The seventy-seven Roman miles of Hadrian's Wall (I, 1, p. 13) equals seventy-three English miles. (Notes, 1, p. 444). Not very far, is it? We can make a day trip from Lancaster to York.
Forsquilis as an owl sees a man who looks up and sees her. (V, p. 91) Gratillonius, reflecting on Ys, remembers seeing a great owl and shivers. (VI, 1, pp. 98-99) A fictional narrative can present a single event from different perspectives. Maybe novelists should do this more often? In different chapters of his Beau Trilogy, PC Wren describes one meeting from three points of view (I think).
The Ysan boundary marker invokes Venus, Jupiter and Neptunus. (VI, 2, p. 99) Cynan asks whether the old Roman Gods still have power here. Gratillonius explains that the Romans erroneously applied Latin names to foreign Gods and that the corresponding Ysan script, which he and his men cannot read, would reveal more about the local pantheon. Budic calls the Ysan Gods demons and openly invokes Christ. Gratillonius inwardly invokes Mithras. A mixed bunch. Roman authority imposed uniformity for a long time.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And that "uniformity" included the Empire spreading a common culture, at least in the middle and upper classes, from Britannia in the west to the Parthian/Persian marches in the east. Two dominant common languages, common literature, customs, laws, economy, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
One thing to keep in mind when dealing with preindustrial times is how far a mile is...
Overland movement usually didn't exceed 3 miles per hour for any distance. 20 miles was a good day's travel -- 'forced march' movement for the Roman army was about 21 miles a day.
With a string of remounts, on horseback you could do 40-80 miles a day, but not indefinitely; that took a toll of both rider and horses.
So 73 miles was about the distance a mounted courier could carry a message in a day; it was 2-3 days travel at usual speeds. Equivalent to 700 miles in a car.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Hence, as well, things like the Gospels mentioning sabbath day walks, about two miles. Most people in those days seldom went more than two or three miles from home.
Ad astra! Sean
"Overland movement usually didn't exceed 3 miles per hour for any distance."
In my own hiking experience 3 mi/hr = 5 km/hr is a fairly brisk walk & going faster will be jogging or running. For something I'm willing to do all day I would be going a bit slower than 5 km/hr.
I think technical advances like canals with tow paths for horses didn't allow any increase in speed, but the increase in amount of material pulled by one draft animal was very important economically.
Jim: you're right about the canals. The reduced friction was the big thing; one horse could pull a 15-ton barge easily enough. Costs by canal were less than a tenth of those of road transport
The bit about canals among other things that increased prosperity, I got from reading "The Birth of Plenty".
The thesis of that book is that there are 4 necessary and sufficient conditions for a prosperous society.
1) property rights
2) scientific rationalism
3) capital markets
4) an effective means of transportation and communications.
Kaor, Jim!
I think that should be five conditions. Anderson argued in IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS? that scientific rationalism arose on Earth because Catholic Christianity provided the philosophic and theological framework needed for a true science. And that in turn fed into the other conditions you listed.
Ad astra! Sean
If Catholic Christianity was essential, at least some varieties of Protestant Christianity inherited the needed aspects and used them first to create a prosperous society. The first really prosperous societies detailed in the book are Britain with a precursor in the Netherlands.
We also see that even if Christianity (or something similar) is needed to *start* this, non-Christian societies can adopt the needed qualities without becoming Christian. See several east Asian societies.
Kaor, Jim!
Of course I agree with much of what you said here. Esp. with what you said about the Netherlands and the UK. People like Adam Smith comes to mind.
Japan is a classic example of how a non-Western nation was able to genuinely learn from the West while basically retaining its long established socio-political structure. Something which late Imperial China failed to do.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Japan was -- in some respects -- already strikingly similar to Europe. It was a genuine nation-state, for example, which China wasn't.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree! China was an empire, a universal state proudly considering herself superior to all the rest of the world. The catastrophes of the 19th/20th centuries humbled China to the dust.
Ad astra! Sean
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