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Arglebargle III posted:Boat travel was a huge hassle relative to what? Selling grain from Rhode Island to Boston
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Aug 12, 2017 20:49
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Baron Porkface posted:Selling grain from Rhode Island to Boston Hauling stuff overland was generally far more expensive and difficult than putting it on a ship and sending a few hundred miles up the coast. To get inland, you put it on a barge in a river. The less land movement, the better.
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Aug 12, 2017 20:52
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Baron Porkface posted:Selling grain from Rhode Island to Boston ... that would have been loaded onto a small coaster dude. A 70 mile overland shipment would take at least three days and multiple teams of animals, while a coaster could make the same trip in one or two days with maybe a ten man crew. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Aug 12, 2017 |
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Aug 12, 2017 20:59
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See also: the later barge trade down the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Also all the canals that we dug all over the North East and on into the northern midwest in the late 18th-early 19th century. Erie Canal anyone? Really, until trains putting poo poo on a barge and moving it along a river - either natural or man made - was THE way to go.
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Aug 12, 2017 21:50
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Baron Porkface posted:I had read that rice was THE big buisness of the early American slave plantion economy, dwarfing indigo and tobacco. It wasn't just some farmers feeding themselves That was only after the rice farming had been in place for decades though. I don't see what you don't understand here? Grow rice for yourselves > start having a whole lot more rice than you need locally as skill with rice develops, workarounds for local issues crop up > rice becomes a viable export crop
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Aug 12, 2017 21:55
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To bring things back to ancient history, does anyone want to make a judgement on the Extra Credits series on the Bronze Age Collapse? It's finally finished now that their normal lies episode is out. They acknowledge that nobody really knows exactly what caused the collapse, but the theory that they present is that there was a combination of nomadic groups moving in on the bronze age civilizations along with decreasing crop yields leading to overall instability.
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Aug 12, 2017 22:07
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Baron Porkface posted:To the best of my knowledge, the rice plantations were very isolated (and the most important ones were on Carolina's islands) so that rice has to be As mentioned , what travel do you think was less hassle than boats? That has literally been the most efficient method of transport since ancient times (see why the Roman Empire is built around the Mediterranean to bring things back on topic) and still is (how does all our poo poo get from China to the First World?)
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Aug 12, 2017 22:10
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feedmegin posted:As mentioned , what travel do you think was less hassle than boats? That has literally been the most efficient method of transport since ancient times (see why the Roman Empire is built around the Mediterranean to bring things back on topic) and still is (how does all our poo poo get from China to the First World?) Yeah, being surrounded by water before modern transportation systems paradoxically makes you more rather than less connected. One of the reasons Egypt was such a large food exporter wasn't just the fertility of the Nile valley, but that all of the fertile land was right next to one big river. The same of course was true in the American south, where most of the major cities like Richmond and Washington DC were built up along large rivers right at the point where they ceased to be navigable.
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Aug 12, 2017 22:24
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Squalid posted:Yeah, being surrounded by water before modern transportation systems paradoxically makes you more rather than less connected. One of the reasons Egypt was such a large food exporter wasn't just the fertility of the Nile valley, but that all of the fertile land was right next to one big river. The same of course was true in the American south, where most of the major cities like Richmond and Washington DC were built up along large rivers right at the point where they ceased to be navigable. DC's current location was an empty swamp before chosen to be capital of the country with a new city. The fall line of the Potomac was not a particularly useful location before that.
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Aug 12, 2017 22:33
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feedmegin posted:As mentioned , what travel do you think was less hassle than boats? That has literally been the most efficient method of transport since ancient times (see why the Roman Empire is built around the Mediterranean to bring things back on topic) and still is (how does all our poo poo get from China to the First World?) I assumed that a Horse drawn cart would be better for short distances since you don't have to be trapped on a boat for weeks and die of a disease form the disease pit that is a ship.
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Aug 12, 2017 22:43
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Baron Porkface posted:I assumed that a Horse drawn cart would be better for short distances since you don't have to be trapped on a boat for weeks and die of a disease form the disease pit that is a ship. Remember that a cart has a rather limited capacity and only travels a couple miles per hour. Any large load going more than about 20 miles is going to be vastly easier to move on water.
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Aug 12, 2017 22:48
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It's not paradoxical at all sea trade has only become more important since the ancient world. The 19th century saw an explosion in sea trade that only began to slow down in the early 2000s. Railroads may have substituted for and competed out small canal companies but they were a huge input to blue water sea trade.
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Aug 12, 2017 23:04
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Thought this thread might be interested in this. Archaeologist thinks the Vikings didn't fight in a shield wall. Translated by Google and touched up a little by me. quote:The close frontal formation of Viking shields that overlap and form a so-called shield wall has probably not existed, as many have otherwise believed. http://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/arkaeolog-vikinger-kaempede-ikke-bag-mure-af-skjolde
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Aug 12, 2017 23:16
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Arglebargle III posted:Caribbean plantation owners. Why plant rice on good sugarcane land? Ding ding ding. It's less that rice in the Carolina's was super profitable in itself, more that you couldn't grow sugar in the Carolina's, so the next best thing would be to grow food for plantation island so that those islands could use their land for more sugar.
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Aug 12, 2017 23:59
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If two shield walls faced off, it wasn't a question of chopping your way through: it was a scrum: a pushing match.
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Aug 13, 2017 00:11
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Baron Porkface posted:I had read that rice was THE big buisness of the early American slave plantion economy, dwarfing indigo and tobacco. It wasn't just some farmers feeding themselves Presumably if you want slaves to grow cotton you also need to grow something to feed the slaves. Deteriorata posted:Remember that a cart has a rather limited capacity and only travels a couple miles per hour. Any large load going more than about 20 miles is going to be vastly easier to move on water. Also you don't need to choose between horse drawn and on water, you can pull barges with horses. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Aug 13, 2017 |
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Aug 13, 2017 00:19
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OwlFancier posted:Presumably if you want slaves to grow cotton you also need to grow something to feed the slaves. Cotton wasn't really a slave crop until the cotton gin. Rice was to feed sugar plantations in the Caribbean, so that that sugar growing land could be specialized into just sugar. Classic comparative advantage trade.
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Aug 13, 2017 00:52
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Grevling posted:Thought this thread might be interested in this. Archaeologist thinks the Vikings didn't fight in a shield wall. Translated by Google and touched up a little by me. It's an interesting idea and I'm not exactly wedded to any ideas about how vikings fought, but this is the thing that makes me the most suspicious: quote:The conclusion is due, among other things, to an archaeological experiment, where Rolf Warming himself tested copies of old Viking shields in the combat situations in which the Vikings probably found themselves. Sometimes these reenacting experiments can be useful but they also have to be taken with a huge grain of salt. A whole lot of things that might seem obvious from trying to reproduce these actions and techniques in the 20th century might not have been if you're talking about someone in the 10th who trained a significant chunk of his life to be able to do it. I know Hey Gail routinely ridicules some dude who determined based on reenactments that pikes were never intended to be stabbing implements, and I seem to recall a similar clusterfuck in the debate about how effective english long bows were vs. armor. The fact that he couldn't find any accounts of it is a lot more compelling to my mind, but then I don't know how thorough his research on that was. The fact that it has entered our common perceptions of the vikings means that it came from SOMEWHERE so the first step would be to trace references backwards and figure out what the oldest reference we have is. If it all comes down to some guy in the 18th century writing a fanciful account of Lindesfarn or something that would be really interesting.
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Aug 13, 2017 01:10
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Shield walls certainly did exist. Harold Godwinson's forces formed one at Hastings, and Harald Hardrada's formed one at Stamford Bridge, for all the good it did either of them. I don't know that it was going to be a regularly used tactic for piratical expeditions though, seems to me it would require a good deal of training and be most useful in a pitched battle which is not what most viking raids were about.
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Aug 13, 2017 01:45
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Shield wall seems like a good way to defend a static position like a bridge from bows and slings.
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Aug 13, 2017 02:28
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Baron Porkface posted:I assumed that a Horse drawn cart would be better for short distances since you don't have to be trapped on a boat for weeks and die of a disease form the disease pit that is a ship. Diocletian's price edict, because it gives price maxima for different trade routes, allows us to infer that transporting a load of grain 100 miles by land increased its price 56 percent, while transporting it that same distance by sea increased the price two percent. Animal power was terrible in the ancient world (slow oxen rather than horses because they didn't have a shoulder harness and their horses were smaller).
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Aug 13, 2017 02:33
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Baron Porkface posted:I assumed that a Horse drawn cart would be better for short distances since you don't have to be trapped on a boat for weeks and die of a disease form the disease pit that is a ship. Even a slow as poo poo merchantman can still carry 200+ tons 70 miles every day if the wind cooperates. The crew doesn't eat that much and wind is free.
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Aug 13, 2017 03:00
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Baron Porkface posted:I assumed that a Horse drawn cart would be better for short distances since you don't have to be trapped on a boat for weeks and die of a disease form the disease pit that is a ship. Coastal shipping is way safer and healthier than cross-ocean shipping.
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Aug 13, 2017 03:04
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also merchant ships weren't packed to the gunnels with people like warships or immigrant ships, a typical crew for a 500 ton coastal trader would be between 12 and 25.
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Aug 13, 2017 03:13
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SlothfulCobra posted:To bring things back to ancient history, does anyone want to make a judgement on the Extra Credits series on the Bronze Age Collapse? It's finally finished now that their normal lies episode is out. I haven't got time to listen to what they actually said in that video right now but that sounds like way too simple an explanation even based on what we do actually know. I'd recommend 1177 BC by Eric Cline if you're interested in learning more about it. edit: here's a video where he goes over some of the major points too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRcu-ysocX4 Koramei fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Aug 13, 2017 |
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Aug 13, 2017 04:00
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everyone who has ever outfitted most of their dudes with shields has used a shield wall tactic at some point the great myth in popular military history is that particular cultures were very pigeonholed tactically in different ways and that this is a big part of why one army defeats another of course vikings didn't stand around in a shield wall on a raid or in a general melee. why would they? 17th century pirates didn't advance into caribbean settlements in rank and file with muskets and bayonets despite that being a common and effective tactic at the time for fighting another army, because duh, pirates don't have the same tactical needs. but it's equally foolish to conclude based on a modern reenactment that a large force of vikings would not use a shield wall if the situation called for advancing in a block against archers, or defending high ground, or whatever other situation might make a formation with overlapping shields useful. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Aug 13, 2017 |
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Aug 13, 2017 05:27
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skasion posted:Shield walls certainly did exist. Harold Godwinson's forces formed one at Hastings, and Harald Hardrada's formed one at Stamford Bridge, for all the good it did either of them. I don't know that it was going to be a regularly used tactic for piratical expeditions though, seems to me it would require a good deal of training and be most useful in a pitched battle which is not what most viking raids were about. We have pretty good descriptions of formations that seem to be shield walls from late Roman antiquity, using equipment that looked very much like what the Vikings used. I'm suspicious that that article appears to emphasize swords when the primary weapon of most Vikings was of course the spear, which is what is generally preferred for this fighting style.
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Aug 13, 2017 07:20
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That Byzantine History Podcast is quite entertaining, Robin Pearson is pretty engaging and seems to go off alot less on vague and kind of silly metaphors (WWI is a boxing match ad naseum) like the Hardcore History guy. I am up to the Iconoclasts, but it was fascinating to see under Heraclius just how fast the ancient world unraveled in one mans lifetime with the rise of Islam which saw the collapse of pretty much every old near eastern power within such a short span of time, especially the slow realization in the 600's of the sources/narrative that... drat the Arabs aren't going away and I don't think we will ever take back our Empire and why is god so mad at us... Also it was crazy to realize that from the Theodosians up till Maurice, none of the Emperors had actually been deposed in Constantinople which is crazy when you think of the history of the Empire there like a solid three hundred years of legitimacy that got ruined because Maurice was a cheap bastard and kept trying to not pay his troops. Also Irene blinding her own son... that poo poo is hosed up as far as I can see that seems to be the first time one of the rulers actually off'ed their own kid. You get plenty of brother on brother murder, but not so much in that department. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Aug 13, 2017 |
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Aug 13, 2017 09:35
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Jack2142 posted:That Byzantine History Podcast is quite entertaining, Robin Pearson is pretty engaging and seems to go off alot less on vague and kind of silly metaphors (WWI is a boxing match ad naseum) like the Hardcore History guy. That's about when I realized that Crusader Kings 2 is actually accurate, because before then I assumed that there wasn't anyone in the empire who actually blinded their own children. Of course as far as I can tell, no Roman emperor became immortal or killed Cthulhu with a rowboat, unless you believe the secret history of Justinian.
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Aug 13, 2017 10:12
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There's a certain point you arrive at in later Roman history where every biography ends with "... and then he was blinded and exiled". The Plague of Justinian never happening is one of the great European history what ifs. The Empire was doing quite well until then. I could easily see them reconquering all the important parts of the western empire (they probably wouldn't have bothered with Britain or northern Gaul) and holding off the Arabs without the massive depletion in their strength the plague caused. Unless my memory of dates is totally off, one person in a single long lifetime could have seen Constantinople go from a city of perhaps 750,000 down to well under 100,000.
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Aug 13, 2017 10:20
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I recall there being a period where every younger brother and/or deposed nephew got their nose cut off, until one of them decided to just take the throne despite his lack of nose Executions started happening after that
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Aug 13, 2017 10:33
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Jack2142 posted:Also Irene blinding her own son... that poo poo is hosed up as far as I can see that seems to be the first time one of the rulers actually off'ed their own kid. You get plenty of brother on brother murder, but not so much in that department.
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Aug 13, 2017 11:34
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At the very least, Justinian could have actually secured Italy up to the Alps, although how much that would change when the Lombards come knocking is a different question.
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Aug 13, 2017 11:50
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Iconoclasts don't need eyes to see god.
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Aug 13, 2017 14:02
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They just want to destroy something beautiful.
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Aug 13, 2017 16:37
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https://twitter.com/pompei79/status/896784555381751808
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Aug 13, 2017 18:32
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Grand Fromage posted:There's a certain point you arrive at in later Roman history where every biography ends with "... and then he was blinded and exiled". Thats what I gathered too, the arrival of what sounds to be essentially the black death is the thing that ruins everything, especially since in the podcast it gets noted it wasn't one massive wave that killed everyone... it kept poping up every 20-30 years for a century or more killing huge swathes of the population. The Empire seems to recover in the late 800's partially just because the plagues stop ravaging everything. cheetah7071 posted:I recall there being a period where every younger brother and/or deposed nephew got their nose cut off, until one of them decided to just take the throne despite his lack of nose Justinian the Second, and that was because the guy who took over from him wanted to be merciful, usually they just killed the person before then. After Justinian came back... then they started doing the blinding of potential usurpers. Haven't got to them starting castrating people instead yet though. HEY GAIL posted:irene owned Its pretty insane that she pulled off becoming Roman Empress, but she still was not a good person. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Aug 13, 2017 |
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Aug 13, 2017 18:43
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All I see is a cock strutting.
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Aug 13, 2017 18:49
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It's a symbol of the god Fascinus, who was the Roman god of the penis and of male fertility. You see a lot of them out there, usually as amulets, because they're supposed to protect men against evil and curses.
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Aug 13, 2017 23:30
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LingcodKilla posted:All I see is a cock strutting. Did Latin have the same chicken = cock = penis thing going on, or is that an Englishism?
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Aug 14, 2017 00:02
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