Gaul

[Rameses the Great]

I read this passage in which a man named Ferrero claimed that Gaul was like Egypt. The main source of fertile land in Europe was Gaul. So for some reason he thought since it produced nearly as much wheat as Egypt, and nearly as much linen then it was like Egypt.

 

He states:

to have been for Rome a kind of Canada or [American] Mid-west [huge grain producers] of the time, set not beyond oceans but beyond the Alps....Augustus was first to recognize... [that Gaul] was producing grain like Egypt, linen like Egypt, that the arts of civilization for which the Egypt was so rich and famous were beginning to prosper there. Augustus was not the [kind of] man to let slip so tremendous a piece of good luck... He found finally the grand climax of his carrer, to make Gaul the Egypt of the West, the province of the greatest revenues in Europe.

 

 

Is this a good comparison or is he on something? I can find at least a million things for which Gaul and Egypt were completely different for.

 

My question is:

1. Is this really the greatest accomplishment and dream of Augustus?

2. Is Gaul really comprable to Ancient Egypt?

[Primus Pilus]

I read this passage in which a man named Ferrero claimed that Gaul was like Egypt. The main source of fertile land in Europe was Gaul. So for some reason he thought since it produced nearly as much wheat as Egypt, and nearly as much linen then it was like Egypt.

 

He states:

to have been for Rome a kind of Canada or [American] Mid-west [huge grain producers] of the time, set not beyond oceans but beyond the Alps....Augustus was first to recognize... [that Gaul] was producing grain like Egypt, linen like Egypt, that the arts of civilization for which the Egypt was so rich and famous were beginning to prosper there. Augustus was not the [kind of] man to let slip so tremendous a piece of good luck... He found finally the grand climax of his carrer, to make Gaul the Egypt of the West, the province of the greatest revenues in Europe.

 

 

Is this a good comparison or is he on something? I can find at least a million things for which Gaul and Egypt were completely different for.

 

My question is:

1. Is this really the greatest accomplishment and dream of Augustus?

2. Is Gaul really comprable to Ancient Egypt?

 

Does Ferrero footnote any of this? They sound like rather sweeping claims for the purpose of dramatic flair. I haven't read any of Ferrero's works, so its hard for me to quantify such a short snippet without understanding the greater context. I can't tell if he his claiming that Gaul was like Egypt or that Augustus wanted to make Gaul like Egypt. I suppose either claim would require more proof than this single snippet.

 

1. At any rate, I'll hazard a quick response. Gaul received some Augustan attention (largely via Agrippa), but in the larger scheme it was but a blip on the political radar. His agenda was far more encompassing than making that sinlge province a beacon of the empire. It would seem that Claudius, with his inclusion of aristocratic Gauls into the senate, would qualify more aptly.

 

2. Anything can be analyzed comparatively, but from this paragraph it is difficult to agree with or refute the notions being presented. Egypt maintained its own native culture while it was also heavily influenced by Hellenism. Gaul's social and cultural makeup doesn't seem to mesh with this ideology. There are very few cultural or economic similarities on the surface, but I suppose others more versed in the cultures can discuss this

[phil25]

I think I would agree with PP - who has written an exceptionally good reply.

 

I think Ferrero (not I assume the chocolate maker, off his "rocher") is just too sweeping.

 

Look at the way Augustus dealt with the two areas:

 

Egypt - made exceptionally a personal fiefdom of the princeps, under a personally appointed prefect (NOT a Governor) and with senators rigourously excluded except by specific permission (a ruling that applied even to an imperial heir - Germanicus). Additionally, the princeps was identified as pharaoh and ruled as such.

 

Gaul - Augustus spent little time there (more in Spain, I think), applied no exceptional rules, did not exclude senators... and where is any sign that Gaul became the bread-basket of the empire or the City? It was still that grain fleet from Egypt that was regarded as important as late as Seneca's day and after.

 

Where are the arts of civilisation in gaul. Even if one assumes (as I do) that celtic civilisation was splendidly rich and significant, Egypt had a history of unparalleled sophistication stretching back millenia, was the mother of writing (something the celts never developed, to our loss, since they could not transmit their culture at all well) and of much else.

 

Gaul had been relatively easily subdued by Caesar, compared to the immense struggle (at least as portrayed by Augustus - and isn't it his perception we are discussing here), matching culture against culture in a fight to the death - tota Italia against the foreign dominatrix - that almost destroyed rome, save for the crowning mercy of Actium!!!

 

No - IMHO, there is no comparison.

 

But perhaps I am out of sympathy with Ferrero, and another poster will see what it is that he is trying to convey, have greater sympathy with whatever insight he feels he has.

 

Phil

[DecimusCaesar]

I was under the impression that the northern provinces of Africa that were considered to be the bread baskets and the source of wealth of the Roman west. I believe that even Gaul, which was much more densely populated than Britain or most other northern provinces still produced less wealth than most of the eastern provinces.

[caldrail]

No real similarity. Different cultures and I don't think the produce would have been too similar either, apart from a few coincidences due to agrarian economies and low technology.

[Rameses the Great]

a few coincidences due to agrarian economies and low technology.

 

Egypt? Low technology? I can asure you even the Romans and Greeks were astounded by the technology of Egypt.

[phil25]

At which period are we speaking.

 

Ptolemaic Egypt could produce the Pharos, but what else - and was not the basis of that technology Greek, not Egyptian?

 

The pyramids, Sphinx etc were in the past, they were amazing maybe, but hardly current technology, which is surely the subject of our discussion?

 

In naval construction, the Egyptians apparently produced quinqueremes of large size around the time of Actium, but they proved unwieldy - hardly a good advert.

 

So what are we talking about here, Ramses? What do you have in mind?

 

Phil

[Rameses the Great]

At which period are we speaking.

 

Ptolemaic Egypt could produce the Pharos, but what else - and was not the basis of that technology Greek, not Egyptian?

 

The pyramids, Sphinx etc were in the past, they were amazing maybe, but hardly current technology, which is surely the subject of our discussion?

 

In naval construction, the Egyptians apparently produced quinqueremes of large size around the time of Actium, but they proved unwieldy - hardly a good advert.

 

So what are we talking about here, Ramses? What do you have in mind?

 

Phil

 

In general, but to compare Gallic technology to Egyptian technology is not to be compared at all at any time period. Don't forget the Egyptians had a highly sophisticated civilization something people here tend to forget at times.

[phil25]

It still seems to me, Ramses, that you are failing to discriminate between ancient Egyptian (ie Pharaonic) and Ptolemaic times/technology, and are just lumping the lot into one basket because of location.

 

Ptolemaic technology was largely Greek-based so far as I am aware. So is it justifiable to call it Egyptian without distorting the comparison under discussion?

 

If you believe so, then would you allow that "Gallic" technology could encompass what the Romans had introduced in Cisalpine Gaul and The Province?

 

I would not as it would distort the image.

 

So I ask again, what is the genuinely EGYPTIAN technology of the period under debate? Examples please.

 

Phil

[Andrew Dalby]

It still seems to me, Ramses, that you are failing to discriminate between ancient Egyptian (ie Pharaonic) and Ptolemaic times/technology, and are just lumping the lot into one basket because of location.

 

Ptolemaic technology was largely Greek-based so far as I am aware. So is it justifiable to call it Egyptian without distorting the comparison under discussion?

 

If you believe so, then would you allow that "Gallic" technology could encompass what the Romans had introduced in Cisalpine Gaul and The Province?

 

I would not as it would distort the image.

 

So I ask again, what is the genuinely EGYPTIAN technology of the period under debate? Examples please.

 

Phil

 

I'm leaping in here, not having studied the whole thread in depth. Ignore me if I talk rubbish, therefore. It's going further than we know to say "Ptolemaic technology was largely Greek-based". Greek philosophers/scientists/technologists (same thing at that period) had studied in Egypt before the Ptolemaic period, so in that sense Greek technology was partly Egyptian-based anyway. We're talking about mutual influences, and they go back centuries.

 

As for the Celts of Gaul, their agricultural technology is often said to have been ahead of that of the Romans, but in most other matters they were learning from the Romans, from Caesar's conquests onwards. Would you notice the effect as early as Augustus? I'm not sure. By the later Empire, Gaul really was a centre of Imperial culture, and the location where a good deal of it was transmitted onwards to medieval Europe.

[phil25]

Andrew, I agree re Egyptian influences on Greek thinking. But by the ptolemaic period native Egyptians were almost entirely excluded from public life - Alexandria was a Hellenistic city.

 

My point is that, in the period under discussion, to cite "Egyptian" technology" in any sense (save reference to the physical country) is misleading. I am seeking to elicit from Ramses some sense of what he is getting at.

 

Phil

[Rameses the Great]

My point is that, in the period under discussion, to cite "Egyptian" technology" in any sense (save reference to the physical country) is misleading. I am seeking to elicit from Ramses some sense of what he is getting at.

 

If it must be this way I will talk about pharaonic Egypt. As Andrew Dalby has pointed out a lot of the foundation for technological thinking in Greece was Egyptian. The advanced ways to make structures, the pyramdids, the temples are what I'm getting to. So yes Ancient Egypt. Also remember though, the Greeks viewed the 'white' barbaric Northerners as Keltoi thinking they were ahead of them. The Greeks referred to Egypt as the 'Land of the Gods' so you could see the clash in technology. I am pretty sure throught ANY course of history the Romans and Greeks viewed the Egyptians far differently from Northern Europe.

[phil25]

Ramses, you wrote:

 

the Romans and Greeks viewed the Egyptians far differently from Northern Europe .

 

i don't disagree for a moment, but you are now trying to change the nature of the debate.

 

The question under discussion is specifically the comparison of gaul and Egypt in the time of Augustus.

 

Phil

[Andrew Dalby]

... by the ptolemaic period native Egyptians were almost entirely excluded from public life - Alexandria was a Hellenistic city ...

 

First of all, technology is not "public life". But in any case you're exaggerating, Phil. If by "Hellenistic" you mean "Greek in ethnic origin", what you say is quite impossible (there weren't enough Greeks for all those new cities, of which Alexandria was only one). If you mean "Greek in culture and language", you're a little closer to the truth, but still (in my opinion!) a long way from it. The reality was far more complicated.

 

Your picture doesn't explain the Rosetta Stone (to take the example that everyone will know). If "native Egyptians were excluded from public life" why on earth would a Hellenistic monarch bother to put up a three-script, two-language public inscription like that?

 

Your picture also doesn't explain the importance of Alexandria, both Ptolemaic and Roman, in Jewish culture, and conversely the importance of the Jewish community to Alexandria, an issue that mattered a lot to the early Roman emperors.

[phil25]

I bow to your knowledge, of course, Andrew. nothing more to add.

 

Phil