Explanation that maybe got away from me a bit: Even before it was part of the Roman Empire, the grain supply from Egypt was vital to the continued day-to-day functioning of the city of Rome. Vast amounts of grain were purchased for delivery to the capital, which by the 2nd century BCE had swollen to one of the largest cities ever known (and would eventually become the largest city in world history until London surpassed the 1 million mark around 1800 AD).
While perhaps Italy could have supplied more of Rome’s grain than it did - perhaps even all of it (at least in tandem with Sicily), a kind of issue of comparative advantage had arisen - as the Roman Republic (and Empire) expanded its reach, so too did its markets expand with the security of Roman authority and the insistent legalism of Roman contract law. The demand in the provinces for high quality wine and olive oil from Italy was far greater than the demand for wheat (whose quality is important, but not nearly to the same price point as high-quality wine or olive oil). The vast estates in Italy, and even many of the larger independent farmers, grew for sale in a well-integrated market rather than just regional subsistence.
This is actually, from an efficiency standpoint, a very good thing. More people get better wine and olive oil at cheaper prices, less land is used in the provinces for lower-quality wine and olive oil (and can thus be dedicated to local specialties themselves) and everyone benefits. Classic economics!
Only… this made Rome’s dependency on foreign grain a very serious security risk. After the Numidian (North African) King Jugurtha nearly bribed his way into cutting away a fifth of the Roman Republic’s holdings in all-but-plain-daylight, there was increased concern over the leverage that such ‘barbarians’ might hold over domestic Roman politics - considering the near-disaster with King Jugurtha, a concern not entirely without merit.
As (then-independent) Egypt was their biggest grain supplier, it was discussed that the Egyptians potentially held a strange kind of power over Roman governments - without explicitly starving even a single Roman, they could, theoretically, sabotage Roman leaders who were opposed to Egyptian interests and reinforce those in favor simply by throttling the wheat supply and driving prices in the city of Rome (all-important in Roman politics, after all) up. What is left, then, but a state in effective vassalage to another, driven not by military victory or even absolute economic strength, but simply by what leverage it gave them over the other country’s domestic politics.
What is a Republic to do?
What Rome always did (or always tried, at least) - played the game better than their opponents (including those ’opponents’ who didn’t even realize they were playing). Rome intensified their involvement in Egyptian domestic politics to the point where Egypt, without a major war, had become all-but-vassalized to Rome’s interests - and that interest was primarily buying grain. Uno reverse on the treacherous barbarians, so glad we manipulated them into subservience before they could do the same to us!
By the time of the most famous Cleopatra, the Graeco-Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty was basically dependent on the goodwill of Rome for their continued rule… and when Cleopatra picked the wrong side in a Roman civil war, the dynasty’s number was up. Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, formalized what had been the essential situation for nearly 100 years at that point, and integrated Egypt into the structures of the Roman polity. So important was the Egyptian grain supply for Rome that a later Emperor, Claudius, would grant citizenship to provincials who ran private for-profit grain routes between Rome and Egypt.
After that, Egypt would be a quiet (if extremely prosperous) breadbasket for Rome, except whenever civil wars stirred up and everyone made a mad dash to control the grain supply. The hungry plebs of the city of Rome, after all, can overthrow even an Emperor - he who controls the grain, controls the Empire! Or at least can deny it to someone else!
The integration of Egypt’s grain-producing lands into the markets of the Empire is sometimes suggested to have created considerable price stability of grain across the Roman Empire for the next 200 years - one of many reasons why provincial unrest rarely blossomed into strong movements for independence. The Romans were callous, smug, greedy, arrogant bastards, but they also ran an unprecedented system of multi-continental economic integration which was widely recognized as a positive (even if not phrased in quite those terms).
Sea routes are the bee’s knees. Could you imagine shipping those vast amounts of grain over land routes in antiquity? Even today, freight ships are so efficient that using trucks to transport goods to a sea harbor is typically more expensive (both in monetary value and in pollution) than shipping across oceans, even if the street distance is maybe 500km and the ship is crossing literally half the world.
Exact economic numbers are hard to reconstruct, and always deeply contentious, but it was much the same in principle back then - something to the tune of ~100 miles by cart being more expensive than ~1000 miles (roughly the distance from Egypt to Rome) by sea.
Sea shipping is just incredibly efficient compared to us landlubbers.
piefed.nullspace
PugJesus
Explanation that maybe got away from me a bit: Even before it was part of the Roman Empire, the grain supply from Egypt was vital to the continued day-to-day functioning of the city of Rome. Vast amounts of grain were purchased for delivery to the capital, which by the 2nd century BCE had swollen to one of the largest cities ever known (and would eventually become the largest city in world history until London surpassed the 1 million mark around 1800 AD).
While perhaps Italy could have supplied more of Rome’s grain than it did - perhaps even all of it (at least in tandem with Sicily), a kind of issue of comparative advantage had arisen - as the Roman Republic (and Empire) expanded its reach, so too did its markets expand with the security of Roman authority and the insistent legalism of Roman contract law. The demand in the provinces for high quality wine and olive oil from Italy was far greater than the demand for wheat (whose quality is important, but not nearly to the same price point as high-quality wine or olive oil). The vast estates in Italy, and even many of the larger independent farmers, grew for sale in a well-integrated market rather than just regional subsistence.
This is actually, from an efficiency standpoint, a very good thing. More people get better wine and olive oil at cheaper prices, less land is used in the provinces for lower-quality wine and olive oil (and can thus be dedicated to local specialties themselves) and everyone benefits. Classic economics!
Only… this made Rome’s dependency on foreign grain a very serious security risk. After the Numidian (North African) King Jugurtha nearly bribed his way into cutting away a fifth of the Roman Republic’s holdings in all-but-plain-daylight, there was increased concern over the leverage that such ‘barbarians’ might hold over domestic Roman politics - considering the near-disaster with King Jugurtha, a concern not entirely without merit.
As (then-independent) Egypt was their biggest grain supplier, it was discussed that the Egyptians potentially held a strange kind of power over Roman governments - without explicitly starving even a single Roman, they could, theoretically, sabotage Roman leaders who were opposed to Egyptian interests and reinforce those in favor simply by throttling the wheat supply and driving prices in the city of Rome (all-important in Roman politics, after all) up. What is left, then, but a state in effective vassalage to another, driven not by military victory or even absolute economic strength, but simply by what leverage it gave them over the other country’s domestic politics.
What is a Republic to do?
What Rome always did (or always tried, at least) - played the game better than their opponents (including those ’opponents’ who didn’t even realize they were playing). Rome intensified their involvement in Egyptian domestic politics to the point where Egypt, without a major war, had become all-but-vassalized to Rome’s interests - and that interest was primarily buying grain. Uno reverse on the treacherous barbarians, so glad we manipulated them into subservience before they could do the same to us!
By the time of the most famous Cleopatra, the Graeco-Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty was basically dependent on the goodwill of Rome for their continued rule… and when Cleopatra picked the wrong side in a Roman civil war, the dynasty’s number was up. Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, formalized what had been the essential situation for nearly 100 years at that point, and integrated Egypt into the structures of the Roman polity. So important was the Egyptian grain supply for Rome that a later Emperor, Claudius, would grant citizenship to provincials who ran private for-profit grain routes between Rome and Egypt.
After that, Egypt would be a quiet (if extremely prosperous) breadbasket for Rome, except whenever civil wars stirred up and everyone made a mad dash to control the grain supply. The hungry plebs of the city of Rome, after all, can overthrow even an Emperor - he who controls the grain, controls the Empire! Or at least can deny it to someone else!
The integration of Egypt’s grain-producing lands into the markets of the Empire is sometimes suggested to have created considerable price stability of grain across the Roman Empire for the next 200 years - one of many reasons why provincial unrest rarely blossomed into strong movements for independence. The Romans were callous, smug, greedy, arrogant bastards, but they also ran an unprecedented system of multi-continental economic integration which was widely recognized as a positive (even if not phrased in quite those terms).
Baghdad “we were on the verge of greatness” moment. I’m sure there’s a completely peaceful reason they didn’t go for it.
Sea routes are the bee’s knees. Could you imagine shipping those vast amounts of grain over land routes in antiquity? Even today, freight ships are so efficient that using trucks to transport goods to a sea harbor is typically more expensive (both in monetary value and in pollution) than shipping across oceans, even if the street distance is maybe 500km and the ship is crossing literally half the world.
Exact economic numbers are hard to reconstruct, and always deeply contentious, but it was much the same in principle back then - something to the tune of ~100 miles by cart being more expensive than ~1000 miles (roughly the distance from Egypt to Rome) by sea.
Sea shipping is just incredibly efficient compared to us landlubbers.