Bronze Age, Greek and Roman Technology: A Select, Annotated Bibliography by John Peter Oleson

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 135 Bronze Age, Greek and Roman Technology: A Select, Annotated Bibliogra­ phy. By John Peter Oleson. New York: Garland, 1986. Pp. xvi+515; index. $71.00. There are several well-known dangers inherent in the one-shot, book-length bibliography. (1) By its very nature it must be obsolete from—indeed, before—the moment of publication. (2) Whether con­ sciously or not, it tends to be selective and interpretive, in particu­ lar when (as here) it is the work of a single scholar. (3) In an effort to avoid this, it can become a mere mechanical compilation of unre­ lated titles. (4) It also (through no direct fault of its own) too often dis­ courages further bibliographical research in the area and periods it covers. Although (1) and (4) may perhaps be advanced as argu­ ments against the whole concept of the Garland series as such, it is the second danger with which we must, in the present case, primar­ ily concern ourselves; no one, certainly, could accuse John Peter Oleson of a mere compilation of unrelated titles. Oleson argues that “the history of ancient technology should be more than the bald account of activities directly concerned with pri­ mary production.” It must also take into account “the interrelation­ ships among the technologies that exist in any culture and the interaction of these technologies with the physical, social, and intellec­ tual or spiritual environment.” No one would question the desirabil­ ity of the goal, but the task remains an immense one, and it is much to Oleson’s credit that to a remarkable degree he has suc­ ceeded in carrying it out. His omnivorous energy is well-nigh be­ yond praise: as a collector of technological details he outdoes Pliny. This is a Natural History for the computer age. By his own account he has cast his net wide and, astonishingly, claims to have at least ex­ amined almost every item he cites, an assertion convincingly sup­ ported by innumerable shrewd comments on, and summaries of, individual titles. His eleven main categories cover ancient authors, works of reference, general surveys, mining and metallurgy, food production, energy and machines, construction and civil engineer­ ing, manufacture and trade, transportation, record keeping, mili­ tary technology, and a final slot is tantalizingly entitled “Cultural Attitudes towards Labor, Technology, and Innovation.” Very little has escaped Oleson, though there are occasional surpris­ ing omissions of major figures (e.g., Boeckh and Hasebroek). I have only two real complaints. First, he does not include reviews, or even list the key reviews of significant works. Thus there is no men­ tion of the various seminal review articles by the late M. I. Finley— who rates only three citations here—in the Economic History Review (see, e.g., 2d ser., 12, no. 1 [1959]: 120—25) and elsewhere. Second, Oleson is unjustifiably offhanded about the excellent and exhaus­ tive section, “Sciences, Techniques, Métiers,” in the classical annual bibliography L’année philologique (APh). The titles listed there are by 136 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE no stretch of the imagination restricted, as he alleges, to “periodi­ cals in the fields of Classics and Archaeology.” A closer scrutiny of this rubric might, indeed, have prevented certain omissions—Ovid’s knowledge of cosmetics, for example, in the AmericanJournal ofPhilol­ ogy 100 (1979): 381—92, cited in APh 50 (1981): 210. But granted its inherent limitations—no scholar is likely to make it a substitute for the indispensable APh—this bibliography remains a useful addi­ tion to technological reference works, which are, as Oleson says, thin on the ground. Peter Green Dr. Green is Dougherty Centennial Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. His publications include Alexander ofMacedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Histori­ cal Biography (1974), and the forthcoming Alexander to Actium: An Essay on the Histori­ cal Evolution of the Hellenistic Age. The Origins of War: From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great. By Arther Ferrill. London and New York: Thames & Hudson, 1985. Pp· 240; illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $19.95. It has long been customary for military historians to treat war­ fare as if it were a Greek...