Re: Roman ISOT circa 200 AD

[Dan Goodman]

On Fri, 27 Sep 2013 12:01:57 -0700, trolidous wrote:

> The Neandertal would be physically stronger than the Romans at least
> slightly but not extremely so.
>
> This is an interesting question because the Romans have some things that
> would enable them to conquer the Neandertal somewhat.
>
> 1. Locked shields in combat and the formation of lines against large
> arrays of an assembled opposing army.
>
> 2. Horseback riding.
>
> 3. Plant agriculture and domesticated animals.
>
> 4. The Neandertal likely have no cities.
>
> 5. They have no metallurgy and use stone weapons and tools.
>
> 6. They likely have no archery and hunt mammoth or elephants using
> spears.
> They are likely somewhat migratory and hunt in tribes where they
> systematically spear large mammals such as elephants or bison for food
> in groups. They probably gather some berries or other plants for food
> at different times in the year. They probably rarely use shields since
> they are likely only slightly effective against bison or elephants.
>
> Probably when one tribe makes war against another they use methods
> similar to hunting elephants. They may spear each other at a distance
> and then run away, but they may also use spear mass attacks on each
> other.
> It is difficult to say if they may be adept at the use of snares or
> nets.
>
> There are horses and elephant like mammals that the Neandertal regularly
> hunt in the area and it is difficult to say how quickly the Neandartal
> could learn to domesticate similar animals from the Romans if possible.

If the Romans enslave Neanderthals, seems likely to me that some slaves
will be taught to ride horseback. And, as I believe happened in South
America, escaped native slaves would teach relatives and friends to use
horses.

> An unreliable web site seems to claim that the population of Italy might
> have been about 1.5 million people at about 200AD.
>
> An other unreliable web site seems to claim the entire population of the
> world to be about these figures at different times in history.
>
> 10000 BC 4 million 5000 BC 5 million 3000 BC 15 million 1000 BC 50
> million 500 BC 100 million 200 AD 200 million
>
> Now since this is the last interglacial it might be that Italy will not
> suffer from massive drops in temperature and northern Europe will
> probably not be covered with ice.
>
> One basic question is how quickly the Neandertal could learn how to
> domesticate feral horses and mammoth.

The Romans would teach them.

> As far as the Romans are concerned,
> they could probably ride through the Neandertal inhabited territory on
> horseback, and reports could be issued that all of the empire had
> disappeared except Italy, and all of the lands that had previously
> existed were now either uninhabited or only slightly inhabited with
> small tribes of people who may have hunted in smaller bands than the
> ancient Gauls a few centuries earlier and large beasts.
>
> If they tried to speak with the Neandertal it is likely that they would
> not understand any of their languages. Some people might dispute to
> what extent they would grunt and use something like sign language and to
> what extent they would use a spoken language.
>
> I would guess that how Rome would somewhat react would depend upon who
> was the the emperor at the specific point in time or if the emperor was
> in Italy.
>
> If you are talking Septimius Severus it is difficult to say if he would
> move the capitol to Carthage or somewhere else if Italy disappeared and
> was replaced by something, maybe some wandering Neandertals and not
> large disembodied brains from 4000AD.
>
> If Septimius Severus were in Rome it is difficult to say exactly what he
> would do.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus
>
> My best guess is that scouts on horseback would report that all of the
> empire except Italy had disappeared and that there were no cities or
> ships anywhere in territory that was similar in geography to the
> previous lands that had existed before.
>
> Probably the Senate would start talking about starvation in Italy, so
> they would send some legions out to hunt animals and forage and send
> meat that had been somewhat preserved back to Italy. They would try to
> send slaving expeditions out but there would be little in the way of
> people to conquer and the migrating tribes would fight somewhat with
> spears and might not be able to flee on horseback easily, but they knew
> nothing about agriculture and since it took a while to communicate with
> them and there were only a few of them they would probably try to send
> colonies out in the form of both military troops and local slaves in an
> attempt to colonize land elsewhere.
>
> My guess is that over the next year there would be a severe exodus from
> Italy to the rest of Europe as much of the inhabitants left to avoid
> famine and try to obtain food first from hunting then setting up
> agriculture in other parts of Europe.
>
> It might be that some scouting expeditions sent out to try to find some
> place that had traveled in time along with Italy might go relatively
> far, however, everywhere they would go they might find saber toothed
> cats that would want to attack the scouting party in order to eat their
> horses,
> and each new local tribe they came across might or might not attack the
> scouting party depending on the specifics of each new tribe they came
> across as they traveled.
>
> Probably the Roman colonies sent out would expand outward for some time
> based upon the relative advantages of horseback riding and metallurgy
> until cultural diffusion enabled some of the local populations to engage
> in agriculture and the domestication of animals in a similar manner.
>





--
Dan Goodman
http://dsgoodman.blogspot.com