Global Warming

Global warming

L’Abbe du Bos observes that modern Italy is warmer than ancient Italy:

His observation may be extended to other European climates. Who could discover the mild climate of France in his description of the climate of Gaul?

Diodorus Siculus says:

Petronius uses the proverbial expression “Colder than a Gallic Winter”

Aristotle says that Gaul has so cold a climate that an ass could not live in it.

Strabo says that, of the Cevennes, Gaul:

• produces no figs and olives
• its vines do not bear grapes that will ripen.

? seriously affirms that the Euxine sea was frozen over every winter in his time. He appeals to Roman governours of the truth of his assertion. At present, this seldom or never happens.

Ovid lived there and complains of a rigour of the seasons, which is scarcely experienced at present in Petersburgh or Stockholm.

A Provençal, who had travelled into the same country, observes, that there is not a finer climate in the world. He asserts, that nothing but Ovid’s melancholy could have given him such dismal ideas of it.

But the facts by Ovid are too circumstantial to bear any such interpretation. He says that the climate in Arcadia was very cold and the air moist.

Varro says:

Strabo says that the northern parts of Spain are ill inhabited because of the great cold. This means that Europe is become warmer than before.

This warming is caused by the cultivation of land which causes woods to be cleared. The woods formerly shaded the earth and kept the rays of the sun from penetrating to it.

Our northern colonies in America become more temperate as the woods are felled. But generally, cold is still much more severely felt both in North and South America, than in places under the same latitude in Europe.

Columella affirmed that:

• the disposition of the heavens was altered before his time, and
• the air had become much milder and warmer
  • It caused many places to abound with vineyards and olive plantations

Such a change, if real, is an evident sign of the better cultivation and peopling of countries before the age of Saserna. If it continued to the present times, it is a proof, that these advantages have been continually encreasing throughout this part of the world.

The Ancient vs Modern

People say that modern times are more empty and desolate than the ancient times. But there is little evidence for it.

Syria, the Lesser Asia, the coast of Barbary

The above are now deserts compared to their ancient condition.

Egypt

Maillet has the best account of Egypt. He describes it as extremely populous, but its population has diminished.

Greece

The depopulation of Greece is also obvious.

Turkey

Turkey did not have more people during the flourishing period of Greece. The Thracians then lived like the present Tatars, by pasturage and plunder. The Getes were still more uncivilized and the Illyrians were no better. These occupy 90% of Turkey. The Turkish government is not very favourable to industry and propagation. Yet it preserves peace and order and is preferable to that barbarous, unsettled ancient condition.

Moscow

Moscow is now not populous, but was more populous than ancient Sarmatia and Scythia which had no husbandry or tillage and where pasturage was the sole art.

Denmark and Sweden

The same can be said of Denmark and Sweden. Immense swarms of people came from the North and overran all Europe. If half of a nation’s population goes overseas and invades, it would strike terror in the defenders. This terror would make those invaders appear to be more and braver.

Scotland

Scotland is neither large nor populous. But were the half of its people went overseas, they would form a colony as numerous as the Teutons and Cimbri. They would shake all Europe. It now surely has 20 times more inhabitants than in ancient times, when they cultivated no ground, and each tribe valued itself on the extensive desolation which it spread around, as we learn from Cæsar, Tacitus, and Strabo.

Britain

Herodian says that all Britain was marshy, even in Severus’s time, after the Romans had been fully settled in it over a century. It is a proof that the division into small republics will not alone render a nation populous, unless attended with peace, order, and industry. The barbarous condition of ancient Britain is well known. Its small population is due to their barbarity.

Gaul

The Gauls were anciently much more advanced in the arts of life than their northern neighbours; since they travelled to this island for their education in the mysteries of the religion and philosophy of the Druids.

Ancient Gaul was not as populous as France is at present. Appian and Diodorus Siculus, however, say of the incredible populousness in Gaul. Appian says that Gaul had 400 nations. Diodorus Siculus says that the largest of the Gallic nations had 200,000 men, besides women and children, and the smallest had 50,000. Therefore, Gaul would have nearly 200 million people when it has only 20 million today.

Wrong estimates

Such calculations are not credible because of their extravagance. The populousness of antiquity is ascribed to the equality of property. But property had no place among the Gauls. Their wars, before Cæsar’s time, were almost perpetual. Strabo observes that, though all Gaul was cultivated, it was not cultivated with skill or care.

The genius of the Gauls led more to arms that to arts, until their slavery under Rome produced peace among themselves. Caesar enumerates the great forces which were levied in Belgium to oppose his conquests to be 208,000. These were not the whole people able to bear arms.

Strabo tells us that the Bellovaci could have brought 100,000 men into the field, though they engaged only for 60,000. Taking the whole, therefore, in this proportion of ten to six, the sum of fighting men in all the states of Belgium was about 350,000. all the inhabitants 1.5 million.

Belgium was 1/4 of Gaul which had 6 million, which is not near 1/3 of its present population. Cæsar tells us that the Gauls had no fixed property in land. But that the chieftains, when any death happened in a family, made a new division of all the lands among the several members of the family.

This is the custom of Tanistry, which so long prevailed in Ireland, and which retained that country in a state of misery, barbarism, and desolation.ancient Helvetia was 250 miles in length, and 180 in breadth, according to the same author yet contained only 360,000 inhabitants.

The canton of Berne alone has, at present, as many people.this computation of Appian and Diodorus Siculus, I know not, whether I dare affirm, that the modern Dutch are more numerous than the ancient Batavi.is, perhaps, decayed from what it was 300 years ago.

But if we went back 2,000 years and consider the restless, turbulent, unsettled condition of its inhabitants, we might think it to be now much more populous.

Spain

Many Spaniards killed themselves, when deprived of their arms by the Romans. Plutarch says that robbery and plunder were honourable among the Spaniards. Hirtius also describes Spain in the same light during Cæsar’s time. He says that every man was obliged to live in castles and walled towns for security.

It was not till its final conquest under Augustus, that these disorders were repressed. The accounts of Strabo and Justin of Spain matches those above mentioned.

Tully compared [modern] Italy, Afric, Gaul, Greece, and Spain. He mentions the large Spanish population which made Spain formidable. This further reduces our idea of the populousness of antiquity. Spain now has decayed yet still has many great cities.

Venice, Genoa, Pavia, Turin, Milan, Naples, Florence, Leghorn were all very inconsiderable in ancient times.