Ancient lead pollution in a Roman harbor (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Ancient lead pollution in a Roman harbor (2017)

arstechnica.com

48 pointsdabluecaboose22 comments

Are there any alternate history books were Rome kicks off the industrial revolution?

Kind of the opposite of what you're asking for, but you might enjoy an earnest exploration of why it didn't happen: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...

Cool

One important thing that I feel this article left out was how technological innovation was driven by military endeavors. From antiquity to Europe getting comfortable with gun powder was a very long time. Prior to gun powder, the focus was on siege warfare - how to destroy walled defenses in a timely fashion before supply chains before untenable. With the rise of gunpowder, innovation followed. Alot of industrial success came out of America, and with a giant ocean between itself and any potential invaders, they were able to focus that innovation for industry as opposed to militarily.

You do realise that "america" didn't happen for more than a thousand of years since the roman empire right?

The Byzantine empire fell in 1453 and you can argue that the Vatican maintained some institutional power of western Europe through the middle ages

That isn’t left out - everything rested on the three centuries European countries had spent perfecting the cannon.

Told in Stone has a good video series on this too.

https://youtu.be/5uqPlOAH85o

Sometime ago I stumbled upon Kingdom of the Wicked by Helen Dale. Haven't read it myself though.

Stretching it a little bit, but: "Ultima" from Stephen Baxter. But you should read "Proxima" first to understand the context.

If you think of the West/US as the inheritor of the Roman Empire, they technically did !!

Why would I think that?

This has been the #1 meme of Western Europe since Clovis

Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp would be a classic answer (though it is also scifi so maybe not quite what you are asking for).

correlation: A technology (lead pipes) was really popular in urban areas later in the empire, when it could be used. And the Roman Empire fell.

causation: ???

But the lead! So what? Show me a causal chain or this is yet another a puff piece from Ars. And an old one at that.

By my reading, that is not the causation they're talking about. At all.

My read: "Lead plumbing was an extremely expensive luxury in Ancient Rome. Evidence of widespread use of lead plumbing (in sediments in the harbor) rises when economic times where good (so the Romans could afford it), and falls when times were bad (so they couldn't). And we found some other interesting details in our sediment core samples."

> Show me a causal chain

The article itself says that the theory that Rome fell due to lead poisoning is disputed. In fact they say these then recent findings are contradicting the theory. The exact quote you didn't seem to notice:

"The city's infatuation with lead pipes led to the popular (and disputed) theory that Rome fell due to lead poisoning. Now, a new study reveals that the city's lead plumbing infrastructure was at its biggest and most complicated during the centuries leading up to the empire's peak."

> or this is yet another a puff piece from Ars.

There is something particularly odious about complaining about the lack of intellectual rigour while showing none in the same comment.

If anything, the Romans (e.g. Vitruvius) actually _knew_ lead could be bad but even then decided it was best overall.

The city of Chicago almost 2000 years later did the exact same.

Indeed. I live in Chicago. Several years back, mid-winter, we suddenly had a geyser in the middle of our courtyard: burst pipe. Called in experts, and several hours and one coffin-sized hole in our yard later, we had running water again. I asked them for the 10" / 25 cm spliced-out bit of pipe, and still have it -- it is amazingly heavy, and definitely lead.

but it's surely not rocket science to determine the effects of it, right? it's either so bad that a civilization can die from it, or decidedly not? especially if it's been used in recent times in Chicago, which didnt go extinct like Rome. So I'm not sure why this theory always gets reluctantly dragged along, it's either true or false.

The jury is still out on Chicago going extinct :-) though I see your point, and I wonder how serious the problem actually is. TIL: the danger depends on your water chemistry[1], which I expect is monitored in cities like Chicago.

[1] https://www.treehugger.com/lead-in-water-pipes-4018249

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