Agricola's Folly- The Tale of a Roman Ireland

Abhakhazia

Abhakhazia

Banned
I will start this timeline some time this week.
This is from my poll in help and feedback.

As you may or may not know, Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a Roman General and Governor of Brittania under the Emperors commonly known as Vespasian, Titus and Domition, or the Flavian Dynasty. He was sent into retirement by Domitian in the 80s or 90s AD. He did several things of note, including circumnavigating Britain, a rather full blown invasion of Scotland and a invasion, or at least landing in Ireland.

Three sources, an early work by his son in law Tacitus, an Irish legend and we Archaeological evidence points to an invasion of Ireland. Tacitus pouts out that Agricola was looking for an excuse to conquer Ireland, and also believed it could be conquered fairly easily. It also says he used an exiled Irish king for an excuse.
An Irish legend speaks of a King returning at the front of a great army, presumably Roman or Romano-British.
Archaelogical evidence shows there was a Roman army in Ireland around that time period.

So why didn't Agricola keep Ireland? No one knows. He was probably under orders to not even invade.

What if he did? How would a Roman Ireland fare? Would it be a pointless backwater? An important trade colony? A rich plunderground for Saxon raiders and Angle armies?

Hopefully Agricola's Folly will answer those questions and more.
 

Woolly Mammoth

This ought to be good - lots of potential butterflies here. Particually in the time when the empire was falling apart, with the addition of Hibernia and potentially another legion the british contenders would be serious challengers to the imperial throne.
 

dduff442

Ireland came on in leaps and bounds during the Roman period. All that booty from the great conspiracy was nice, and writing (Ogham) was inspired by the Roman presence in Britain. All told, Rome was the best thing ever for Ireland.

OTOH, Ireland was very, very remote prior to the Roman invasion of Britain. It was at a nadir economically speaking; something went disastrously wrong in both Britain and Ireland during the transition from the Bronze- to the Iron-Age around 800BC. A sophisticated urbanised culture either side of the Channel in the modern Dover/Calais region and with trade routes extending to the Loire, the Netherlands, Wales and Ireland collapsed and huge areas became re-forested. Ireland had only began to recover from this disaster after the Roman arrival.

The country had a rich material culture (Petrie Crown, Broighter collar and relatively speaking lots of other top notch La Tene stuff) but something strange was going on keeping the population down -- wars for fun probably played a part and human sacrifice is a possibility.

So the country had relatively few attractions for Rome (they could buy the stuff they wanted from Ireland) and presented a lot of difficulties (how to garrison a mostly empty country?). Agricola's assessment about conquering the country was probably correct, but how was garrisoning the country to be made a paying proposition?

By the fourth century, the Irish kings were already looking overseas for conquests. Land-clearance in the country was still only beginning, so something other than overpopulation was driving matters. It would have been a much more attractive target by this time, though.

Some of the Roman-Irish interactions were fascinating. Seven Irish Wolfhounds were paraded in 391AD "which all Rome viewed with wonder". Even more intriguing are the four gold solidi found in separate deposits at Tara, which was already an ancient landscape by Roman times. Was it religious tourism? Or did some Irish traders come away very wealthy from trading with Britain?

A resurgent Rome would probably have found 4th or 5th Century Ireland of great interest. OTOH, 1st Century Ireland was a dark, forbidding and empty place. Rome would have no problems against the Irish... the Irish it could actually find, that is. The ones it couldn't were likely to make their stay very painful.
 

Ganesha

Zuvarq said:
A decomposing coffin? In the first century?
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That was my thought. If anything, Rome was at the peak of its power and influence from 0-200 AD.

It sounds very interesting, Abkhazia, and it'll be particularly interesting to see if it brings Ireland closer to the rest of the British Isles in culture and societal structure. Roman rule wrought dramatic change wherever it touched - for example, the only reason Scotland maintained a semi-tribal (clan-based) society for so long was because Rome never ruled there, unlike England, where it was stamped out after Boadicea's rebellion.

Cheers,
Ganesha
 

dduff442

Getting rid of the Dacian conquest raises the prospect of Ireland as a (much more easily conquerable) colony for retired soldiers. That prospect would only really get attractive once the West of Roman Britain was extensively romanised, however... Let's say mid- to late-2nd century. Remember that England SW of Exeter was never romanised at all during several centuries of Roman rule -- there wasn't a single Roman town in the 80 miles between there and Penzance. They seem to have ruled via local intermediaries in that region which may explain its relative prominence during the post-Roman period. By contrast Wales had large Roman towns.

Alternatively, semi-Romanised Britons could get established in Ireland which would have very interesting consequences.
 

Zuvarq

This is a long time away, but will the Roman Empire survive?

dduff442 said:
Alternatively, semi-Romanised Britons could get established in Ireland which would have very interesting consequences.
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Depending on how long Rome keeps Britannia and Hibernia, maybe there could be one slightly Roman-influenced Celtic language. Obviously wit many dialects but still.
 

Ganesha

Zuvarq said:
Conquest of Mesopotamia is definitely far enough away. But Dacian War pretty much has to happen.
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Abhakhazia said:
Maybe a Roman loss with an extra legion packed away in Hibernia.
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The Dacians only survived for as long as they did because the Romans didn't bother to throw their full weight against them. In the final war, the Romans, led by Trajan, put 200,000 men in the field, versus around 25,000 for the Dacians. It wasn't a close contest. All Rome needs to conquer Dacia is the will. It's not like Caesar against the Gauls - it's like the US against Iraq. It wasn't easy, sure, but all the US needed was the will to do it.

Cheers,
Ganesha
 

Zuvarq

Abhakhazia said:
That was the plan, except the Saxons will go through a long, bloody war in Ireland.
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With a POD this early, perhaps it should be Frisii, Batavii, Langobardi, Chatti, or even others, rather than Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, and Saxon Frisians.
 
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