Monday 6 June 2016

The History Of The Roman Republic And Empires in The Works Of Poul Anderson

(i) Time travelers intervened in the second war between the Roman Republic and Carthage in 218 BC.

(ii) Marius defeated a barbarian invasion of Italy in 101 BC.

(iii) Ys helped Caesar against the Veneti.

(iv) Augustus sent engineers to build the Ysan sea wall.

(v) 68 AD: overthrow of Nero; civil war; the year of the three emperors; Vespasian became Emperor.

(vi) "The Peat Bog" is set in the first century AD.

(vii) 69-70 AD: the Northern Revolt and the Jewish War.

(viii) "...a Roman lord hight Constantine had finally put down his rivals and become master of the whole Empire." (Time Patrol, p. 383)

(ix) "...before he died Constantine had divided rule of the Empire between East and West. For the Eastern seat of lordship he had chosen the city of Byzantium, renaming it after himself." (p. 396)

(x) "Constantine had declared Christ the single god of the state." (ibid.)

(xi) The Romans withdrew from Britain.

(xii) Barbarians ravaged Imperial territories.

(xiii) Harald Hardrada served in the Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Empire in the eleventh century.

(xiv) The immortal Hanno was in Constantinople in 1072.

(xv) In 1204, the time traveler, Jack Havig, was present for the sack of Constaninople by Crusaders.

(xvi) Lucas Greco was in Constantinople in the fourteenth century.

(xvii) Manuel Argos based his Terran Empire on the Roman Empire.

And see the combox for an important addition to this chronology.

2 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would have included an entry between your (x) and (xi) for a note on how Flavius Stilicho crushed Radagaisus' barbarian invaders of Italy in August of 406. The Roman army included not only "numeri" raised in Italy but also garrisons summoned from the Rhine fortresses.

Stilicho's triumph against Radagaisus also marked the end of the period when the decisions he made as de facto dictator of the Western Empire were sound and sensible. His first and probably most disastrous mistake after defeating Radagaisus was in not returning the forces summoned from the Rhineland to their posts. The undermanned garrisons were unable to stop the Germans from invading Gaul over the frozen Rhine at the end of the year. Not only should Stilicho have returned those troops to the Rhineland, he should have gone there himself with all other available forces. My view is that would have cowed both the Germans on the east bank of the Rhine but also have discouraged the legions in Britain from proclaiming several usurpers as Emperor.

I wonder what the consequences for history would have been if Stilicho had done this!

Sean

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Thanks for the nice comment about my first combox note in the last sentence you added to this blog piece of yours.

Sean