the decline of their political rights, economic growth
likewise declined.
A remarkable thing about new technologies in the
Roman period is that their creation and spread seem to
have been driven by the state. This is good news, until the
government decides that it is not interested in technological
development—an all-too-common occurrence due to the
fear of creative destruction. The great Roman writer Pliny
the Elder relates the following story. During the reign of the
emperor Tiberius, a man invented unbreakable glass and
went to the emperor anticipating that he would get a great
reward. He demonstrated his invention, and Tiberius asked
him if he had told anyone else about it. When the man
replied no, Tiberius had the man dragged away and killed,
“lest gold be reduced to the value of mud.” There are two
interesting things about this story. First, the man went to
Tiberius in the first place for a reward, rather than setting
himself up in business and making a profit by selling the
glass. This shows the role of the Roman government in
controlling technology. Second, Tiberius was happy to
destroy the innovation because of the adverse economic
effects it would have had. This is the fear of the economic
effects of creative destruction.
There is also direct evidence from the period of the
Empire of the fear of the political consequences of creative
destruction. Suetonius tells how the emperor Vespasian,
who ruled between AD 69 and 79, was approached by a
man who had invented a device for transporting columns to
the Capitol, the citadel of Rome, at a relatively small cost.
Columns were large, heavy, and very difficult to transport.
Moving them to Rome from the mines where they were
made involved the labor of thousands of people, at great
expense to the government. Vespasian did not kill the man,
but he also refused to use the innovation, declaring, “How
will it be possible for me to feed the populace?” Again an
inventor came to the government. Perhaps this was more
natural than with the unbreakable glass, as the Roman
government was most heavily involved with column mining
and transportation. Again the innovation was turned down
because of the threat of creative destruction, not so much
because of its economic impact, but because of fear of
political creative destruction. Vespasian was concerned