1 The Birth of Science - MSRI

9.5 The Role of the City in the Ancient World 225
were widespread 53 — which certainly belies the traditional contention that
the “Ancients” were not interested in saving labor. 54
Cereal grinding and water lifting 56 were not the only uses of water
power in Antiquity. In the poem Mosella, written about 370 A.D., the poet
Ausonius records the use of water-powered saws for marble. 57 And Lewis
has argued on the basis of indirect evidence that the Ancients built pounding
pestles and other reciprocating machines moved by water. 58
9.5 The Role of the City in the Ancient World
Finley’s model of the consumer city is true for Rome, with a vengeance.
Documentation abounds. Rome was indeed, economically speaking, “the
complete parasite-city”. 59 It was the destination point for an enormous
flow of riches from the whole Empire: taxes from the provinces, war booty,
rents from provincial land and mines owned by the Emperor and others.
Part of this bounty made its way to the bulk of the population through
public and private channels, helping ensure its subsistence. Caesar started
distributions of free grain; from Augustus onwards the plebs periodically
received other foodstuffs also, as well as clothing, money and other benefits,
such as free admission to public shows and baths. At the same time,
every rich man had his own slaves and supported his clientes in various
ways. Other income distribution channels are easily imaginable.
The case of Rome is unique, but Finley contends that the uniqueness
was only in scale, and that (almost) all ancient cities were consumption
centers 60 that lived essentially on local agricultural resources, taxes, land
53 [Wikander: WM], in particular p. 398 for the water millers’ league ( ).
54 [Wikander: EWPTS].
56 See page 221.
57 Ausonius, Mosella, 362–364. In the 1960s the theory that the poem was an apocryphal tenthcentury
invention was put forth, with no serious support, and it was not until the 1980s, when
doubts started to be cast on the primitivist case, that it was definitively abandoned.
58 [Lewis: MH], in particular p. 114 for the marble saw, pp. 93–105 for pestles and trip-hammers,
and p. 8 for an illustration of sixteenth century water-powered ore-crushing stamps. For an
overview of the industrial uses of water power in Antiquity, see [Wikander: IAWP].
59 The expression is from [Finley: AE], p. 130.
60 [Finley: AE], p. 130 (“only in scale”), pp. 122–149 (economic role of town and city). Finley admits
the existence of “exceptional cities” (ibid, p. 194) as a way of shielding his thesis against disproof
by any given piece of contrary evidence. This is analogous to the already observed technique
of maintaining the nonexistence of the experimental method in Antiquity in the face of documented
experiments, on the grounds that these were performed only exceptionally.
Revision: 1.4 Date: 2002/10/12 00:00:03