An ambushed Nyanzan marine dies on Brae:
"'Ai! 'List nay, they said. Nay let recruiters 'list you...damned Empire...even to gain warskills, don't 'list...shall freedom come from the slave-masters, asked he in Uhunhu. He and his 'ull teach what we must know, see you?'" (p. 305)
Issues encapsulated here:
I remember Ben Hur saying that he would fight for Rome if Rome taught him how to fight against her;
the Nyanzans are not enslaved but there are slaves in the Terran Empire;
"...he in Uhunhu..." is an agent of Merseia so his claimed opposition to "slave-masters" is cynical and manipulative;
however, every opponent of slavery is not a dupe of a foreign power. ("We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.")
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
There must have been plenty of people who thought as Ben Hur did, but I question how realistic such an attitude would be. The longer such a soldier with "mixed motives" served either Rome or Terra, the more likely it would be that such persons would become ATTACHED to these states as the years passed. One example would be the Irish regiments which served the British Empire right thru the troubled times from the Easter Revolt to the establishment of the Free State. I have never heard of any of these regiments either mutinying against the British or even resigning en masse.
And, as has been discussed before here, slavery never amounted to much in the Empire, being largely used as a punishment for crime. And was usually temporary.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that Poul Anderson's Terran Empire began as a space opera Roman Empire. Thus, it had to have an Emperor at one end of its social hierarchy and slaves at the other. Then the Technic History became more serious speculative fiction so Anderson began to rationalize how slavery might develop in the period between van Rijn and Flandry, i.e., when Philippe Rochefort was alive.
Paul.
Note that the Roman army was a massive instrument of Romanization. Archaeological studies in many regions have traced how returning veterans from the auxiliary formations came home (or settled elsewhere) as Roman citizens, and built Roman style houses equipped with Roman style goods, in which to lead Romanized, Latin-speaking lives. Regular legionaries had to be citizens already, but they married local women and usually settled much closer to the frontiers. They and their children would be seed-crystals of Romanization too.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: But I was thinking here not as a reader of fiction, or how an author works with the material of his stories, but as of how an observer might study the Empire as real history.
Mr. Stiring: I agree, I too have read of how the legions and its auxiliaries were massive instruments for Romanizing many lands and peoples. And of how retired veterans lived like Romans, spoke Latin, and did the same for their families and neighbors.
Which is why I have some doubts Thomas Umbolu would have remained so strongly anti-Imperial if he had not been killed on Brae. The Terranizing influence of the Navy would have been influencing him to modify his views.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But Thomas could be disgusted by what he saw being done on Brae and that disgust could have lasted.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Except it's plain Thomas Umbolu's fellow Marines did not feel like that. I recall how Stirling commented that long serving professional military tend to be indifferent to politics. That what mattered to them was loyalty to their oath, to each other, and DOING the jobs assigned to them as efficiently as possible.
So Thomas' views might well have changed after five or ten years in the Marines.
Ad astra! Sean
There were exceptions in the general success of military Romanization. Arminius, the German leader at the Teutonberger Wald, was an auxiliary veteran. So were the leaders of the Batavian revolt — the Batavians supplied elite special-forces auxiliaries to the Roman armies for a long time before and after that.
The Roman fortress at Vindolandia, on Hadrian’s Wall, was occupied by Batavian troops. It’s notable that the big trove of letters and records discovered there sho a high degree of Romanization, literacy in Latin, use of Roman names and Roman religious customs, etc. About the only non-Roman thing in the letters is the amount of beer they drink!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Of course there would be exceptions to successful Romanization, such as Arminius and those Batavian troops you mentioned. And we see Anderson using that revolt in his story "Star of the Sea."
And those letters and records discovered at Vindolandia interests me!
Ad astra! Sean
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