For the sake of argument, lets assume that the Romans had vessels that could cross the Atlantic and that the Empire was interested in the Americas for colonization. Say that the Colony is established during the reign of Agustus and by the time of Constantine it has faded to memory, leaving the American Empire alone. If it didn't have to deal with the Dark Ages, how advanced could the colony have become by 1492 when Columbus makes his voyage? How would the American Empire react to Columbus? How would it interact with Europe?
Roman America
- Thread starter Everdarklegion
- Start date
Depends where it is and how many Romans migrate and subsequently survive there.
I don't think that a roman empire that has Conqured everything from Canada to Venezuela would be to hard to imagine. If the colony is established near the end of Augustus reign say 10 A.d. It has 1482 years to expand
A Roman discovery and successful colonization of the Americas would butterfly Columbus away, and I'm having trouble seeing them falling out of contact pre-Constantine (although we can perhaps grant that they break with the Christian Empire afterwards if you're dead set on keeping them pagan)--the fall of the Western Empire in the 5th century seems like a more natural time for something like that to occur.
Assuming, however, that the Romans did successfully colonize America and subsequently lose contact with their American colonies prior to the Dark Ages, and that this did not significantly alter anything in the Old World, and that permanent contact was not reestablished until c. 1492...
Assuming, however, that the Romans did successfully colonize America and subsequently lose contact with their American colonies prior to the Dark Ages, and that this did not significantly alter anything in the Old World, and that permanent contact was not reestablished until c. 1492...
Hard to say. The colony will, at first, be much smaller than Rome, and this size will prove limiting for a few centuries at least, until they've brought enough of the continent up to "modern" tech levels to do amounts of research comparable to medieval Europe. They might be on par with Europe, but probably not significantly ahead, and likely significantly behind in some areas (in particular, they will probably lack gunpowder, although they will probably learn that from the Europeans soon enough).
"Oh look, an emissary from our sundered eastern cousins." Indeed, TTL's equivalent to Columbus may well have explicitly set out with the intent of making contact with the fabled lands on the other side of the Atlantic, and trading with/converting them. Assuming there is an American Empire, of course--it is entirely conceivable that the civilization founded by this colony would have fractured into multiple polities, to say nothing of the Native American states Romanized to varying degrees elsewhere on the continent.
Well, trade, of course. Europe would try and convert them, if the Americas have developed a proselytizing religion or two of their own they might try to convert Europe. I imagine the Roman and Roman-influenced states of eastern North America might find gunpowder useful in fending off the horse nomads of the prairies. European colonization of at least parts of the Americas will probably still occur, but with the native populations having already been innoculated against European diseases and being significantly more technologically advanced, it'll probably look more like the OTL colonization of Asia than what happened in the Americas.
It has also had 1482 years to break apart and for indigenous states to adopt their technologies and become too formidable to conquer and/or hang on to. Remember, 1482 years after the original Rome was established, the empire in the West had collapsed and the empire in the East consisted primarily of Anatolia, Thrace, and various bits of Greece and Italy. An unchallenged Rome reigning over everything between Caracas and Anchorage is both boring and unlikely.
I imagine that it would have a adequate population for empire building if that answers your question. Say when Columbus the roman population is around 200 million.
Okay.
Let's say that carraks (At least.) are commonly used by the Romans in the I century BCE & CE and that Augustus actually wants to send three of them to the West to do something (I can't really figure out what. Do the Romans knew sugare canes and wanted to plant them in America? I don't think, but I'm not an expert of Roman agriculture.).
The colony has to keep contact with Rome at least until they find a local sources of metals unless you want them to turn into stone age Romans (Which would be kinda cool.).
Under Emperor X suddenly everyone in the Empire forgets about the carraks (Otherwise you don't have to wait for Columbus and I'm not buying the "by the time of Constantine" part.) and the colony.
The Colony would face a Dark Age (Imagine the local soldiers that suddenly aren't payed.) and a militar anarchy, perhaps even worse than the ones in the Old World.
Also when the natives will recover from eventual diseases and get familiar with iron and horses every settlement on the continent will be threatened.
The Roman Colony wouldn't really advance a lot being cut away from any of the most technologically developed cultures (Unless there's plenty of creative intellectuals and old texts, that I can't see why should be sent on the other side of the Atlantic.).
Let's assume that the European """Dark Ages""" go in the exact same way (And this a very big assumption.).
Which kind of Romans is Columbus going to meet?
I don't think the Colony would survive as an Empire or keep big possessions on the Continent. At a certain point every island's militar hierarchy would choose an "Emperor" and perhaps we might even see a return to some forms of Republics.
Cuba and Hispaniola (Think about different names.) would be incredibly powerful (If united.) and would likely impose their power to the other islands.
Having the best sailing technology the Colonists would be incredible pirates and merchants and, being heirs of a great militar power, would be good mercenaries too. They would be slave owners and slave traders and their ships would bring enchained (Maybe that's a waste of metal. Better using rope.) men from one side of the Gulf of Mexico to the other.
Tobacco, Corn, ecc... ecc...
They would be quite rich.
The interesting part is religion.
If the Empire brings black slaves from the Gulf of Guinea and there's at least one Christian community in the Colony we may see Greco-Roman influenced versions of Santeria and Voodoo (Eagles as "totem animals"?).
When Columbus (Assuming ecc... ecc...) gets to the Caribbeans he founds a bunch of Pagan slave traders that efficiently exploit the land of the islands. He buys some supplies, asks for informations and then looks for a way to reach China.
What Spain does is a different matter.
Using better ships and gunpowder the Spanish threaten the locals instead of attacking them and become master of the masters of the slaves.
Basically the descendants of the Colonists become just vassals of the Spanish crown and thanks to the power of their new kings realize the Golden Circle some Confederates used to dream about.
Let's say that carraks (At least.) are commonly used by the Romans in the I century BCE & CE and that Augustus actually wants to send three of them to the West to do something (I can't really figure out what. Do the Romans knew sugare canes and wanted to plant them in America? I don't think, but I'm not an expert of Roman agriculture.).
The colony has to keep contact with Rome at least until they find a local sources of metals unless you want them to turn into stone age Romans (Which would be kinda cool.).
Under Emperor X suddenly everyone in the Empire forgets about the carraks (Otherwise you don't have to wait for Columbus and I'm not buying the "by the time of Constantine" part.) and the colony.
The Colony would face a Dark Age (Imagine the local soldiers that suddenly aren't payed.) and a militar anarchy, perhaps even worse than the ones in the Old World.
Also when the natives will recover from eventual diseases and get familiar with iron and horses every settlement on the continent will be threatened.
The Roman Colony wouldn't really advance a lot being cut away from any of the most technologically developed cultures (Unless there's plenty of creative intellectuals and old texts, that I can't see why should be sent on the other side of the Atlantic.).
Let's assume that the European """Dark Ages""" go in the exact same way (And this a very big assumption.).
Which kind of Romans is Columbus going to meet?
I don't think the Colony would survive as an Empire or keep big possessions on the Continent. At a certain point every island's militar hierarchy would choose an "Emperor" and perhaps we might even see a return to some forms of Republics.
Cuba and Hispaniola (Think about different names.) would be incredibly powerful (If united.) and would likely impose their power to the other islands.
Having the best sailing technology the Colonists would be incredible pirates and merchants and, being heirs of a great militar power, would be good mercenaries too. They would be slave owners and slave traders and their ships would bring enchained (Maybe that's a waste of metal. Better using rope.) men from one side of the Gulf of Mexico to the other.
Tobacco, Corn, ecc... ecc...
They would be quite rich.
The interesting part is religion.
If the Empire brings black slaves from the Gulf of Guinea and there's at least one Christian community in the Colony we may see Greco-Roman influenced versions of Santeria and Voodoo (Eagles as "totem animals"?).
When Columbus (Assuming ecc... ecc...) gets to the Caribbeans he founds a bunch of Pagan slave traders that efficiently exploit the land of the islands. He buys some supplies, asks for informations and then looks for a way to reach China.
What Spain does is a different matter.
Using better ships and gunpowder the Spanish threaten the locals instead of attacking them and become master of the masters of the slaves.
Basically the descendants of the Colonists become just vassals of the Spanish crown and thanks to the power of their new kings realize the Golden Circle some Confederates used to dream about.
Last edited:
Why should the Romans be driven from the continent? The locals aren't going to be uniformly hostile or bent on forcing them out, especially once they've been around a century or two and everyone's gotten used to them.
If Roman America retains the ability and desire to cross the Atlantic, they aren't going to fall out of contact with Europe in the first place. The idea that it would occur to them to head to the jungles of West Africa to buy slaves but not to go to the wealthy lands of their progenitor empire to see if they want to buy some of this tobacco stuff is silly.
Could Spain really ship enough troops over there to meaningfully threaten the Romans into submission right off the bat? Muskets aren't quite as much of an "I win" card when your opponent has horses, iron-working, and prior exposure to smallpox, after all. I think it's more likely that they'd start out just with trading and then vassalize/colonize later, as in Asia and Africa.
Considering that tge ingredients for gunpowder are fairly common and that the chinese monks only rediscovered it instead of inventing it, the Romans could have stumbled across gunpowder on their own.
When they do, they could just steam roll the americas exactly like the Spainish. North America had no other Empires and in Central and South America were the Inca and the Aztecs. If they discover gunpowder on their own, there is no way that these 2 Empires stop Roman expansion.
If this empire fell to myth and legend by the time of Columbus, then contact could go 1 or 2 ways.
1. Contact could be entirely peaceful and Columbus goes back to Spain with tales of a vast and powerful empire that speak Latin.
2. The Romans see Columbus as an invader/ threat from the Old World
When they do, they could just steam roll the americas exactly like the Spainish. North America had no other Empires and in Central and South America were the Inca and the Aztecs. If they discover gunpowder on their own, there is no way that these 2 Empires stop Roman expansion.
If this empire fell to myth and legend by the time of Columbus, then contact could go 1 or 2 ways.
1. Contact could be entirely peaceful and Columbus goes back to Spain with tales of a vast and powerful empire that speak Latin.
2. The Romans see Columbus as an invader/ threat from the Old World
Spain had gunpowder when they arrived, though, plus another thousand-odd years of other technological progress. By the time the Romans stumble upon it, if they do such a thing, it is likely that just by virtue of taking so long will have lost some of Spain's advantages--they will likely be facing Native Americans who have iron weapons and horses of their own, and whose populations have rebounded from the initial plagues. You're also still failing to take into account the fact that empires fall--not three hundred years after Spain finished conquering most of the Americas, they'd lost it all again. With over a thousand years, you have more than enough time for the Roman Americans to invent gunpowder, conquer the better part of the Americas, and then collapse.
After a over thousand years of isolation and linguistic drift, the Romance language or languages the Roman Americans will speak will not be Latin any more than Spanish or Romanian is. My objections to the idea of an inevitable pan-American neo-Roman empire have already been noted.
No? Even if the Romans don't make much progress from their initial technological base, Columbus (or his equivalent) isn't going to be able to just steamroll them the way he did the Taino, and without such gigantic advantages Columbus's equivalent is unlikely to engage in military actions against the states he encounters, especially if we do, in fact, have some sort of gargantuan continent-spanning empire full of musket-wielding legionnaires. And his successors, of course, will probably owe more like John Company than Pizarro or Cortes.
The key to maintaining a successful colonial empire in the Americas with a Roman flavor would be in getting large numbers of Romans to emigrate...and I don't see that happening. Forced emigration...I'm the emperor, I get to ship a load of malcontents out of Rome to ease overcrowding...how do you feed them on the month long journey from the coast of Iberia to wherever they end up? Are those the people you want founding a New World Rome? OK..get some decent folk..what's the incentive? Am I sending soldiers, engineers, scholars, etc. How many trips...what are the odds that, not knowing the weather patterns..or the hurricane season..that these people are going to make it? Without the "modern" navigational aids what are the odds of a second group even finding the first group? Even if by some miracle over a century a dozen of these expeditions are successful...how many people are on each one? How did they find their way back and where did they get the food for the voyage?
OK..so we know it would be impossible...but say a bored ASB had nothing better to do one weekend and plopped several thousand Romans..soldiers, farmers, engineers, women, scholars, laborers, etc down on the most hospitable coastline possible...Maybe between Charleston and Wilmington. They move inland a ways...lay out a nice Roman town, make friends with the local tribes...begin trading. They have a starting population of ...2000 people (hard to feed more than that, I think). Subtract 200 soldiers, the scholars and engineers, some administrators and merchants, farmers and laborers..small children..how many child bearing women are there? Let's go BIG..500. With death during childbirth, accidents, malnutrition, etc..within a decade that number will be reduced to 300..so the total number of colonists will have gone up..if every woman had 2 or three children during this time, but the number of useful people will have decreased. This is if everything stays peaceful. Any fights with the locals and the breeding stock drops faster.
I think you can see where I'm heading with this. Without a steady supply of new colonists...which I think you'll admit is 99.9% impossible..your dreams of a Roman Empire or multiple republics in the Americas to greet Columbus ain't happenin' At best what you'll have is Columbus finding some Native Americans that speak a smattering of Latin and some villages near the coast that have good drainage and running water...maybe even a bath.
OK..so we know it would be impossible...but say a bored ASB had nothing better to do one weekend and plopped several thousand Romans..soldiers, farmers, engineers, women, scholars, laborers, etc down on the most hospitable coastline possible...Maybe between Charleston and Wilmington. They move inland a ways...lay out a nice Roman town, make friends with the local tribes...begin trading. They have a starting population of ...2000 people (hard to feed more than that, I think). Subtract 200 soldiers, the scholars and engineers, some administrators and merchants, farmers and laborers..small children..how many child bearing women are there? Let's go BIG..500. With death during childbirth, accidents, malnutrition, etc..within a decade that number will be reduced to 300..so the total number of colonists will have gone up..if every woman had 2 or three children during this time, but the number of useful people will have decreased. This is if everything stays peaceful. Any fights with the locals and the breeding stock drops faster.
I think you can see where I'm heading with this. Without a steady supply of new colonists...which I think you'll admit is 99.9% impossible..your dreams of a Roman Empire or multiple republics in the Americas to greet Columbus ain't happenin' At best what you'll have is Columbus finding some Native Americans that speak a smattering of Latin and some villages near the coast that have good drainage and running water...maybe even a bath.
The Empire, not Roman America. I supposed the Colonists wouldn't be able to cross the Atlantic.
The Colonists I'm thinking to have most of their possessions in the major Caribbean islands so I don't think they can resist the Spainish fleet in the time of Caravels and Galleons without paying an high price in terms of blood that they don't want to pay. It could start as treaty on trade between the two nations (Maybe on Slave trade in particular.) and would later expand as the Spanish gain more and more influence in the Islands (A process that may take centuries.) and (This is something I figured out only recently.) as the "Aristocracy" of the Islands uses its wealth to gain public offices in Spanish administration (I think the Spanish court would end up filled with rich American Colonists that praise the King telling him their families have always served a true Caesar since the times of Augustus.).
PODs this far in the past are essentially fanfic of heavily-romanticized histories we don't understand all that well. I'm highly skeptical that the butterfly effect is as powerful as an uncovered note allowing the Confederates to win the Civil War, but you'd probably see vast changes in history on multi-generational scales.
The one thing maybe interesting about this scenario is how they'd interact with Native Americans. The Romans, being a heterogeneous empire, might have a very different conception of race from later European colonialists. They still owned slaves, but it wasn't a race-based chattel slavery.
The one thing maybe interesting about this scenario is how they'd interact with Native Americans. The Romans, being a heterogeneous empire, might have a very different conception of race from later European colonialists. They still owned slaves, but it wasn't a race-based chattel slavery.