Roman invasion of Zimbabwe

The Dream

It was dark in here, but this was the jungle and it was always the domain of darkness, and that too of the all-pervading damp. Slime and mould ran across the stonework, shadows danced as branches high above them swayed in the merest of winds, and leaves and other detritus crunched damply underfoot.

I moved further in, a careful hand gripping a long low stone, perhaps once the lintel to a doorway, now laying cracked upon the mound. Before me lay the place of legend, the lost temple of the Lemba, the broken ruin all that was left of centuries of glory, centuries whose foundation had been incarnate in the ancient stones I now unearthed, clearing the roots and fungi off, stones more ancient than the rest of the fallen edifice, stones whose age was a testament to the truth that lay at the heart of all legends.

For indeed I was looking at a Latin inscription, Petronius, Governor of the colonia, erected at the height of Roman dominance, a time when Roman colonies breasted the Indian Ocean, when their empire was at its maximum extent, when it truly seemed a world empire, and where in the world it did not rule, it had influence, such as in the Indian kingdoms. Half-forgotten tales even hinted at a trade with China from these Indian ports, but people had yet to assert the provenance of any of that. But what was no longer up for debate was that the legendary status of Roman rule in what was now Zimbabwe was a solid reality. As solid as the stones beneath my hands.

The interior was vast, and in some places still roofed by vaulting that leapt up, and in these places met its fellow rising from the walls on the other side. Mostly it had collapsed, but the places where it had not leant a certain glory to the place, despite the jungle wreathed around, and the half-jungle growing up amongst the stones, in places seeing whole trees taken root in banks of sediment, in others seeing the power of nature pushing up from below, cracking the stone flags, pushing vegetation upwards into the light.

But still it was recognisable in the round, it was a temple, perhaps one that had seen its heyday as late as the sixteenth century, a time when even the great builders of Europe could not have built anything to better it. I knew that the modern people of this nation claimed ancient roots, that whilst the Bantu ethnicity was plain upon them, that the Roman heritage they believed in, and the Jewish religion that survived in a warped form, all hinted at something more. In its way it was truly remarkable - despite race and ethnicity, these people kept alive these twin traditions that most people, even a decade ago had castigated as mere fancy. Now, I had no doubts at all.

I worked hard, not having to worry about the burning sun or the oppressive heat, not down here in the dank shadow of the canopy above. By evenfall, I had it clear. The builders of this, the last great temple of the Lemba, had arranged these stone inscriptions upon the wall that was now fallen, the wall that had risen beside, and above the doorway whose giant lintel lay broken on the ground. These inscriptions, and they were many, truly spoke the history of this place.

It was a record of conquest and assimilation, starting with the Romans who had written their own glories upon stone, and who had lasted a century, or maybe close to two, the record was still obscure, and much about late period colonia remained to be understood; just how much had they retained contact with the empire, and how much that was truly Roman had remained in their midst? After that had come what was recorded as glorious independence, and then conquest, after conquest, but always ending with the conqueror assimilating into the Lemba, always ending with the fall of the conqueror's home and the survival of this distant outpost.

I read this, and later in the fading light I read the writings elsewhere within the ruined temple. I had studied what the modern people of Zimbabwe called their ancient tongue, I knew the lettering and the script, but here I was not reading it as Bantu, but as Hebrew! Everything was confirmed! My eyes misted as I read of the ancient origins of the Arc of War, of how it had been brought forth out of Israel, of how it had resided here, of how it had been renewed by God's spirit, and how its power had always overcome adversaries, turning them in upon themselves. Everyone who had ever conquered them had become of them, and this final temple was the last and greatest monument of them all!

As darkness fell, I collected up my equipment and moved out. The cosmophone would be ready in the inn, and tonight I would send my first report. By the weekend, The World Chronicle would be breaking the story around the world, and the long lost secrets of the Lemba would be out for all to see...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Strabo is interesting for this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strabo

It seems he travelled to Ethiopia, though his world map seems to have nothing South of there. Did he BELIEVE there was nothing to the South? Or did his lack of knowledge about it simply mean he felt he could round off the map for aesthetics?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Wasn't it the Greeks who started the belief in the torrid climes and the antipodes?
If so...certainly he believed there was something south of there but nothing reachable perhaps.
Could be quite an interesting revelation for them to actually reach and cross the equator.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRMT

So Grommet here, was King of Axum of the various spellings, and that was both where modern Eritrea seems to be AND across the Red Sea in what is sort of Yemen/Asir.

These would be good people for Rome to have a falling out with and a need to conquer, providing thus a maritime staging post...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Strabo said:
As for the merchants who now sail from Aegypt by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf as far as India, only a small number have sailed as far as the Ganges; and even these are merely private citizens and of no use as regards the history of the places they have seen. But from India, from one place and from one king, I mean Pandion, or another Porus, there came to Caesar Augustus presents and gifts p7of honour and the Indian sophist who burnt himself up at Athens,2 as Calanus had
done, who made a similar spectacular display of himself before Alexander.

The whole of India is traversed by rivers. Some of these flow together into the two largest rivers, the Indus and the Ganges, whereas others empty into the sea by their own mouths. They have their sources, one and all, in the Caucasus; and they all flow first towards the south, and then, though some of them continue to flow in the same direction, in particular those which flow into the Indus, others bend towards the east, as, for example, the Ganges. Now the Ganges, which is the largest of the rivers in India, flows down from the mountainous country, and when it reaches the plains bends towards the east and flows past Palibothra, a very large city, and then flows on towards the sea in that region and empties by a single outlet. But the Indus empties by two mouths into the southern sea, encompassing the country called Patalenê, which is similar to the Delta of Aegypt. It is due to the vapours arising from all these rivers and to the Etesian winds, as Eratosthenes says, that India is p21watered by the summer rains and that the plains become marshes. Now in the rainy seasons flax is sown, and also millet, and, in addition to these, sesame and rice and bosmorum,14 and in the winter seasons wheat and barley and pulse and other edibles with which we are unacquainted. I might almost say that the same animals are to be found in India as in Aethiopia and Aegypt, and that the Indian rivers have all the other river animals except the hippopotamus, although Onesicritus says that the hippopotamus is also to be found in India. As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Aegyptians.

So, Strabo is saying that in his period, which was up to AD 24 when he died, Romans had reached the Ganges (presumably reaching its delta in modern Bangladesh).

It would be interestring to know what some of these place names equate to - Pandion or Porus (not sure which is a place and which a person) and Palibothra

Of course, this is not of itself relevant to this thread, but "As for the merchants who now sail from Aegypt by the Nile and the Arabian Gulf as far as India, only a small number have sailed as far as the Ganges" is useful in terms of a general impression of regular, constant trade, and of it being generally well known. What we now need to find are the writers who wrote about Roman ships visiting East Africa (ie not Axum, but on the Eastern coast abreast the Indian Ocean)

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
The bushmen and pygmies were likely the people in Zimbabwe before the Bantu. The pygmies would have been pushed in front of the Bantu, and the Khoikhoi would have been the original people farther south.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoikhoi

That's interesting about the pygmies - Strabo says nobody believes the tales of people who have professed to seeing such men. Implying of course that people have met them, one wonders how far South?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Very Wilbur Smith...

...He wrote a book 'The Sunbird' that was based on a Carthaginian fleet settling in Botswana/Zimbabwe after sailing up (I think) the Cunene River in between modern Angola and Namibia. It was thoroughly debunked by the argument that the Zimbabwe structures were of mediaeval Bantu origin. So there you are.
 

Sior

Banned
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe

images
 
Well, you know this is alternate history with a PoD in Roman times, so...

The ruins in the jungle are supposed to be the great temple of the Lemba (Bantu Jews), thriving still in the 16th century, but then fallen into ruin after European conquest

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Let us consider how history may have gone

-1- Augustus has a son and primogeniture is established in the Roman Empire
-2- Rome smashes Parthia and continues to intervene to keep it divided
-3- Rome-Axum War
-4- Roman annexation of Sheba
-5- Roman trade with the East African Swahili coastal kingdoms
-6- Roman trade via the above with the Bantu Great Lakes kingdoms
-7- Expansion of direct Roman rule over the Tanganyika coast and Zanzibar
-8- Roman expansion into the gold mining lands of 'Rhodesia'

This could easily see us take from the year zero to about 200 AD to fully establish this

Then comes a somewhat unclear period, when the colonia of Zimbabwe is active and served by regular Roman visits, and a period after when it is unclear how long and in what manner Roman dominion remains

Curiously, the Roman coastal zone would probably go before the Roman interior colonia simply because the coast has more, and more easily ready, enemies. The interior would be cut off and the Roman civilisation would blend and bond with the Jewish Lemba, and over time become melded to the Bantu who come Southwards

History has been knocked off course, but it is also scrabbling around in the dark because the exact facts are as shrouded in mystery as is Dark Age Britain.

- - - - - - -

Set us say that it is the German invasions which knock Rome for six - initially they would use nearby garrisons to try to contain the threat, later they would begin to shrink the empire to recall far-awy units

Parthia is controlled, but those controlling it are going to be a problem if the other frontiers begin to collapse, so you would problem see a Roman West Parthia arise, from conquest of the satrapies by a powerful governor who has cast off Rome

At the same time, Roman colonia on the Indian Ocean littoral will begin to be abandoned, though Roman merchant ships and trade will continue. As happened with Britannia in OTL, for a while a pseudo-Roman kingdom will take the place of the Roman colonia, but after a while disintegrate - we would see that in Axum, in Sheba, in Tanganyika, and in parts of India which this TL has no doubt seen Rome be granted lands in

Zimbabwe will be intriguing - cut off even more once the pseudo-Roman kingdom in Tanganyika collapses and falls into civil war, but strong in itself and incorporating Lemba and Bantu elements, eventually seeing the monotheistic Lemba Jews win out, and seeing the blend of Roman, Lemba and Bantu produce a powerful and independent state whose main assets are trade in gold, and ivory, and which continues to be seen as a power by the fractured Tanganyikan successor kingdoms, and where its trade with the coast is diminished but remains

- - - - - - -

In a sense we can then forget the detail of East African history - conquerors come, establish themselves on the coast, campaign in land, conquer Zimbabwe, fall on the coast and then inland are assimilated in order to survive, and then come the next lot

This goes on until the 16th century when the Europeans come, and after a century of resistance the great Zimbabwean empire is destroyed, falls into ruins and is lost in the jungle

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Knock-Ons of Glory

If things go as per the previous post, one obvious idea is the rise of a pseudo-Roman Western Parthian empire, maybe named as per Mesopotamia as its centre, uniting Rome's Eastern provinces with the broken Parthian satrapies of the East

In this completely different way might you get a split between the West and the East of the Roman Empire, and the borders will be different, the clashpoints will be different, and so on...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. That's what you're missing.

There was already thriving trade along the coast of East Africa in Roman times, which was referred to as Azania. South of Aksum, there were trade ports founded by South Arabians, the furthest mentioned being called "Rhapta".
 
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