The Roman Occupation

timberlandko wrote:

An afterthought here - it was the Roman Latifundia land distribution/management system, which essentially formed the basis of the Feudal System - that stuck around a good long while throughout the entire area once encompassed by the Roman Empire.

Well, "mainly in Britain and Italy" would be more correct, I think, then

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throughout the entire area once encompassed by the Roman Empire

:wink:

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I dunno 'bout that Walter - Feudal was all the rage on The Continent for a good while ... there were knights and castles and feifdoms and flags all over the place. A veritable plague of 'em.

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Probably the most significant residual influence of the Roman occupation of Britain was the idea that Britain was and could be a unified political and cultural whole. It was not before the occupation and much of the history of the 5th through 9th century can be explained in terms of attempts to reestablish that unity. There has always been a tension in British political culture between local control and national control. The former existed both before and immediately after the Roman occupation. Much of the political history of Britain since the 9th century has been attempts to mediate between the two concepts. If you can, you might find and read the book, " The Age of Arthur" by John morris. It was published in 1972 and has been long out of print and some of its ideas have been superseded by subsequent scholarship. But its' major focus is the end of Roman Britain and the imprint the romans left on Britain (It is not about King Arthur).

You also might want to look at the following web site such is a serious scholarly discussion of the end of Roman Britain. This site has links to other similar sites.

http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/

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timberlandko wrote:

I dunno 'bout that Walter - Feudal was all the rage on The Continent for a good while ... there were knights and castles and feifdoms and flags all over the place. A veritable plague of 'em.

Yes, that's how our Germanic ancestors organized their life :wink:

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LOL @ (and with) Walter Laughing

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Latifundia, btw, survived in America as a semifeudal institution.
-by Iberian settlers, perpetuated in the hacienda;
- in the extensive grain cultivations in the USA and Canada.

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Am reading a book on the beginnings of the Western Medieval economy by the late French historian, Georges Duby, which clears up some of the misconceptions popularly held about feudalism and the fall of Rome. Duby suggests the situation was dynamic, with the dying of Rome and the rise of the Germanic tribes. He's a great follower of Marcel Mauss and subscribes to the gift theory, which is alright. The translation, unfortunately, is abysmal.

At the same time, I'm reading The Age of Pilgrimage by Jonathan Sumption (I misplace books so that I need to read two at a time, esp., since I'm a substitute teacher who needs to occupy her time.), which actually makes a splendid companion piece.

I had an epiphany in the Museum of Fine Arts. I was with my late friend Mary who was an art historian and we walked out of a gallery with exquisite metal work from the late Classical world into a reconstructed Medieval chapel with crudely carved wooden figures. "Mary! Look at this, " I said and then steered her back to the metal work. I told her what I had seen and said no wonder people speak of the Dark Ages and the Fall of Rome. We re-entered the chapel and she saw it as well.

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timberlandko wrote:

One thing re the Celts - the Romans pretty much wrote off Ireland as being unworth the effort. One Roman commander observed he couldn't understand why a people with so little would fight so visciously to keep it to themselves.

Did he notice that while there on holiday did he? Or from what he read in the brochures? Rolling Eyes

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Vivien wrote:

their roads had a huge impact that is visible to this day,.

was about to point that out till I saw the two posts mentioning road construction
its useful to consider what a Legion actually was
most of the time youd consider them more of a construction company than a police force or a standing Army
Keeping the legions busy building, kept them out of more serious trouble
(principles employed with peacetime warriors to this day)

one of the great advantages the empire had was that of logistics,
the network of roads that allowed that was a prime concern
outside of England the engine that made the Empire work was the
Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) the road system throughout Europe just an extention of that engine

the road systems, and corridors of trade, and founding of towns was infrastructure largely adopted throughout Europe

plainoldme, you might want to give Herwig Wolfram's works a review
hes a noted author on the Goths, and a Professor of History at the University of Vienna
I particularly enjoyed "The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples"
its well translated and available from the University of California Press, Berkeley

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The Roman road system extended from Britain to the Tigris-Euphrates river system and from the Danube River to Spain and northern Africa.

In all, the Romans built more than 50,000 miles (80,000 km) of hard-surfaced highway.

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Ice Czar -- Sounds good to me. Although I was in the Celtic Studies department, a great many historians have trouble separating Celts and germans, esp when it comes to the source of the word, "iron."

Besides, even in the so-called Dark Ages, none of these peoples existed in a vaccuum. They traded with each other.

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gav wrote:

timberlandko wrote:
One thing re the Celts - the Romans pretty much wrote off Ireland as being unworth the effort. One Roman commander observed he couldn't understand why a people with so little would fight so visciously to keep it to themselves.

Did he notice that while there on holiday did he? Or from what he read in the brochures?

Agricola, military commander of Britania late in the 1st Century, actually set his sites on Ireland:

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BBC: Northern Ireland Timeline - Agricola's invasion plan AD 82

In AD 82 Gnaeus Julius Agricola, governor of Britain, summoned his fleet into the Solway Firth to take aboard his waiting cohorts. Ulster was directly across the sea and this land he meant to conquer - a climax to a dazzling career that the empire would not forget ...

'I have often heard him say', his son-in-law Tacitus wrote, 'that Ireland could be conquered and held by one legion and a modest force of auxiliary troops.'

"Ireland, being between Britain and Spain and conveniently situated for the seas round Gaul, might have been the means of connecting with great mutual benefit the most powerful parts of the empire ... I have often heard him say that a single legion with a few auxiliaries could conquer and occupy Ireland, and that it would have a salutary effect on Britain for the Roman arms to be seen everywhere, and for freedom, so to speak, to be banished from its sight." (Tacitus, Life and Character of Cnaeus Julius Agricola, 24)

The Romans were familiar with Ireland, and had some considerable intercourse with the island. The Irish themselves were not particularly welcoming to the Romans, Agricola's confidence notwithstanding.

Quote:

From: British Archaeology, no 12, March 1996
Roman Ireland
The discovery of a possible Roman fort at Drumanagh, 15 miles north of Dublin, suggests the Romans may have invaded Ireland after all. The heavily-defended, 40-acre coastal site has produced 1st and 2nd century Roman coins, but its significance is disputed. Some claim it may have been a Roman bridgehead, used as a base for military campaigns inland, whereas others argue the site was simply a native Celtic settlement with evidence for trade with Roman Britain. The discovery, announced last month, was made a decade ago but kept secret because of a legal dispute over the ownership of finds from the site.

See also:

Roman Ireland: Di Martino, V, Collins Press, London, UK, 2003

The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (3 Vols): Martindale, J. R. (Editor), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1992

Encyclopedia of Irish History and Culture: Connelly Jr., J.S., Bottigheimer, K. S., Daly, M. E., Doan, J. E., Miller, D. W., and Donnelly, J. S. (Editors), Macmillan, Oxford, UK , 2004

Rome may never have established in Ireland anything like what they did in Britania, but they were there.

The Celts had quite a reputation, as evidenced in these Roman comments on the Celts (Celts in general, not specifically Irish Celts - note as well the Roman term was "Gaels"):

"And therefore, if roused, they come together all at once for the struggle, both openly and without circumspection, so that for those who wish to defeat them by stratagem they become easy to deal with. In fact, irritate them when, where, or by what chance pretext you please, and you have them ready to risk their lives, with nothing to help them in the struggle but might and daring. (Strabo, Geography, 4,4,2)

"These, when there is occasion, upon the incidence of a war - and before Caesar's coming this would happen well-nigh every year, in the sense that they would either be making wanton attacks themselves or repelling such - are all engaged therein; and according to the importance of each of them in birth and resources, so is the number of liegemen [ambacti, a Celtic word, probably means armed retainers; see 7,40] and clients that he has about him. This is the one form of influence and power known to them.' (Caesar, Gallic War, 6,15)

"Certain of them despise death to such a degree that they enter the perils of battle without protective armour and with no more than a girdle about their loins"(Diodorus Siculus 5,29)

"And in pursuance of their savage ways they manifest an outlandish impiety also with respect to their sacrifices; for their criminals they keep prisoner for five years and then impale in honour of the gods, dedicating them together with many other offerings of first-fruits and constructing pyres of great size. Captives are also used by them as victims for their sacrifices in honour of the gods. Certain of them likewise slay, together with the human beings, such animals as are taken in war, or burn them or do away with them in some other vengeful fashion.' (Diodorus Siculus 5,32)

And just to Irishly tweak a little Britanic tail, how do you suppose Scotland got its name, and who brought the Stone of Scone to Scotland, and from whence came the name "Albion"?

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The Agricola is a very entertaining read. It is worth noting that there was an Ascotti auxilliary unit which served with the Gallic heavy infantry.

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Could be wrong, Set ... but I figure those of us actually familiar with, let alone entertained by writings of the likes of Julius Caesar, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, and Tacitus are a real minority group hereabouts Laughing

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I'd say so, too, Timber. Whenever someone has come here with ludicrous notions of what the Roman Empire might have been like (lately, that seems to have been informed by that goofy movie about gladiators), i recommend Seutonius, Titus Livius, Polybius, Tacitus, etc.--secure in the assumption that they never will read it, and therefore be unable to challenge my point of view.

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It would not surprise me if Rome kept a presence on the Irish coast. Ireland produce a little gold but it was not worth the expense of occupying it. The real concern was control of the Irish sea and there were a series of navel stations up the west coast of Britain that were quick response bases to Irish "pirates" . Other than racking up points ie Agricola, Ireland was not worth the effort. Neither was Britain for that mater. The original rational for occupying the island was a flanking maneuver aimed at an eventual occupation of Germany. That never developed and Rome was stuck with an expensive and not always grateful province.

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You know, Acq, Iulius Ceasar invaded Britain the first time, disasterously, because he alleged that it was a priveleged sanctuary for Gallic resistance to Roman occupation. He went back, in my never humble opinion, out of wounded pride. I think that was the motive more than any other for the continued occupation of Britain, and of course, the Romans were ever loathe, for reasons of policy, to give up any ground they had conquered.

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I haven't read Tacitus et al, but follow this thread with interest.

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Set

Besides that I think, the disaster started when the invasion began:
- the fleet was only comstructed for the Mediterrnean Sea,
- the tidal periods and patterns were totally surprising for Romans.

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The use of Mediteranean style vessels by the Romans was disasterous. Julius Caesar failed in his invasion (but, I wonder how many Gauls even knew about him?) , although claudius' forces finally secured the island.

The Irish traded up and down the coast of what is now France and were among the first subscribers to Isidore of Seville's Encyclopedia.

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The Roman Occupation

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