The Most Distant Places Visited by the Romans 

@@curiodyssey3867 huh? It wasn't random at all. It was directly related to video subject and was an interesting, factual addition.

Tony Depalma doesn’t know what random means, I guess

@@curiodyssey3867 what’s not random is how low your intelligence is

And thus trade middlemen survived to this day.

@@bigblueocean oh, would probably help if I watched the whole video before I replied huh

well if the Romans had discovered how to produce and exploit fossil fuels the world would have been cooked over a thousand years ago!

@Trashthlete agreed, but that is not what I meant. I was thinking that it took 1500+ years to go from their level of technology and science, which was already qutie advanced, to our current knowledge of all things. For example : If we found a Roman-Empire-esque society on the nearest star ,Proxima Centauri, we would still have to wait 1500 years for them to invent the technology to send us a message back.

As primitive as can be

We didn't emerge. We stumbled around, tossed by history.. Forget Great Men & such. Somebody invents a printing press, a few hundred years later: the Pope just has a city. We still commit genocide. Many countries haven't reconciled their own. Iran &: Nicarague fell in 1979, 1980 because of Eisenhower in the 50's!. He picks Nixon as his running mate! China and Putin rise because Bush goes to war. Emerge? Look at how backwards much of Conservative America is...highest poverty rates, lowest motivation and innovation, uses more taxes than they pay. Kentucky is part Russia. Without the New Deal and the Feds, it would be Russia.

You omit the destruction of the west for a 1000+ years by the tirany of christianity. With that in mind it's no surprise.

Is the book reasonably scholarly and well researched? I've checked it out and i see its from Pen & Sword Publishing, which I've found very hit and miss in terms of publishing things that are completely BS.

@@QuantumHistorian No, it’s a serious work.

I thought they got to the Red Sea? Had they made it to Antioch surely they would have known they had made it to Roman territory.

@@patrickmccarron2817 Well, I have read in English the Chinese accounts, where they describe arriving overland and the sea was to their west. That implies Syria, and they describe a major city, which they had initially assumed was Rome, but it can really only be Antioch.

Dr Mclaughlin's you tube channel is far too under appreciated.

That is very interesting. I can imagine that people would hesitate to go into areas that have venomous snakes with wings. I wonder if that is where the idea of dragons comes from.

@@j.pershing2197 I've seen that one, and many other Thunderbolts Projects videos, thanks. I find only some of the premises somewhat convincing. On the one hand, it does seem mysterious and unexplained as to why ancient peoples would describe heavenly bodies like Venus and Jupiter in such awe-inspiring and even frightening terms, considering that to our eyes these are simply tiny lights in the sky. And it's true some of the prehistoric art perhaps not coincidentally does resemble certain electrical discharge forms, and some of the geological scarring seen on other planets perhaps could have been created by electricity. On the other had, the videos never provide any credible evidence the support the notion that the planets of our solar system were ever as close to the Earth during the Neolithic stone age as has been claimed, nor do they ever offer any theories as to WHY, all of a sudden, the other planets would suddenly get knocked out of their near-Earth orbits to go hurtling outwards to settle in their present orbital positions, nor why, evidently, the Earth DIDN'T get knocked out of it's present orbit when all the other planets did! And the reason why know the Earth didn't is because it would have had to remain here in the "goldilocks zone" for life here to survive.

@@anonyarena They knew about the poles. They knew about the scars on Mars. Much more evidence but like most things its just a matter

Lmao I could just imagine some Roman mates travelling across Arabia and one of them goes “Woah watch out! There are flying snakes over there with wings!”

You think the Romans didn't see the Cobra snake in Egypt?

Cartoons about geography! I would love that. ❤️

@@Fetherko Who said anything about cartoons?

I’m currently reading The Greeks by Roderick Beaton and it goes through all of Greek history starting from Mycenaean era to the liberation of Greece from the Ottomans. It also goes into a lot of Roman history but I haven’t gotten that far. I hope it discusses Byzantium and Constantine’s reign in depth.

@@eutropius2699 Well good for you, but I struggle to see the relevance? There's probably a book on ancient history published every week. Unless we're at a book club, mentioning a random one seems entirely pointless. I only mentioned Ancient Geography because it's closely related to the topic of the video, not because it's vaguely linked to ancient history.

@QuantumHistorian Oh stop being an uptight arse. It’s RU-vid, on a history channel. he can talk about his history book if he likes

The "Romans" in this case were actually Greek merchants based in Egypt who sailed down the Red Sea and traded along the East African coast as far as a town called Rhapta which IIRC is believed to be the island of Pemba near modern day Zanzibar. We know this because of a document called the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea written by a Greek-Egyptian merchant around 50AD. It is a guide for merchants trading to South Arabia (modern Yemen and Oman), East Africa (Ethiopia, Somalia, Socotra, etc) and the whole west coast of India. It provides details of the products available at each port and of the imports that the merchant can expect to offer in return. Evidence in the text indicates that author had visited many of the places himself, presumably as a merchant.

The average everyday Roman didn’t travel this far. Just merchants and envoys.

@@stuartm2106 dude, I would love to see a tv series based on the document.

Polynesians were probably already sailing all around these regions by then, they essentially discovered Madagascar afaik. Further fact, the Persian (I believe, possibly Assyrian) Empire once tasked Phoenician sailors to find a way around the South of the African continent. These sailors supposedly completed their mission, returning 3 years later but assuring that the voyage was too long to replace any routes. It was quickly forgotten.

They been to America too

Even back then they loved you long time.

Additionally, Thule should be pronounced “tool -ah”. No matter! Garrett always has some fascinating stuff for our delectation!

Ah, my mistake. I should have checked that before recording.

Silly hilly billy willy

@@toldinstone No worries, a great video all the same. But the Scillies make me wonder how Scilla (and Charybdis) is pronounced.

*and before somebody makes the common mistake: Illinois = “ill-annoy” not “illa-noise”

And font forget Indians in the city of Rome or Pompeii

@@aka99 It wouldn't surprise me at all, but in terms of actual archaeological evidence we have very little for that. We do have definitive proof of Indians in Egypt

There is so much Roman Bias that I can't find what the Chinese called "the silk road"

Right, it’s hard to imagine the Vikings were the first people to try island hopping to Greenland. If the Romans could sail from Egypt to India they could have reached Iceland from Britain/Faroe Islands.

It seems like the Romans weren't particularly fond of the cold

The writing and narration are atrocious. Mispronunciations and robotic inflections.

Then you went to cheap ass schools.

@@robertgiles9124 So is this the kind of stuff that gets taught in private schools?

@@ShlumpGaming RU-vid has courses for Yale here with Professor Kleiner on the history of Rome. For free. Just one example.

@@robertgiles9124 Thank you!

@@robertgiles9124 Nah, US education is *mostly* garbage, especially history.

Same

I became convinced many years ago the Taklamakan desert has a much more important history than we know. I don't know if the environment was most hospitable, or if it was just because it was the easiest route from Europe to China, but there was a lot of trade and mixing of cultures there.

@@promontorium You have to love the stories told to explain its name as well. Stuff ranging from 'that place over there' to 'place of ruin/ruins' to 'ye be screwed' (to put a more contemporary spin on some of them)

@@promontorium The Taklamakan desert has truly fascinated me ever since I first spotted it on a map when I was a kid. It essentially looks like a sandbox in the middle of nowhere, when the scale is such that you can see both China and Eastern Europe. Things like historic trade routes in the region and it being a potential avenue for cross pollination between Asia and Europe, just make it more interesting imo. Usually it is the history that brings me to a location. The Taklamakan desert is one of the few exceptions, where the location is what brought me to the history. btw, I would assume that generally speaking, any routes of travel there, skirted around the desert, on the fringes. There are some rivers crisscrossing the desert, but they are basically seasonal. If you look at known historic settlements in the region from 2k years ago or so, they are all on the outskirts of the Tarim basin. Even if you take a best case scenario where some rivers were longer and thus more interconnected in ancient times, you still have to deal with the fact that they tend to be seasonal and even if extended past their current boundaries, don't do all that much (relatively speaking) to further the ability to move people and goods. Nothing like the increase you get with the proposal that one used to be able to navigate a ship from the Mediterranean to Caspian (via the Black Sea > Sea of Azov > Don river > Caspian) Which is another really really interesting topic imo.

@@promontorium One other related thought, just because I'm bored. Another part of that whole avenue of approach so-to-speak, in that general part of the globe which I find immensely interesting, is the Amu Darya, historically known in Europe as the Oxus river. It is just on the other side of Tajikistan from the Taklamakan desert. It connects the historic region of Bactria with the historic Aral Sea (if a couple of decades ago can be called "historic times"). Combine that, with the idea that it might have been possible (during certain times of the year, possibly) to navigate from the Caspian Sea to the Aral Sea and then take the Oxus all the way into the heart of ancient Bactria. This puts the eastern fringe of the Taklamakan about 400 miles or so away. 400 miles of mountainous terrain, but terrain that has been settled since forever and thus has, at the very least, a basic network of valleys, rivers, roads, paths and whatnot which could be used moving people and goods. We even know that Alexander III settled several of his Alexandrias in those eastern areas. But that then gets into a discussion of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, then later in history the Indo-Greek Kingdom and well.. both of those are massive topics in and of themselves.

Yes, the remains were discovered of someone who had apparently been born in eastern Asia. Unfortunately, nothing found with the bones allowed them to be identified.

A Freedman originally from the Land of Chin perhaps ?

Which Roman period

It was the Phoenicians

There Is a french video about It

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WKdlIpBmOrA.html Or probably another video on the same Channel

I’d be interested in this, as well.

Unfortunately, I don't think I could add much to my video on "Ancient Greek Buddhists" from last year. There may have been some Indian Buddhists (or even local converts) in Roman Alexandria, but the evidence is ambiguous.

@@toldinstone India is where Buddhism came from and the entire empire of Ashoka was buddhist. So there is lots and lots of evidence for Buddhists being in India. The Romans much less, but there was a Buddhist temple in Alexandria. Also, the Gospels. In the Gospels Jesus quotes the Buddha multiple times and uses some of his parables.

The ancient Finns were a mystery at that time. Their neighbors thought that they were wizards and seers and tried but failed many times to conquer them. It didn’t surprise me at all when he put that picture. They were a mystery to everyone including the Romans. They also dwelled in swamps and hill forts deep in the forest. Big foot does too so it makes sense

If there were such islands, surely those are well documented in maps from several centuries of Portuguese explorers (late 1300s onwards). Do you have such evidences?

@@pedroedsos you can search old maps on the internet , at least 25% of the maps from 1500-1700 show that there were extra islands between madeira and portugal. You can search modern nautical charts to see that the lowest point is barely 20 metres below sea level in some areas there. Also you seem portuguese?

@@gui18bif I find no such islands in old maps. Please post links to your claims.

very interesting, thanks on the info

What's the deal with Romans having found madeira or not? It doesn't seem to me all that interesting historically speaking.

He did mention that, between 9:17 and 9:20 in the video

Als9 for years Germanic. My grandparents. Halo!!!DANZIG. 600 years......and so on

How did you learn this?

Pseudo History.

Egyptians and Phoenicians didn't go to Cornwall for tin directly, it was traded using intermediaries

Literally none of this is true

The Egyptian-Phoenician trip around Africa was mentioned by Herodotus, although he didn't believe it. The Christians of Southern India have long claimed that their church was founded by Thomas, but I'm not aware of any evidence to support it.

Just like et and the bots when we talk about life in other planets nowadays. Maybe they are just our long lost DNA cousins, no? Hahaha

In a word, some of them traveled FAR---the Ethiopians bounced all the way to India and Indonesia.

@@ljss6805 Wow!

@@TriviRocks The Chinese also knew of the Ethiopians by the 3rd century.

@@ljss6805 Thanks! You see, some people think civilizations had no contact at all in ancient times. That's not true! There have always been adventurers and merchants all around the world...

If you already know all about Marco Polo, there is an account of contemporary travels which, as it also involves Kublai Khan and the Pope but is reverse it in direction, is often compared to the literature of Marco Polo. Around 1888, the Europeans discovered that a written account survived in the Middle East of the travels of the Nestorian monks Marcos and Bar Sawma. Bar Sawma traveled from Beijing to the Atlantic Ocean. Marcos became the Patriarch-Catholicos, the head of all Nestorians, adopting the name Yabhalaha. The heads of the Armenian church and the Nestorian church today are also called Catholicos.

Sounds just like the billions we've sent to one particular country.

Only silly’s on silly?

@@aka99 silly's what?

@@Pete9Tails scilly island of course.

Skilly, during Roman times.

The lack of European crops in the Americas and of American crops in Europe before the 15th Century makes mink cross-Atlantic contacts pre 15th C must have been very rare indeed - if there were any.

So you say :-)

Oh you Celts 🌿🤣🌿

That’s silly…😂

Nowadays Scilly is well known for its early potatoes, strawberries and a silent 'c'.

@@VanderlyndenJengold you're thinking of the Channel Islands - Jersey and Guernsey are famous for early potatoes and strawberries. The Scillies are best known for exporting cut flowers, especially winter daffodils.

Ok, but Rome has much more to offer.

Wow, you watch every video of toldinstone!

@@aka99 yessir the bell is on

I wish I had your grounding in Latin, I’m struggling to learn it on my own. I’m sure it will come back to you with a little practice. No local college teaches it and I can’t commit to a second degree program now.

@@petezy8892 Me, too.🙂

@@kimberlyperrotis8962 yeah that’s unfortunate :/ your best bets are Jesuit institutions, it being the official language of the Catholic Church and all

Dopo la battaglia di Idistaviso vinta dai romani contro i germani, l'esercito di Germanico si spinse fino al confine dell'odierna Polonia. Il sud della Scandinavia era chiamato dai romani Scandia, da cui deriva Scandinavia ( il paese degli Scandi)👋

a roman made furnace would be odd trade goods often made it far beyond the Limes, but craftsmen building furnaces, hm......maybe a captured skilled slave ? the Hamburg thing concerning Pytheas voyage he mixed up with something else as you don't reach Hamburg via the Baltc Sea metal detecting in Northfrisia and having found more augustean silver Quinari (kinda soldier coins) than the much more common Denari, I somewhat think that ships of Drusus his scattered fleet somehow ended up here

Taprobane is tamirabarani river flowing in souther tip of tamilnadu. Nothing to do with lanka

@@sankadines sorry that someone from that area of the world is so ignorant. If you check the Wikipedia page for Taprobane you will see that I’m right. You might find the book The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean by Raoul McLaughlin to be worth reading before you make such an ignorant comment. The island was in antiquity a major source of copper and the name comes from the Sanskrit word for copper. Next time don’t be such a pushy man.

@@Joanna-il2ur try to deduce the word origin and river name. You ll understand. It is the name of the river.

An Adventure in Space.

He also had a RU-vid channel that is far too under appreciated.

I found him when searching for romans and the black sea. Impressed me enough to buy and read his books which are really fascinating.

Cool, is that in English? Btw it’s pronounced silly not scilly

As a Greek I would add to the story that there is also a nerdy one with them that speaks your Greatgrandfather's language and now you have to be a translator.

Don't forget about Caesar and the Pirates

Merchant expeditions were extremely dangerous and were often attacked. Many of them never returned. It was always a difficult balance for the traders and investors to decide how many 'security personnel' to take with them - too many and the cost ate into profits, too few and you might not make it. And there was of course always the fear that they themselves might highjack the caravan on its return. I suspect that the success of an expedition mostly depended on the traders' knowledge of the destination and places/people en-route, and almost certainly the use of local guides/protectors.

A work of fiction but in Ben-Hur he serves on a ship seeking out a pirate fleet.

@@jamesfields2916 not according to Livy

Romans were awful sailors, and most of their naval capabilities involved ramming their opponents to fight them hand to hand. I can only imagine any pirate looking at a Roman ship would probably not be too fond of boarding it, which is the only real way to secure the loot since you can't sink it.

What a scilly name

@Bocão If the intention is to inform, then mispronunciation is misinformation. Me, I check things like that, and make corrections when I'm wrong.

I’ve often had similar thoughts as well and figured it was possible, given the right set of circumstances. But now I wonder if Roman era ships could have survived that kind of voyage. We know that ancient shipbuilding was much different than that of Europe in the 1400s. I wonder if there are ship experts out there that could confirm or deny this.

@@sabatino1977 It's fascinating to think that if any Roman castaways happen to have landed in the shores of the Caribbean or South America. I would be intrigued to know what kind of contact they would've made with the Native tribes and how they would've managed relations with them. If that sort of senerio would've ever happened those Romans would've never thought they've set foot in another continent and never returned home.

Someone make that movie.

Un giornale di Galveston (Texas, USA) nel 1886 pubblicò la notizia del ritrovamento di una nave romana di fronte al suo porto. Personalmente non ci credo, anche se sono state trovate monete romane lungo la costa che va dagli USA fino al Brasile del nord. C'è anche un'altra storia, il ritrovamento di una spada romana da cerimonia (in legno) in Nuova Scozia (Canada) 👋

But they were!

Is that a hypothesis or is it true? Cuz it could also just be that two groups of people independently made a tasty fish sauce

I think your hypothesis is wrong. A lot of Asian countries that haven't been touched by western influence until a lot later that have been using fish sauce. Korea was one of those countries that mastered fermentation, including fermented fish sauce, as they started their fermentation journey around 56 B.C.E, but they were mostly pickling vegetables. Japan also had their own way of conserving and fermenting food. Nice theory though, just a very western POV

@@ghmj2607 yep, who would have thunk island, peninsula, and coastal based civilizations would base their food sources from the sea? OP has definitely never been to east Asia.

Garum originates from Greece where it had been made for a long time, your hypothesis is wrong the two condiments developed simultaneously winouth contact from each other

Glad you enjoyed it! Yes, I've heard that story. It's not impossible - we know that many of the Roman soldiers captured after Carrhae ended up at Merv in central Asia - but there's no conclusive proof.