Romans in Ireland?

[Frosty]

I agree with the resources arguement. No offence to the Irish, but compared to the island of Britain, Ireland lacks natural resources. Britian had not just tin, but gold in Wales, navigable rivers etc. Although, if the Romans managed to make it as far as Britain surley they would have been curious as to what was the other side of the Irish sea?

Josh

[Celtic505]

I tend to agree the lack of natural resources would suffice as a reason for the Romans never taking the Island, but how would they have known this without exploring the whole isle? Would they have just taken the locals word for it if they did in fact bring an expedition over? How would they know this? I am all for this theory of lack of gain for their conquests, but how would they have figured this out without exploring the whole island?

[Q. Vipsanivs Praetextatvs]

Celtic505, Caesar before her expedition to Britain asked to the dealers (of Gaul) for know something about the island, it is a good source.
It can be an answer to your question.

[Celtic505]

Thank you Vipsanivs

[Chilperic]

As far as I can tell, no one seems to have bought the idea that this site is a 'fort', so the trading site remains more popular. Even so it doesn't seem to have made anyone rethink the broad outlines of Romano-Hibernian contact.

The evidence for contact between Ireland and the Empire is surprisingly thin. It falls into two halves separated by the third century when there are apparently no finds of Roman material, at all, in Ireland.

In the early period (C.1-2) it seems that the finds are thinly spread but suggestive of economic links.

In the later period they are not necessarily more numerous (indeed I think slightly less so) but more concentrated and include higher-value objects (IIRC) that have suggested more political contact, diplomatic gifts and so on. But there are traces of other influence. The Ogam alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, for instance. The Christianisation of Ireland might have begun in the late fourth century (St Patrick being notoriously difficult to date). It is also possible that service in the Roman army increased (as well as raiding).
Irish society began to undergo colossal change in the later fourth century, which might, as elsewhere in barbaricum, be linked to increased contact with the Empire.

Some bibliography:
Barry, T., (ed.) (2000). A History of Settlement in Ireland (London).
Cooney, G., & Grogan, E., (1994). Irish Prehistory: A Social Perspective (Dublin).
Dolley, M., (1976). ‘Roman coin hoards from Ireland and the date of Saint Patrick’, in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1976), pp.181-90.
Edwards, N., (1990). The Archaeology of Early Medieval Ireland (London).
Freeman, P., (2001). Ireland and the Classical World (Austin, TX).
Harbison, P., (1988). Pre-Christian Ireland (London).
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1976). Colloquium on Hiberno-Roman Relations and Material Remains (September 1974).
Mytum, H. (1992). The Origins of Early Christian Ireland (London).
Ó Cróinín, D., (1995). Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200 (London)
Rance, P., (2001). ‘Attacotti, Déisi and Magnus Maximus: the case for Irish federates in late Roman Britain.’ Britannia 32:243-70.
The last is interesting and (IMO) very plausible but needs a bit of a 'handle with care' notice as it is based on much later legendary material.

Cheers,
Guy

[Robert Vermaat]

(4)Chester was the biggest Roman fort in the Roman world Why would that be :?:

Says who?

Why would Chester be 'the biggest Roman fort' anyway? Afaik, Chester was a legionary fort, meant for a single legion. There were forts for several legions elsewhere (like Germany), why would Chester be larger than those?

[D B Campbell]

(4)Chester was the biggest Roman fort in the Roman world Why would that be :?:

Biggest fort(ress)? Chester (I believe) was 25ha in size. Bonn was 27ha. Castra Vetera was 56ha! (... but was designed for two legions.)

[Ceannt]

Sorry :oops: my bad what i ment to say was Chester's (deva) was the biggest fort in the western Roman world (At 60 acers). I got the info from watching A new show on the History Channel (Brittan's lost megger fortress) and i was reading a book Chesters City of Eagles i think the name of the book was.



(I agree with the resources arguement. No offence to the Irish, but compared to the island of Britain, Ireland lacks natural resources. Britian had not just tin, but gold in Wales, navigable rivers etc. Although, if the Romans managed to make it as far as Britain surley they would have been curious as to what was the other side of the Irish sea? )

Thats is un-true Ireland had gold and some of the best gold smith's in the world. irish gold was found as far as france i think,

[Robert Vermaat]

Sorry :oops: my bad what i ment to say was Chester's (deva) was the biggest fort in the western Roman world (At 60 acers). I got the info from watching A new show on the History Channel (Brittan's lost megger fortress) and i was reading a book Chesters City of Eagles i think the name of the book was.

Well, 60.9 to be exact, which was indeed larger than the other legionary fortresses in Britain, but since it was meant as the central base for conquest and pacification of Britain, the size should not be surprising. Inchtuthil was 53.73 acres, not that much smaller.

But then, there are a lot of temporary camps larger than this, ranging up tp 130 acres, as you can read in this article about temporary camps.

Thats is un-true Ireland had gold and some of the best gold smith's in the world. irish gold was found as far as france i think,

No doubt about that, but one can doubt if the supply of gold alone would be reason enough for an occupation.

[Marcus Cassius LegioXIV]

Thats is un-true Ireland had gold and some of the best gold smith's in the world. irish gold was found as far as france i think,

No doubt about that, but one can doubt if the supply of gold alone would be reason enough for an occupation.[/quote]

Wasn't that a big reason to take and hold Dacia was the gold there? At least thats what I've heard.

[Casmin]

St Patrick was taken before the Romanarmy pulled out of Britan (410A.D)
so he could have considered himself Roman

Well, he was "Roman", however, that's not what I was disputing. I was just clarifying that because St. Patrick preached in Ireland does not add evidence that the island itself was under Roman control.

[Ceannt]

Maybe not in the sense of a military conquest but it is very hard to belive that Rome did not take a look at this island of mine 8) ) [/i] It was only a day's saling.

[Celtic505]

I agree the city of Cork is the TRUE capitol of Ireland, but that obvious fact aside, It makes sense the Romans would at least scope out the area, and it would seem in their culture the lure of conquest and gaining more territory would be enough, maybe we're missing a bigger part of the picture? Or perhaps it is as monetary reasons for not pursuing. Maybe they would have liked to have regained all of britain before pursuing its neighboring island? just speculating here.

[Robert Vermaat]

People, before this thread wavers off into endless speculation about woulda/coulda theories, maybe we should stick to realistic discussion?

Fact: no source ever claimed that the Romans either visited or conquered Ireland.
Fact: at some point the Romans gave up on the idea of controlling the whole of Britain.

Now, what we can theoriese over is wheather the Romans had a look at Ireland (I assume they did) and pondered the pros and cons of conquest (I assume they did). But beyond that, we know nothing. Nothing about meddling in political affairs, nothing about alliances a la Britain (there's obviously no 'Irish Fishbourne'!), nothing about coastal forts or things like that.

Personally I think that, despite Irish gold or whatever attractions the island had, the Romans always lacked the military resources to also conquer Ireland when they were still pacifying Britain. Later, when Britain was sorta under control, they needed their legiones elsewhere, in the East. Plus, I think that, unlike Britain, Ireland never posed enough of a threat to pose the need to conquer it. Later, when Scotti raids started, the time of conquest had already passed of course.

Maybe if the Irish had been more of a pest during the 1st and 2nd centuries, Rome would have been tempted to conquer them!

[Chilperic]

I would have to agree with Robert that this thread is much too counter-factual.

I am not even sure that the assumption that the Romans 'must have' or 'would have' considered conquering Ireland necessarily follows. The Romans were hugely ill-informed about Ireland. You only have to read Strabo, Pliny and Dio to see that. As far as they were concerned it was the end of the earth and so its occupants have all the features of ultra-barbarians from the World's End - canibalism; compete sexual license, etc etc.

Roman conquest tends to follow a period of profound contact between the locals and the Roman Empire, sometimes in the form of raiding (as Robert says) but also in the form of trading. The sum total of Roman finds in Ireland is minimal by comparison with any other area beyond the western limites - even Scandinavia. And the evidence of anything from Ireland in the Empire less still (although if, as later, it was things like slaves and hunting dogs there would be no archaeological evidence, we'd still expect to find in Ireland what the Irish were getting in return). Even in the fifth and sixth century, when the Mediterranean trade routes incorporated the Irish Sea, imported Mediterranean pottery is overwhelmingly found on the British (Cornish and Welsh) sides of the sea. There is very little on the Irish side before the late sixth and seventh century, when a: it comes from France, and b: important changes had been worked through in Irish society and politics.

None of this is surprising. Before the fourth century, the evidence we have is of a rather static society and economy that had changed little in centuries, based upon pastoralism. It may have been organised into large but loose kinship-based kingdoms but seems poor. Craftmanship levels were high at the political centres (based on large ritual centres - hinting at the way these units were bound together) but not widespread. Ireland seems poor and inward-looking and it's little surprise that the Romans took little or no interest in the place.

One thing we have to be very careful about is imorting the pictures of Irish society and politics that we have from the early Christian period, whether from historical or archaeological sources (not least the famous Irish metalwork of later eras), back into the Roman Iron Age. Irish archaeology and closer study of the written sources, especially the legandary ones, makes it clear that from the fourth century until the seventh, Irish society underwent a series of what can only be called revolutionary changes, one result of which was a greater involvement in European culture. All the 'classic' features of early Christian Irleland - politics based upon small political units based upon small fortified farmsteads (raths/cashels), based on dairy farming, etc etc - can all be traced back to those changes and thus can't be projected back into Irish 'prehistory'. Those changes buried traditional Irish Iron Age society for ever.

Guy