How Concrete Contributed To the Downfall of the Roman Empire

concertina226 (2447056) writes "The real reason behind the downfall of the Roman Empire might not have been lead contaminating in the water, which is the most popular theory, but the use of concrete as a building material. Dr Penelope Davies, a historian with the University of Texas believes that the rise of concrete as a building material may have weakened ancient Rome's entire political system as Pompey and Julius Caesar began 'thinking like kings'. Concrete was used to build many of Rome's finest monuments, such as the Pantheon, the Colosseum and the Tabularium, which have lasted the test of time and are still standing today."

Comments

Economic reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

The Romans found out that when you build a society on the assumption of permanent growth, when you stop growing... you stop existing. And today's business leaders, who don't pay attention to history unless it makes them money, are repeating the same mistake.

Re:Economic reasons

[siddesu]

Actually, the premise that the Roman Empire fell because Julius Caesar began thinking like a king seems a bit wrong. The Empire was established after he died, after all, and lasted for hundreds of years after his death.

Re:Economic reasons

[Savage-Rabbit]

The Romans found out that when you build a society on the assumption of permanent growth, when you stop growing... you stop existing. And today's business leaders, who don't pay attention to history unless it makes them money, are repeating the same mistake.

For some reason people are obsessed with finding a single reason for the disintegration of the Roman empire but the truth is that there were many causes: the incompetence of emperors, the decline of the Roman military, the increasing military sophistication of the barbarian tribes, separatism among those barbarians that were absorbed, the fact that the influx of barbarians became to great for the empire to absorb, pandemics and warfare that destroyed the tax base which in turn magnified the military problems and it also caused governmental organizations and institutions to collapse, the list goes on and on. Another point is that much of the Roman world never really disappeared, it just came under new management. Although you saw urban decline in many parts of what used to be the empire a lot of Roman culture survived. A whole lot of stuff went up in flames but many of the barbarian kings that took over the various parts of the western empire often went out of their way to make sure to preserve as much as possible of the Roman governmental bureaucracy, industry, trade and educational institutions as they could. The more archaeologists research the 'dark ages' the more clear it becomes that they weren't actually as dark as we used to be taught in school.

Re:Economic reasons

[MightyMartian]

Indeed. Haven't read the article, but if the premise is that Julius Caesar began having a bit too regally and that lead to Rome's fall, then it was a pretty odd collapse, that had this whole three century middle period where Rome reigned supreme in most of Europe, Asia Minor and North Africa. Rome didn't even reach its greatest extent, geographically, until two centuries after Caesar's death.

There are as many theories as to why Rome fell as there are as to why WWI started. At the end of the day, it was a combination of economic collapse (in particular, the debasement of coinage), bad government, poor succession rules that meant the military played too much of a role in an Emperor's rise and fall, climactic changes in Eurasia that meant lots of angry hoards of people from the Asian Steppe began their first major incursions over the Urals, and finally, in a last ditch effort, the later Emperors cutting the empire to pieces and hiring a bunch of unreliable and upwardly mobile German mercenaries to fill out their dwindling legions.

It should also be reminded that Rome did persist for a thousand years after Romulus Augustulus was deposed in the West; in the form of the Byzantine Empire.

Re:Economic reasons

[jandersen]

Planned obsolescence and subscription services that didn't exist for most people 30 years ago are helping to keep things afloat

They certainly give the illusion of markets growing. In real terms, I don't think the economy is growing; we are still living in a closed ecosystem, so at some point we will hit the ceiling and experience a catastrophic breakdown, unless we learn to curb our delusions about unlimited growth. The question is only when it will happen - but there is still an absurd reluctance to even consider the question, so we don't know if it might be tomorrow or perhaps in 500 years.

Re:Economic reasons

[Dcnjoe60]

Top that with the degradation of quality in what use to be considered durable goods

I'm not buying that model. Cars, which are the second most expensive purchase after a house, are lasting longer than ever. Sure, some durable goods are lasting less time then previously, but they also cost significantly fewer hours of labor to purchase so their hours of labor to useful life ratio is probably in the same ballpark.

In 1974 you could buy a decent car for $2,500. A minimum wage job at the time got you $4,160 and a professional job $10,000. Back then a good car cost 1/2 of what a minimum wage worker made and 1/4 of a professional job. Compared to today, where minimum wage gets you $15,080 and a profession job $50,000, a price of a car should be $7,500 to $12,500.

There is no doubt that cars are more "durable" than before, but it's only because, compared to wages, we are paying 2 to 3 times as much for the same product.

Re:Economic reasons

[SuricouRaven]

And the individuals bugaboos. Everyone wants to see the empire's fall as due to their own personal dislikes. Ask the libertarians, they'll blame overregulation. Ask the conservatives, they'll blame socialism. Ask the liberals, they'll blame polluted water or corruption.

You can see it in a more recent event too - the early troubles at the Jamestown colony. It's recent enough to be very well documented, but already we are seeing a number of disparate accounts circulating in popular awareness, one of which (Originating in a Fox column, now persisting as a circular email and blog post) claims that the colony was founded on a system of collective ownership and farmers didn't see any point in farming if the rest of the community would just steal their crop, so they starved to death until a panicked switch to a private-property system and free market economy brought about greatly increased production and prosperity. It's a bunch of lies with a hint of truth mixed in, Dan Brown style, and any real historian would laugh at it - but it still persists, because the myth tells people what they want to hear: A good morality tale, supporting their own particular morality.

Re:Economic reasons

[Sentrion]

If you want specifics, then how about just two possible scenarios:

1. Major disruption in the supply of semiconductors. If war were to break out between China and N.Korea against S.Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, the entire world's production of semiconductors could be disrupted or shut off. Best case in such a scenario is that only critical equipment would be supplied until foundries could ramp up production in other countries. But ramping up semiconductor production isn't as quick or straight forward as hiring a few good managers, engineers, or production staff. It could take years to rebuild our semiconductor infrastructure, presuming we could afford the wait. Unlike many other technologies, this isn't one that we can throw together in a garage. The supply chain for semiconductors is incredibly complex, and given China's near domination of rare earth elements, any geopolitical standoff involving China could cause a major ripple effect across the global economy. Shortages of microchips could be weathered in the short term, but if dragged on for a year or more there could be real problems affecting any device that required a chip to function properly. These days, that's just about everything, from cars to home appliances to industrial automatic, ovens, furnaces, machine tools, etc. If our entire planet had to retool for analog controls and paper-based IT, it could lead to a long-term economic decline that could thrust us into a multi-century dark age, presuming civilization doesn't collapse entirely.

2. Peak Oil. I don't think I need to elaborate on this scenario, as it has been extensively discussed elsewhere.

More likely than not, a crisis in the supply of oil or microchips, rare earth elements, or oil could result in shortages of all three critical resources. I think that the OP's comment regarding our closed ecosystem is valid. If our population is sustainable and we are not too heavily dependent on technology or geopolitical stability, then we can weather a crisis and come through in tact. But if we are completely dependent oil, technology and a global supply chain just to feed our massive population, then we could be facing some serious trouble when the next big crisis hits. In this scenario a regional catastrophe could trigger a global catastrophe.

We still live on a physical planet and have physical needs. Just because we have a growing economy in arts and entertainment, and new apps to help us manage our social lives does not mean we do not face serious growth risks in the physical economy (ie human ecology).

Worst article ever...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am now dumber having read that article. Nowhere does it explain how concrete may have caused the downfall of the Roman empire.

Re:Worst article ever...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pocket watches became very popular in the british empire late 1800's... by a century later the empire was a tiny vestige of it's former glory. Therefore pocket watches caused the downfall of the british empire!

Wow - talk about missing the point.

[JMZero]

The article says:

"One could even say that it played a significant role in bringing down the Republic."

The Roman Republic preceded the Roman Empire. The historically literate person is saying that concrete helped in the transition from the Republic - which was controlled by the senate and consuls with limited terms, to the Empire, which was ruled by a single emperor for long stretches.

Concrete helped start the Empire, not end it.

The empire wouldn't end in Rome for another 600 years. It wouldn't end in general for another 1600 or so. It lasted so long, at least partly, because of all its durable buildings and bridges.

Err, no really

[Viol8]

Endless factional infighting combined with ever more rebellious provinces and incursions from surrounding regions did for the western roman empire. It managed quite nicely for hundreds of years without permanent growth - in the sense of territory - so that had nothing to do with it.

Besides, the eastern roman empire - otherwise known as Bytzantium - continued until the 15th century when the ottomans finally conquered constantinople. Thats almost 2000 years. The british empire barely managed 200, the soviets 70 and the 3rd reich about 10. Give credit where its due!

Several Corrections from Someone in the Field

[Colonel Korn]

Let me correct several points, some of which have already been pointed out by other posters:

1) Davies, who is an excellent scholar and shouldn't have to be associated with bizarre out of context fundamentally broken articles like the one linked from the summary, says that construction of public concrete buildings was a political tool used by Pompey and Julius in an escalating bid for political power. She points out that this was a factor in the end of the Roman REPUBLIC because Julius and later Augustus eventually collected enough power to bring about the establishment of the Roman EMPIRE. So while TFS, and indeed the terrible article in the ridiculously trashy "International Business Times," state that concrete led to the downfall of the empire, their source instead says that concrete was one of many factors that led to the FORMATION of the empire. In otherwords, TFS and TFA both state exactly the opposite of what the source stated.

2) This statement about concrete contributing to the founding of the Roman Empire has been present in high school textbooks for at least a hundred years. It's not news.

3) The real news that prompted the article is also misrepresented. French scholars recently published a paper pointing out that the level of lead in Roman drinking water wouldn't have had significant side effects. Both TFS and TFA state that the previous theory on the fall of the Roman Empire was that it was due to lead poisoning. This isn't even remotely accurate. Yes, crackpots have published claims that lead poisoning led to degenerate Romans. In no way has it ever, not even for a moment, been accepted by scholars as "the cause" of the Roman Empire's fall. There is no single cause of the fall of the Roman Empire. It wasn't an asteroid or aliens or disease - it lasted for a ridiculously long time and eventually fell apart over the course of about 1500 years. The number of scholars who believed that the Roman Empire "fell" because of lead poisoning was similar to the number of paleontologists who believe the dinosaurs died out because of Noah's flood.

It's too bad that the simple debunking of this crackpot theory in the study published by the French team was reported in the International Business Times by such an unintelligent reporter, and even worse that Slashdot picked the story up without recognizing the inaccuracies that any 8 year old with a 100 IQ would be able to detect.

A couple months ago Slashdot went through a transition. It became useless for awhile because every article was flooded with complaints about the new site design, but I think that there was a simultaneous shift toward poorer editing and lower quality story submissions. Maybe the cleverer Slashdot posters did what I have and mostly stopped paying attention. I've spent 10 years laughing at the people who post about how Slashdot declined since the good old days, but recent evidence shows that the decline is real and undoubtable. Perhaps the editors suffer from lead poisoning.

Or concrete.

Re:Fall of the republic [Re:Economic reasons]

[Noah Haders]

I thought the republic fell when Marcus Aurelius joined the dark side, with Brutus as an apprentice.

Fall of the Republic, birth of the Empire.

[donscarletti]

The article itself quotes historians saying "One could even say that [concrete] played a significant role in bringing down the [Roman] Republic" due to concrete being used in Pompey and Caesar's civic building programs, then starts the title of the article "Downfall of the Roman Empire", which was a completely different sequence events that started centuries later.

The awkward truth of the matter here is, at the time she wrote the article, the author didn't realise that the historians quoted were describing the events that lead to the birth of the Roman Empire and not the death.