Well
it could be that not many of you had heard of the Sumerians and their Empire, the
Bronze Age was a long time ago after all. But most people, I think, will have heard
of the Roman Empire. Moving into the Iron Age they
were, in fact, an incredibly successful Empire.
They
began small, don't all Empires. Italy
didn’t in fact have incredibly fertile land. To feed a growing population those
in control looked around for new trading partners. There are some very fertile lands
around the Mediterranean Sea, and the Romans decided
to go to war to obtain access to them. Well it wasn't that simple of course, I am
condensing decades of history into a few paragraphs, and I am cherry- picking my arguments here. Fighting
a number of wars, over a number of years against the Carpathians, Rome gained control of the Mediterranean.
This included the amazing fertility of the Egyptian floodplains around the River
Nile. The breadbasket of the Mediterranean, as
it was to turn out to be.
Much
of these years of warfare were in fact waged by the Roman Navy. We don't hear much
about the Navy; it is the Roman soldiers marching across the world that lives in
our imagination. The wars were extensive
and prolonged. Hundreds, probably thousands, of trees had to be felled to build
the ships that were to win the new lands. We know about the dangers of felling too
many trees, especially in hilly areas such as Italy!
The
Romans at the end of this slaughter had access to better quality grain, wheat, which
Egyptians grew well, was more nutritious than the barley that the Romans grew. Grain
was the bedrock of any civilization and Rome
was no exception. They also could import food from all around the Mediterranean Sea. Enough food for the populace and enough
to start accumulating a surplus to strengthen their trade routes. Now speculators
moved in, buying up the small scale farms around Rome, dispossessing the peasant farmers, building
villas and investing in olive groves and vineyards. Niche foods, which would obtain large profits.
The
farmers migrated to the cities. At one stage, in the first century BC, the population
of Rome stood at
1 million. If you consider just this one city and the population, then begin to
wonder how all those people were fed. It was a logistic nightmare, but, the Romans
were good at logistics.
They
have left their trace in every country they conquered. It was almost a ‘do it by
numbers’ operation. They definitely came, saw and conquered. They set up an amazing
network of overland, as well as sea, routes,
to facilitate their trading partners. But this was the Iron Age not the steam age.
Road haulage was done by oxen and cart, it was slow and dangerous. Sea transport was totally dependent on prevailing
winds and clement weather. Over land were
thieves and bandits, on the seas the danger came from piracy; the problem of bandits
and pirates is an age old one. If you can take your food and your luxury goods without
any effort, apart from killing a few people, why not?
Another
problem Rome had, from the beginning, was that the
water approach was very shallow, so the large ships required to bring in huge shipments
of grain had to stop at a place Ostia, which is 15
miles from Rome.
The large granary ships would stop there, transfer cargo to a flotilla of smaller
craft, to finish the journey to the city.
To unload a shipment of a years worth of grain for the city required 4,500
return trips of three days of these smaller boats.
And
harvests only occurred once a year, so a whole years worth of grain had to be brought in
and stored. One of the large granaries indicates
that it had 225,000 ft.² of storage space, the Coliseum only had 29,000 ft.² This
particular granary was not the only one that the city possessed. Building a granary
of this size, which would keep your grain in good condition for an entire year,
was in fact quite a feat which for a long time the Romans managed very well. The
granary had to be weatherproof, rodent proof, dry and cool, well ventilated and
well protected from thieves. Our ancestors from long ago were very clever people.
Of
course with the Empire, demand for luxury goods grew. I am almost convinced that
consumerism is inbuilt into our genetic code! At one stage Italy was importing
more than it was exporting. An imbalance was building up, and a steady stream of
silver was trickling outwards paying for goods and reducing the roman treasury.
One
of the most desired luxury goods was pepper. As one reads about the history of food
exchange and trade one finds these enticing little spices and herbs, that we all
use so casually, caused more trouble than you would think they could possibly be
worth.
So
ships left Rome
using wine and timber and olive oil for ballast and returned loaded with pepper.
This spice attracted the speculators; huge fortunes were made and destroyed on the
back of it. I have a Roman cookery book, I collect cookery books, and pepper seems
to be in almost every recipe. I can only think that the normal Roman fare back then
was very bland. Nowadays people invest in the banking/financial system – or maybe
they don’t after this last fiasco! Back then they invested in olives, wine and pepper.
Rome
almost starved many times, at one stage pirates launched an all-out attack at Ostia, sinking the ships and looting the warehouses,
Rome tottering almost to it’s knees from starvation and riot, caused the Senate
to pass new immediate laws regarding the control of piracy, not an easy decision
as the laws went against the grain of their principles, but what would you do
when the city was rioting; more of them then there are of you! These periodic starvations
instead of teaching the Romans a valuable lesson in not congregating too many people
in one place if you couldn't feed them, just made them march out to conquer more
lands.
The
collapse of food security was not what brought Rome to its knees. But it was part of the problem.
A succession of bad rulers, corruption and unwise decisions. An increasing financial
shortfall, all helped as well. Because of their Empire the land around Rome had become heavily degraded,
not helped by the stripping of all those trees. This in itself might not have been
so disastrous if the farming was still small-scale and the climate was with them.
At the height of their power the Romans were living through a very benign warm period
of climatic history. During their decline the climate was also declining its pleasantness.
The weather became cooler, the growing season became shorter, rainfall decreased.
Then if the land had been in good heart, and didn't have the task of feeding millions,
disaster might still have been staved off.
When
those at the top, who are meant to lead and to organise, would rather play with
expensive toys and over indulge on the good life, when the money system goes skew
whiff, then the essentials of life soon cease. Armies need paying or they vanish
into the mist, the population needs feeding or they drift back to the countryside.
Road routes need constant repair, security needs to keep thievery of the highways
or the peasants will not risk their lives taking food to the markets. When the markets
fail, trade routes crumble. Those who can,
return to the land to scratch out an uncertain future. Empires don't fail overnight
it takes time. They grow, they overextend, and then they are ripe for defeat and
chaos . . .
Here
come the dark ages. . .
Recommended books:
Empires of Food: Feast, Famine and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations by Evan D.G.Fraser & Andrew Rimas
A Splendid Exchange; How Trade Shaped the World by William Bernstein
