Responding to msg by benw@xxxxxxx (Benedikt Wolff) on
>Also, I think the Romans mostly used a
>floor-heating-system called "hypocausten system" which
>worked with hot air, not water!
Benedikt wins the Crux Imperium.
-------------------
Excerpts from:
"The Ancient Engineers"
L. Sprague de Camp
MIT Press, Cambridge, 1960
pp. 171-72.
-------------------
The Romans also took great strides in house
heating. They invented central indirect heating; or
rather, they reinvented it. In 1954, at
Beycesultan, Turkey, a British expedition dug up
the palace of the king of Arzawa, a kingdom that
flourished in southwestern Anatolia before -- 1200.
Here, ducts beneath the floors suggest a central
heating plant. Then nothing more is heard of this
invention for over a thousand years.
This disappearance is not really surprising. For,
in the ancient world, an invention could be lost
and rediscovered several times. The numbers of
engineers and inventors were extremely small
compared to those of today. Inventors often tried
to keep their inventions secret; in the absence of
patent protection, there was no other way to stop
rivals from copying the invention and reaping where
the inventor had sown. Inevitably, some inventors
took their secrets to the grave. And, what with the
lack of encouragement of inventors, the lack of
mass production to multiply specimens of
inventions, and the lack of printing to disseminate
descriptions of them, knowledge of an invention was
likely to be very restricted.
Because of the small scale on which invention was
carried on, ancient inventions led a more
precarious life than do most modern ones. Some
catastrophe, such as the sack of a city, could
easily destroy the only specimens of an invention,
along with the only men who knew how to make it;
and there were no patent files to which a later
seeker could refer.
This does not mean that we should, like the
occultists, believe that the ancients had
scientific and engineering knowledge beyond our
own. They did not. But it did sometimes happen that
a useful invention was made, lost, and rediscovered
centuries later.
In the case of central heating, the rediscoverer
was a Roman businessman, Gaius Sergius Orata, who
lived near Naples. About -- 80, Orata, already
successful at raising fish and oysters for the
market, thought he could do even better if he could
only keep his edible sea-creatures growing through
the winter. Perhaps he was inspired by the sweat
baths of Baiae, heated by volcanic steam.
At any rate, Sergius Orata built a series of tanks
which, instead of being sunken in the earth, were
propped up on little brick posts. The smoke and hot
air from a fire at one side of a tank circulated
through the space below the tank to warm it.
Not yet satisfied, Orata applied his invention to
human comfort. As I have told you, country houses
in his time were evolving into a form with a
central hall and a pair of wings, one of which was
devoted to bathing chambers. Orata bought country
houses, equipped them with *balnae pensiles* or
"raised bathrooms," heated by means of ducts under
the floor, and resold them at a lusty profit. As a
result, Orata became famous for his ingenuity, his
business acuteness, his refined and luxurious
taste, and the jovial life he led.
Some aristocrats sneered at Orata as one of the
new-rich. Pliny accused him of avarice, but this
was the standard resentment that members of the
landowning Roman gentry felt towards self-made men
who had gained their wealth in vulgar trade.
Lucius Licinius Crassus (not the triumvir, but an
older member of the family) once represented Orata
in a lawsuit, which indicated that Orata was
engaged in a bit of sharp practice in buying and
selling houses. Orata also occupied public waters
with his fish and oyster ponds at Lake Lucrinus,
just off the Bay of Naples, until a suit was
brought to make him stop. This time Crassus
remarked that the lawyer for the defense "was
mistaken in saying that keeping Orata away from
Lake Lucrinus would deprive him of oysters; for, if
he was prevented from catching them there, he would
find them on the roofs of his houses."
During the century and a half following Orata's
invention, builders learned to apply the Oratan
system, called a *hypocaustum* (from the Greek
words for "under" and "burning"), to whole
buildings. Under the Principate, Romans who went to
live in the northern provmces of the Empire built
hypocaust houses to hold the winter weather at bay.
But central heating died out with the fall of the
West Roman Empire and was not revived until modern
times.
-------------------
End Excerpts
Surely, back in the future, Mr. Wright and Mr.
Orata would have lifted from each other and praised
with *lingua hypocausta*.
John
>Also, I think the Romans mostly used a
>floor-heating-system called "hypocausten system" which
>worked with hot air, not water!
Benedikt wins the Crux Imperium.
-------------------
Excerpts from:
"The Ancient Engineers"
L. Sprague de Camp
MIT Press, Cambridge, 1960
pp. 171-72.
-------------------
The Romans also took great strides in house
heating. They invented central indirect heating; or
rather, they reinvented it. In 1954, at
Beycesultan, Turkey, a British expedition dug up
the palace of the king of Arzawa, a kingdom that
flourished in southwestern Anatolia before -- 1200.
Here, ducts beneath the floors suggest a central
heating plant. Then nothing more is heard of this
invention for over a thousand years.
This disappearance is not really surprising. For,
in the ancient world, an invention could be lost
and rediscovered several times. The numbers of
engineers and inventors were extremely small
compared to those of today. Inventors often tried
to keep their inventions secret; in the absence of
patent protection, there was no other way to stop
rivals from copying the invention and reaping where
the inventor had sown. Inevitably, some inventors
took their secrets to the grave. And, what with the
lack of encouragement of inventors, the lack of
mass production to multiply specimens of
inventions, and the lack of printing to disseminate
descriptions of them, knowledge of an invention was
likely to be very restricted.
Because of the small scale on which invention was
carried on, ancient inventions led a more
precarious life than do most modern ones. Some
catastrophe, such as the sack of a city, could
easily destroy the only specimens of an invention,
along with the only men who knew how to make it;
and there were no patent files to which a later
seeker could refer.
This does not mean that we should, like the
occultists, believe that the ancients had
scientific and engineering knowledge beyond our
own. They did not. But it did sometimes happen that
a useful invention was made, lost, and rediscovered
centuries later.
In the case of central heating, the rediscoverer
was a Roman businessman, Gaius Sergius Orata, who
lived near Naples. About -- 80, Orata, already
successful at raising fish and oysters for the
market, thought he could do even better if he could
only keep his edible sea-creatures growing through
the winter. Perhaps he was inspired by the sweat
baths of Baiae, heated by volcanic steam.
At any rate, Sergius Orata built a series of tanks
which, instead of being sunken in the earth, were
propped up on little brick posts. The smoke and hot
air from a fire at one side of a tank circulated
through the space below the tank to warm it.
Not yet satisfied, Orata applied his invention to
human comfort. As I have told you, country houses
in his time were evolving into a form with a
central hall and a pair of wings, one of which was
devoted to bathing chambers. Orata bought country
houses, equipped them with *balnae pensiles* or
"raised bathrooms," heated by means of ducts under
the floor, and resold them at a lusty profit. As a
result, Orata became famous for his ingenuity, his
business acuteness, his refined and luxurious
taste, and the jovial life he led.
Some aristocrats sneered at Orata as one of the
new-rich. Pliny accused him of avarice, but this
was the standard resentment that members of the
landowning Roman gentry felt towards self-made men
who had gained their wealth in vulgar trade.
Lucius Licinius Crassus (not the triumvir, but an
older member of the family) once represented Orata
in a lawsuit, which indicated that Orata was
engaged in a bit of sharp practice in buying and
selling houses. Orata also occupied public waters
with his fish and oyster ponds at Lake Lucrinus,
just off the Bay of Naples, until a suit was
brought to make him stop. This time Crassus
remarked that the lawyer for the defense "was
mistaken in saying that keeping Orata away from
Lake Lucrinus would deprive him of oysters; for, if
he was prevented from catching them there, he would
find them on the roofs of his houses."
During the century and a half following Orata's
invention, builders learned to apply the Oratan
system, called a *hypocaustum* (from the Greek
words for "under" and "burning"), to whole
buildings. Under the Principate, Romans who went to
live in the northern provmces of the Empire built
hypocaust houses to hold the winter weather at bay.
But central heating died out with the fall of the
West Roman Empire and was not revived until modern
times.
-------------------
End Excerpts
Surely, back in the future, Mr. Wright and Mr.
Orata would have lifted from each other and praised
with *lingua hypocausta*.
John