
Ancient Rome’s Collapse Is Written into Arctic Ice - diodorus
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/scientists-reclaim-the-long-lost-economic-history-of-rome/560339/?single_page=true
======
simulate
Discussion on HN last week referencing a New York Times article on the same
topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17072712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17072712)

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rossdavidh
Cool analysis inspired by this article, comparing the ice lead data to pre-
existing (and independently collected) data on building of temples:
[http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/history-is-a-
quantitati...](http://peterturchin.com/cliodynamica/history-is-a-quantitative-
science-ii/)

~~~
yk
From eyeballing the second graph we see, that lead production (taken as a
proxy for economic activity) spikes shortly after a maximum in temple
building, as any virtuous Roman would expect, temple building pleases the
gods, who then grant the favor of more economic activity.

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repolfx
It's a seductive idea, that we can see into the past so accurately in such a
way. The article suggests weaknesses though that seem to be being brushed
under the carpet.

The biggest problem is with the economics and the history rather than the
science of measuring lead in ice cores.

The article states:

 _Yet for all these coins, it remains unclear how Rome managed its money in a
modern sense_

... and that seems to be a problem because the theory asks us to believe
something implausible; that during times of war coin production went _down_.
Everything we know about both modern and ancient governments tells us that
rulers routinely inflate their currencies to pay soldiers. During a time of
war, when desperation is at its peak and there is a need to win at any cost,
furiously minting coins to fund the fight is extremely common.

Yet according to these graphs coin production goes up during times of peace
and down during times of war. Really?

The story falls apart in other ways further down the article:

 _That said, the lead record does not seem to mark a few major events in Roman
history. The Plague of Justinian, which may have killed half the population of
Europe in 541 and 542 a.d., does not seem to feature prominently in the
record_

OK, so their entire thesis is that the Roman economy can be measured using
lead in ice cores, yet an event that _more than decimated_ the population
appears to have had no impact on economic activity at all? Either the
measurements are wrong, or the historical understanding of the plague is
wrong, or the understanding of what lead in ice cores means historically is
wrong. But it's hard to see the theory as presented as anything but
implausible when such gaping holes exist in the data.

It gets worse:

 _Nor does the record encompass the full scope of the Roman coin-minting
operation: Many important silver mines sat near Greece and the eastern
Mediterranean, and their emissions probably did not make it to Greenland._

So lead in the air can make it from _Spain_ to Greenland, about 2700 miles,
but not from Greece to Greenland, a distance of about 3100 miles? They're
nearly the same distance apart. Does lead in the air have a magic cutoff
beyond which it cannot travel on the wind and if so, why does the article not
talk about this?

Finally, the article does note that this new study contradicts an earlier
study that concluded the opposite.

This is explained by saying the new study has more data. But this still seems
odd to me - it's saying the old study had such bad luck that the ice cores
they studied were totally misleading to the extent that they presented the
opposite of the truth. How did that happen? Is it really plausible and if so
what other studies should be invalidated as a result of not taking enough core
samples?

I find myself wondering how much of this article boils down to curve fitting
and munging the data to fit what we are sure we "know" about Rome, to create a
nice story that doesn't rock any boats.

~~~
chimprich
> So lead in the air can make it from Spain to Greenland, about 2700 miles,
> but not from Greece to Greenland, a distance of about 3100 miles?

I have no domain knowledge about this, but I assumed the difference was in
atmospheric circulation. Happy to be corrected by anyone who knows about this
stuff, but I'd have thought there was a relatively clear pathway across open
ocean from the Iberian peninsula to Greenland. I'd expect the route from
Greece to Iceland to be significantly more chaotic as far as wind is
concerned; more land, mountain ranges, and opportunities for rainfall and
mixing of currents.

~~~
fapjacks
Just to add something, we can make some guesses about the circulation of the
ocean and wind currents during Roman times because we know that the Roman Warm
Period approximated the climate we enjoy today, for several reasons. For
example the locations where date palms are grown and dates harvested. We have
at least one account which mentions that date palms can be planted in e.g.
Greece but that dates will not fruit there (which is the case today), but that
dates can be grown and harvested in Judea, which was not the case between the
time of the Roman Empire and today because of the colder climate. Medieval
scholars weren't sure what to think of that.

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394852034
Documented the economic activity? No, they documented deposits of particles
that are claimed to be from the Roman Republic smelters and also which are
only the particles that existing weather patterns happened to have lead to
being deposited. Talk about derivative. Not even to mention that there is
little that would imply that smelting for coin production would implicitly
relate to economic activity. Run away inflation or corrupt rulers do not
necessarily correlate to economic activity but could very well result in
increased smelting just as well as technological advances that require more
smelting or buildup of the military could.

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caiocaiocaio
A good place to start an article about the fifth century CE is definitely the
first century BCE. I was just writing an article about Trump which starts with
1527.

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zdragnar
> A team of archaeologists, historians, and climate scientists have
> constructed a history of Rome’s lead pollution, which allows them to
> approximate Mediterranean economic activity from 1,100 b.c. to 800 a.d.

I think that better explains the broad span of time. Then again, if you were
writing for an audience 1300 years in the future with little to no genuine
knowledge of our time period (other than popular myth and oral tradition) that
probably wouldn't be a bad year to start with, since that's not terribly long
after major explorations to the West from Europe (Columbus "discovered" the
Bahamas around 1492).

Edit: formatting of the quote

~~~
caiocaiocaio
Okay, let me rephrase that: A lot of the territory Rome ruled was conquered in
Caesar's lifetime (Gaul, most of their core Asian possessions). Most of Rome's
noteworthy cultural achievements happened after Caesar was dead. Caesar laid
the groundwork for Augustus's form of government, which would survive in some
form for nearly 1500 years. So starting an article about Rome's decline with
Caesar is like writing an article about the decline of computer science and
starting it with Turing.

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dqoo
This article is interesting. This writer may stay

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quotemstr
It's important to contrast this graph --- clear as day and the next best thing
to a Roman S&P 500 --- to the nonsense revisionism peddled by a certain camp
that's come to dominate academia since the 1970s or so.

This camp, as part of a present-day political project, portrays the past as
some kind of peaceful, egalitarian utopia ruined by "capitalism" and
"colonization". In this camp's ridiculous woldview, all societies are equally
complex, all languages are equally expressive, and cultural and linguistic
changes always reflect some kind of peaceful transition instead of a violent
upheaval.

Rome never fell, these people say: instead, it just chose to adopt the
sustainable economic practices of the peaceful immigrants from the steppe. My
eyes cannot roll any harder when I read shit like that.

Fortunately, these people are well on the way to being thoroughly discredited.
Populations do change. Catastrophes do happen. War was rampant. Ancient DNA
confirms it.

Civilization and order are fragile and worth preserving, and an honest
examination of the past and strike the fear of decay into us. It took the
world until the 19th century (!) to recover from Rome's collapse in all
respects; for us, there will be no recovery at all.

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throwaway5752
Okay - I think you are just making that up. Are there serious people in
historical academia working on some sort of "political project" like that, are
are you nutpicking some marginal/fringe off the internet? Can you offer some
sort of links describing the name of this academic school, who belonged to it,
evidence of their influence, etc? I have a personal interest in history
sufficiently deep to doubt you.

