[labster]

Environmental disasters existed, sure, but they were mostly called something like "the vengeance of the gods". Most of them do represent a form of Themic justice, as our human hubris at being lords of this world causes us to be swept away by storm or fire.

[comicjk]

Let me quote you a passage about Roman gold mines:

"Over the pockmarked landscape there would invariably hang a pall of smog belched out from the smelting furnaces through giant chimneys, and so heavy with chemicals that it burned the naked skin and turned it white. Birds would die if they flew through the fumes. As Roman power spread the gas clouds were never far behind."

I agree, though, that this kind of problem was localized and was not in the minds of Romans the way it is in ours.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> this kind of problem was localized

I wouldn't consider the mass deforestation of the entire Mediterranean basin "localized".