Roman and or Greek Colonization of Macaronesia during Classical Antiquity

No. It's better for Rome that the Canary islands stay as a buffer. If they actually settled them, it would attract more Berber pirates to the islands, as they would have more interesting things to catch up there.



Yes, but those snails are also present in the Moroccan coastline, so no need to go especifically to the islands.

You can also extract dragon's blood, a dye already known to the Romans from the dragon trees.

(Plus, there is historically the whole cochineal system, but DValdron already rebutted this a few months ago - anyway, all this suggests naming them as the Insulae Pictae).
 
You can also extract dragon's blood, a dye already known to the Romans from the dragon trees.

(Plus, there is historically the whole cochineal system, but DValdron already rebutted this a few months ago - anyway, all this suggests naming them as the Insulae Pictae).

Moreover, due to the "horizontal rainfall" (absorption of the moisture of the trade winds by the laurisilva + moss in altitude - equivalent to about 1m of rainfall, in addition to about 0.5m of actual rainfall, per year), the northern side of the western islands are very good agricultural regions, where nowadays just about anything can (now mainly bananas for export, but I've seen anything from cereals to apples to grapes to pumpkins to mangoes). This weather is more-or-less year-round, so not much infrastructure (dams) is needed. I don't know the climate of the nearby Mauretanian coast, but if it is more arid than the Canary Islands, then settling them would actually be easier than the African coast: both places are practical islands as far as communications go, but one of them is slightly easier to defend and has a better climate.
 
Moreover, due to the "horizontal rainfall" (absorption of the moisture of the trade winds by the laurisilva + moss in altitude - equivalent to about 1m of rainfall, in addition to about 0.5m of actual rainfall, per year), the northern side of the western islands are very good agricultural regions, where nowadays just about anything can (now mainly bananas for export, but I've seen anything from cereals to apples to grapes to pumpkins to mangoes). This weather is more-or-less year-round, so not much infrastructure (dams) is needed. I don't know the climate of the nearby Mauretanian coast, but if it is more arid than the Canary Islands, then settling them would actually be easier than the African coast: both places are practical islands as far as communications go, but one of them is slightly easier to defend and has a better climate.

However, Romans would not did the effort to settle there just for a bit of cropland (the Empire was plenty of it) or products that they could get in nearer and safer places. And that's the reason why they did not settle there IOTL; even if they could be interested in some particular product like the dragon's blood, it would be easier to organize expeditions there from time to time (it seems it happened IOTL as Guanches had some trade with Rome, as many Roman artifacts have been found there).
 
No. It's better for Rome that the Canary islands stay as a buffer. If they actually settled them, it would attract more Berber pirates to the islands, as they would have more interesting things to catch up there.

And if Rome has conquered the berbers, or at least their coastal areas?
 
And if Rome has conquered the berbers, or at least their coastal areas?

It's complicated. There was a difference then between 'conquering' and effectively 'Romanizing' (i.e. full control) peripheral nations, and Berbers would hardly been the later, even 'conquered' (Mauritania formed two Roman provinces at the end) by Rome.

Moreover, the pirates counted with many refuges across Macaronesian islands and the coastline up to, at least, the Senegal river. Berbers provided typical savannah 'beasts' for the Roman arenas when the Mediterranean megafauna was virtually wiped out (lions etc.), so their areas of action were too extended south and west for being able to be ever controlled by Rome. Not impossible, but highly unlikely.
 
Bumping for interest.

I'd strongly disagree with this.

If Macaronesia is settled, sooner or later the Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago will be.
The currents take you straight there from Cape Verde, and it's actually the closest islands to Cape Verde. (Closer than the Canaries!)

Or Fernando de Noronha, which is nearby and even closer to South America.

From Saint Peter&Paul, you're a stone's throw from the Brazilian coast. Travel there is inevitable.

A crossing of the whole Atlantic is unlikely, but island-hopping across? Virtually guaranteed.

I'd love to see a timeline where these islands are all colonised and the Romans use them as a stepping stone to Brazil and W.Africa - be it to exile troublesome nobles, or for glory in the name of the Empire.

Ah, the tiny, entirely helpless Isle of Neptune. Making anything more than the most primitive of ports would cost a fortune though. 2-3 ships tops.

How to know you have pissed off the Emperor? Becoming Captain of the teeny fort/port. I hope you like seafood.

I dunno about that. What's to settle, basically, its a bunch of reefs with pretensions. No trees. No real soil. No vegetation to speak of, apart from a few mosses and possibly introduced grasses. No permanent fresh water. Roughly 160,000 square feet, divided up among a handful of islands, the largest of which is 50,000 square feet, the second largest is 30,000, and the next three run between 15,000 and 10,000 square feet, and then you have little spit rocks. Highest elevation is 59 feet. So most of the place is simply vulnerable to getting washed way by storms. It's basically uninhabitable. There's just not enough land to sustain agriculture for even a tiny community, and not enough secure land to establish a fort or port or settlement, no fresh water to last a year, no wildlife to support reprovisioning, and the rocks are a hazard to navigation, and given the ocean drop off, I wouldn't expect any substantial fishing.

I think that the largest obstacle to settling Macaronesia is the lack of desirability. There's nothing there that the seafaring cultures of Antiquity wanted or needed.

So, what you would need would be some bottled up coastal culture with a fishing heritage, on the Atlantic side of southern Iberia or Morocco that explodes into an era of expansion and adventurism, a facet of which is maritime, a la Norse. They discover and explore the islands (even if one can't sustain themselves on an island, you can place supplies there for later expedition like Perry in the Arctic), and they establish contact with West Africa and possibly Brazil. Not necessarily constant organized contact but instead something along that with the Norse-Native interaction from 1000-1300. Hell, this entire thing sounds like a Norse port to Berber Morocco.

The Romans pick up this knowledge somewhere along the line and distorted tales of faraway kingdoms of purple men and chiefdoms of barbarian jungle people. The Roman government probably won't give a shit, but someone's gonna come along.
 
Well, somewhere back, I speculated that a biological fluke pod might result in Macronesia being colonized by coffee plants, and this would form the basis of a valuable cash crop which would lead to occasional harvesting, then systemic harvesting and then systemic colonization. A viable commercial Macaronesian economy would lead to ships capable of the transatlantic, and enough sea knowledge to get back.
 
The Canary and Cape Verde islands are not really worth all that much except as a stopping point on the way to somewhere else. I think the POD we're looking for here might actually be in West Africa. This isn't my area of expertise - but it seems to me that if you kick start the development of an empire in West Africa then you'll have the impetus to conduct sea trade. The empire itself would not only be able to harness the resources of West Africa -gold, and spices like grains of paradise come to mind- but would also draw in goods from the rest of Africa - ivory, more gold, exotic pelts, coffee perhaps. This would probably not be a maritime state so it would be on the Greeks and Romans, probably preceded by Carthaginian navigators, to establish the sea route. It just needs to be made worth the trip. Once this is done the accidental discovery of the New World becomes increasingly likely which makes the other Macaronesian islands more valuable.

5) Regarding trans-atlantic contact, the difficulties probably mean that contact during antiquity was fairly transient, and transitory. I worked damned hard, and I couldn't get things past a small network of trading posts over a century or so. Antiquity is just not going to get much out of the New World that's worth the trip.

IIRC Tobacco was originally domesticated in the Amazon. If our lost Roman sailors are making landfall in Brazil that would be an option. The Amazon has untold biological riches that still remain unexplored. Perhaps some of them could have made the trip worthwhile? The Terra Preta culture was just getting started around the time Classical Antiquity rolled around... Roman settlement is probably a bridge too far but regular trade and contact might not be.
 
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I don't think a West African or Central African Empire really gets us a lot of seamanship or sea trade. Most everything that's interesting is on land and either next door, or across the Sahara.


I do plan to dig out my Roman Coffee stuff sometime and redo it, with additions as part of my mini-timelines in Bear Cavalry.
 
Careful with statements like this, you've killed thousands of butterflies! :p

It isn't impossible that with this change the Roman Empire as we knew it wouldn't have existed, that the turks would come across, etc.

I'm not sure if this would butterfly it away, but it certainly could. Especially if the PoD that enabled this to happen was a non-assassination of Philip II of Macedon. I've seen it suggested that he wouldn't have gone as conquest-crazy as Alexander as he was a better ruler than his son. In that scenario I've always seen an empire of the same sort of territory as the Byzantines (Greece, Anatolia, Egypt, Levant). If he chose to expand his Greek hegemony over the islands to the west, or even use his control over his subjects in Tyre et al. to expand into and over Carthage, you could well see someone going that far, either to get away, or on orders. Create a classical empire centred on the Mediterranean that actually LIKED water? (Unlike Rome) You could well see a colonisation. Out there, but it wouldn't be Greek as we knew it, or pure Greek. But certainly an ATL Koine.

ooooh, I like that idea *fervently starts thinking*

Because Magic Butterfly, You know damn well that roman empire going fall no matter what.

I hate Magic Butterfly men, Shoo shoo get people get of real alternate history debate.


How many times must i said butterfly don't work that well or With help Butterfly the anicent greek sudden modern liberal democratic in 500 Ad.

Butterfly do not remove the Tends of History, People like you have low of unterstand history thing don't happen radomn they have tend in mind and pattan in history is buit.

Must you learn why history is spit into era like Bronze,Classical,Middleage,Victoria,Modren times because all those era have tend on them.
 
I don't think a West African or Central African Empire really gets us a lot of seamanship or sea trade. Most everything that's interesting is on land and either next door, or across the Sahara.

Why pay a Berber middleman to help you cross the burning desert and risk death from exposure, thirst, or screaming Tauregs, when you can just as easily sail where you need to go? A lack of a native seafaring culture also means a lack of pirates. An earlier, more extensive African empire that controls the Senegal River basin would be rather easy to access by sea. We know Punic sailors were willing to go as far as the British Isles if they saw profit in it, and we know Hanno visited Africa in his explorations. We just need a reason for the sailors to keep coming back.
 
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