Re: An arabo-romance conlang?

 > It's difficult to imagine why Romans might want to settle
 > there 2000 years back unless, in some alternative history, Archimedes was
 > not killed in the sack of Syracuse but settled in Roman & invented the
 > internal combustion engine and then the Romans discovered gulf oil   :)


Perhaps not so farfetched.  As you know, Heron of Alexandria (floruit
AD 62) did develop a small steam-engine, but it was never anything but a
toy.  If it had taken off, though, oil is just as useful in
external-combustion  engines.

Internal combustion requires machining parts with greater tolerances
than the Romans could have managed, I think.

--
There is / one art             || John Cowan <jcowan@...>
no more / no less              || http://www.reutershealth.com
to do / all things             || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
with art- / lessness           \\ -- Piet Hein