Comment by aurizon

Basically, lack of IP protection = no patent or copyright. Now our patent length is OK, but copyright is far too long. In old Rome, if you made a new process, you locked up the shop and kept it secret. Anyone steal the secret and you could do nothing. There are stories of Roman senators killing inventors to maintain a controlled market. In addition, Rome had zero electronics, and no document tradition via printed books = all hand copies(printing in old China) There some relics that hint at plating cells for silver and perhaps gold, but no firm data