(which we,
with the benefit of
hindsight,
know to have the
potential
to
transform
society)
does not
guarantee
that it will be
widely adopted
if
it is not
'appropriate' to,
or seen to be beneficial
by,
the
society
in
question.7
The
ancients, particularly
the
Romans,
were
always willing
to innovate or
adopt
the innovations of others when it suited their
purposes;
for
example,
in the
development
of urban water
supplies,
in
agriculture,
and in
military
affairs.8 Their initial failure to
adopt
steam
power
is not a
sign
of their
ignorance
or
primitiveness,
but
simply
a
clear indication that their values and attitudes differed
markedly
from
our own.9
The
employment
of steam
engines
even to a limited extent in certain
areas of
agriculture
and
industry
was a
very
late
development, long
after
the
engines
had been tried and tested in the service of the
emperor.
As
one
might
be
expected,
the chief motive for their initial
adoption
was
essentially political.
Since the time of
Augustus,
the
emperors
had
recognized
the
necessity
of
safeguarding
the
grain supply
of the
city
of
Rome;
the
consequences
of
failing
to do so can be seen in the attacks
made
by angry
mobs in the forum on the then Octavian in 40 B.C. and
on Claudius in A.D. 51.10 In
response, Augustus
had instituted the
office of the
praefectus
annonae and added
grain-rich Egypt
to the
empire;
Claudius offered concessions to
suppliers
to
persuade
them to
supply
the
city,
and also started work on construction of a
proper
harbour at Ostia
(up
to this
date, ships
had had to moor outside the sand
198
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
bar at the mouth of the Tiber while
transferring
their
cargoes
to smaller
boats for the
journey
to the
city).
These measures
certainly improved
the
situation,
but there remained
a serious bottleneck in the
system
of
supply:
the river Tiber. Rickman
has estimated that the
barges necessary
to
transport
the
city's grain
supplies (to say nothing
of the vast
quantities
of other
goods)
would
have been nose-to-tail
along
the river between Ostia and Rome
through-
out the entire
year.11
The
slightest
hitch
might
mean that
grain piled up
at the
port
while Rome suffered
price
rises and even
shortages.
Nero's
proposal
to build an additional canal between the
city
and the
sea,
which
would, according
to
Suetonius,
have allowed
ships
to sail
straight up
to
Rome,
is a clear indication of
continuing problems
at this
stage
of the
supply
network
(and not,
as historians have tended to
assert, simply
another
example
of his
megalomania).12
Nero's successors were more concerned with
replenishing
the treas-
ury,
and
probably
also
wary
of
associating
themselves with a
building
project
tainted
by
Nero's
involvement;
they
concentrated on reconstruc-
tion of
damaged
areas of the
city,
on
temples
and on the new
amphitheatre
on the site of Nero's Golden House.13 Under
Nerva,
however,
who was described
by
Frontinus as 'an
emperor
of whom I am
at a loss to
say
whether he devotes more
industry
or love to the
state',
we
find a return to
large-scale public building projects relating
to the
city's
supplies.14
Nerva focused both on the
system
of
aqueducts (with
extensive
renovations,
new construction and a
thorough
overhaul of
the
administration)
and also on the food
supply,
with the construction of
state
granaries
and
improvements
to the
city's transport
links with the
coast.15 Nero's canal
project
was still not
revived;
instead Nerva
sought
to
supplement
the
existing
road and river
transport
with an
entirely
new
form,
based on steam
power.
A track was built
along
the side of the
Tiber, consisting
of a stone
pathway
into which
parallel grooves
were
cut to
guide
the wheels of the
wagons;
the obvious model for this
arrangement being
the Diolkos
'railway'
in
Greece, originally
con-
structed around the sixth
century B.C.,
which was used to
transport
ships
across the Corinth isthmus.16
Little is known of Nerva's
original engine;
visual
representations
of
the
'railway' (for example,
the famous mosaic from the
collegium
of the
machinarii in the Piazza delle
Corporazioni
at
Ostia)
all date from the
middle decades of the second
century
or later.'7 It is
possible
that it was
at first used to
pull barges up
the
Tiber,
since
archaeological investiga-
tion has shown that the track followed the line of the river
closely
even
199
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
when a more direct route existed. Soon, however,
the
engines
were
being
used to draw
wagons
of
grain
and other
goods; clearly they
were
more effective as a
supplement
to river
transport, increasing
the total
volume of
goods
that could be carried
up
to the
city and,
unlike the
Tiber
barges,
free from the seasonal
problems
of floods and low water
levels.18 The fact that the
engines
were
employed
in this
way
also seems
to
imply
that
they
were both faster than ox-drawn carts and able to haul
a similar or
larger
load.19 This was
certainly
the case with later
models;
mosaics from Ostia show lines of four or five
heavily-laden wagons
being
drawn
along,
and
Pliny
describes in a letter how the
engine
on the
opposite
bank almost
kept pace
with his horse as he travelled to his villa
at Laurentum.20 There is of course no reason to believe that the steam
engine
was
necessarily cheaper
than
existing
forms of
transport;
more
than
likely
the
railway
was a
typical imperial project
in which the costs -
of
developing
the
engine,
of
manufacturing
and
maintaining it,
and of
collecting
the
huge quantities
of wood needed to fuel its boiler - were far
less
important
than
obtaining
the desired end of
protecting
the food
supply
of the
city.
A second track between Rome and Ostia was constructed under
Trajan, always
an
emperor
to make the most of his
predecessor's
work.21
Trajan
also started to build
railways
elsewhere in the
empire,
and this
almost
certainly explains why
the steam
engines,
which became known
as machinae
Traianae,
are associated in the
popular
mind with him rather
than Nerva. Once
again,
the
engines
were
originally
introduced as a
way
or
circumventing transport bottlenecks,
this time in the
supply
lines of
the
army;
first of all to link the Rhine to the Rhone and the
Danube,
and
then
extending
into
newly conquered regions.22
It is difficult to believe
that these
railways
were cost-effective from a
strictly
economic
point
of
view, but,
as with the
city
of
Rome,
the need to
keep
the
army
well
supplied
far
outweighed any
economic considerations.23
By
the time of
Trajan's
later wars
against Parthia, railways
followed
rapidly
in the
footsteps
of the
advancing armies,
and this
surely
enabled Rome to
maintain its hold on the
newly
created
provinces
of
Armenia, Mesopo-
tamia,
and
Assyria
in the face of Parthian counter-attacks.24
Likewise,
the
railways linking
the Rhine to the Weser and the Elbe consolidated
the
conquest
of further areas of Germania under the Antonines. It was
only
a matter of time before the
engines
were used for
transporting
troops
as well as
supplies, enabling
reinforcements to be moved
rapidly
to
problem
areas and
greatly reducing
the total number of
troops
necessary
to defend the frontiers
effectively.25
200
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
Emperors
still faced some
problems
on the
frontiers;
less from
barbarian or Parthian enemies than from their own
generals,
who
might
take
advantage
of weakness at the centre to launch a bid for
power.
This doubtless
explains why
no
emperor
took what to us
might
seem the obvious
step
of
connecting
the different
railway
tracks into a
more
integrated system, linking
the
provinces
to
Italy;
the
advantages
of
improved
communication and more efficient movement of
goods
were
far
outweighed by
the risk of a
usurper being
able to launch an attack on
the
capital
without
warning.
On the other
hand, by ensuring
that the
troops
were
regularly supplied, paid,
and
relieved,
and thus less
likely
to
revolt,
the steam
engine may perhaps
be
given
some credit for the
notable
political stability
of the second and third centuries A.D. While
the frontier
pushed slowly forward,
the rest of the
empire enjoyed peace
and
stability (not
to mention the benefits of a continued flow of
booty
and
revenues),
and the
newly conquered regions
of Germania followed
Gaul and Britain on the
path
of
'Romanization',
assimilation under the
globalizing
cultural
hegemony
of the Mediterranean.
The arrival of steam
power
made
only
a
slight
difference to other
aspects
of life in the
empire.
Steam
engines
were
rarely employed
in
industry, except
for a few state-owned
milling complexes.
The vast
majority
of the
population
were in no
position
to afford such
machines,
which would
anyway
have been
quite
redundant in a small farm or
workshop;
the
wealthy
were
quite
content with the labour of their slaves.
Land remained the fundamental source of
wealth;
the advent of steam
power simply
reinforced
this,
as those who had the
money
to invest
bought up large
tracts of forest to take
advantage
of the insatiable
appetite
of
Trajan's engines
for fuel. A few
previously under-developed
regions
of
Italy
and
Gaul,
and in
particular
the
newly conquered
territories of
Germania,
saw a
flurry
of
activity
as a result.
With the inevitable
exception
of the
technically-minded Frontinus,
whose treatise on
railway management (based
on his
experiences
in
organizing
the Ostia-Rome
line)
is
unfortunately lost,
the
upper-class
writers of the time more or less
ignored
the whole
development. They
made an
exception only
on the
extremely
rare occasions when one of the
railway managers (who
were often
imperial freedmen,
to
judge
from the
epigraphic record)
amassed sufficient wealth from state contracts to
buy
his
way
into the
nobility
-
naturally abandoning
at once all interest in
railways
and other sorts of
trade,
and
investing
in land. It is in this
context that we find remarks like those of
Juvenal
about the successful
freedman
Fumosus,
who has
'scarcely pumiced away
the
layers
of
201
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
charcoal and soot' before
arriving
at
dinner,
where he can talk of
nothing
but the
'contraptions
of Archimedes'.26 One or two of the more
adventurous landowners invested in
private railways
as a means of
transporting
the
produce
of their villas to
market,27
but for the most
part only
the state had either the resources or the motivation to invest in
these
expensive, noisy
and rather
vulgar machines,
and their construc-
tion and maintenance remained
largely
in the hands of freedmen.
What if Rome had never
adopted
the steam
engine?
What if it had
remained
simply
a minor
curiosity
in the
history
of science and
technology
that the ancients
developed
the
principles
of steam
power
but never
put
them into
practice?
As discussed
above,
such a turn of
events at one
point
seemed more than
likely.
The
adoption
of the steam
engine depended
on the whim of a
particular emperor,
who
might easily
have chosen another method
(reviving
Nero's
plans
for a
canal, perhaps,
or further
development
of the
port
facilities at
Ostia)
to
try
to solve the
problem
of Rome's food
supply.
No-one other than the
emperor
was
likely
to wish to invest the
necessary money
in such an eccentric
enterprise.
For an indication of how else
things might
have turned
out,
we
might compare
Nerva's
willingness
to
adopt
innovations to the
negative response
of
Vespasian
when he was offered a device
designed
to haul columns
up
to the
Capitol.28
How much difference would this have made? We
might
consider this
in the
light
of the famous
study by
the economic historian Robert
Fogel, examining
the role of railroads in the
development
of the United
States in the nineteenth
century.29 Fogel approached
this
question by
using
a 'counterfactual'
argument, constructing
a model of American
development
if it had been based on canals and river
transport
rather
than railroads. He concluded from this model that US GNP in 1890
would have been more or less the
same,
while the total cultivated area
would be smaller but more
intensively exploited.
We
might suggest
something
similar for Rome. The
empire's
frontiers would be less
extensive,
since its
expansion
would have been restricted not
by
natural
boundaries or
by strategic
considerations but
by
the
length
of its
supply
lines.30 Otherwise we
might expect
few dramatic
differences;
just
as American
capitalists
would have found alternative means to
transport
their
goods
to
market,
so the Roman state would have
got by
with traditional methods.
202
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
2.
Technology
and
History
In recent
years
there has been
something
of a
flurry
of interest in
'counterfactual'
approaches
to
history (or
'virtual
history',
to
quote
the
self-consciously
neoteric title of the most recent collection on the
subject):
that
is,
the examination of 'what if?'
questions,
as in 'what if
Hitler had invaded Britain?' or 'what if Constantine had remained a
pagan?'.
In the
past,
such
questions
have
generally
been excluded from
the remit of
'proper' history; perhaps
above all because
they
blur the
distinction between
history
and
fiction, emphasizing
the role of the
historian's
imagination
in the
process
of
interpretation
and thus
suggest-
ing
that
every history
is to some extent an
imaginative
construct.31
Critics of the 'what if'
approach
also
point
to the
dangers
of reliance
on
hindsight, excessively
reductive
explanations
and anachronistic
assumptions,
all of which can indeed be found in most of the
attempts
made so far at
writing
counterfactual
history.32 Nevertheless,
counter-
factuals are
implicit
in
any
discussion of causation:
The force of an
explanation
turns on the counterfactual which it
implies.
If such-and-
such a cause or combination of causes had not been
present,
we
imply,
or if such-and-
such an action or series of actions had not been
taken, things
would have been different.
If we do not believe
they
would have
been,
we should not
give
the causes or actions in
question
the
importance
that we do.33
A counterfactual
approach
to
history compels
us to make these
assump-
tions about causation
explicit, by focusing
on the
possible
existence of
other
plausible
outcomes.
Almost
every published attempt
at 'virtual
history'
has focused on
traditional
military
and
political problems:
what if Alexander had lived
longer,
or Charles I avoided civil
war,
or Britain
kept
out of
WW1,
or
Germany
defeated the Soviet Union in
1941,
or
JFK escaped
assassina-
tion?34 There seem to be a number of reasons for this
tendency.
In the
first
place,
this kind of
history
is still the main interest of
many
historians,
and is
certainly
more
popular amongst
the wider
public
than economic or social
history.35 Secondly,
it is easier to demonstrate
that other
possibilities
existed in the
past
(and
therefore to
justify
an
interest in counterfactual
history)
when the focus is on an individual
decision;
both because the individual
clearly
could have
changed
his or
her
mind,
and also because
contemporary
evidence often confirms that
other
possibilities
were considered or even
expected.
In the Virtual
203
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
History
collection this latter fact has been elevated to a
guiding principle:
'We should consider as
plausible
or
probable only
those alternatives which
we can show on the basis
of contemporary
evidence that
contemporaries
actually
considered' - which would
clearly
exclude social and economic
developments
of which
contemporaries
were
largely
or
entirely
un-
aware.36
Thirdly,
there is often an
implicit
or
explicit opposition
to
the
perceived
determinism of much economic and social
history,
above
all that
produced by
Marxists and
by
those
inspired by
the French
historian Ferand
Braudel,
with their
emphasis
on the structures that
condition
people's
lives. Counterfactual
political history,
with its em-
phasis
on
contingency
and the
range
of alternative
possibilities open
to
its
actors,
is
presented
as a means of
defending
free will
against
soulless
(left-wing)
determinism.37
Having
offered a counterfactual
history
of Roman
technological
development, proposing
a course of events which no
contemporary
ever
contemplated
for a
moment,
I do feel that I should offer some
response
to these
points.
The first is
simply
a matter of
personal
preference.38
The second shows a remarkable excess of
caution,
as if
we can never take
advantage
of
hindsight
or our more advanced
knowledge (of economics, sociology,
medicine
etc.)
to
identify possibil-
ities to which
contemporaries
were
completely
oblivious. The third
point, leaving
aside its
ideological slant,
is a
misrepresentation
of most
economic and social
history,
and even of the two writers who are
singled
out for
particular
censure. Both Marx and Braudel
accepted
that the
structures
they
identified
(economic, social, environmental,
mental
etc.)
do not
absolutely
determine human behaviour but rather
(in
Braudel's
phrase)
set 'the limits of the
possible'
for human action.39
Moreover,
both
argued quite explicitly
that such structures
change, admittedly
over
longer periods
of time and in a more
complicated
manner than one
individual
simply making
a different decision. The free will
question
thus becomes
irrelevant;
what matters is the need to broaden counter-
factual
history by considering
the
consequences
of alternative lines of
development
not
only
at the level of individual decisions but also in
economic and social trends and even in the environment. As with other
counterfactual
history,
this offers a
way
of
examining
the
implicit
assumptions
of
any explanation;
for
example,
if climate is seen to be
the main
shaper
of
development,
how
might things
have
changed
if
average temperatures
in
Europe
had been
different,
with all the
likely
consequences
for
agriculture, travel,
the incidence of disease and so
forth?40
204
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
The
history
of ancient
technology
as it has
generally
been written does
indeed
depend
on an
implicit
'what if'
question,
an assumed alternative
line of
development.
Ancient
technology
is
implicitly
or
explicitly
compared
with medieval and later
developments;
as a result it is seen
to be
stagnant, underdeveloped, lacking key
innovations.41 Most histor-
ians have then taken it as read that
they
need to
explain
this failure to
develop;
the
range
of
explanations provided
includes the
widespread
use
of slave
labour,
the
non-practical
nature of ancient
science,
the ancient
conception
of the
relationship
between man and the natural
world,
the
low status of
manufacturing,
a
shortage
of
capital,
the low level of
demand for
goods
and so forth.42
Underlying
such
arguments
is the
assumption
that if these
impediments
had not existed then
antiquity
would have
developed along
much the same lines as late medieval and
early
modern
Europe, experiencing
an industrial revolution and the
triumph
of
economically rational, capitalist
modes of
thought.43
The
anachronistic,
Eurocentric
assumptions
of this
approach
to the
study
of ancient
technology
have been
extensively
and
persuasively
criticized in recent articles
by
Kevin Greene.44 This
paper
is intended to
offer a
complementary critique by taking up
the counterfactual
implicit
in the
argument.
I would
suggest
that it was not inconceivable that the
Romans
might
have
adopted
steam
power;
the basic
principles
were
known, they
were
certainly prepared
to
adopt
innovations when it suited
them,
and a suitable
application
for such
technology
did exist.
However,
as
my 'history'
is intended to
suggest,
we cannot then assume that the
course of
development
of a
steam-powered
Roman
Empire
is fixed or
obvious. We cannot assume that the Roman
empire
was
simply awaiting
the
development
of more advanced
technology
to become a modern
capitalist society,
or that
technology inevitably
has this kind of modern-
izing impact
on
any society
into which it is introduced.
This kind of
technological
determinism is
implicit
in much historical
writing
(and
in most science
fiction);
in essence it takes
up
the
argument
of the
early
Marx that 'the hand mill will
give you
a
society
with the
feudal
lord,
the steam mill a
society
with the industrial
capitalist'.45 My
piece
of
imaginary history
assumes on the
contrary
that
technology
is
subordinate to other social and economic
structures,
which determine
how it will be used.
Everything
we know about the Roman
Empire
makes it
extremely improbable
that it would
suddenly industrialize,
or
support
the
emergence
of a new class of
capitalists
or a
'capitalist spirit'
so alien to traditional attitudes. The
adoption
of steam
power
might
lead
to a transformation of
society,
if
particular groups (above
all the
political
205
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
elite)
were to act in certain
ways,
but it
might equally help
to
perpetuate
the
existing
social order - as indeed we find
today.46
Rather than
assimilating
Rome to our own
society,
the historian's aim should be to
imagine
a
sophisticated
and even
technologically
advanced
society
which was not
organized along
modern
capitalist
lines. As with the
best science
fiction,
such
speculation may help
us consider the nature of
change
and
development, offering
a
commentary
on the
present
as well
as the
past.47
What
might
it tell us about our faith in and fear of
technology,
our sense that it is the
machines,
rather than the
people
who
use them in
particular ways
and the social structures which condition
their
use,
that create the condition of
(post)modernity?
Conclusion: The Fall of the Roman
Empire
It is of course
possible
that I
might
have been
writing
this not in 1999 but
some time in the second
century
of the Valerian
dynasty,
the latest set of
true heirs to the
empire
of
Augustus; or, counting
from the traditional
date of the foundation of
Rome,
in 2752. After
all,
Chinese civilization
survived for a similar
length
of
time, weathering regular changes
of
dynasty
with
comparatively
little
disruption,
until it was confronted in
the late nineteenth
century
with what lain Banks has termed an 'out of
context
problem'.48
A
steam-powered
Roman
Empire might
have
expanded
across the whole of
Asia, assimilating
or
crushing
not
only
the nomadic barbarians whom the Romans had once
naively
seen as a
threat to their
security,
but also their more
dangerous
rivals in
Persia,
India,
and China.
On the other
hand,
with the
exception
of
China,
it is difficult to think
of
examples
of civilizations which have survived for
anything
like this
period
of time. Modern
capitalist society,
at
barely
a
couple
of
centuries,
has a
long way
to
go
to
prove
its
stability
and
long-term viability.
As for
China,
it
clearly
differed from Rome in
many significant ways;
above all
in its
sophisticated system
of
administration,
which was not
seriously
disturbed
by changes
at the head of the
empire.49
There seems to be no
obvious reason
why
steam
power
at Rome should have
improved
the
empire's
record of
problems
with the succession and
subsequent
civil
war;
no reason
why
steam
power
should have led to a more
equal
division of
property,
or reduced the
problems
of its limited tax base and
ineffective tax
system
and hence its
inflexibility
in the face of
unexpected
disasters. Of all the reasons
put
forward for the eventual fall of the
206
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
Roman
Empire
-
political
crisis,
corruption,
economic
problems,
environmental
change,
barbarian
invasions,
the
problem
of
holding
together
such a vast
territory
- steam
power might
have made a
significant
difference
only
to the last two.
Perhaps
its
adoption might
even have hastened the
empire's
decline,
increasing
environmental
degradation through pollution
and deforestation and
bringing
about a
preindustrial energy
crisis.50
In the
eighteenth
and nineteenth
centuries,
many
writers looked to the
Roman
Empire
for indications of the
likely
fate of modern
civilization,
trying
to heed its awful
warning
about the
corrupting
effects of
luxury,
decadence, and unbridled self-interest.51
Today,
we are more aware of
the differences between
past
and
present,
above all in material terms. We
might
now look to Rome to see how else
things might
have been - for
example,
it offers a reminder that
capitalism
is not the
only way
of
organizing
a
society
- and
perhaps
also how else
things might
be.52 Like
science
fiction,
all
history, imaginary
or
not,
is in the end concerned
above all with the
present.53
NOTES
1.
Hero,
Pneumatica 2.11. There is an
English
translation
by
B. Woodcraft
(London, 1851);
the
passage
is also
reproduced
in
J. W.
Humphrey,
J.
P. Oleson and A. N.
Sherwood,
Greek and Roman
Technology:
a Sourcebook
(London and New York, 1998), 28. Hero's device is discussed
by, among
others, A. G.
Drachmann, The Mechanical
Technology of
Greek and Roman
Antiquity (Copenhagen,
1963), 206; J. G. Landels,
Engineering
in the Ancient World
(London, 1978), 28-33; K. D.
White,
Greek and Roman
Technology (London, 1984), 195; P.
James and N.
Thorpe,
Ancient Inventions
(London, 1995),
131-5.
2.
Key works on the nature and limitations of ancient
technology
include M. I.
Finley, 'Technical
innovation and economic
progress
in the ancient world', Economic
History
Review 18
(1965),
29-
45; H. W. Pleket, 'Technology
and
society
in the Graeco-Roman world', Acta Historiae Neerlandica
2
(1967), 1-25; D. W. Reece, 'The
technological weakness of the ancient world', G&R 16
(1969),
32-47; K. D. White, 'Technology
and
Industry
in the Roman
empire', Acta Classica 2
(1959), 78-
89, and
'Technology
in classical
antiquity:
some
problems', Museum
Africum
5
(1976), 23-35. The
most
up-to-date discussions, including criticism of the
assumptions of
many earlier histories of
technology,
are found in a series of articles
by
Kevin Greene:
'Perspectives
on Roman
technology',
Oxford Journal of Archaeology
9
(1990), 209-19; 'The
study
of Roman
technology:
some theoretical
considerations', in E. Scott, ed., Theoretical Roman
Archaeology: first conference proceedings (Alder-
shot, 1993), 39-47; and
'Technology
and innovation in context: the Roman
background
to
medieval and later
developments', Journal of
Roman
Archaeology
7
(1994), 22-33.
Pliny describes
the
reaping
machine in HN 18.296; it is discussed
by Pleket, 'Technology
and
society', 15, and
K. D. White, Roman
Farming (London 1970),
448-9.
3.
Quoted by Landels, Engineering (n. 1),
29.
4. The idea that ancient science was disdainful of
practical applications is
particularly emphas-
ized by Finley, 'Technical innovation', 32-3. Book 3 of Hero's Pneumatica is
generally concerned
with devices which have
practical utility; see White, Greek and Roman
Technology (n. 1), 180-3. Cf.
Vitruvius 9, preface 6, on the
application
of
Pythagoras' mathematical
principles,
and 10.1.4: 'Now
all
machinery
is
generated by Nature, and the revolution of the universe
guides
and controls . ..
Since then our fathers had observed this to be so, they
took
precedents from
Nature; imitating them,
207
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
and led on
by
what is
divine, they developed
the comforts of life
by
their interventions. And
so, they
rendered some
things
more
convenient, by
machines and their
revolutions,
and other
things by
handy implements.
Thus what
they perceived
useful in
practice they
caused to be advanced
by
their
methods, step by step, through studies,
crafts and customs.'
5. See for
example
P.
Hudson,
The Industrial Revolution
(London, 1992)
and E. A.
Wrigley,
Continuity, Change
and Chance: the Character
of
the Industrial Revolution
(Cambridge, 1988).
6.
Greene, 'Study
of Roman
technology' (n. 2),
41. On
labour,
see P.
Garnsey, ed.,
Non-Slave
Labour in the Greco-Roman World
(Cambridge, 1980).
7. Similar
points
have been made about the introduction of Western
technology
into non-
Western, 'developing'
countries. See C. A.
Alvares,
Homo Faber:
Technology
and Culture in
India,
China and the
West,
1500-1972
(Bombay, 1979)
and G.
Basalla,
The Evolution
of Technology
(Cambridge, 1988),
207-18.
8.
White,
Greek and Roman
Technology (n. 1),
offers the most accessible
general survey.
On
water
supply,
see
Frontinus,
De
Aquis,
and A. T.
Hodge,
Roman
Aqueducts
and Water
Supply
(London, 1992).
On
agricultural innovation,
see N.
Morley, Metropolis
and Hinterland: the
City of
Rome and the Italian
Economy (Cambridge, 1996),
115-21. On
military machines,
see Vitruvius
Book 10.
9. We
might compare
discussions of whether the ancients
possessed
'economic
rationality':
A.
Carandini,
'Columella's
vineyard
and the
rationality
of the Roman
economy', Opus
2
(1983),
177-204; M. I.
Finley,
The Ancient
Economy (London,
2nd edn
1985),
108-22; G.
Mickwitz,
'Economic rationalism in Graeco-Roman
agriculture', English Historical Review 52
(1937), 577-89;
P. W. de Neeve, 'The
price
of land in Roman
Italy
and the
problem
of economic rationalism', Opus
4
(1985), 77-109; D. W. Rathbone, Economic Rationalism and Rural
Society
in
Third-Century A.D.
Egypt (Cambridge, 1991).
10. On
grain supply,
see P. Garnsey, Famine and Food
Supply
in the Graeco-Roman World
(Cambridge, 1988), 167-243. For more on the
relationship
between the
emperors
and the
people
of Rome, see P.
Veyne, Bread and Circuses: Historical
Sociology
and Political Pluralism (trans.
B. Pearce, London, 1990), 292-482, and Zvi Yavetz, Plebs and
Princeps (Oxford, 1969), esp.
9-37.
11. G. Rickman, 'Problems of
transport and
development
of
ports',
in A. Giovannini, ed.,
Nourrir la Plebe: actes du
colloque
. .. en
hommage a Denis van Berchem
(Basel, 1991), 103-15.
12. Suetonius, Nero 16. For a
positive
evaluation of this
proposal,
see M. Griffin, Nero: the End
of
a
Dynasty (London, 1984), 130.
13. Suetonius, Vespasian
16 on his
parsimony
and 8-9 on his
building projects.
B. W.
Jones,
The
Emperor
Titus (London and Sydney, 1984), 143-6.
14. Frontinus, De
Aquis
1.
15. De
Aquis 1, 87-8; B. W. Henderson, Five Roman
Emperors (Cambridge, 1927),
169-74.
16. On the Diolkos
'railway', see Landels, Engineering (n. 1), 182-3.
17. On the Piazza, see R.
Meiggs, roman Ostia (Oxford, 2nd edn
1973), 283-8 and PI. XXIII-
XXV.
18. On problems
with
using
Italian rivers for
transport, see D. S. Walker, A
Geography of Italy
(London,
2nd edn 1967), 270. Morley, Metropolis
and Hinterland
(n. 8), 104-6, briefly
discusses
some of the laws aimed at
maintaining
the level of water in rivers used for
transport.
19. Comparative material on the
advantages
and
disadvantages
of oxen: D. R.
Ringrose,
Transportation
and Economic
Stagnation in
Spain,
1750-1850 (Duke, 1970);
A. C.
Leighton,
Transport
and Communication in
Early Medieval Europe,
A.D. 500-1100
(Newton Abbot, 1972);
J. Langdon,
'The economics of horses and oxen in medieval England', Agricultural History Review
30
(1982), 31-40.
20. Of course, that
engine
would have been
lightly
laden as it was
heading away
from the
city.
On
Pliny's Laurentum villa, see
Ep.
2.17.
21. J. Bennett,
Trajan: Optimus Princeps (London
and New York, 1997), esp.
138-60 on
building projects and 85-103 on the Dacian Wars.
22. On the Rhine-Danube corridor and its
strategic importance,
see C. R.
Whittaker, The
Frontiers
of
the Roman
Empire: a Social and Economic
Study (Baltimore and London, 1994), esp.
38-
9, 43.
23. We
might note the
tendency,
seen from
archaeological data, to
transport pottery
thousands
of miles from a state-owned
pottery,
rather than
manufacturing
it
locally: Whittaker,
Frontiers
(n. 22), 101-4.
208
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
24. On
Trajan's
Parthian
campaigns,
see
Bennett, Trajan (n. 21),
183-204.
25. On frontier
defence, especially
the idea of 'defence in
depth' using
a mobile strike
force,
see
E. N.
Luttwak,
The Grand
Strategy of
the Roman
Empire (Baltimore, 1976);
contrast
J.
C.
Mann,
'Power,
force and the frontiers of the
empire', JRS
69
(1979), 175-83,
who
disputes
the idea that
this should be seen as a coherent
military strategy
rather than a short-term reaction to circum-
stances.
26. Since other indications
suggest
that the
poem
is
supposed
to be set in time of
Domitian,
these
remarks
are,
to
say
the
least,
rather
anachronistic;
see G.
Highet, Juvenal
the Satirist
(Oxford,
1954), 9-11,
on the
dating
of the
poems.
Similar attacks on successful ex-slaves:
1.22-39,
1.102-20.
27. As
early
as
Cato,
the Roman
agronomists
had recommended
choosing
a villa with
good
transport
links
(Agr. 1.3-5; Varro,
RR
1.16.1-3, 6).
Some landowners are known to have built
private
roads
(T.
W.
Potter,
The
Changing Landscape of
South Etruria
[London, 1979], 108)
and
quays (see Livy 40.51.2),
so for a few a small local
railway
was a natural
step.
Of
course,
it is
debatable whether such
railways
were constructed
purely
for
productive purposes
or whether
they
were also
designed
for
pleasure
and as a means of ostentatious
display,
an attitude to villa
management
which is
exemplified
in Varro's discussions of aviaries and
fishponds
(RR 1.4.1-2,
3.3.6, 3.4.3;
cf.
Morley, Metropolis
and Hinterland
(n. 8),
90-5.
28.
Suetonius, Vespasian
18.
29. R. W.
Fogel, Railways
and American Economic Growth:
Essays
in
Interpretative
Economic
History (Baltimore, 1964). Discussed
by Niall
Ferguson, 'Virtual History: towards a 'chaotic'
theory
of the
past',
in N.
Ferguson,
ed., Virtual
History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals
(London, 1997),
17-18.
30. Whittaker, Frontiers, 85-97, on the
importance
of
supply lines in
determining
the location of
frontiers.
31. Ferguson,
'Virtual
history' (n. 29), discuses a
range
of reasons for
hostility
towards such
questions.
On the
relationship
between
history
and fiction, see P.
Veyne,
On
History (Manchester,
1984) and N. Morley, Writing Ancient History (London, 1999).
32. The most
sophisticated attempt so far, both in theoretical
underpinning
and in realization, is
Geoffrey Hawthorn, Plausible Worlds: Possibility and
Understanding
in
History
and the Social Sciences
(Cambridge, 1991); heavily (but to
my mind
unfairly) criticized by Ferguson (n. 29),
18-19.
33. Hawthorn, Plausible Worlds (n. 32), 14.
34. The Virtual History collection offers alternatives to the
English
Civil War, the American
Revolution, the
partition
of Ireland, the defeat of
Germany
in both World Wars, the Cold
War, the
assassination of
JFK and the
collapse
of Communism. Similar subjects
are covered
by J. C.
Squire,
ed., If It Happened Otherwise: Lapses into
Imaginary History (London, New York, and
Toronto,
1932);
D. Snowman, ed.,
If
I Had Been . . . Ten Historical Fantasies
(London, 1979)
and
J.
M.
Merriman, ed., For Want of a Horse: Chance and Humor in
History (Lexington, 1984).
See also A.
J.
Toynbee, 'If Alexander the Great had lived on', in
Toynbee, ed., Some Problems in Greek
History
(Oxford, 1969). One of the merits of Hawthorn's Plausible Worlds is that it
explores
economic and
social history (what if
plague
had not been a serious cause of
mortality
in
early
modern
Europe?)
and art history.
35. All the works listed in n. 29, with the
exception
of Hawthorn's, were clearly intended, and
certainly marketed,
for a
largely non-academic audience.
36. The
quote
is from
Ferguson, 'Virtual history' (n. 29), 86; his italics.
37. This
ideological tendency
is most explicit in
Ferguson,
'Virtual
history' (n. 29), esp. 52-64.
'The determinism of the nineteenth
century was not, as
might
have been
expected, discredited
by
the horrors
perpetrated
in its name after 1917. That Marxism was able to retain its
credibility was
due
mainly
to the
widespread
belief that National Socialism was its
polar opposite,
rather than
merely a near relative which had substituted Volk for class' (52-3).
38.
Except
in so far as a
preference for traditional
political history is
ideologically motivated; see
previous note.
39. On Marx, see E. M. Wood, Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism
(Cambridge, 1995), 108-45, and R. Brenner, 'Bourgeois
revolution and transition to
capitalism', in
A. L. Beier et al., eds., The First Modern Society (Cambridge, 1989); contra
e.g.
G. A. Cohen, Karl
Marx's Theory of History: a
Defence (Princeton, 1978). Braudel's own views are clear, in The
Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the
Age of Philip
II
(London, 1972),
The Structures of
209
TRAJAN'S
ENGINES
Everyday Life:
the Limits
of
the Possible
(London, 1981)
and
'History
and the social sciences: the
longue
duree', in On
History (Chicago, 1980),
25-54. Discussed
by
P.
Burke,
The French Historical
Revolution: the Annales School 1929-89
(Cambridge, 1990),
32-53.
40. A
question
whose
contemporary
relevance is
quite
as obvious as the old 'what if Hitler had
won?'.
41. One obvious
example
is the contrast between Roman
agriculture
and the
supposed
'medieval
agricultural
revolution':
propounded by
L. White
Jnr,
Medieval
Technology
and Social
Change
(Oxford, 1962)
and
Georges Duby,
Rural
Economy
and
Country Life
in the Medieval West
(Columbia, 1976); disputed by
H. W.
Pleket, 'Agriculture
in the Roman
Empire
in
comparative
perspective',
in H.
Sancisi-Weerdenburg
et al.,
eds.,
De
Agricultura:
in memoriam Pieter Willem de
Neeve
(Amsterdam, 1993), 317-42,
and
Morley, Metropolis
and Hinterland
(n. 8),
118-20.
42. See the articles cited in n.
2, particularly
those
by Finley
and Reece.
43. The roots of this
way
of
thinking
lie
deep.
At the
beginning
of this
century
Max
Weber,
a
major
influence on
Finley,
was
analysing
the Roman
Empire
in terms of the
'impediments'
it
presented
to the full
development
of
capitalism;
see The
Agrarian Sociology of
Ancient Civilizations
(trans.
R. I. Frank;
London, 1976), 65-6,
358-65. The same
assumptions
also
permeate
'developmental economics',
where non-Western countries are
encouraged (or compelled)
to
try
to
develop according
to the
blueprint
laid down
by
the
European experience;
see P. Hill,
Development Economics on Trial
(Cambridge, 1986).
44. See n. 2.
45. 'The Poverty of Philosophy',
in K. Marx & F.
Engels,
Collected Works Vol. VI (London,
1976),
166. As noted above (n. 34),
in his mature works (Grundrisse and
Capital) Marx abandons
this crude determinism.
46. For all the claims about the
liberating power
of
technology
like the Internet, economic
power
and
political influence are if
anything
even more concentrated than before in the hands of
multinational corporations. See
e.g.
T. Jordan, Cyberpower:
the Culture and Politics
of Cyberspace
and the Internet (London, 1991) and B. D. Loader et al., The Governance of
Cyberspace: Politics,
Technology
and Global
Restructuring (London, 1997).
47.
J.
G. Ballard,
A User's Guide to the Millennium: Essays and Reviews
(London, 1996), 14: 'S-f
has been one of the few forms of modem fiction
explicitly concerned with
change
-
social,
technological
and environmental
-
and certainly the only fiction to invent society's myths, dreams
and
utopias.'
48. In Excession (London, 1997).
49. Roman and Chinese systems
of administration are contrasted
by
Keith
Hopkins,
'Taxes and
trade in the Roman
Empire',
JRS
70 (1980), 120-1.
50. On ancient environmental problems, see J. D.
Hughes,
Pan's Travail: Environmental
Problems
of
the Ancient Greeks and Romans (Baltimore and London, 1994), esp. 112-29 on industrial
pollution and 181-99 on the environmental causes of the collapse of classical civilization.
51. See
e.g.
F. M. Turner, Contesting Cultural Authority: Essays
in Victorian Intellectual Life
(Cambridge, 1993), 231-61, and N. Vance, The Victorians and Ancient Rome
(Oxford, 1997), 247-
68. Of course, the twentieth century has also
produced examples
of this
approach: see M. I.
Rostovtzeff, Social and Economic History of the Roman
Empire (Oxford, 2nd edn
1957), 536-8, or
F. W. Walbank, The Awful Revolution: the Decline of the Roman Empire
in the West
(Liverpool,
1969), 114.
52. Contra F. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York, 1992), who
argued
that liberal-democratic capitalism
has now conclusively 'won' the ideological struggle and is
therefore
recognized universally as the best
possible way
of
organizing society.
53. The
original version of this
paper
was delivered at the Classical Association Conference in
Liverpool
in
April 1999. I am very grateful
to everyone
who made comments and
suggestions on
that occasion, especially Stephen Clark, Ahuvia Kahane, and Nick Lowe; I also wish to thank
Geraint Osborn and Anne
Morley.
210