Relative transport costs in Roman and Medieval Times

[71-hour Ahmed]

A large number of references I've read over the years have described one of the critical problems for the roman empire historically as the high cost of transporting goods, particularly food, by road. Hence it cost as much to move grain 75 miles as it did to move it across the whole Mediterranean, and this make trade hard to develop, limited the inland economies and made towns heavily dependent on a small radius around them for food unless they were by the coast.

However, I've never quite understood 2 things:

1) Why was the cost so high for land based transport? One slave, one cart, one oxen to pull it, a few tonnes of grain in the cart; surely that wouldn't be that expensive?

And 2) How this relates to the Medieval periods, i.e. post-Rome. Were costs lower in later years, and if so why? The romans had good roads, so I can only assume that it was some other factor that was dictating the issue. Alternatively did Medieval Europe have the same problem?

Anyone who can help answer these or has anything additional to say, thanks in advance.

[Kagemusha]

A large number of references I've read over the years have described one of the critical problems for the roman empire historically as the high cost of transporting goods, particularly food, by road. Hence it cost as much to move grain 75 miles as it did to move it across the whole Mediterranean, and this make trade hard to develop, limited the inland economies and made towns heavily dependent on a small radius around them for food unless they were by the coast.

However, I've never quite understood 2 things:

1) Why was the cost so high for land based transport? One slave, one cart, one oxen to pull it, a few tonnes of grain in the cart; surely that wouldn't be that expensive?

And 2) How this relates to the Medieval periods, i.e. post-Rome. Were costs lower in later years, and if so why? The romans had good roads, so I can only assume that it was some other factor that was dictating the issue. Alternatively did Medieval Europe have the same problem?

Anyone who can help answer these or has anything additional to say, thanks in advance.

The amount which could be moved with single vehicle was far smaller and distance which it could be moved was far shorter via road, rather then sea. Also the transport animals needed large amount of food to consume. When you were moving food via sea, a single ship could carry large amount of grain for example, with lot more cost effective way, the main factor being the speed which it could travel, compared to energy needed to move the ship. This is why large grain shipments were moved via sea, while local grown food stuff was moved via roads.

You can easily imagine that if you sent a ship from Alexandria, full of grain to Rome and it arrived in couple weeks, the crew would have consumed relatively small amount of the grain themselves.While had you sent a oxen cart from Alexandria full of Grain, you can think how far it would have reached before the cart would have been empty.

[CBR]

Even today ships are cheaper as less manpower and fuel is needed.

A simple example would be one horse pulling say a ton of cargo (a bit high perhaps) You need one driver and the fodder for one horse for something that can move one ton perhaps 20-40 Km a day.

Then compare with ships where there is less than one crewmember per ton of cargo and no fodder to worry about. Depending on wind a ship could be several times faster than the wagon.

In medieval times several things happened. The introduction of the horse collar that meant a horse could pull more without strangling itself. And ship types like the cog that gradually increased in size over the centuries, enabling more cargo per crewmember.


CBR

[King Henry V]

I believe under the Emperor Theodosius, carts carrying more than a certain weight were prohibited, which probably made land transport more costly. In the Middle Ages, this prohibition didn't exist.

[Prince Cobra]

Look The Fourth Crusade. There was a precise sum that was mentioned for trnsporting a whole army. It was expensive since Venice was in a very good position to negotiate and because it had to build more ships that increased the cost.

[Knight of the Rose]

Another factor to consider was the numerous tolls and taxes applied to land trade, wherever a local strong man could pull it off. You often needed to pay to cross a bridge, pass a village, use a road and the like.

But volume was also very important, and meant that rivers and canals were used inland was much as possible, as it was both faster and bigger than land transport. If you look at the map, big cities and population centers almost always sprung up at a river or a good port.

/KotR