It bears pointing out that the reason roads were so iconic to Rome was that for the bulk of its history, Rome was primarily a land power, faced with more navally adroit rivals, only dominating the Med once it owned most shores of it.
Eretria instead dominates the waterways around it, with Korinth as about the only potential foe able to contest that, and even today, water transport is still significantly more efficient for moving cargo and troops around. There's little reason for us to spend a great deal of resources to fabricate nice efficient routes for inland enemies to march straight to our polis.
That was a 2d10 roll to see how our programme to encourage immigration was going (being just above average), not a roll for how many people it'd managed to entice...
That was a 2d10 roll to see how our programme to encourage immigration was going (being just above average), not a roll for how many people it'd managed to entice...
It bears pointing out that the reason roads were so iconic to Rome was that for the bulk of its history, Rome was primarily a land power, faced with more navally adroit rivals, only dominating the Med once it owned most shores of it.
Eretria instead dominates the waterways around it, with Korinth as about the only potential foe able to contest that, and even today, water transport is still significantly more efficient for moving cargo and troops around. There's little reason for us to spend a great deal of resources to fabricate nice efficient routes for inland enemies to march straight to our polis.
The point isn't birth rates, so much as infant survival rates, which is heavily affected by city health. Beyond that, for most of human history, cities have been demographic sinks, requiring constant input from the hinterlands to maintain the population.
Good thing we have lots of ships then? Do remember that we previously deployed several thousand soldiers to Siciliy, before spending thirty years concentrating on building up our maritime credentials.
The entire nature of the left/right dichotomy in modern societies happens to be an outgrowth of the particular fallout of the French Revolution, not some unalterable natural law. There's thousands of years for societies to develop in entirely different ways, with entirely different ideals and governance and religions and philosophies.
True, but politics are literally why we adapted intelligence, and a spectrum of positions (especially to change, social or otherwise) is not an implausible idea even if the levels are different.
Good thing we have lots of ships then? Do remember that we previously deployed several thousand soldiers to Siciliy, before spending thirty years concentrating on building up our maritime credentials.
Good thing we have lots of ships then? Do remember that we previously deployed several thousand soldiers to Siciliy, before spending thirty years concentrating on building up our maritime credentials.
Which is good for power-projection and coastal mobility, but less useful for quickly mustering from the countryside, and moving forces to face a landward threat.
That was a 2d10 roll to see how our programme to encourage immigration was going (being just above average), not a roll for how many people it'd managed to entice...
Oh yeah, its very unlikely to have a navy big enough to deploy our whole force at one go. Usually it works by seizing the landing site and then spending a couple of weeks doing back and forth trips?
Which is good for power-projection and coastal mobility, but less useful for quickly mustering from the countryside, and moving forces to face a landward threat.
We have rivers heading up country (the Ofanto should be navigable up to Canosa), and the valuable bits we want to defend (or that an enemy would need to attack to actually damage us) are on or near the coast.
I'm not saying we shouldn't improve roads were we can do so reasonably, more that we want to view our ports as the hubs from which any local road network should flow, the waterways being the linkage that binds together our holdings.
As far as land power goes I'm more concerned with ensuring a friendly Metapontion than trying to slap roads everywhere. The point of having Thurii and the Sikeliote League as allies (at least according to a skim of the early discussion) was that as local powers that aren't distracted by so many other things we could more reliably count on them to come to our aid than relative titans like Carthage and Athens.
This is reliability is undermined by how Metapontion can decide to deny us military access to each other and force either an invasion or to transfer forces either way by sea. I may not be the biggest fan of our starting choices, but since they were made we ought to make the best of them since I doubt a chance to easily swap alliances and enemies will come.
We have rivers heading up country (the Ofanto should be navigable up to Canosa), and the valuable bits we want to defend (or that an enemy would need to attack to actually damage us) are on or near the coast.
I'm not saying we shouldn't improve roads were we can do so reasonably, more that we want to view our ports as the hubs from which any local road network should flow, the waterways being the linkage that binds together our holdings.
What I mean is that investing in a good quality road from Sannape to Eretria, say, would be less efficient than a shorter road to Canosa, then making use of water transport to link to Eretria.
What on earth is Hermesdora thinking again? Has he been inspired by Bacchus' blessing to his humours as to give these ideas?!
"Hermesdora, once again could you use your fevered imaginations to improve the poor state of our plays and theatres? Those exercises in intellectual stimulation and logical creativity can finally end our status as the home of vile and wretched laughingstocks of literature and culture."
Iskandar sighed in exasperation.
"Perhaps we can talk about a tale of a group of soldiers dropping from the skies to fight monsters from fantastic realms as a tale? I believe your imagination is up to the task."
"Improbable fiction, but I was trying to match the wits of the imaginations of Hermesdora, who I think would be unparalelled from the most fantastic of theorems that the most radical of philosophers and madmen can dream of."
It bears pointing out that the reason roads were so iconic to Rome was that for the bulk of its history, Rome was primarily a land power, faced with more navally adroit rivals, only dominating the Med once it owned most shores of it.
Eretria instead dominates the waterways around it, with Korinth as about the only potential foe able to contest that, and even today, water transport is still significantly more efficient for moving cargo and troops around. There's little reason for us to spend a great deal of resources to fabricate nice efficient routes for inland enemies to march straight to our polis.
I disagree. Rome was a very effective naval power. They beat Carthage at sea fair and square (compensating for their poorer ship handling skills with technological innovation), did the previously impossible and decisively beat the Illyrian pirates, smashed Macedonian naval power, let their navy decay, then rebuilt it to crush the pirates of Crete and Cillia who were allied with Mithridates and his navy, crushed combined navy of Egypt and Syria (under Mark Antony) and weren't slouches when they fought other Romans in their many civil wars. The Eastern Roman Empire was the premier naval power in the Med until Venice got some Crusaders to sack Constantinople for them. Indeed, often Rome fought so much on land because their naval superiority was so enormous that their enemies did everything possible to avoid getting their fleets into a furball with Rome's fleets.
Just because the Carthaginians or the sea-focused Celtic tribes had some advantages over Rome at sea does not mean the Romans were not a sea power, it just means the Romans weren't a perfect sea power.
At most, not more than a thousand? altogether. Mostly employed in dock work trade gangs where ownership is shared between a number of merchants, or as house slaves.
Dogs are exceptionally poor traction animals in terms of caloric efficiency for mass pulled, which is even worse for a travois. Goats aren't viable for traction work either (it's difficult enough getting them to do work).
Actually dogs are really good. Somewhere in my files I have a paper written in the early 20th Century that broke down how different animals perform in the ways relevant to traction, and dogs are up there with horses, donkeys and camels in terms of performance for a given investment. The issue with dogs is more to do with size (dogs are much smaller than horses, donkeys etc), high meat requirements and their skeleton (which means they aren't good at carrying or pulling loads in some ways, and are good for carrying or pulling loads in other ways). However, dogs would not be good traction animals for Eretria. In everything we need traction for, a donkey or horse would be more suitable.
If I remember the paper right (my quick hunt for it hasn't yielded fruit yet and I don't have time for a more in depth search) dogs are actually the most efficient at turning calories into work. Also, since meat is calorie dense, if you are planning a long expedition where you have to carry everything you and your traction animals eat, dogs are the way to go. But in a place where grass grows and farms produce wheat and oats more cheaply than meat, horses, donkeys and mules are more cost effective.
There's a very good reason why no place in the world that had BOTH plenty of horses AND dogs relied heavily on dogs to carry loads. Some of the Native Americans did, but then, the Native Americans had no horses except for the European-descended mustang populations, and even those weren't evenly distributed across the continent. A travois is inferior to literally every other possible way to transport goods except carrying it in your shoulder or in your arms.
Opening the trading industry to anyone with dogs. Or willing to pull a travois themselves.
Trouble is, people who are as poor as dirt have nothing of value to trade, because you can't create a workable medium or long-distance trade in products like rocks, pointy sticks, or dried shit. The only thing they'll have is food, and if they're making enough food surplus to sell, you may be assured that someone else who is not a subsistence farmer full time will be better suited to the task of rolling up, buying the food, and carting it away, preferably in some kind of contrivance that uses the wheel.
I like it, but it invites the question: why didn't people invent this? It's a pretty simple device.
The obvious reason is that in 1900-era Missouri, far more of the population was economically dependent on steady traffic flowing across dirt roads. Most of those rural American farmers were not subsistence farmers, they were growing crops for export to a large extent. By Eretrian standards it was an entire population of aristoi with most of the poor farmers being "hoplites," in the "could you afford to maintain a suit of armor" sense.
What on earth is Hermesdora thinking again? Has he been inspired by Bacchus' blessing to his humours as to give these ideas?!
"Hermesdora, once again could you use your fevered imaginations to improve the poor state of our plays and theatres? Those exercises in intellectual stimulation and logical creativity can finally end our status as the home of vile and wretched laughingstocks of literature and culture."
Iskandar sighed in exasperation.
"Perhaps we can talk about a tale of a group of soldiers dropping from the skies to fight monsters from fantastic realms as a tale? I believe your imagination is up to the task."
Just because the Carthaginians or the sea-focused Celtic tribes had some advantages over Rome at sea does not mean the Romans were not a sea power, it just means the Romans weren't a perfect sea power.
I have always been suspicious of the "sudden" transition of the Romans to seapower. I actually suspect this is another area where their allies helped make up the difference; the Romans might not have been a very naval people, but they had a number of Greek allies in Southern Italy and Etruscan allies in Northern Italy who were and who could supply the technical knowledge and shipbuilding techniques that the Romans didn't have. However, this isn't an interpretation that shows the Romans as the best most adaptable awesome people who could reverse engineer any ship and become masters of any craft.
What do you think all the Metics in Eretria Eskhata are doing? The majority of them are tenant laborers and form Eretria Eskhata's peasant class, while some of the other ones are more urban craftsmen or merchants.
What do you think all the Metics in Eretria Eskhata are doing? The majority of them are tenant laborers and form Eretria Eskhata's peasant class, while some of the other ones are more urban craftsmen or merchants.
The majority of them are tenant laborers and form Eretria Eskhata's peasant class, while some of the other ones are more urban craftsmen or merchants.