What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

This reminds me that Monty Python and the Holy Grail contributed actual historical knowledge about Arthurian legends to my knowledge base while growing up. Other examples of Python unintentional education include knowing the names of a myriad of obscure cheeses (the cheese shop skit), a shocking number of anachronistic synonyms for death (the parrot skit) and notable contributions of the Roman Empire (Life of Brian 'What have the Romans ever done for us?' skit).

While it didn't contribute to my GPA at the time, I'm sure I could name more notable philosophers than any other 8th grader in my school (philosopher's song skit). However, in high school it did spark the interest to look up and read about each of the philosophers in the song.

The problem is that comedy is frequently not factually accurate.

Roman Imperial contributions? Was Roman wine better than pre-Roman wine in that region? Did they improve sanitation, irrigation, medicine etc.? Rome was an oppressive slavery based society.

Then what about the Spanish Inquisition sketch? It keeps repeating "fanatically devoted to the Pope"" The Spanish inquisition was an arm of the Spanish monarchy, at least two Popes tried to shut it down, and some historians have suggested one of its aims was to reduce the power of the Papacy.

I do like the Philosopher's Song, the Dead Parrot and Cheese Shop.

Other comedies are no better. Black Adder has a witchfinder (an early modorn innovation) in a Medieval setting.

Pop culture is not historically accurate!

…I think it kinda goes without saying that , perhaps with a very few notable exceptions, satirical television shows are not necessarily renown for their historical, scientific, or anecdotal accuracy.

That being said, in my own experience at least, such pseudo-historical references in comedy in particular have spurred me on to independent investigation as to what they were on about, exactly.

I’d say that the slapdash integrity is a feature, rather than a bug, since it is implicit in the format that a certain fraction of the assertions made will be bullocks cheese. This spurs curiosity and is also an excellent comedic mechanism.

It would be interesting, however, to have a backdrop of steadfast historical “accuracy “ in an otherwise pseudo-slapstick context a-la Monty pythons flying circus. That was kinda part of the gig, but it might be even funnier if they obviously took that aspect with unflinching seriousness.

As for the Roman Empire, I’d dare say that in slavery they were contemporary with most societies of their day, and I think to imply that their use of slavery somehow diminishes their contribution to global cultural heritage is not only disingenuous, but also smacks of some kind of pointless reflexive regurgitation of a partisan talking point or conformance/virtue signaling. It kinda undermines your point.

Ultimately, there are probably very few, if any, living humans that cannot trace their cultural heritage to slavery, slave ownership, perpetrators horrific atrocities, genocide, human rights violations, war crimes, and violent crimes against women, children, and humanity in general. What matters is what -you- chose to do. Be known for the fruit of your tree, and not as the product of the hill from which you sprout.

>Did they improve sanitation, irrigation, medicine etc.?

They built a network of aqueducts that was the largest in the world for a thousand years. The plumbing and sewage systems they installed in their cities were so effective that some are not just intact, but in use, right now. There are plenty of negative points you can raise about the Roman Empire, but water systems aren't one of them.

And let us not forget about Roman law.

But apart from the aqueducts, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Poe never wrote "Quoth the raven, eat my shorts", but I suspect an order of magnitude or two more people are aware of that poem thanks to The Simpsons, compare to all the poetry teachers ever.

Okay, but apart from orthography and aquaducts, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Now as punishment go write this on the wall 100 times!

> It would be interesting, however, to have a backdrop of steadfast historical “accuracy “ in an otherwise pseudo-slapstick context a-la Monty pythons flying circus. That was kinda part of the gig, but it might be even funnier if they obviously took that aspect with unflinching seriousness.

That can get super grim too.

I saw (maybe read?) an interview with Margaret Attwood about The Handmaids Tale. She took the atrocities committed by Gilead very seriously - and did not make a single one of them up. Every one of them was something historically accurate that really happened somewhere in the world.

In a pre-industrial agricultural society, slavery or something similar (serfdom etc.) tends to be widespread, as human and animal muscles are the only reliable and ubiquitous source of energy. Humanity only really started getting rid of unfree backbreaking work by adopting steam engines. 300-400 years ago, most of us forists here would be unfree people working the fields in unfavorable conditions, with maybe 5 per cent being burghers and 1 per cent nobility.

> Was Roman wine better than pre-Roman wine in that region?

If I were to guess, I would say that Roman wine was made from grapes, Levantine wine was made from dates, the vast majority of wine in the Levant continued to be made from dates during Roman rule, and imported Roman wine probably cost a lot more than local wine did, making it "better" by definition.

well, being part of the Roman Republic/Empire meant peace, even if it was enforced at the tip of a pilum. And the population under the Empire were more prosperous and numerous, so much that the collapse of the Empire in the West had long-lasting negative consequences (I'm mostly basing my opinion off this article: https://acoup.blog/2022/02/11/collections-rome-decline-and-f...)

Would say I prefer comedy/satire, since you don't run into the danger zone of historical dramas, where you mistake artistic story alterations for dramatic effect for some historically factual narrative.

Those are hard to rectify once internalized, and have a tendency to even overshadow historical research for the general public.

It's not that pre-industrial society causes slavery, it's closer to the other way round. If you're pre-industrial then everyone has to do farm work, yes, but slavery is /economically inefficient/ because the slaves don't provide demand (since you don't pay them) and don't grow the economy.

This is why economics was called "the dismal science" - economists told people to stop doing slavery and the slaveowners called them nerds. They wanted to own slaves because they wanted to be mini-tyrants, not because they were good at capitalism. Adam Smith did not go around telling people to own slaves.

Seeing the comedy beats of that scene play out on HN, first unintentionally and then intentionally, has made my day!

The "what have the Romans done for us" sketch is partly about Rome, but largely a disguised defense of the British Empire.

Ok, but beside the aqueducts, orthography and lasting peace, what good were the Romans for us?

Nope. If the only kilowatts at your disposal are the ones that you, your slaves and your horses can digest, you cannot just upscale the production of goods (or anything else) arbitrarily. The whole economy is bottlenecked on production which is bottlenecked on energy supply. Increasing the demand when supply is the problem would only make things worse.

However once you're burning coal (or harness the wind in case of dutch) things are very different, kilowatts flow freely and all the things you say above start to be true.

> in slavery they were contemporary with most societies of their day

> Ultimately, there are probably very few, if any, living humans that cannot trace their cultural heritage to slavery

Indeed. Historically, for most of human civilization, chattel slavery was a linchpin of most societies. The Romans were unremarkable in this respect.

And if I may take a long digression to emphasize just how normal chattel slavery was for not only the ancient world, but for centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it took Christianity to mount a challenge to this practice. It gave us a robust notion of the Imago Dei and human dignity, and a recognition of the evil of unjust servitude (which must be distinguished from just title servitude). Ancient Christians, having been born into a pagan world of entrenched and ubiquitous slavery, while believing that slavery was indeed evil, recognized that its abolition was impossible and impractical at the time. Of course, membership in the Church was open to everyone equally; social status had no significance. After Christianity's legalization under Constantine, the Church worked to free slaves and eventually managed to eradicate the practice in Europe. A former slave even became pope (Callistus I).

Some will point to chattel slavery in the New World, but this confuses what the Church as an institution held with what individual Catholics or Protestants did. Eugenius IV, prompted by slavery in the Canary Islands, condemned slavery in the papal bull Sicut Dudum in 1435, threatening excommunication. In 1537, Paul III issued Sublimus Dei to condemn enslavement of the natives of the Americas. In 1591, Gregory XIV promulgated Cum Sicuti to counter the practice in the Philippines. Urban VIII promulgated Commissum Nobis in 1639 in support of Philip IV's edict prohibiting the enslavement of American natives. Benedict XIV, in his 1741 document Immensa Pastorum, reminded that the penalty for enslaving the indigenous was excommunication.

Similar condemnations were issued regarding the Atlantic slave trade by Innocent XI, Gregory XVI (In Supremo, 1839), and Leo XIII in two bulls condemning slavery in 1888 and 1890. The condemnations were often so harsh that their publication was often forbidden without royal approval.

And we credit the abolitionists of and from the Christian West for politically ending the practice in their various respective jurisdictions that fell under Western rule. Their appeals were grounded in the general heritage of the Christian tradition and its understanding of the human person, whatever theological or philosophical differences there might have been between them.

> What matters is what -you- chose to do. Be known for the fruit of your tree, and not as the product of the hill from which you sprout.

Wise words. History ought to be remembered, and unresolved historical trauma should be addressed and resolved lest it fester (reasonable justice and remembrance matter; without truth, there is no authentic reconciliation or unity), but to stew perpetually in stomach-churning grievance over what someone else's ancestors did to your ancestors (often overlapping groups, btw) only succeeds in wasting the short time we have in this life and contributes nothing to it. It's an excellent method of self-sabotage.

I would say that inventing new technologies is one of the things that isn't possible when you've enslaved the inventors and made them farmworkers.

I mean, making them do research might work. That's a command economy, aka actually existing communism. Should be able to invent the waterwheel and crop rotation.

I do think it's hard to invent antibiotics and the Haber-Bosch process, and without that you are still in a Malthusian economy where everyone's going to die if they slack off farming.

Well yes, but how is this even relevant to the conversation? No one says innovation thrives with slavery. The point made is very simple, it's about commandable energy and EROI in particular. No amount of antibiotics can change that.

You are right that slavery is economically inefficient and that economists were one of the fiercest crusaders against slavery etc.

However: lack of demand is not a problem. People can create any amount of total nominal demand for basically free, as long as you have access to a printing press. (And with some minor caveats that's generally true in a gold standard setting, too.)

And even without that: your argumentation would suggest that as long as the slave-owners lavishly spend the money they save on wages, the economy would do just as well as without slavery. That's not the case; have a look at the arguments of the very economists you mention.

From 1000-1700 there was increasing wealth in Europe not through serfdom intensifying (but see Poland) but through increased trade, fishing, agricultural improvements and culminating in the steam engine. Watermills were medieval inventions.

Smith's pin factory has no steam engine. Nor did Slaters mill which created US industrialization. Steam required institutions to grow, institutions that had created growth earlier.

Indians have a love/hate relationship with the British because it really is an apt comparison.

India (as in the country) literally would not exist without the British. They were right assholes (to put it mildly), but compared to the other colonial powers, actually did leave a somewhat useful legacy. And weren’t that rapacious compared to many others (cough Belgium, Spain).

As to how much, if any, that justifies anything is up for debate. But Indians would generally hold that debate in English, because it works.

Agreed, and that is aligned with the point I'm making: bottleneck was the production, not consumption. Saying that increased consumption of freed slaves would somehow pull you out of pre-industrial age (the comment I was replying to) is just bonkers.

The increased production was indeed a result of centuries of incremental improvements. You're right to point out that some of them were not about energy, but I would argue that all of the big ones were.

Slaters mill put hydropower to work and even though watermills were medieval, the machines that poured that energy into cotton weren't. Same with the windmills during the Dutch Golden Age which I mentioned above. Increased trade happened through massive wind-powered ships, not slave galleys. (Though the Smith pin factory unlike the Slaters mill is not a real factory but a criticized thought experiment, I wouldn't consider it too influential)

But yes, indeed the steam appeared at the right time, only when there was enough technology to put it to use down the line.

> Was Roman wine better than pre-Roman wine in that region?

Not necessarily better, but they made much more of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome_and_wine:

“Ancient Rome played a pivotal role in the history of wine. The earliest influences on the viticulture of the Italian Peninsula can be traced to ancient Greeks and the Etruscans. The rise of the Roman Empire saw both technological advances in and burgeoning awareness of winemaking, which spread to all parts of the empire. Rome's influence has had a profound effect on the histories of today's major winemaking regions in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

The Roman belief that wine was a daily necessity made the drink "democratic" and ubiquitous; in various qualities, it was available to slaves, peasants and aristocrats, men and women alike. To ensure the steady supply of wine to Roman soldiers and colonists, viticulture and wine production spread to every part of the empire. The economic opportunities presented by trading in wine drew merchants to do business with tribes native to Gaul and Germania, bringing Roman influences to these regions even before the arrival of the Roman military. Evidence of this trade and the far-reaching ancient wine economy is most often found through amphorae – ceramic jars used to store and transport wine and other commodities.

[…]

Among the lasting legacies of the ancient Roman empire were the viticultural foundations laid by the Romans in lands that would become world-renowned wine regions. Through trade, military campaigns and settlements, Romans brought with them a taste for wine and the impetus to plant vines. Trade was the first and farthest-reaching arm of their influence, and Roman wine merchants were eager to trade with enemy and ally alike—from the Carthaginians and peoples of southern Spain to the Celtic tribes in Gaul and Germanic tribes of the Rhine and Danube.

During the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar brought his troops to Cabyllona in 59 BC, he found two Roman wine merchants already established in business trading with the local tribes. In places like Bordeaux, Mainz, Trier and Colchester where Roman garrisons were established, vineyards were planted to supply local need and limit the cost of long-distance trading. Roman settlements were founded and populated by retired soldiers with knowledge of Roman viticulture from their families and life before the military; vineyards were planted in their new homelands. While it is possible that the Romans imported grapevines from Italy and Greece, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that they cultivated native vines that may be the ancestors of the grapes grown in those provinces today”

>some are not just intact, but in use, right now.

Thanks for giving me something to research at work. What query do you recommend I put into a search engine? "intact aqueducts italy" doesn't seem to help much

> Those are hard to rectify once internalized, and have a tendency to even overshadow historical research for the general public

The "people told Columbus the earth is flat" is one that is still repeated by people who should know better.

Why Italy? There are (inactive) roman aqueducts as far away as Israel

Watermills are pretty limited technology, though. It is advantageous to build them on rivers in hilly terrain, which is usually far from the seaports that are used for trade. Hilly terrain is also often agriculturally subpar, therefore you need to import food for the workers from the lowland, making the operation more expensive.

Finally, medieval watermills cannot produce heat, which is absolutely necessary for production of iron and steel. Which means that you cannot increase production of iron and steel beyond pre-modern levels, a major obstacle in development of technical civilization.