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its_raining_scotch t1_j19muos wrote

There’s a lot of articles about ancient Roman pollution due to large scale resource extraction and industrial output. Ice cores from glaciers are able to show the signature of the Romans due to how much wood they burned in order to run their empire’s production of goods.

There’s a story told by a Roman writer, I can’t remember who, about what it was like seeing a town in Spain that was set up to produce iron goods on a mass scale. They said you could see a haze in the distance as you approached and that there weren’t any trees left. When you got closer it became a sort of hell scape with everything covered in soot or ash and the sky was a dark orange. This was all from how many blacksmiths were working their fires and producing iron goods, so you can imagine the scale.

The Romans took their production to this level and had many towns like that one, so that’s how they were able to outfit their armies with swords and everything else.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j19n7dc wrote

Oh yeah. You can also correlate the concentration of lead in the atmosphere to the rise of the greek and roman empires because the melting of iron ore releases trace amounts of lead to the atmosphere. It's really cool. Thanks for the answer.

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vurjin_oce t1_j1cwzyn wrote

Also take into account they weren't as pure or as advanced as medieval swords, but they were designed to be mass produced as they were simple design. So things like the handle and guard could be made quickly and efficiently.

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KGBFriedChicken02 t1_j1dqrgq wrote

Roman swords were also smaller than medieval swords, and meant for quick, close quarters, shove and stab combat. Even in movies and shows, they like to show roman legionnaires dueling, slashing with their swords, parrying and cutting.

The reality is the roman heavy infantry was a machine. The line moved forward. The enemy were presented with a wall of wood and iron and leather as the Legionnaires shoved forward with their shields, moving in to press up against their enemies. This restricted the space, making it difficult for the enemy to wield swords or axes or spears in the tight quarters. The small gaps in the shield wall were used to strike the enemy, the gladius' design was perfect for close up thrusting attacks. They'd simply shove and stab until the enemy were wiped out or broke and ran, advancing slowly all the while. Anyone who was simply woulded or knocked over would be trampled by the advancing shield wall, or dispatched by the men in the back ranks.

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Hyphenated_Gorilla t1_j1dtdm2 wrote

Excellent and accurate description!

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vurjin_oce t1_j1fy1t6 wrote

There is an old Roman proverb that was said when Greeks were making fun of the length of their swords. Romans replied it only needed to be long enough to reach your heart.

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Hyphenated_Gorilla t1_j1gptx7 wrote

I believe that was in Vegetius “Epitome of Military science”

Good book on the Roman strategy if you’ve not read it

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Intranetusa t1_j1k9xlh wrote

Note that the claim that Roman formations are too tight to use spears/axes/longer weapons/etc is a myth. A typical or common Roman infantry formation during the Republic or early Empire is described as having around 3 feet of space between each man. This is a rather spacious formation that gives each soldier plenty of room to deploy spear or sword, and is a more spacious formation than the classical Greek phalanxes that used heavy thrusting spears.

3 feet of space is also comparable to or greater than the spacing used by many pike formations, as many Rennisance European pikemen also had around 3 feet of space between each man and sometimes had as little as only 1.5 feet of space. Even the more loose formation of Ming Dynasty pikemen was still only 3.5 feet between each man according to the Ming military blog.

Thus, contrary to some belief that Roman combat was too cramped for spears, there would be no issue in using a long heavy thrusting spear or a 7 foot pila/throwing spear in melee combat when there was 3 feet of space between each man.

Of course, there could have been and probably were cases when the Romans switched to a much tighter formation where a shorter sword was more manuverable and easier to use than a long thrusting spears or pila in melee.

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Hyphenated_Gorilla t1_j1kbf0v wrote

Javalyn was also very common as a initial weapon.

Again, another good post.

Looking forward to the brawl

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ArkyBeagle t1_j1gwjzd wrote

> The reality is the roman heavy infantry was a machine.

The beginning of the 1999 film "Titus" ( an Anthony Hopkins starring adaptation of Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" ) has a Roman square in maneuvers in a ... soundstage? not an exterior sequence anyway.

It's one thing to read it and another to actually see it.

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Intranetusa t1_j1k9tcx wrote

> This restricted the space, making it difficult for the enemy to wield swords or axes or spears in the tight quarters. The small gaps in the shield wall were used to strike the enemy, the gladius' design was perfect for close up thrusting attacks.

The Roman formations were often even more loosely spaced than typical spear and pike formations. A typical or common Roman infantry formation during the Republic or early Empire is described as having around 3 feet of space between each man. This is a rather spacious formation that gives each soldier plenty of room to deploy spear or sword, and is a more spacious formation than the classical Greek phalanxes that used heavy thrusting spears.

3 feet of space is also comparable to or greater than the spacing used by many pike formations, as many Rennisance European pikemen also had around 3 feet of space between each man and sometimes had as little as only 1.5 feet of space. Even the more loose formation of Ming Dynasty pikemen was still only 3.5 feet between each man according to the Ming military blog.

Thus, contrary to some belief that Roman combat was too cramped for spears, there would be no issue in using a long heavy thrusting spear or a 7 foot pila/throwing spear in melee combat when there was 3 feet of space between each man.

Of course, there could have been and probably were cases when the Romans switched to a much tighter formation where a shorter sword was more manuverable and easier to use than a long thrusting spears or pila in melee.

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ferdebest t1_j1d731y wrote

That is not correctamente. Is ok the ice of the poles forma where is extracted the traces of the Rome's metal extracting, mostly, silver on spain.

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HyperbolicSoup t1_j1bb9ey wrote

Yeah… they actually caused smog. Wouldn’t see that again until industrial revolution

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[deleted] t1_j1amcz3 wrote

[removed]

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PhasmaFelis t1_j1chmwc wrote

> The land was previously covered in tiny iron meteorites

Interesting. Source for that?

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series_hybrid t1_j1dl0j9 wrote

Meteorite iron has a specific percentage of nickel, and iron from the earth has almost none, among other distinctions (sometimes iridium).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutankhamun%27s_meteoric_iron_dagger

As far as the Earth being covered by them, if we didn't have a water cycle and weather, the surface of the Earth would look like the moon. Civilization has only been experimenting with melting nuggets such as copper and tin for a few thousand years.

I wish I had a good source for that but, I don't.

When copper became useful, surface copper was taken first before deep mining was used. Same with tin and iron. If Iron weapons were made before and iron mine was operated, they used surface iron.

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Lost4name t1_j1a5fj9 wrote

If you can remember link it, it sounds like interesting reading.

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its_raining_scotch t1_j1ajbc1 wrote

I tried to find it again but couldn’t after a 3 min search. It’s out there somewhere though.

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DryDrunkImperor t1_j1d8cwp wrote

It’s mentioned in Dan Carlins “Death Throes of the Republic” if you want to do some digging, I can’t remember exactly the episode though.

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Othrerir t1_j1cyx61 wrote

That sounds really cool and horrifying at the same time, kind of like a fantasy setting. I can google this sort of stuff, but are there any articles you found particularly good about the subject that you'd recommend?

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ramkitty t1_j1djzlw wrote

Las medulas is a great example of roman industrial scale. A gold mine sluced the entire mountain away. It is now a unesco heritage park.

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-introuble2 t1_j1fjd9j wrote

The closest I could find is in Strabo 3.2.8 about silver in Spain, where a little loosely: "and they are making the silver furnaces tall, so that the fiery smoke from the lumps to be lifted up in the air; cause it's heavy and destructive"

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its_raining_scotch t1_j1g6hv8 wrote

Hmm interesting. That’s not the one I saw but that’s interesting nonetheless.

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Simonbargiora t1_j1dn40b wrote

Which Roman writer wrote this?

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Sgt_Colon t1_j1gokol wrote

Turns out it was a Greek writing about Elba:

Off the city of Tyrrhenia known as Poplonium there is an island which men call Aethaleia.​ It is about one hundred stades* distant from the coast and received the name it bears from the smoke (aithalos) which lies so thick about it. For the island possesses a great amount of iron-rock, which they quarry in order to melt and cast and thus to secure the iron, and they possess a great abundance of this ore. For those who are engaged in the working of this ore crush the rock and burn the lumps which have thus been broken in certain ingenious furnaces; and in these they smelt the lumps by means of a great fire and form them into pieces of moderate size which are in their appearance like large sponges.

1 stade = 150–210 metres

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Apocalypso-YouTube t1_j1b34ku wrote

Now I don't feel so bad that pollution seems especially severe nowadays. It appears there's always been at least one society throughout history that contributed significantly to pollution.

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boredsittingonthebus t1_j1ba8n3 wrote

I have a feeling today's pollution is far, far worse.

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Apocalypso-YouTube t1_j1bagpo wrote

That's very likely, but we also don't know exactly what extent it went to in past years.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j1bpuxe wrote

You can be pretty sure it never reached the levels we have today. It's a matter of population.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j1bpnza wrote

Believe me, you should feel bad. The worst thing is that it's not even just the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There's acid rain, plastic pollution, agrotoxics and a probably a hundred other negative ways in which our lifestyle impacts the environment that we haven't even discovered yet.

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notabiologist t1_j1conkt wrote

Totally agree, though the one thing I’d note is that acid rain has been a solved problem (in the west) and I believe isn’t the same magnitude of a problem elsewhere as it was in the west in the past. That’s the one bright thing, we are able to legislate our way out of an environmental problem. This gives some hope to legislation in order to curb climate change, although both the problem and solution to climate change is way more complex than acid rain.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j1cx9x6 wrote

We were also able to legislate our way out of the CFC and leaded gasoline crises. Though with the oil industry is gonna be much more difficult. It's not only a matter of technology. And even after we manage to solve that, plastic's probably going to be the next big problem.

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its_raining_scotch t1_j1bkcyp wrote

The Romans were a special breed. Almost like a modern society in ancient times. It’s interesting how similar we are to them and also interesting to imagine what they could have done if they had discovered gun powder, or germ theory, or electricity.

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Apocalypso-YouTube t1_j1bo2v0 wrote

The Romans did have indoor plumbing which wasn't too dissimilar from our own, so you definitely have a point.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j1cxix0 wrote

I mean, if the Western empire lasted as long as the Byzantines they'd probably bring about some sort of Industrial Revolution in the Middle Ages.

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