Living Romans in the Americas Plausible*?

Dioltach

Legend
And there's the possibility that the Voyages of St. Brendan and Mael Duin are based on actual reports of Irish sailors reaching the Caribbean.
 

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Zardnaar

Legend
A case may be made for the possibility of Phoenicians or Carthaginians ships having reached the Caribbeans. The Romans never possessed the knowledge for oceanic navigation.

Roman here basically means denizen or citizen of the Empire.

Phoenicians were incorporated into the Empire. Some Roman's also sailed the Indian ocean as well.

I suspect a Roman trade ship would be capable of getting over as well.

Roman's can't sail is slightly over played. Roman's traveled further than is often assumed.

I don't think they reached America myself the videos not claiming that.
 

Blue Orange

Gone to Texas
IRL? Nah, too far.

In your game? Absolutely!

While we're on the subject, here's some more info about Daqin from the... longest practitioners of empire, stolen shamelessly from Wikipedia:

Their kings are not permanent. They select and appoint the most worthy man. If there are unexpected calamities in the kingdom, such as frequent extraordinary winds or rains, he is unceremoniously rejected and replaced. The one who has been dismissed quietly accepts his demotion, and is not angry. The people of this country are all tall and honest. They resemble the people of the Middle Kingdom and that is why this kingdom is called Da Qin. This country produces plenty of gold [and] silver, [and of] rare and precious they have luminous jade, "bright moon pearls", Haiji rhinoceroses, coral, yellow amber, opaque glass, whitish chalcedony [i.e., langgan], red cinnabar, green gemstones, gold-thread embroideries, woven gold-threaded net, delicate polychrome silks painted with gold, and asbestos cloth.

They also have a fine cloth which some people say is made from the down of "water sheep", but which is made, in fact, from the cocoons of wild silkworms. They blend all sorts of fragrances, and by boiling the juice, make a compound perfume. [They have] all the precious and rare things that come from the various foreign kingdoms. They make gold and silver coins. Ten silver coins are worth one gold coin. They trade with Anxi and Tianzhu by sea. The profit margin is ten to one. ... The king of this country always wanted to send envoys to the Han, but Anxi, wishing to control the trade in multi-coloured Chinese silks, blocked the route...


 




History is a tapestry and most people don't know the breadth or width.

This is like a Samurai(1) in Mexico(2) sending a fax(3) to Abraham Lincoln(4).

(1) Samurai lost power in 1868, abolished in 1870s

(2) The first Samurai arrived in Mexico in 1619: Hasekura Tsunenaga - Wikipedia

(3) The electric printing telegraph was invented in 1843.

(4) Lincoln died in 1865
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MGibster

Legend
I love some good alternative history as much as the next guy, but evidence of Basques fishing the waters off Newfoundland is pretty weak. There's evidence of Basques intermingling with Native American groups, including Basque loan words in some Native American language, but the Basques presence in the Americas is well documented starting in the 1500s. The idea that Newfoundland was a secret Basque fishing site, especially for centuries, is incredulous. It's only becomes more incredulous if when someone argues the Basques might have intermingled with indigenous groups or decades or longer. Nobody's going to talk about the strange, previously unknown people? I don't think so.

@Paul Farquhar is right about Columbus being propaganda. Don't get me wrong, he was a good sailor and navigator (despite being bad at figuring out the circumference of the world), but he was certainly a horrible person. For those who might not know, Columbus didn't become an important figure in American history until Italian American groups adopted him. Many Americans were not happy about Italian immigrants, and the idea of Columbus was used to to sell the idea that these Italians were just as American as anyone else. "See? It was an Italian dude who discovered the New World! Stop discriminating against us!"
 

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