Did the Roman Army Ever Venture into Saudi Arabia?

[RomanTribune]

Did any Emperor ever send legions into Saudi Arabia? If so, what happened? Did they consider setting up a colony?

[Onasander]

Yes, and yes.

 

They entered it a few times. No, they didn't conquer the deep desert.

 

Reason why is because its insanely hot, and no profit derived from it.

 

There are three ways classically to exploit the trade around and in Arabia, up the Persian Gulf, which is quick if coming from India, but your essentially at prey to the Persians the whole time. Second, offloading prior to the Red Sea, and marching (or selling) your goods as they make it through Mecca and on to Syria and Palestine. Or third, which I view as the worst, up the red sea. Via the map, it seems wisest to get all the way up to the modern Suez, but the turn around Arabia was terrible, very unpredictable.

 

After the Ptolomies, and then Romans figured out the Monsoon winds, Arabia became less important.

 

Romans controlled the islands in the mouth of the Red Sea, had sent legions in from the coast, and also held northern Arabia (they even had a Arab Emperor, Phillip the Arab).

 

Likewise, they also heavily used Arab mercenaries, and when Christianity became the religion of the empire, it had a profound effect on it. For a very brief time, they also held Iraq.

 

When we look at Arabia from hindsight, in the eruption of Islam, it makes Arabia look like a wise conquest, but financially it was worthless.... as the Romans had a end monopoly on all incoming goods, and were slowly creeping towards the interior at a snails pace anyway.

 

What made this ultimately not the case wasn't Muhammed or his state.... no disrespect to him, but there are start up states before and after happening all the time, but rather he acquired a near invincible, genius general, which is a rarity in history (but not unknown) and his state was able to exploit its position, and trade opportunities, as well as to smash the Persians and east roman empire from its underbelly after the two had engaged in decades of costly war. It cost very little to get nomadic troops subsistence living out of the desert, but it would of been absurdly expensive for either the Persians or Romans to equip a deep desert army to penetrate Arabia, and even if they did, realistically what would of come from it? Two hostile countries joint patrolling a few small desert cities as nomads harassed their lines for a few decades till the Arabs experienced a generation or two if change and calmed down? Persians and Romans were too volatile.

 

Currently, trade INTO Arabia enters Dubai. Yemen is completely rejected, and King Abdullah's Economic City (currently under construction) is set to exploit Eurotrade via the red sea. People don't bother with Arabia itself to access the European markets anymore. If it wasn't for the oil, people wouldn't even bother with it. Try are getting into plastics and alternative fuels by pumping sea water directly into their desert (waters the land, makes it arable, and provides a biofuel)....

 

 

From the Proto-Islamic perspective, the Ethiopian and Yemeni Jewish and Christian kingdoms posed a much closer and surreal threat, and it was them, and only the Romans and Persians second, who most wilded them up. It would seem from an Arabs perspective as if Arabia was being pushed into from every direction, they had generations of martial hysteria, being recruited as mercenaries, and juggling with new ideas and concepts from religious groups entering into their lands. Had it not been for that one genius commander however, Muhammad's state would of remained small for the rest of his life, and Persia and the Romans would of eventually taken it piecemeal.

[caldrail]

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

[Onasander]

Found this:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charax_Spasinu

Via this Chinese account of the area:http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/eastasia/romchin1.asp

 

Its Kuwait, apparently it was one of the last cities founded by Alexander the great, and for some odd reason never excavated. Given the situation with ISIS, I am thankful for that.

[caldrail]

There's a great deal that doesn't get excavated. Now that magnetic, sonar, and satellite mapping is available, more of it is charted rather than dug. There's a Romano-British twon where I live. Although six or seven digs have taken place, many of the significant buildings (it's all buried - there's nothing to see there) have been left untouched including a substantial mansio. There aremany sites in north Africa that remain untouched, or at least, by archaeologists. Far to many there have already been looted, some stripped away by JCB's. Berenice, one of the most profitable sea ports of the ROman empire on the Red Sea coast, has hardly been touched as far as I know. Again, it's only in recent years that Germano-Roman towns across the Rhine have been found and investigated. Plenty left to find it would seem.

 

Incidentially, a local archaeologist has long held the belief that a major Roman temple ought to sited in my area. So far that hasn't come to light, though indications are that developers have already built a concrete highway bridge over it without knowing it was there.

[Onasander]

Hmmm.

 

What kind of temple are we talking about?

And I don't see why diagonal and horizontal (dug at depth parallel) sonar scans can't pick up the site if the pillars didn't penetrate it. Hopefully you live on a floodplain and its quite deep under.

 

Core Samples can also be done, as well as doing very simple magnetic sweeps. I myself can't use a metal detector here because a century of having a steel mill has dropped balls of pig iron literally everywhere. Plus the deeply restarted cops think I'm using it to look for schrooms (I'm still mystified about that logic, it can't sniff or think, just beeps when its over metal. They drop a lot of money on patrolling the distant woods, but can't get them when you call them in town).

 

I also know its common practice, once a bridge needs repaired, or even torn down, to build a bridge next to it while the other is being worked on. If you can establish in the meantime a temple IS THERE, you could likely get in a season of controlled excavations with your "Ministry of Transportation" (whatever you call it), going under the bridge in tunnels that will be filled in after.

 

If being torn down.... Well, that is one hellish dig. Hugh concrete structure and massive pile of dirt. Hence core samples and indirect scan signatures beforehand.

[caldrail]

What kind of temple? Swindon is a known area of springwater (most have gone dry since the Victorian era), and shrines to water deitieis are found locally. Given the lack of any overtly religious building found so far, and the proximity of springwater, the distribution of shrines which radiate out from the old Roman town, the archaeologist concerned is supporting the idea that a temple to a water god has gone undetected, but as I say, bases of columns for a large building were noted before the bridge was erected, but never investigated.

 

In Britain any potential find on a construction site has to be evaluated and if necessary, archaeologists can register a request for work to be halted until a dig has been performed (a lost medieval village was found nearby in that manner recently). Such powers are limited of course, but construction companies are often keen for the publicity and willing to comply.

 

However, in the case of the bridge concerned, the highway is a major route around the town (following the course of a Roman road no less), and is a substantial reinforced concrete structure that renders the potential site unavailable. Since the remains were not seen to be significant a the time, and situated away from the Roman town centre, no-one thought anything of it. There is one fly in the ointment - that side of the road was a known Roman cemetary (parts of Swindon overlay it), thus the proximity of a large temple and a graveyard are unusual, or at least as far as I know.

[Onasander]

Ummm.... Water deity, temple.

 

Ummm....

 

What is the local topography. You said your area is known for its spring, and is along a roman road. Sounds like a rest stop not near a creek or river, or its mineral water.

 

Hmmmm..... so the temple, even if under, if still intact, can still be scanned and thus mapped, but if its a water God, the artifacts of most interest would be.... in the water. Hence the topography question. Where is the water pooling, as in the low point? A former, or still present lake? Any medieval Lady in the Lake sword tossing? Sounds like metal detector sort of stuff.

 

I just found this, I've been trying to figure out who was the first person to record the idea of the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, no luck, beyond a Canadian GED test claiming it was Roman Geographers. This Arabia related link popped up from the 1800s dealing with Rome:

 

 

The Greek and Roman writers in general divided Arabia into two parts, Arabia Deserta (i) fpvuos 'Atti&a), namely, the northern desert between Syria and the Euphrates, and Akabia Felix (rj cvoal/iw "Apos'itt), comprising the whole of the actual peninsula (Diod. Sic, ii. 48. foil.; Strab. xvi. p. 767; Mflajti.8; Plin.vi.28. s.32). Respecting the origin it the appellation Felix, see below (§ III). The third 4rf itrion, Arabia Petraea (tj neTpeu'o 'ApaSia) is f.rt distinctly mentioned by Ptolemy (v. 17. § 1). It included the peninsula of Sinai, between the two fulfs of the Red Sea, and the mountain range of Idarnea (Mt. Seir), which runs from the Dead Sea to the Aelanitic Gulf (Gulf of Akabah); and derived its name, primarily, from the city of Petka (h 'ApaSia % fa n«Tf^, Diosoor. de Mat. Med. i. 91; il Icoto r)p Zlhpay'ApaBla, Agathem. Geogr. ii. 6), ox, u b orVcn supposed, from its physical ciiaracter,

as if the Stony or Rocky Arabia, however well the name, in this sense, would apply to a portion of it

This division is altogether unknown to the Arabians themselves, who confine the name of Arabland to the peninsula itself, and assign the greater part of Petraea to Egypt, and the rest to Syria, and call the desert N. of the peninsula the Syrian Desert, notwithstanding that they themselves are the masters of it.

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=9y0BAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq=roman+geographers+named+tropic+of+cancer&source=bl&ots=yWRQFhC4FF&sig=xyK81HJ1u0rsgJ5_HRXdYjW2Pbo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dqocVZS8M5PkoASZ4YCACQ&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAzgK

Edited April 2, 2015 by Onasander

[caldrail]

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

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

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

http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/maps/interactivemap/

 

 

 

Hmmmm..... so the temple, even if under, if still intact, can still be scanned and thus mapped, but if its a water God, the artifacts of most interest would be.... in the water.

Not at all. Firstly no significant remains were revealed during thehighway development, secondly, the water temple would be on dry land as much as any other. It is true that the ancient Britons have a reverence for water and would iften deposit objects in it  as a scrifice, a practice known to have continued in Roman times as the occupiers respected and amalgamated local deities, but the attraction of the Durocornovium site has an ephemeral beginning. Hill forts existed along the Ridgeway to the south, Barbury being the nearest, with another at Purton (a local village), and also at Blunsdon (north Swindon) on the side of the plateau. Some suspect another fort existed where Swindon Old Town is, the old market town on the hill, but early maps show no evidence. There were alsoolder religious sites there - a stone circle used toexist on what is now the edge of Broome Manor golf course. The development of Durocornovium is discussed in the Wikipedia article.

 

There has always been a grey area of interpretation where Roman finds are concerned, inspiring claims of very distant colonisation, but at best this was trade missions occupied intermittently, areas of refugee population, or simply trade goods passed on.

[Onasander]

I don't quite understand. I read a few books on the Greek and Armenian Genocides in Turkey during the Armistice of WW1, and they held out in a Eagle's Nest, a old Roman fort, perched up on a vertical cliff, extremely hard to assault.

 

Likewise, I recall a equally inaccessible site in Syria.

 

Yet this Nythe farm looks depressingly flat. Nythe = Nest, and the roman camp would be there.... but I see nothing special about the inaccessibility of that location.

 

Am I wrong about the usage of the name? It was used for high up, hard to assault forts, wasn't it?

[caldrail]

Forts were not always high up. I agree there was land suitable for such work, but there is no sign of such frtification. The hill seemed more valuable for stone, and we know the Romans quaaried there (the remanant of the quarries can still be traced, albeit enlarged in subsequent periods). The original camp was for the construction of the roads which came down off the Marloborough and Lambourn Downs around Swindon Hill before heading NW toward the site of Corinium. Defense was not the point, and that camp was abandoned when the troops moved on with the construction work. Back in 1840 there was talk of a Roman camp at South Marston, later work suggests a causeway or something similar as the area was a flood plain in ancient times. Although nno actual camp is officially recognised, I have been informed that a ditch with an 'ankle breaker' cut has been unearthed near Durocornovium, but this again is on the lowland, not Swindon Hill or the plateau to the south (which did have local populations and hill forts pre-existing, plus at least one villa complex  on the Cunetio road at the brow of the slope. The placement of a mansio dictates the main use of the site early on, though some do note the potential for agricultural use, and clearly the town had a market for local produce, pottery included, however badly it sold. It would seem Durocornovium never made the grade as a protected site in any case, as it was never invested with permanent stone walls in the late empire and allowed to wither. Further, the possiblity of a Roman as evidenced by ditches and embankments (or at least the remains of them) were overliad by the town buildings, thus any fortification was temporary and the area considered secure. There is no evidence of local strife in the Roman occupation, and local hill forts were not apparently bothered by the Roman presence at any stage, aside from Liddington Hill which was re-occupied in the late empire have been abandoned before the Romans arrived.

[Onasander]

You should make a tourism brouchure to attract roman history minded tourism to the area after that last post.

 

Were the hillforts already abandoned then when the Romans showed up? Did the Romans leave them alone out of indifference.... walls and all and just focus all their efforts on non military concerns, such as importing mesquitos to the wetlands, and making crappy pottery?

 

Also, does anyone make this apparently bad kind of pottery, is it sold on the internet? Can I buy the most neglected pottery in the Roman Empire?

[caldrail]

Some hillforts were abandoned before the Roman occupation. In my area, Liddington Hill had lost its population hundreds of years earlier. Barbury remained occupied throughout but was never bothered by the Romans. The reasons were simple - the people of Barbury caused no trouble and paid whatever taxes were due. The mistake most people make about Romano-Britain is that they assume everyone donned a toga and lived in villas. Not so. As anywhere in the empire, local peoples were left to carry on life as they had before provided they behaved and paid tax on demand. Some cultural fuzziness and cross fertilisation occurred - the wealthy elite preferred to walk the walk and talk the talk as it were, and less important people garnered Roman style goods over time, but note the emphasis in archaeology on 'Romano-Britiain. Both cultures lived alongside each other. That was typical of provinces in most parts of the empire.

 

I don't know anything about the Blundson or Purton sites. The pottery style unique to Duroncornovium is, as far as I know, limited to the local area - it really wasn't popular and there was plenty of competition. Savernake Forest, linked to the town of Cunetio ten or so miles south, was far more popular but again, locally biased, as most pottery industries were. Gallic pots, or 'samian', were more often imported as luxury or desirable goods. You won't find the Durocrnovium style on sale today (I don't even know what it looked like - you would have to ask an archaeologist who knows it)

Edited April 7, 2015 by caldrail

[GhostOfClayton]

You should make a tourism brouchure to attract roman history minded tourism to the area after that last post.

 

 

Sadly, it's hard enough to attract tourism to Roman sites, even where there are extensive visible remains.  English Heritage pull off tourism better than most but I can't think of any of their sites (please do try to prove me wrong here, everyone) where there's nothing but interpretion to see.

 

The best job was pulled off in Colchester, at the Archaeology Park (outlines of theatre and temple complex along with very good interpretation), but Colchester Tourist Board don't really make much effort to use that site to bolster tourism.

[caldrail]

The problem with Roman remains is that they're essentially static and anonymous, even when in sight. Fascinating to me but for many in this high octane electronic media world, a crashing bore by nature of the concept. People like to be entertained (how Roman!!!) thus unless there's regular activity to enthrall the masses, they see a few stone ridges as little more than a manicured building site.