Roman Fleet stranded on the shores of the New World massive Storm

Md139115

Banned
They Romans acquired the fleet of Veneti tribe in modern Brittany. According to Wikipedia, the Veneti built their ships of oak with large transoms fixed by iron nails of a thumb's thickness. They navigated and powered their ships through the use of leather sails. This made their ships strong, sturdy and structurally sound, capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of the Atlantic.

Caesar may have later built ships based on Gallic designs in his campaigns in Spain.

If that is the case, then everyone in here is arguing about the wrong thing.
 
They Romans acquired the fleet of Veneti tribe in modern Brittany. According to Wikipedia, the Veneti built their ships of oak with large transoms fixed by iron nails of a thumb's thickness. They navigated and powered their ships through the use of leather sails. This made their ships strong, sturdy and structurally sound, capable of withstanding the harsh conditions of the Atlantic.

Caesar may have later built ships based on Gallic designs in his campaigns in Spain.

I may be mistaken but didn't Legate Albinus destroyed their fleet in combat? The romans may have captured some but even so I doubt they used Veneti-style ships in the region as they didn't fitted in the Roman approach to naval warfare.
 

Deleted member 97083

AFAIK there's no evidence that, even if they were captured, the Romans consistently made use of Veneti ships.
Well, Caesar remembered them and used them later. If he isn't assassinated maybe he and his troops could spread the use of these ships across the Roman Republic.

Bellum Civile I.54:

When Caesar's affairs were in this unfavorable position, and all the passes were guarded by the soldiers and horse of Afranius, and the bridges could not be prepared, Caesar ordered his soldiers to make ships of the kind that his knowledge of Britain a few years before had taught him. First, the keels and ribs were made of light timber, then, the rest of the hulk of the ships was wrought with wicker work, and covered over with hides. When these were finished, he drew them down to the river in wagons in one night, a distance of twenty-two miles from his camp, and transported in them some soldiers across the river, and on a sudden took possession of a hill adjoining the bank. This he immediately fortified, before he was perceived by the enemy. To this he afterward transported a legion: and having begun a bridge on both sides, he finished it in two days. By this means, he brought safe to his camp, the convoys, and those who had gone out to forage; and began to prepare a conveyance for the provisions.​
 
Besides the reasons already stated, the Romans would need women to colonize North America and I doubt there would be enough aboard the ships to settle.
 
Besides the reasons already stated, the Romans would need women to colonize North America and I doubt there would be enough aboard the ships to settle.
Stealing local women is a time honored tradition. See Rape of the Sabine Women for a large scale historical example.

I would assume they'd develop good relations with a local tribe, and have them act as slavers / pimps.
 

Maoistic

Banned
No, he didn't. Read his book.
Bundles of reeds tied with period rope.
"Period rope". That's the part that sounds iffy to me. Could have been modern rope which is far more powerful, while using modern sails as well. One has to wonder why the ancient Egyptians or peoples of the ancient Mediterranean using improved Egyptian technology, like the Greeks and Romans, didn't reach America if those ships were capable of crossing the Atlantic.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
A bit of a scenario set up-we'll say this fleet and the host onboard is invading Ireland. Or maybe an ambitious nd bombastic Roman emperor is trying to reach Thule.

We'll say the storm carries them south to North America.

Also we'll say the fleet has a population of 32,000-the legion, wives, prostitutes, priests, a few doctors and scribes and accompanying personnel.
 
A bit of a scenario set up-we'll say this fleet and the host onboard is invading Ireland. Or maybe an ambitious and bombastic Roman emperor is trying to reach Thule.

We'll say the storm carries them south to North America.

Also, we'll say the fleet has a population of 32,000-the legion, wives, prostitutes, priests, a few doctors and scribes and accompanying personnel.
The problem is the one I stated above. That's going to be nine days of straight storm across the entire Atlantic. The longest ever recorded storms, supercells, last at most 16 hours. If that doesn't capsize the Roman boats I don't know what will.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
We'll say the storm is I dunno 20 hours long and they drift far off course and are unable given the currents to change direction.

I know it involved a lot of handwavium and appealing to extraordinary luck, and circumstantial fortune but it isn't impossible. Just a big storm the currents carrying the fleet westwards.
 
The problem is that Romans didn't usually risk a large number of troops in open water unless they had to. Certainly you would have to ask why they would need to transport 4 legions by sea in the Atlantic when they had perfectly good roads to march on.

Typically the Romans used the fleet to transport supplies to the marching armies or to launch reconnaissance raids ahead of the main body.

Actual strategic deployment of multiple legions by sea was rare and a little risky - as Caesar found out in Greece.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
That's why I imagined a massive invasion of Hibernia or perhaps a quixotic and grandiose Roman emperor seeking to conquer Thule.
 
One has to wonder why the ancient Egyptians or peoples of the ancient Mediterranean using improved Egyptian technology, like the Greeks and Romans, didn't reach America if those ships were capable of crossing the Atlantic.
Because, and this is the thing Thor Heyerdahl and his fans never think about, they had literally no reason to do so. Heyerdahl, even if he was using period technology, was using modern knowledge and preparation for a transoceanic voyage.
We'll say the storm is I dunno 20 hours long and they drift far off course and are unable given the currents to change direction.

I know it involved a lot of handwavium and appealing to extraordinary luck, and circumstantial fortune but it isn't impossible. Just a big storm the currents carrying the fleet westwards.
So they starve on the open ocean because they don't have enough provisions to cross the ocean and, having no idea where they are, waste time trying to get back home.
That's why I imagined a massive invasion of Hibernia or perhaps a quixotic and grandiose Roman emperor seeking to conquer Thule.
1. Why are they invading Ireland, and with so many men? Romans might've been a bloodthirsty lot but even they had to come up with good reasons for conquering places. Britain was a valuable target, Ireland was not. There's a reason that IOTL they never bothered.

2. Emperors, especially in the period concerned, never had that kind of power. A nutty, quixotic emperor willing to sign the death warrants of thousands of men to discover a land across the ocean that exists in his imagination is going to be part of the very large percentage of emperors that die violently. Probably at the hands of the army that finds out they're being sent west, if not the Praetorian Guard, those traditional slayers of emperors. Look at what happened to all the other "eccentric" emperors.
 
"Period rope". That's the part that sounds iffy to me. Could have been modern rope which is far more powerful, while using modern sails as well. One has to wonder why the ancient Egyptians or peoples of the ancient Mediterranean using improved Egyptian technology, like the Greeks and Romans, didn't reach America if those ships were capable of crossing the Atlantic.
Not iffy. The whole point was to only use materials that were known and show it could be done.
But as 9 Fanged Hummingbird says, why would the Egyptians bother if they have no reason to go?
 
It sounds like you really need Veneti-style ships to be used by the Romans, and I can think of one major reason - pacifying Hibernia.

So if we have a couple of PoDs - one being the less brutal conquest of Britain via using the Druids rather than destroying them. So you've got a weird "Roman Government, Druidic Culture" thing going on, with the Romans intending to slowly degrade the Druids over time.

With a likely more stable/pliable Britannia, it would be easier to focus on securing/preventing piracy in the Irish Sea - which is well served by adopting Venti-style ships - so you get large 'Atlantic Style' fleets based in Britannia that can support later invasions of Caledonia and Hibernia - ending Piracy at its source, and essentially turning Britannia into a "Africa" of the North.

You could well have one of those fleets caught in the North Atlantic Currents, and get sent westwards in a storm - they're more likely to survive, and can also return.
 
"Period rope". That's the part that sounds iffy to me. Could have been modern rope which is far more powerful, while using modern sails as well. One has to wonder why the ancient Egyptians or peoples of the ancient Mediterranean using improved Egyptian technology, like the Greeks and Romans, didn't reach America if those ships were capable of crossing the Atlantic.

If its modern rope, then its not period rope, unless the period in question is the modern era.
 
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Any chance that curious Romans could do what the Norse did... use local ships and go exploring, find Iceland, Greenland, Vinland? Granted, it wouldn't be '4 legions', just a handful of people...
 
Any chance that curious Romans could do what the Norse did... use local ships and go exploring, find Iceland, Greenland, Vinland? Granted, it wouldn't be '4 legions', just a handful of people...
To bother finding Iceland they'd first have to start from Scotland or north Ireland, places outside the Roman dominion and as far as they are concerned are at the end of the earth. Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland were discovered and settled by increasingly desperate bands of sailors from the North Sea desperate for farmland (and maybe some Celtic monks, although why they went to Iceland is unknown AFAIK). Romans don't have that sort of desperation that would drive them to explore so far north beyond what they believe is likely to be the northernmost lands. The more daring Greek and Roman explorers still generally stuck to land routes or coastal waters, even Scandinavia isn't very remote in comparison to Iceland, let alone Greenland.
 
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