The Romans were organised, truly organised in complex ways not seen again until at least the 18th and 19th centuries. Trade was vital to Ancient Rome. The empire cost a vast sum of money to run and trade brought in much of that money. The population of the city of Rome grew to over one million and demand for more and different goods and services to build and maintain a high status lifestyle fuelled trade from further and further afield.
 Roman Trade Routes AD 180 (Source ORBIS, Stanford University) In addition to the 80,000 kilometres of first class roads (as at c. AD 200) built primarily for the movement of military forces, used by the imperial courier service, for government administration and lastly for trade, sea routes crossed the Empire through the Mediterranean from Spain, France and North Africa to Syria, north to Britannia and east to the Black Sea. They supported trade between a network of coastal cities – Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage. These cities were serviced by a road network permitting trade within their respective hinterlands. River transport was not so widespread as the major pan-European rivers, the Rhine and the Danube, were military frontiers, not the core of the Empire.
The Romans built lighthouses, harbour complexes, docks and warehouses to further sea trade and make it secure . The Roman navy (classis) tried with varying success to keep the Mediterranean Sea safe from pirates. Although the navy was instrumental in the Roman conquest of the Mediterranean basin, it never enjoyed the prestige of the Roman legions. Romans were a primarily land-based people, and relied partially on other nationalities such as Greeks, Phoenicians and the Egyptians, to build and man their ships. Partly because of this, the navy was never wholly embraced by the Roman state, and deemed somewhat “un-Roman”. Unlike modern naval forces, the Roman navy even at its height never existed as an autonomous service, but operated as an adjunct to the Roman army.
Trade was facilitated by a single official currency and no complicating customs dues. Trade developed in complexity and reach as peace became more established and with more trade, prosperity increased. When the Empire disintegrated in the late AD 400s, overseas markets disappeared, supply and distribution routes became unsafe and trade collapsed. The Mediterranean Sea became a dangerous place for merchants as there were no powers to control the activities of pirates who marauded as far north as the English Channel.
What was acquired from where?
The Romans imported a whole variety of materials: beef, corn, glassware, iron, lead, leather, marble, olive oil, perfumes, purple dye, silk, silver, spices, timber, tin and wine. The main trading partners were in Spain, France, the Middle East and North Africa. Britain exported lead, woollen products and tin. In return, it imported from Rome wine, olive oil, pottery and papyrus.
 Roman bireme (Source: Wikipedia) The most important sea port was Ostia situated at the mouth of the River Tiber and only 15 miles from Rome. According to an inscription the original castrum (military camp) of Ostia was established in the 7th century BC. However, the oldest archaeological remains so far discovered date back to only the 4th century BC when Rome fought several naval actions. The traditional birth date of the Roman navy is set at ca. 311 BC, when, after the conquest of Campania, two new officials, the duumviri navales classis ornandae reficiendaeque causa, were tasked with the maintenance of a fleet. The most ancient buildings currently visible in Ostia are from the 3rd century BC, notably the castrum. From this point on, Ostia starts to play an important role as a military harbour. When Rome installed a new naval magistracy in 267 BC, one of the officials was permanently based in Ostia. Traders and artisans settled in Ostia to make a living in and around the harbour.
Goods could be quickly moved to Rome in barges up the River Tiber after slaves had unloaded and transferred cargo from merchant ships. The Romans built the world’s first dual carriageway, via Portuensis, between Rome and Ostia. In 68 BC, the town was sacked by pirates. During the sack, the port was set on fire, the consular war fleet was destroyed, and two prominent senators kidnapped. This attack caused such panic in Rome that Pompey the Great arranged for the tribune Aulus Gabinius to propose a law, the Lex Gabinia, to allow Pompey to raise an army and destroy the pirates. Within a year, the pirates had been defeated.
Development
Ostia was further developed during the first century AD under the influence of Tiberius, who ordered the building of the town’s first Forum. Temples, bathhouses, a theatre, shops, warehouses, construction yards, workshops, guilds became an integral part of the town.
 Ostia Antica forum (Author photo) With the expansion of the physical city and the demands of the population of Rome, traffic on the river became ever more congested. Manoeuvring became impossible on the 100 m. wide river and silting exacerbated the problem. To guarantee a consistent supply of corn for Rome, the emperor Claudius started to build a new harbour (portus) in 42 AD two miles north of Ostia on the northern mouths of the Tiber.
 Hexagonal basin (Source: University of Southampton) Two curving moles were built out into the sea. Between the moles, on an island formed by sinking a large merchantman, a four-storied lighthouse was built. This harbour became silted up and around about 110 AD the emperor Trajan enlarged the new harbour with a huge land-locked inner hexagonal basin still visible today. Its form was hexagonal in order to reduce the erosive forces of the waves. The harbours were connected with the Tiber by canals.
 Portus Ostia (Source ostia-antica.org) The new Trajanic harbour was described as ‘Portus Ostiensis’ and the council and magistrates of Ostia also controlled the daily life of Portus. The harbours of Ostia continued their function as a major port as can be seen by the many corn warehouses. This development took business away from Ostia itself which acted principally at that time as a river port only and began its commercial decline. One can only imagine the wrangling between the established guilds, merchants and city councillors in old Ostia and the up and coming traders of the modern, specifically designed new Portus.
Ostia and Portus grew to 50,000 inhabitants in the 2nd century, reaching a peak of some 100,000 inhabitants in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. Portus was critically important for supplying the ever-growing city of imperial Rome with foodstuffs and materials from across the Mediterranean. It also acted as both a point of export for supplies and products from the Tiber Valley to the north of Rome, and a major hub for the redistribution of goods from ports across the Mediterranean. It must also have acted as a major conduit for people visiting Rome from around the Mediterranean.
 Roman port scene (Lithograph from Seewesen by Walter Muller 1893) Ostia was to play a major part in the downfall of Rome when Alaric the Goth captured it in AD 409 knowing that this would starve Rome of much needed food. The port began to enter a period of slow decline from the late 5th century AD onwards, although it was the scene of a major struggle between Byzantine and Ostrogothic troops during the Gothic wars (AD 535-553).
 Ostia Antica: Chandler’s floor (Author photo) Today Ostia Antica in an outstanding site for tourists and students alike and noted for the excellent preservation of its ancient buildings, magnificent frescoes and impressive mosaics (http://www.ostia-antica.org). Portus is the centre of an exciting project led by the University of Southampton (http://www.portusproject.org/). Only recently, a new canal and town wall at Ostia have been discovered (http://www.portusproject.org/blog/2014/04/new-city-wall-discovered-ostia/). Perhaps we will finally discover just how complex life and sea-borne trade were in ancient Rome!
Originally written as a guest post on Antoine Banner’s Dawlish Chronicles.Â
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO,  and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories.  Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA,  Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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 Pirates have fascinated people for several centuries, but the fictional world of pirates, represented in novels and movies, is somewhat different to the reality, but where does fact end and fiction begin?
Helen Hollick has written a series of nautical voyages based around her fictional pirate, Captain Jesamiah Acorne and his ship, Sea Witch, but her latest UK release in paperback is a non-fiction book – ‘Pirates: Truth and Tales‘ published by Amberley Press. It explores our fascination with the real pirates and those who are favourites in fiction. Today, Helen drops anchor for another interesting addition to her on-line two-week Voyage around the blogs with a pirate or two for company…
Hello! Alison has kindly invited me on to her blog as a guest during my book tour… thank you Alison… I write about pirates: mainly the ones associated with the ‘Golden Age’ of the early eighteenth century, the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ Piracy, however, is nothing new. Where there was sea-trade there were pirates. All you needed was a good ship, an equally good crew, a good knowledge of the shipping lanes, what was shipped and, most important, what was worth plundering.
The Romans, that mighty empire that we tend to think was highly organised and even more highly efficient, had as much trouble with these seafaring knaves as did the British government, the Spanish, French and Dutch (among others) in the 1700s. Come to that, as we still do. Researching for this article, I came across a most interesting chap…
Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Valerius Carausius (Those Romans certainly had grand names – explained here!) was a military commander of the Roman Empire in the third century. He came from Belgic Gaul and as a former nautical pilot, he made a name for himself in 286 AD while fighting against tribal rebels. He was promoted to command a fleet, the Classis Britannica, which patrolled the English Channel: his orders – to eliminate raiding Saxon pirates. He adapted these orders, however, and suspicion grew that he was permitting these pirates to carry out their raids in return for a portion of the loot for himself and his men. Emperor Maximian took a dim view of this and demanded that Carausius was to be arrested and executed. Equally, our guy took a similar dim view of such an insult when he heard about it. He retaliated by declaring himself emperor in Northern Gaul and Britannia, the territories known as Imperium Britanniarum.
 Full size replica of a liburna, small galley used for raiding and patrols, particularly by the Roman navy, in Millingen aan de Rijn, Netherlands Backing him were his entire northern fleet, the three legions who were in Britain, a legion from Gaul, some foreign auxiliary units, some Gaulish merchant ships and various other experienced mercenaries. There has been speculation as to how Carausius managed to gain such wide support, but to my mind the answer is quite simple. As with all pirates, of any era or location, the lure of prospective treasure and a ‘get-rich-quick’ promise, was enough to attract anyone. Or he had amassed enough treasure to pay them all well. He was a pirate. A successful one, he could afford it.
The retaliatory invasion Emperor Maximian had hoped to launch in 288 or 289 AD failed and Carausius claimed this as a military victory. Was there a sea-battle perhaps, a successful blockade in the Channel? History later repeated itself: it is possible that King Harold II, who without doubt had an experienced English navy, may have initially defeated Duke William of Normandy at sea in the summer of 1066, and then there is the English defeat of the Spanish Armada in the reign of Elizabeth I. Whatever the truth of it is for our chap, peace was negotiated and Carausius began to lead his little corner of the empire as a true emperor, even minting his own coinage which he used to advantage for propaganda.
His coins were of good quality silver – which had not been used for many years – and indicated a prospect of ‘better times’. They were also marked with slogans such as Restitutor Britanniae, ‘Restorer of Britain’ and Expectate veni, ‘Come long-awaited one’. It may have been this sort of appeal which endeared Carausius to the native population who were becoming dissatisfied with Rome rule: the Romano British equivalent of Br*xit?
It is thought that Carausius may have been responsible for ordering the building of the Saxon Shore forts, a line of strategic defences along the east and south coast of what is now England, in order to deter the Anglo-Saxon sea raiders.
In 293 AD, Constantine I (Chlorus) reclaimed Gaul and Carausius found himself in difficulty, although not especially threatened as to invade Britain Constantine needed a fleet – most of which was under Carausius’s control. Alas, betrayal intervened. A traitor called Allectus, who was in charge of the British treasury, decided he wanted a higher position of authority, so he murdered Carausius and took power for himself. His reign lasted only a few short years as he in turn was killed.
It is interesting that in similar circumstances, although not so grand, a few of the seventeen and eighteenth century pirates set themselves up as leaders. One was Jean le Vasseur, an engineer by trade, who at around 1640 was sent by the governor of Saint Christopher Island (now St. Kitts) to oversee the island and harbour of Tortuga in the Caribbean. Le Vasseur built a stone fortress on the relatively flat top of thirty-feet of steep rock. Defended by formidable guns and supplied by water from a natural spring it was almost impenetrable. Le Vasseur reigned as if he were an emperor, and took a percentage of all the plunder brought into harbour by various pirates. He taxed everything else that was brought in or taken out and amassed a substantial fortune for himself. Tortuga flourished as a safe haven for pirates, but le Vasseur’s prestige was fading. Excessive power all too often corrupts. He began to rule like a tyrant and his men started to turn against him. He was murdered in 1653 by his lieutenant in retaliation for raping the man’s wife.
I can’t say I feel sorry for le Vasseur. For Carausius though? I think I would have backed him as a pirate emperor. He sounds an interesting character.
Alison adds:
The legend: (That not terribly reliable but only source of the time) Geoffrey of Monmouth relates a legend about Carausius. In Geoffrey’s account History of the Kings of Britain (1136 AD), Carausius is a Briton of humble birth, who by his courage persuades the Roman Senate to give him command of a fleet to defend Britain from barbarian attack. Once given the fleet, however, he sails around Britain stirring up unrest and raises an army against, the historical Caracalla, here a king of Britain. Carausius defeats Bassianus by persuading Bassianus’ Pictish allies to desert him in exchange for grants of land in Scotland and sets himself up as king. Hearing of Carausius’s treachery, the Romans send Allectus to Britain with three legions. Allectus defeats Carausius, kills him, and sets himself up as king in his place.
The historical record: The historical Caracalla’s full name was Lucius Septimius Bassianus and he and his brother, Geta, ended the campaign in Caledonia when their father Septimius Severus died in York in 211 AD. They concluded a peace with the Caledonians that returned the border of Roman Britain to the line demarcated by Hadrian’s Wall.
———–
Pirates: Truth And TalesÂ
 The historian R. H. Tawney famously wrote, ‘The sixteenth century lives in terror of the tramp.’ The eighteenth century lived in terror of the tramps of the seas – pirates. Pirates have fascinated people ever since.
It was a harsh life for those who went ‘on the account’, constantly overshadowed by the threat of death – through violence, illness, shipwreck, or the hangman’s noose. The lure of gold, the excitement of the chase and the freedom that life aboard a pirate ship offered were judged by some to be worth the risk. Helen Hollick explores both the fiction and fact of the Golden Age of piracy, and there are some surprises in store for those who think they know their Barbary Corsair from their boucanier. Everyone has heard of Captain Morgan, but who recognises the name of the aristocratic Frenchman Daniel Montbars? He killed so many Spaniards he was known as ‘The Exterminator’.
The fictional world of pirates, represented in novels and movies, is different from reality. What draws readers and viewers to these notorious hyenas of the high seas? What are the facts behind the fantasy?
Published in paperback in the UK July 2018 and in the USÂ November 2018Â Â (Now available for pre-order).
Find Helen:
Helen’s Amazon Author Page is at http://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick
Subscribe to Helen’s newsletter: http://tinyletter.com/HelenHollick
Vist her website: www.helenhollick.net and her main blog: www.ofhistoryandkings.blogspot.com
She’s on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HelenHollickAuthor and Twitter: @HelenHollick and runs the well-regarded historical fiction site: Discovering Diamonds
Follow Helen’s Tour:
These links will take you to the Home Page of each blog host – Helen says thank you for their interest and enthusiasm! For the exact URL links to each article, go to Helen’s website: www.helenhollick.net which will be updated every day of the tour.
30thJuly: Cryssa Bazos https://cryssabazos.com/ Dropping Anchor to Talk About Pirates
31stJuly: Anna Belfrage https://annabelfrage.wordpress.com/ Ships That Pass…
1stAugust: Carolyn Hughes https://carolynhughesauthor.com/blog/ Pirates of the Middle Ages
2ndAugust: Alison Morton  https://www.alison-morton.com/blog/From Pirate to Emperor
3rdAugust: Annie Whitehead https://rwranniewhitehead.blogspot.com/ The Vikings: Raiders or Pirates?
4thAugust: Tony Riches http://tonyriches.blogspot.co.uk/ An Interview With Helen Hollick (and maybe a couple of pirates thrown in for good measure?)
5thAugust: Lucienne Boyce http://francesca-scriblerus.blogspot.com/ Anne and Mary. Pirates.
6thAugust: Laura Pilli http://fieldofbookishdreams.blogspot.co.uk/ Why Pirates?
7thAugust: Mary Tod https://awriterofhistory.com/ That Essential Element… For A Pirate.
8thAugust: Pauline Barclay http://paulinembarclay.blogspot.com/ Writing Non-Fiction. How Hard Can It Be?
9thAugust: Nicola Smith http://shortbookandscribes.uk/ Pirates: The Tales Mixed With The Truth
10thAugust: Christoph Fischer https://writerchristophfischer.wordpress.com/ In The Shadow Of The Gallows
11thAugust: Debdatta http://www.ddsreviews.in/ What Is It About Pirates?
12thAugust: Discovering Diamonds https://discoveringdiamonds.blogspot.co.uk/ It’s Been An Interesting Voyage…
13thAugust: Sarah Greenwood https://www.amberley-books.com/blog Pirates: The Truth and the Tales
14thAugust: Antoine Vanner https://dawlishchronicles.com/dawlish-blog/ The Man Who Knew About Pirates
About Helen:
Helen moved from London in 2013 and now lives with her family in North Devon, in an 18th century farmhouse. First published in 1994, her passion now is her pirate character, Captain Jesamiah Acorne of the nautical adventure series, The Sea Witch Voyages. Helen became a USA Today Bestseller with her historical novel, The Forever Queen (UK title A Hollow Crown), the story of Saxon queen, Emma of Normandy. Her novel Harold the King (US title I Am The Chosen King), explores the events that led to the 1066 Battle of Hastings. Her Pendragon’s Banner Trilogy, set in the 5th century, is widely praised as a more down-to-earth historical version of the Arthurian legend. She has written three non-fiction books, Pirates: Truth and Tales, Smugglers in Fact and Fiction (to be published 2019) and as a supporter of indie writers, co-wrote Discovering the Diamond with her editor, Jo Field, a short advice guide for new writers. She runs the Discovering Diamonds review blog for historical fiction assisted by a team of enthusiastic reviewers. Her books are published in several languages.
Alison adds: I was delighted to contribute a story ‘A Roman Intervenes’, in the 1066 Turned Upside Down collection of short stories masterminded by Helen, which in the 950th year since the Norman invasion explored what might have happened if events had taken a different turn…
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO,  PERFIDITAS,  SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA,  INSURRECTIO and RETALIO. CARINA, a novella, is available now.  Audiobooks are available for the first four of the series.
Get INCEPTIO, the series starter, FREE as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter. You’ll also be first to know about Roma Nova news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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 Anna  at the ABBA museum, Stockholm Visiting Sweden on holiday recently was personally enormous fun, especially as my hostess was the ABBA singing historical fiction writer Anna Belfrage. But in a way it was spooky.
Something was missing – big time.
Sweden brims over with history and its impact on my home country can’t be underestimated; half of Britain has its DNA. I was impressed by beautiful buildings, hundreds of years of tradition, the rise of the Vasa dynasty, the Iron Age town of UppÃ¥kra, the huge influence of the Hanseatic League and of course, the impressive conserved Vasa warship from 1628 (Sweden’s Mary Rose) .
 The Vasa
But no Romans. This was what was troubling me.
We know that the northern lands of Britannia and Germania, and to an extent Batavia, were bothersome (and cold) so perhaps successive Roman senates and rulers didn’t want to chance their arm. But what about any non-conquest contact?
It’s all a bit sketchy. There are two sources from the 1st century AD that refer to the Suiones. The first one is Pliny the Elder who said that the Romans had rounded the Cimbric peninsula (Jutland) where there was the Codanian Gulf (possibly the Kattegat). (Let’s not talk about the Cimbric War (113–101 BC) – the Roman state nearly foundered before it had really got going.)
Anyway, in this Codanian Gulf there were several large islands among which the most famous was Scatinavia (Scandinavia). He said that the size of the island was unknown but in a part of it dwelt a tribe named the Hillevionum gens, in 500 villages, and they considered their country to be a world of its own.
 Tacitus (Modern statue outside the Austrian Parliament) Commentators find it striking that this large tribe is unknown to posterity, unless it was a simple misspelling or misreading of illa Svionum gente. (Typos happen to the best of us.) This would make sense, since a large Scandinavian tribe named the Suiones was known to the Romans.
Tacitus wrote in AD 98 in Germania (44, 45) that the Suiones were a powerful tribe distinguished not merely for their arms and men, but for their powerful fleets with ships that had a prow in both ends. He further mentions that they were much impressed by wealth, and the king was absolute. Further, he says the Suiones did not bear arms everyday, and that weapons were guarded by a slave.
After Tacitus’ mention of the Suiones, the sources are silent about them until the 6th century as Scandinavia was still in pre-historic times.
 Europe 125 AD
The ‘Roman Iron Age’  is the name given to the period 1–400 AD in Scandinavia, reflecting the hold that the Roman Empire had begun to exert on the Germanic tribes of Northern Europe. Coins (more than 7,000) and vessels, bronze images, glass beakers, enameled buckles, weapons, etc. markedly Roman have been found in Scandinavia from that period. The main items of exports appear to have been slaves, furs and amber via Roman merchants. Through the 5th and 6th centuries, gold and silver become more and more common possibly not unconnected with the ransack of the Roman Empire by Germanic tribes, from which many Scandinavians returned with gold and silver.
On the island of Öland off Sweden’s south-eastern coast, two rings and a coin (below) were found in 2017, which confirmed a theory that the island was in close contact with the Roman Empire. Close by,  the team found pieces of Roman glass in an area which was once an important house. The coin was made in honour of Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III, who ruled between 425 and 455 AD. The emperor is depicted on one side of the coin, with his foot resting on the head of a barbarian – a common motif in coinage from the period. A similar coin commemorating Valentinian III was found three years ago.
In the 6th century Jordanes, 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat turned historian of Gothic extraction, named two tribes he calls the Suehans and the Suetidi who lived in Scandza. They were famous for their fine horses. The Suehans were the suppliers of black fox skins for the Roman market. Then Jordanes names a tribe named Suetidi a name that is considered to refer to the Suiones as well and to be the Latin form of Sweþiuð. ‘The Suetidi are said to be the tallest of men together with the Dani who were of the same stock.’ (Tell that to the Swedes!)
 University of Lund The University of Lund, one of Sweden’s most prestigious, offers a short part-time course ‘Barbarians and Romans’:
This course studies the relationship between the Roman Empire and other cultures, especially Germanic and Celtic tribes, outside the realm of the Empire during the period 100 B.C to 400 A.D. We discuss the how the meeting between Romans and their neighbours took place materially and culturally and problematize central concepts like imperialism, civilization, ethnicity, social identity, Romanization and hybridity. Parts of the teaching will take place at the Historical Museum in Lund and at the National Museum and Glyptoteket in Copenhagen.
Looks like it’s on again next year as well…
 But here’s a connection to the Romans, carved on the prow of the Vasa. Like the Turks, the Romans were universally acknowledged as tough and fearsome warriors and often used as symbols to frighten away enemies. This figure would have been holding a sword in his raised right hand. The lion and dog at his feet symbolise the clemency of the strong towards the weak.
Teasing out differences and connections between the Roman and Scandinavian worlds will fascinate forever and doubtless be fertile ground for historical novelists for some time to come. 😉
Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers –  INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO,  AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO,  and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories.  Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers.
Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email newsletter. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.
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