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London in the Roman World

65 points by diodorus 4y ago

ftio 4y ago
If you're interested in learning more about Roman Britain, there's a fantastic episode[0] about it on the Fall of Civilizations Podcast. Highly recommend the podcast in general. If history class had been this interesting I'd have paid a lot more attention. 0. https://www.stitcher.com/show/fall-of-civilizations/episode/1-roman-britain-the-work-of-giants-crumbled-58305901 https://www.stitcher.com/show/fall-of-civilizations/episode/...
- kmonsen 4y ago
  I love the podcast, it would be nice to hear what a historian thinks of the episodes. BTW they also have a podcast about vaccines which is IMHO just as good and especially good to listen to for proponents of vaccination.
  - wintermutestwin 4y ago
    It has been asked a couple of times on https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians but not answered...
buro9 4y ago
Something that has fascinated, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the Romans so successfully eradicated a local history in that some cases and places there is virtually no knowledge of what was before Rome. The greatest example is of Romania, which clearly wasn't called that - it was Dacia. But we don't know a great deal about Dacia or the post-Greek kingdoms that were in this region before Dacia because of just how effectively Rome could erase a history after conquering the region. We know only what was totally destroyed. But elsewhere there is a richer history that was passed down and survived. In the lands where Rome wanted to impose themselves, pottery and ruins is all that remains.
- allturtles 4y ago
  Is there evidence of actual active Roman "eradication" of Dacian history? It is not the Romans' fault that no history was preserved if nothing existed to preserve to begin with. We know a great deal about the Greeks before the Roman conquest because they already had a written historical tradition to be preserved. Even if there were native written histories, without careful tending, history destroys itself through entropy over the centuries. For this reason, the vast majority of what the Romans knew about themselves is also entirely lost to us. e.g., only about a quarter of the books from the magnum opus of Rome's history of itself, Livy's "Ab urbe condita", are preserved today.
  - simonh 4y ago
    The Dacian capital was razed and vast swathes of the population sold into slavery. Destruction of their culture and history may not have been the objective, but it was a pretty much inevitable result.
    - qwytw 4y ago
      Historiography was not something that really existed in places not heavily influenced by the Greeks. The first history book by a Roman was written around the time of the second punic wars (around 210 BC). In Persia the Sassanids and Parthians knew less about their Achaemenid past than the Greeks/Romans did. I'm not denying the atrocities committed by the Romans but chances are that both in Dacia and the Celtic world there weren't that many (if any) literary sources to destroy.
      - simonh 4y ago
        Sure, but who knows how many statues, inscriptions or other archaeological evidence was looted and destroyed.
- helsinkiandrew 4y ago
  The Romans usually let the existing culture and society survive as long as the peoples religion didn’t contradict the Roman gods and the taxes flowed. Even without Rome, history from that era is not well known. Having architecture and literature spread widely across a continent like the romans will last a lot longer than wooden buildings and an oral tradition of a small localised tribe.
ncphil 4y ago
Interesting read. This new book makes academic research from the 20th century and later available to everyone, demolishing the myths non-Roman elites like Geoffrey and descendants told about themselves. _Fall of Civilizations_ is a terrific resource. I've learned a lot of fascinating ancient history beyond the Mediterranean world from it.
johnyzee 4y ago
> One possible etymology for London is from the (plausibly reconstructed, but unattested) British Celtic word landa: ‘low-lying, open land’ Huh, I always took it for granted that it was from the Nordic languages. ‘Lund’ = valley, ‘Lunden’ = the valley.
- biorach 4y ago
  Well... it's not really in a valley, and the name Londinium predates Nordic influence by several hundred years.

65 points by diodorus 4y ago

ftio 4y ago

If you're interested in learning more about Roman Britain, there's a fantastic episode[0] about it on the Fall of Civilizations Podcast. Highly recommend the podcast in general. If history class had been this interesting I'd have paid a lot more attention. 0. https://www.stitcher.com/show/fall-of-civilizations/episode/1-roman-britain-the-work-of-giants-crumbled-58305901 https://www.stitcher.com/show/fall-of-civilizations/episode/...

kmonsen 4y ago
I love the podcast, it would be nice to hear what a historian thinks of the episodes. BTW they also have a podcast about vaccines which is IMHO just as good and especially good to listen to for proponents of vaccination.
- wintermutestwin 4y ago
  It has been asked a couple of times on https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians but not answered...

buro9 4y ago

Something that has fascinated, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the Romans so successfully eradicated a local history in that some cases and places there is virtually no knowledge of what was before Rome. The greatest example is of Romania, which clearly wasn't called that - it was Dacia. But we don't know a great deal about Dacia or the post-Greek kingdoms that were in this region before Dacia because of just how effectively Rome could erase a history after conquering the region. We know only what was totally destroyed. But elsewhere there is a richer history that was passed down and survived. In the lands where Rome wanted to impose themselves, pottery and ruins is all that remains.

allturtles 4y ago
Is there evidence of actual active Roman "eradication" of Dacian history? It is not the Romans' fault that no history was preserved if nothing existed to preserve to begin with. We know a great deal about the Greeks before the Roman conquest because they already had a written historical tradition to be preserved. Even if there were native written histories, without careful tending, history destroys itself through entropy over the centuries. For this reason, the vast majority of what the Romans knew about themselves is also entirely lost to us. e.g., only about a quarter of the books from the magnum opus of Rome's history of itself, Livy's "Ab urbe condita", are preserved today.
- simonh 4y ago
  The Dacian capital was razed and vast swathes of the population sold into slavery. Destruction of their culture and history may not have been the objective, but it was a pretty much inevitable result.
  - qwytw 4y ago
    Historiography was not something that really existed in places not heavily influenced by the Greeks. The first history book by a Roman was written around the time of the second punic wars (around 210 BC). In Persia the Sassanids and Parthians knew less about their Achaemenid past than the Greeks/Romans did. I'm not denying the atrocities committed by the Romans but chances are that both in Dacia and the Celtic world there weren't that many (if any) literary sources to destroy.
    - simonh 4y ago
      Sure, but who knows how many statues, inscriptions or other archaeological evidence was looted and destroyed.
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
The Romans usually let the existing culture and society survive as long as the peoples religion didn’t contradict the Roman gods and the taxes flowed. Even without Rome, history from that era is not well known. Having architecture and literature spread widely across a continent like the romans will last a lot longer than wooden buildings and an oral tradition of a small localised tribe.

ncphil 4y ago

Interesting read. This new book makes academic research from the 20th century and later available to everyone, demolishing the myths non-Roman elites like Geoffrey and descendants told about themselves. _Fall of Civilizations_ is a terrific resource. I've learned a lot of fascinating ancient history beyond the Mediterranean world from it.

johnyzee 4y ago

> One possible etymology for London is from the (plausibly reconstructed, but unattested) British Celtic word landa: ‘low-lying, open land’ Huh, I always took it for granted that it was from the Nordic languages. ‘Lund’ = valley, ‘Lunden’ = the valley.

biorach 4y ago
Well... it's not really in a valley, and the name Londinium predates Nordic influence by several hundred years.