Page 23 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

W GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS
A 14th-century Italian miniature showing a
Roman siege of a fortress. Few cities could
resist Roman siege warfare
of enemy archers) and was designed to kill
careless defenders on the city walls.
Another complex and fearsome weapon
was the siege tower. This was a moveable
wooden tower, designed to be rolled up
to enemy walls, allowing the troops inside
to descend onto the enemy defenders.
Siege towers took time to build and needed
ramps, which allowed the defenders to see
what was coming and gave them time
to prepare a counter-attack. Nevertheless,
when siege towers were deployed, more
often than not they got the Romans over
the walls.
If all of these failed, a battering ram
could be used against the defenders’
gates. These rams were protected by a
wooden gallery covered in wet cowhides to
stop them being burnt by the defenders.
Once enemy walls were breached,
the Roman soldiers would advance in a
testudo (tortoise) formation. This involved
covering their heads with their rectangular
shields, with other shields protecting
their front and sides. Such a formation
absorbed arrows and small rocks, giving
GETTY the men valuable time to get to the breach
relatively unharmed.
The Story of Science & Technology
Diocletian reinvented government and invented economics
in a bold overhaul of Roman taxes, trade and leadership
Not all Roman experiments were the coins. While this may sound like a
successful. In AD 284, Diocletian, a good idea, costs continued to rise even
man of low birth who had risen through faster, creating a huge spike in prices.
the ranks in the army, became emperor. Diocletian responded by setting price
He solidified the idea of the ‘tetrarchy’: caps on most resources. The penalty
a system of sub-emperors, each one for disobeying these imposed price
ruling over a number of provinces, all caps? Death.
reporting to him. This meant that local The system of fixed prices was
issues could be dealt with locally and widely despised, and almost as soon
that power was shared (to a certain as it was introduced, it was generally
extent). Obviously a sub-emperor ignored. The law of supply and
could go rogue, but after decades of demand dictates that if someone
war and strife, the tetrarchy was a needs something badly enough, they
welcome idea that brought peace. will pay over the odds. Under the
By AD 300, however, Diocletian’s circumstances, the black market
empire was facing economic problems: boomed. Fortunately, the situation in
free trade had broken down in some AD 301 didn’t last long – once the new
areas and prices were rising. The coinage had a chance to embed itself
emperor didn’t help the situation when in the Roman economy, prices began
he embarked on a costly public to normalise.
building programme on a scale not Diocletian was also a highly unusual
seen for generations. Roman emperor in that, in AD 305,
Diocletian attempted to confront he voluntarily abdicated in favour of
these issues head on. First, he a two-emperor system. He retired
overhauled the tax to the Dalmatian coast
system, which (modern-day Croatia),
eliminated ingrained where he lived out his
inefficiencies. He also days in splendour
recognised that the and spent his time
coinage had been cultivating cabbages.
debased to an extent
that confidence in A statue of the
the Roman Tetrarchs,
currency had Diocletian’s
diminished, so multi-leader
he reminted and solution to
revalued all of years of unrest
THE BOOK
As the first to bind written pages inside a cover, there is one
thing the Romans definitely did invent: the book
After all these examples of the first time, sheets of a uniform size
Romans enhancing existing ideas were bound together along one edge,
rather than inventing new ones, here’s in between two larger, stronger
one that was genuinely original. protective covers. Now, for the first
The first recognisable alphabet, time, large amounts of written
and therefore writing, was developed information could be concentrated in
in ancient Babylon around 3100 BC. one highly transportable volume. This
This writing was done on clay tablets would become the standard way to
– not the most portable of formats for write and store information until the
written literature. The Egyptians made digital age 1,900 years later.
a leap forwards with papyrus, thin Across the empire (both during and
sheets made from the pith of the after the Roman era), the book
papyrus plant. became the standard format for
Now knowledge could be pre- writing. Most famously, the word
served on scrolls, which were easier ‘bible’ is a variation of the Greek word
to transport, but still bulky. Paper for ‘the books’ (ta biblia). The
itself was invented in China around invention of the book enabled much
the end of the first century AD, but easier sharing of complex ideas,
didn’t reach Europe until after the fall including everything from Christianity
of the western Roman empire. to annals about emperors.
Around the same time that paper
was being invented in China, the Jem Duducu is the author of The Romans
in 100 Facts (Amberley Publishing, 2015)
Romans invented the codex. For the
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