Roman Hibernia worth it?

If the Romans attempted to make all of Hibernia a province how difficult would such a military expedition and campaign be?

Could it be held by one legion plus auxiliaries as Agricola supposed?

If yes, would such a conquest be a net benefit to the empire or a net drain within the next 100, 200 years?
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Based on how the Native Celts react. If they are friendly to the Romans,then somewhat good. Otherwise,it might cause an unnecessary strain on the Military which was already pressurized elsewhere in the East.
 

Kaze

Banned
And if you have a pretext like Túathal Techtmar being exiled to Britian - the former Irish prince looking for allies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Túathal_Techtmar

Suggests that a legendary prince does so. It is an interesting theory / POD for the start of a Roman occupation. Where-in for the best transition of power Tuathal Techtmar would have to be made Governor - where eventually his famous great grandson Cormac Mc Art would be a half-Roman / half-Gael governor - or that Ireland would have to become a client state. If anything the client state / colony would become neglected and eventually abandoned back to native control when the empire collapsed.
 
If the Romans attempted to make all of Hibernia a province how difficult would such a military expedition and campaign be?
Depends what you would consider as difficult : the problem might less come from tactical issues than logistical. You didn't really have a fairly developed western Roman Britain (in fact, it as largely let to its own devices, with partial control being enough as far governors and Rome were concerned) and it might be relatively easy at first to disrupt them, cause a Mount Graupius/Teutoburg on this.
The problem would be more controlling the land, eventually, in any worthwhile manner.

Could it be held by one legion plus auxiliaries as Agricola supposed?
Giving we'd be talking, as Britain, of a likely militarized province, probably more than than IMO. Two legions, maybe, if we're talking of the whole place.
A more limited takeover, possibly temporary? Then a legion would be enough.

If yes, would such a conquest be a net benefit to the empire or a net drain within the next 100, 200 years?
Nothing that couldn't have been done with a more proactive clientelisation of Irish chiefdoms.

Now I don't think a Roman campaign in Ireland is unlikely : I could see it happening with a bit of significant changes because there's nothing preventing this to happen besides there wouldn't be any real reason to do just that. But let's assume campaign to support clients and intervene directly as you had IOTL in Caledonia until the IIIrd century to happen is really fine, which would open more the island to Roman influence and intervention.
We know that Roman had a presence in Ireland IOTL (on the form of Romano-British trade, supported possibly by seasonal garrisons such as in Drumanach.
So, there's nothing really preventing a deeper Roman conquest coming from this situation, except that there wouldn't be a real reason to do so : Britain was already a good conquest for what matter strategical purposes and relatively rich in its southern parts (especially grain, which was used in trans-limes trade).
Agricola, c. 100 AD, however, might have supported a client king's claims over an Irish chiefdom, in order to go along the traditional lines of stabilizing a region and "opening" it to Roman influence : while Ireland was fairly unconsequential IOTL we could always imagine some local trouble-maker, managing or trying to gain local power or to unify some of the chiefdoms in Ireland; and by doing that disrupting a political/economical status quo benefiting Britto-Romans, and leading to Irish raids in western Britain, itself leading to Roman direct intervention in eastern Ireland to make a point about good neighboring.

From there, you could have such a scenario with a short-lived provincialisation like in Crimea, Germania or Armenia.The benefits would be far from obvious, except putting clients in place and putting Barbarians in their place, so I'm not convinced it would be particularly likely to happen. Eventually, I think eastern Ireland would be a continuation of Western Britain in terms of management (essentially peoples under Roman's hegemony, paying taxes and let to their own devices as long Roman military/political/operations there are undisturbed) either as a province or post-campaign clientelisation.

But giving the island was significantly depopulated to have Roman Britain met its servile requirements, it's going to hurt even more than IOTL IMO.
 
LSCatilina seems to have the whole of it. Ireland probably could have been conquered and/ turned into a series of client states fairly easily even in Agricola and Tacitus' opinion but it doesn't appear to have been anything of particular interest there for Rome to control. On the other hand, conquering Ireland as a vanity project or as a way to stop pirates and raiders from basing themselves there is always a potential option.

A Roman Ireland is a really interesting POD, especially since a legion, various auxiliaries, their followers, and various administration people would undoubtedly be the largest settlement on the entire island. A Roman Ireland, even if it only lasted briefly would likely accelerate the urbanization of the island by a thousand years. And the small size of the island makes holding it an easier proposition than Britain.
 
Ireland didn't have much to take, except for some slaves, and hounds for the Circus Maximus. Maybe long blonde women's hair for wigs, ike in Germania. But nothing more, not even potatoes.
 
The inhabitants of Eire were the Gaels, a goidelic group that IIRC was more closely related to the Celtiberians than the Britons. Both the Britons and Picts were Brythonic rather than Goidelic groups.

*Headdesks due to stupidity*

Anyway, they are still not Celts. Celts lived on the Continent.
 
*Headdesks due to stupidity*

Anyway, they are still not Celts. Celts lived on the Continent.

Genetically, I believe you are correct. Linguistically, however, Gaelic is considered Celtic by most linguists. There must also be considered the continuity between Gael, Gaul, and Galatian at the center and peripheries of the Celtic languages.
 
So who are the original 'Celts' anyway,if the Celtic speakers are excluded? And how are the peoples of Ireland and Britain,not Celts then?
The original Celts were referred to by Greek authors as living in what is now southern France. If I remember right, Caesar referred to the inhabitants of Britain as "Britons", not Celts.
 
So who are the original 'Celts' anyway,if the Celtic speakers are excluded? And how are the peoples of Ireland and Britain,not Celts then?
Celts ("companions", "allied", possibly) were probably, originally, a confederation/coalition of Gaulish peoples in southern Gaul based on economical and possibly political grounds that traded and interacred with Phoceans of Massalia : initially Greeks named local "Lyges" or Ligurians (basically the "noisy people") and called Celtikè the region they interacted with and evetually Celtikoi their people.
Celtic ensemble came to include more and more regions in Gaul : it's unclear if "Galatians" was an endonym for Gaulish people or only a regional name, but with the extension of Celtikè to most of Gaul things got mixed up. Then in the IIIrd century, Belgae formed a new sub-region in Nothern Gaul (out of transrhenan and danubian migrations westwards), while people along the Channel formed another one ("Aremorica", meaning "the Coast") due to a distinct percieved ancestry while still being included in pan-Gallic ensemble. Celtic Gaul became then again a distinct region of Gaul and remained it so until Caesar.

The idea that all peoples related in language and using same cultural (Halstattian and LaTenian, at least for the Iron Age) proceeded from a same civilization appeared in the XIXth, when historical romantism played fully particularily with a certain "celtomania" (Ossian, for instance). And giving they were not given a specific name, "Celt" was borrowed and assumed being the name for all of this.
What we call Celts is vastly different from what Romans, Greeks and Gaul considered "Celt" themselves.

Not that you didn't have a sense of kinship beyond the regional cultures : especially, Gauls acknowledged a relation with Brittons (especially Belgae settled there but not only) and Germani (which were various peoples, a mix of Germanic, Celto-Germanic or even Celtic peoples) whom the name itself is probably a translation of a Gaulish word for "relatives". But they didn't considered them as Gauls either.

The original Celts were referred to by Greek authors as living in what is now southern France. If I remember right, Caesar referred to the inhabitants of Britain as "Britons", not Celts.
Caesar had to make some actual ethnography there, instead of heavily relying on Poseidonios.
Basically Britton is related to Brittanai (possibly being a Gaulish word for this place and peoples originally), rather than a local ethnic/political name, and originally named the population of the whole British Isles, not just Britain then but also Ireland. Listen, it was far, it was cold, they were tired, they called it a day. And before Caesar, that was it except a geographical differenciation between people of Ierne/Ibernia and Albio/Albion was made.

And the future dictator was confronted with a tiny bit more complex reality. First, Belgians were settled in Britain there too, and formed distinct people and ensemble. Then it appears that a significant part of Brittons are really, really closer linguistically and culturally to Gauls even without considering Belgae, in spite of associating Brittons with Gaels as you still sometimes see (which is at least heavily debatable IMO) and that part of Northern Britain's peoples while related to them closer than with Hibernians, might form a distinct enough ensemble. We don't know much about these people regional organisation, but the possibility of regional coalitions under the form of patron people or high-kingship is there with, for example, Cassivellaunos or Togidumnos; and the possibility of a distinct southern British ensemble comparable to Celtica or Aremorica

So, while Caesar used "Brittons" to name the whole population, he as well acknowledged we we're talking something more complex than this and doesn't use Britton other than a geographical consideration, while noticing there were insulat Belgae, people closer to Gauls than other Brittons, and the other sort of Britton.
 
Do you call a Swede "German"? Do you call a Frenchman "Italian"? Just because someone speaks Mandarin doesn't make them Han Chinese. Etc.

You call a Swede Germanic and you say French person speaks a Romance language, same as an Italian.

Don't know the Chinese example well enough to call BS but my bet would be on it.

Frenchman may be entirely descended from Franks and Celts (conceivable but unlikely) but he speaks French he still has a common cultural heritage with the Italian as do all Romance speakers and people raised in Romance speaking countries.

So using arguments about genetic heritage over cultural affiliation is not just pedantic, but a stupid distraction that has crap to do with the question "Is Roman Hiberia worth it."
 
You call a Swede Germanic and you say French person speaks a Romance language, same as an Italian.

Don't know the Chinese example well enough to call BS but my bet would be on it.

Frenchman may be entirely descended from Franks and Celts (conceivable but unlikely) but he speaks French he still has a common cultural heritage with the Italian as do all Romance speakers and people raised in Romance speaking countries.

So using arguments about genetic heritage over cultural affiliation is not just pedantic, but a stupid distraction that has crap to do with the question "Is Roman Hiberia worth it."

But a Swede is no more a German than a Frenchman is Italian.

The whole "Celtic languages" thing was an invention of Romantic nationalists. Britons, Picts and Gaels never considered themselves Celts, nor did any of their contemporaries.[/rant]

Sorry, this is a bit of a pedantic berserk button for me. :oops:

Anyway, if the Romans do conquer Hibernia, then would the plan to move the provincial capital to Chester come to pass?
 
Do you call a Swede "German"? Do you call a Frenchman "Italian"?

This is pretty silly. We would still say "the Germanic peoples" of Germania, "the Iranian peoples" of the Scythian steppe, "the Uralic peoples" of Northern Russia. There's a massive difference in register between colloquial conversation about modern nation-states and writing about the tribes of classical history.

Just because someone speaks Mandarin doesn't make them Han Chinese. Etc.

Oh, come on. Using a language to stand in for an ethnolinguistic group to stand in for a culture is such common practice that - it actually doesn't make sense to me to criticise it, what are you criticising? Just because someone speaks Hungarian doesn't make them a Magyar, but it's pretty clear that Hungary is Hungarian because the Magyars, speaking Hungarian, a Uralic language invaded it.

But a Swede is no more a German than a Frenchman is Italian.

A Swede is much more Germanic than a Frenchman is, though. And anyway there's still a difference in register corresponding to intended meaning, which is why we don't talk about the language family of modern Europeans at all. And anyway "Celtic" is not the same semantic unit as "Keltoi" may originally have been. Just like we can say "Algonquian languages" and not worry about the fact that the Cheyenne aren't literally Algonquins.

The whole "Celtic languages" thing was an invention of Romantic nationalists.

What the hell are you talking about? Did romantic nationalists make up the /p > ɸ/ rule, too? The hundreds of lexical correspondences between Goidelic and Brythonic? Did they maybe make up Proto-Celtic as a whole? Was the entire science of historical linguistics found to be made up by James Macpherson just now while I was asleep?

Britons, Picts and Gaels never considered themselves Celts, nor did any of their contemporaries.[/rant]

You don't need to call everyone by their preferred endonym in every single context, especially historical ones. Nobody here calls themselves "Anglic" but we're all writing in an Anglic language, and if there were Dutch speakers to contrast us to it would make sense to call us that, even if we didn't identify with it ourselves.

Sorry, this is a bit of a pedantic berserk button for me. :oops:

Well, better unlearn it because 1) pedantry is rude and unhelpful and 2) you're wrong. Digging in with even more pedantry after you've been shown to be wrong in the first place is even ruder.
 
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@WilliamOfOckham - I am sorry if I am coming off as rude. I can see that we are not going to agree on this point, so I will stop the argument there.

At any rate, in regards to the point of the thread, Britain required a permanent garrison - the only part of the empire to do so. Chances are Roman Hibernia will be another manpower sink.

However, there is gold in them there hills, um streams, so the Romans might be interested in that.

Stream_Seds_geochem_March_16.JPG
 
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