Nice idea, would it be something like this, i wonder if they can build it.Title says the idea. Let us say someone such as Archimedes or Aristotle was able to build a printing press before the birth of Christ.
Possible impact on history?
Nothing, unless someone make effort to do significant things with it. :V
Well, I dunno. What's the impact of OTL invention of printing press and what polisocioeconomic factor that make it so?
It will require an explosion of literacy to really impact society. Europe had an increasing literacy rate when the printing press was created, which meant a large audience for printed works. A printer could support himself on printing local stuff as well as reprinting out of town items for people to buy and read. A lot of this came from the expanding schooling system which was supported and often partly paid for by the Catholic Church, although there were also Protestant and Secular movements towards universal education.
From I understand in the Hellenic timeperiod most people couldn't read? If you don't have a good part of your society as literate, then it doesn't matter how cheap it is to make books on a certain level.
Could a printing press start a drive towards universal education and thus create a larger literate population?
From what I understand, Rome was able to do a lot of what it did thanks in part by it's vastly more educated populous, more than the 20% described. Maybe 20% in our definition, but likely far higher in the Roman definition.Literacy rates in Rome where as high as 20% at times and this was concentrated among the wealthy and their servents aka those with spending money.
I think a printing press could prove quite popular in that time.
The Industrial Revolution needed things like high-quality steel to be even kickstarted as said high-quality steel in massive amounts is what allowed steam engines to be actually effective.To address the elephant in the room, the common trope of this leading to an early industrial revolution is pretty unlikely.
Definitely not a significantly earlier one, but a slightly earlier one. Because as long as the importance of the PP is realised, many, and I mean many documents that were lost in places like Alexandria due to it being a case of one version or such would suddenly have the potential to have been replicated, thus saving some good and tasty knowledge for the literate of the time.To address the elephant in the room, the common trope of this leading to an early industrial revolution is pretty unlikely.
Unless Papyrus has been weaved with Asbestos? Complete and utter crap outside of Egypt. China would likely be the first to fully utilize the printing press because they used hemp-paper (paper made out of hemp pulp) since the BCE 100s or earlier... or so I've read.How good is papyrus compared to paper? As in, availability and compatibility with a printing press?
No, Papyrus is practically useless as a printable medium as outside of Egypt itself due to Papyrus's quirks. China is going to be the one using it until (viable) wood-pulp paper gets invented as it utilized hemp-pulp paper since China started utilizing it ~100 BC and was effectively federalized under the Han Dynasty in 105 AD. If anything, the Han would probably federalize the manufacture of printing presses as well to consolidate it's power.So even if a printing press is invented, it won't see much use because of the lack of an affordable and reasonably robust medium, at least outside of the Mediterranean region?
Not that it matters for the scenario since the Romans won't be industrialising either way, but I'm pretty IR-era England used wind and water power more than it did steam power?The Industrial Revolution needed things like high-quality steel to be even kickstarted as said high-quality steel in massive amounts is what allowed steam engines to be actually effective.
Nope, it was steam engines that made the Industrial Revolution possible, as they were far more effective at powering equipment that drains the mines than all other forms of power at the time. This quickly spread to other industries rather quickly once steam engines started to get around.Not that it matters for the scenario since the Romans won't be industrialising either way, but I'm pretty IR-era England used wind and water power more than it did steam power?