If you were sent back to the roman era and could only bring a backpack of goods. What would you bring?
If you were sent back to the roman era and could only bring a backpack of goods. What would you bring?
If you were sent back to the roman era and could only bring a backpack of goods. What would you bring?
A book with pictures detailing all the processes required to make paper, and the schematics for a printing press. I know better than to presume my knowledge of electricity will be of any use, I know better than to think that I understand math better than ancient mathematicians, and I know better than to try to convince them that tiny little creatures are what cause illness. What I can do is jump-start humanity's ascent to modern technology by improving literacy a few centuries early
Current geological mineral distribution map. A dozen ball screws, some linear rods, bearings, grease. A dozen staters of various sizes, and a few hundred thousand diodes, maybe millions. Then as much enameled copper wire and magnet steel as I could carry. Then a e-paper tablet with a long list of patent documents, along with text books from Primary school clear to graduate level physics, chemistry, and math.
Then I would lug a vintage mini lathe over my shoulder for the few steps I have to take because you didn't specify how far I have to walk.
I should be able to make the industrial revolution from there.
...welcome to 1500 years in the future...now!
If I'm going to be transported to the European peninsula too, besides time travelling, I'd want at least:
- my laptop. Download everything from multiple Wikipedias, including the Italian one for good measure. (Why Italian? Largest Wikipedia in a Romance language that I'm proficient with.)
- some charger for the above. I don't even mind if manual.
- Latin vocabulary printed book. I can speak some but I'm not proficient in the language.
- Some silver and gold. Money back in Roman times was still based on the value of the coins. And money never hurts.
- Clothes carefully prepared to not look Roman, but typical enough from the times. The idea is to pass as a cultured barbarian from a tribe that is too far away from Rome to bother.
There's a legend that the Roman Emperor Tiberius executed the inventor of flexible glass.
After the inventor swore that he was the only man alive who knew the manufacturing technique, Tiberius had the man beheaded. He feared that the glass would devalue gold and silver, since the material might be more valuable.
So y'all better watch out with any plastic...
Remember that old reddit post where someone asked "what if a battalion of marines were suddenly zapped back to the roman era with all their gear and stuff, what would happen?" and somebody answered with a full on novel they titled "Rome, Sweet Rome" and some time later some Hollywood dude bought the rights to it?
Without doing any research, the answer is "watchmaking tools." Equipment to make small things like watches, and revolvers and what ever you'd need to start a factory. A few things like microscope, binoculars.
They had good craftspeople on hand, just need a little push to start an Industrial Revolution.
An English-Latin phrasebook, a survival manual explaining how to recognize plants, grow food, handle livestock, set traps, and make simple shelter, e-reader loaded with modern books and a usb solar panel, a multitool, sewing kit, a small dagger, cerium/magnesium flint, first-aid kit, antibiotics, water treatment (Sodium Dichloro-S-Triazinetrione), preservative and neutralizer (sodium metabisulfite), salt, potassium chloride, peanut butter.
But I'd probably be quickly ambushed and killed nonetheless, or hauled off to the slave markets.
Either 1, a bunch of textbooks and encyclopedias. Or 2, a tablet/computer with said texts downloaded, a battery pack for said tablet/computer, and a few fold out solar panels or maybe one of those hand crank things. If I still have space I'd bring a soldering iron, a bunch of tips for it, flux and a bunch of different solders. Maybe a few spare parts for the laptop.
Cipromax, isoproyl alcohol, neosporin, and and as many Band-Aids as I could stuff. I'll make room for an English-latin dictionary.
Maybe one of those "facts about everything" almanacs in the outside pocket, because I'm too stupid to remember my sines and cosines or the difference between sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate. I can figure out the rest from there.
A ton of medicine and tampons, a Latin dictionary, my thermos bottle, some valuables to sell, etc.
A latin/english dictionary.
An Uzi, lots of ammo, some gold, and instructions on how to make steel, precision lathes and mills, lasers, silicone, computer chips, computers, nuclear reactors, internal combustion engines, rifles, the complete works of Sir Isaac Newton, Einstein, Hawkins, and everyone else, translated into Latin, and a bunch of other shit. I'm going to get into Caesar's favor and propel humanity forward 2000 years. Long live Rome!
Spices, all knowledge I can carry as microfiche tapes, magnifying glass, a domesticated strain of penicillin, and seeds of modern crops.
I will be able to talk to at least some of their merchants for, ahem, reasons. From then on I have at least some chance of survival.
Guns.
"Y'all don't need to stab Julius. I got you. And you, too, Brutus."
Without reading other answers, that certainly makes more sense than mine, I would take a cake. Like the best cake i ever ate in my life and eat it all immediately after being sent in Roman era. Because if I'm getting fucked at least let's enjoy a last meal and nothing else i could take would matter. Guns, medicines,..? It would all run out anyway and it wouldn't make me king of something.
Edit: and also a bottle of good wine because Roman win tasted like vinegar.
Antibiotics, and tea
Analine purple will improve the colors of European flags (rather than sea-snail purple which is more expensive than gold.)
My university level math, physics, statics/dynamics and strength+materials textbooks.
Antibiotics. All of the antibiotics. Textbooks, dictionary, precious metals, etc.
Can I order these goods from our time travling agent? Maybe a pocket electron microscope, a bunch of capsule corp products, sanitation pills, maybe the bugout bag of some rich future CEO near the end of capitalism
Automatic crossbows, so Rome can become eternal
History books
Almanacs and caffeine tablets.
Permanently Deleted
Medicine, math books, literature, some small computers and devices
my handsaws, planes and chisels. Modern metals are much better than t
anything they had. Then plans for a spinning wheel and loom. That would revolutionalize womens work (sexist times) and in turn mean many women would be grateful to me and willing to show it in bed.
