2w ago

Inventing is hard work. Not for the Romans!

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We have no navy
Punic ship crashes on our shore
copy the ship 200 times
We now have a navy
- But it's better.
  See? It's got the pointy bit at the end.
  Who needs superior naval power when you can just turn any naval battle into a land battle? Well... Infantry battle, anyway.
They even stole the Greek gods.
- And the Etruscan gods. And the Carthaginian gods. And the Egyptian gods. And the ... you get the idea.
  
  The Romans even had a standardised ritual for stealing gods from a city they were about to conquer: Evocatio. In the ritual, priests would call upon the enemy god(s) to abandon their city and come to Rome, where they would receive a bigger temple and more devoted worship than in the city about to be conquered.
Hey you stole our ship design.
Nope, look we added this pointy bit here, come closer and let us show you.
- Caw caw smash.
  
  Now I want a trireme with a Corvus painted to look like a crow.
  And I will definitely be referring to it as my ship's Corvid. Any time a newcomer tries to correct me, I'll just point to it and ask "You sure about that?"
- "See? Totally different."
Who needs inventing when you've got logistics?
I thought they copied Carthaginian ships
- Not only copied, but also improved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvus_(boarding_device)
I would say romans iterated well.
- Why invent when you can get a jump start on iterative design?
  It's a bit harder without CAD, but they made it work.
  
  i never said they did any thing wrong, and they iterated really well. They were not the smartest fellows, but they learnt to use whatever they had really well.

23 comments