One thing to note here is the automatic assumption that Rome was “greater” than Medieval Europe. This is anecdotal, but if you look at technological progress from 200BCE (the Punic Wars) and 200AD, you find that not much has happened, except the expansion of trade networks.
Meanwhile, the 400 years from 476CE to 876CE saw the growth of the Frankish Empire, the subsequent Holy Roman Empire, the invention of the heavy plow (note that Rome had been in control of Gaul for 520 years, and never invented it) and further discoveries by Catholic monks. In fact, analysis on skeletons show that people were better fed after the fall, not before (I’ll see if I can dig up the citations for these).
Rome did succeed Europe in some ways (namely architecture, central planning, and infrastructure), but it wasn’t more “advanced” per se. All of the buildings, roads, and aqueducts still stood after Rome fell.
Your main point—how Europe was able to stand up to outside pressure while Rome couldn’t—still stands, but we shouldn’t consider that it was “better” in some way.
This is anecdotal, but if you look at technological progress from 200BCE (the Punic Wars) and 200AD, you find that not much has happened, except the expansion of trade networks.
While this may be true, it overlooks the fact that many technologies that were developed in the precedent period (for example, the lighthouse, the cog and the gear wheel) were lost during the Roman age, not to be recovered until the Renaissance—or later.
Heron describes many artifacts that require tiny metal lives to be built, copying from previous Hellenistic sources, but at his age nobody knows anymore how to make tiny metal lives (he only describes a way to make big, wooden lives).
In the Imperial age the derivative was negative, but the technological and cultural level was obviously superior to the High Middle Ages. Between 500AD and 1000AD the urban society in Europe had become practically non-existent.
I definitely agree that it is wrong to assume that Rome was superior to Medieval Europe in all ways! I think they definitely outclassed Medieval Europe in a lot of aspects—but also that Medieval Europe outclassed Rome in a lot of other aspects.
Yeah, I think that they both had their individual strengths and weak points. I would say that Rome was overall better if you lived in an urban area or valued peace, while Medieval Europe was a more “fair” (in relative terms) society for the rural folk.
One thing to note here is the automatic assumption that Rome was “greater” than Medieval Europe. This is anecdotal, but if you look at technological progress from 200BCE (the Punic Wars) and 200AD, you find that not much has happened, except the expansion of trade networks.
Meanwhile, the 400 years from 476CE to 876CE saw the growth of the Frankish Empire, the subsequent Holy Roman Empire, the invention of the heavy plow (note that Rome had been in control of Gaul for 520 years, and never invented it) and further discoveries by Catholic monks. In fact, analysis on skeletons show that people were better fed after the fall, not before (I’ll see if I can dig up the citations for these).
Rome did succeed Europe in some ways (namely architecture, central planning, and infrastructure), but it wasn’t more “advanced” per se. All of the buildings, roads, and aqueducts still stood after Rome fell.
Your main point—how Europe was able to stand up to outside pressure while Rome couldn’t—still stands, but we shouldn’t consider that it was “better” in some way.
While this may be true, it overlooks the fact that many technologies that were developed in the precedent period (for example, the lighthouse, the cog and the gear wheel) were lost during the Roman age, not to be recovered until the Renaissance—or later.
Heron describes many artifacts that require tiny metal lives to be built, copying from previous Hellenistic sources, but at his age nobody knows anymore how to make tiny metal lives (he only describes a way to make big, wooden lives).
In the Imperial age the derivative was negative, but the technological and cultural level was obviously superior to the High Middle Ages. Between 500AD and 1000AD the urban society in Europe had become practically non-existent.
I definitely agree that it is wrong to assume that Rome was superior to Medieval Europe in all ways! I think they definitely outclassed Medieval Europe in a lot of aspects—but also that Medieval Europe outclassed Rome in a lot of other aspects.
Yeah, I think that they both had their individual strengths and weak points. I would say that Rome was overall better if you lived in an urban area or valued peace, while Medieval Europe was a more “fair” (in relative terms) society for the rural folk.