The steamships setting forth towards Egypt were just the most visible to outsiders. Word spread quickly that a child of the gods had come to Rome and was setting the Republic up to be even more powerful than ever.
Though skepticism was pretty much everywhere regarding that - the ships chugging their way across the sea were capable of greater speed than anything currently afloat. There were the new bronze-cast pots and pans that Rome was churning out, the development of this signal-code that allowed ship-to-ship and city-to-city communication at ever-faster rates, the bizarre windmills that pivoted to catch the wind...
Just this bizarre idea called the 'scientific principle' (or Vulcan's Law by the Romans) - observe how something works, theorize the principle behind that working, test the theory, then figure out a way to use that proven theory. It was banned immediately by many nations - it was heretical and smacked of hubris at the very least! That a being as imperfect as man could dare to understand the workings of the world?!
There were a few though that heard and envied Rome its accomplishments, and might well naysay the practice in public only to practice it in private.
Crop rotation. A new horse collar that did not choke the animal as it plowed a field. A similar innovation for the ox. The new waterpumps. The Rising Globe, that was also known as a 'Hot Air Balloon', that revolutionized battlefield observation immediately.
It was the ships currently being built and being sent off though - those more than any single other thing were adding a level of might to Rome that had the skeptics wondering if maybe there wasn't something to those rumors after all.
Not only were there steam engines chugging away to propel a ship no matter what the wind said, they were shaped and constructed differently, and the warships had new and terrifying weapons.
And on an estate with lots of vinyards, a guy named Julius sipped chilled wine and sent off the occasional letter of advise to his adopted son Octavian and some of his old friends and colleagues from his military career. Occasionally some of the fruits of the new trade routes and conquests would make its way here, and he could sample these while looking at something that a copyist had made for him. It was something that Nadsumeh had made, and many of those very colleagues and old friends had one by now themselves.
It was called a 'globe' and it showed the benefits of these new measuring devices. He'd had no idea the Republic was so small in relation to the world, but then - that was something that could change.
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(Posted Wed, 07 Jun 2006 18:25)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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