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That's funny. I recall years ago watching a documentary on the Vindolanda letters stating that a complement of Syrian archers from Hama (the area just north of

That's funny. I recall years ago watching a documentary on the Vindolanda letters stating that a complement of Syrian archers from Hama (the area just north of Homs) was stationed in Britain during Hadrian's time: https://www.vindolanda.com/blog/fact-file-where-were-the-soldiers-from https://www.vindolanda.com/blog/fact-file-where-were-the-sol... So migration from Syria to Britain and vice versa has been happening for just under 2000 years! Those Anglo Saxons were probably closer to the barbarians that those Hamatian Archers were trying to prevent from immigrating to the island, however!

cheaprentalyeti 2y ago
During Hadrian's time the "barbarians" they were fighting were Picts from Scotland. The Anglo-Saxons didn't come over until after the Romans left and (according to legend) King Vortigern needed mercenaries to fight his fellow Romano-Celts and be his enforcers. Also... this wouldn't be the only time that Anglo-Saxons would be working for the Eastern Roman Empire. They were also a fairly substantial fraction of the Varangian Guard, particularly after the Normans conquered Britain. Somewhere along the way a lot of them wound up settling in what's now the Ukraine, but I don't know what happened to those.