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Trade routes and merchant ships
#16
I second the Barry Cunliffe book as a good read... from memory, he describes two routes north from Marseilles - north up the Rhone into central and eastern France, and another going via Toulouse and then downstream to Bordeaux and from there up the coast to N.W.France and across the Channel to Cornwall. <p></p><i></i>
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#17
Mediterranean to North Sea trade was probably mostly through Gaul rather than round Spain. Gaul's convenient river network was praised by ancient authors (for example Strabo). There were well-organized corporations of nautae on the Rhone, Saone, Loire, Seine and Mosel, whose prime role seems to have been transferring goods from one waterway to another. Towns often sprang up at convenient points for such transfers: Lugdunum (Lyon), for example, lay at the centre of Agrippa’s road network and at the confluence of Rhone and Saone, whilst Colonia Agrippina (Koln) combined a river-port with routes to the Channel and by road to Lugdunum. Chalon-sur-Saone was another such transfer point.<br>
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Dressel I amphorae occur in prodigious quantities in Gaul, an estimated 200,000-500,000 on the river bed at Chalon-sur-Saone, for example, and a similar number at Toulouse. And presumably these are the ones which were lost or broken when being transferred from one form of transport to another, so the actual number getting through must have been greater: if only one hundred shiploads like the Albenga wreck got through each year, that would be one million amphorae annually.<br>
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The Albenga wreck – at 450 tonnes not atypical in size – contained some 10,000 amphorae, or 250,000 litres of wine: that at Madrague de Giens (off Toulon) of 60 BC was similar in size and carried something between 5800 and 7800 amphorae. At the time that this trade was taking place one amphora of wine was allegedly worth one slave to the Gauls: so the Albenga wreck had a cargo worth ten thousand slaves... I wonder what the insurance premiums were on that!<br>
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Water transport was by far the cheapest bulk method in the ancient world. One historian (AHM Jones, I think) calculated, from Diocletian’s price edict, that it would be cheaper to ship grain from one end of the empire to the other than to haul it seventy-five miles by land. He calculated that the price differential was anything between 1:28 to 1:62 in water transport’s favour.<br>
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Attempts were often made to bypass those places where land transport had to be used to bridge the gap between waterways. These included projects to build canals in order to connect one waterway with another; for example, the fossa Corbulonis joining the Meuse and Rhine, to make it unnecessary to unload goods for a 23 mile journey to the next waterway, and an ambitious but unsuccessful attempt to link the Saone and Mosel so as to create a direct water route from Mediterranean to North Sea. You've also got Nero's attempt to build a canal in Italy from Puteoli to Rome, and many early imperial canals in north-east Italy.<br>
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Shaun <p></p><i></i>
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#18
Salve Shaun!<br>
You seem to have done a lot of studies of commercial traffic. Have any favorite topics? <p>Legio XX<br>
Caupona Asellinae</p><i></i>
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#19
salve Rich<br>
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I'm afraid that my post was just a re-hash of ideas from a decade-old undergraduate essay on transport systems... Who am I kidding? Fifteen year old essay.<br>
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No favourite topics; I'm a classicist by profession and so all of RCT, RAT and GAT fascinates. I've only just figured out how to post on RCT and GAT, though, and had to bin my old RAT ID of ShaunH to do so. Couldn't figure out this local/global stuff so started again from scratch.<br>
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Shaun <p></p><i></i>
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#20
Glad to have you whatever the circumstances!<br>
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<p>Legio XX<br>
Caupona Asellinae</p><i></i>
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#21
Much has been said about the economic situation but not much about the Roman belief that the Atlantic was the home of Dragons Monsters and a place of Great unknown. this can be attested to when Vespasian invaded Britain much delay was caused as the troops did not want to board the ships to cross the channel. So just as an implication it could be assumed that traders might of wanted to avoid the Atlantic. <p></p><i></i>
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#22
Salve JH ! glad to have you here. <p>Legio XX<br>
Caupona Asellinae</p><i></i>
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#23
Hi everyone! New to the boards here, thought I'd pass along an article that might of help.<br>
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J. Naviero Lopez and F. Perez Losada, "An Atlantic Finistgerra in Roman Times: The Galician Peninsula Littoral of the North-Western Iberian Peninsula", Current Research on the Romanization of the Western Provinces p. 91 (Mark Wood and Francisco Queiroga, eds. 1992).<br>
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Great charts dealing with coastal trade and shipping in Northern Spain and Galicia.<br>
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Hope this helps!<br>
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Carina <p></p><i></i>
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#24
Salve Canegirl! Would you be an historian or reenactor or both? <p>Legio XX<br>
Caupona Asellinae</p><i></i>
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#25
I'd be very hesitant to qualify myself as a historian (although I am a law student, so I get to read a lot of old documents ), but I *am* researching many aspects of the Roman Army under the Principate of Augustus, and in particular, during the Cantabrian Wars in Hispania (c. 26 BCE - 19 BCE).<br>
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I'm in the early research stages of writing a novel (fictional) set during this time and am soaking up as much as I can about Roman and Celtic civilizations and military tactics. I'm really glad I found these boards - they've been a huge help so far!<br>
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As far as reenacting, I'd love to attend one - I'm located in Indianapolis, so if you know of any within about a two hour drive, I'd love to hear about it! (Anywhere from Chicago to Louisville to Columbus or Cincinnati).<br>
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Thanks in advance!<br>
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Carina <p></p><i></i>
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