Romans In Denmark.

[runes]

dumb question (i'm no historian)

where the hell are all the corpses frm 10,000 casualty battles? gone? disappeared beneath developed cities? moved to pyres and burnt after battle? simply degraded?

[cmacq]

dumb question (i'm no historian)

where the hell are all the corpses frm 10,000 casualty battles? gone? disappeared beneath developed cities? moved to pyres and burnt after battle? simply degraded?

ask the black birds?

[runes]

ah yes, the famous bone and iron eating crows of norther italy.

[cmacq]

thats why they call them maniples, they feed the black birds.

Manipulus de Mandibūla

[cmacq]

Ancient Texts can only take you so far

There appears to be somewhat of a problem with the Homeric story about Odysseus' trip to hell’s door as therein the Kimbri/Cimmeri are found in Denmark. However, I’m really not sure exactly where the problem is? Preceding the Scyth invasion, Herodus reported that the Cimmeri (the Novocerkassk archaeological culture) abandoned the Ukraine and migrated west into greater Europe and south into the Near East, where they appeared under the ever watchful eye of the Neo-Assyrians. In the later theater the Cimmeri savaged the Urartian kingdoms of Armenia, destroyed Phrygia, and helped found Lydia while establishing their own base of operations in western Anatolia. Within the Near East the second phase of the Cimmeri invasion, which lasted for decades, consisted of a series of deep, large-scale, and very rapid raids. The Neo-Assyrians indicate that the initial phase of the southern Cimmeri invasion occurred between 720 and 710/709 BC.

Returning to the Homeric story of Odysseus' trip to Denmark, the poem itself was transcribed between 800 and 600 BC. The subject of the poem, Odysseus, is widely believed to have been a Late Bronz Age Myceanean chieftain. Conventional wisdom would place his life sometime in the early twelfth or late thirteenth century BC. Given the dates of Cimmeri migration from the Ukraine, and Odysseus’ life there seems to be a several hundred year discrepancy. So does this mean, more questions?

(1) Was the Odysseus trip to Denmark a fiction?
(2) Was the Cimbri/Cimmeri connection a fiction?
(3) Was the Homeric poem written after the Cimmeri migration and simply applied the name to the Bronze Age people of Denmark?
(4) Were the Cimbri in Denmark during the Late Bronze Age?
(5) Are there any material culture connections between Denmark and the Ukraine in either the late Bronze or Early Iron ages that may suggest a large ethnic migration from the former to the later?

[Sakkura]

(5) Are there any material culture connections between Denmark and the Ukraine in either the late Bronze of Early Iron ages that may suggest a large ethnic migration from the former to the later?

Good question. Someone should go digging for lurs and sun chariots in the Ukraine

[The Internet]

dumb question (i'm no historian)

where the hell are all the corpses frm 10,000 casualty battles? gone? disappeared beneath developed cities? moved to pyres and burnt after battle? simply degraded?

Depends, they were usually put into mass funeral pyres and burnt to a crisp, for a lot of people back then, it is what their religion called for. As for the armour, well that was taken as part of the spoils of war, if it were an army of Gauls (for example) that had won they'd probably take the best bits for themselves and sell the rest and for the Romans they'd take them for victory parades afterwards (especially if the general was given a triumph). I don't doubt that some of the soldiers also went through the dead to see if anything caught their eye as well, everyone loves a bargin.

[cmacq]

even the late bronze age greeks may have known about and went to denmark?


Ὁμήρου Ὀδύσσεια
Homer's ODYSSEY

BOOK 11

ἡ δ᾽ ἐς πείραθ᾽ ἵκανε βαθυρρόου Ὠκεανοῖο. ἔνθα δὲ Κιμμερίων ἀνδρῶν δῆμός τε πόλις τε, ἠέρι καὶ νεφέλῃ κεκαλυμμένοι· οὐδέ ποτ᾽ αὐτοὺς ἠέλιος φαέθων καταδέρκεται ἀκτίνεσσιν, οὔθ᾽ ὁπότ᾽ ἂν στείχῃσι πρὸς οὐρανὸν ἀστερόεντα, οὔθ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἂν ἂψ ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἀπ᾽ οὐρανόθεν προτράπηται, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ νὺξ ὀλοὴ τέταται δειλοῖσι βροτοῖσι. νῆα μὲν ἔνθ᾽ ἐλθόντες ἐκέλσαμεν, ἐκ δὲ τὰ μῆλα εἱλόμεθ᾽· αὐτοὶ δ᾽ αὖτε παρὰ ῥόον Ὠκεανοῖο ᾔομεν, ὄφρ᾽ ἐς χῶρον ἀφικόμεθ᾽, ὃν φράσε Κίρκη.

rendering

Each day the sail stretched out to make us race the sea in stride, and out-run the shadow of the sun as we sped across an endless way. In short measure by this means we came to the wave-fill ocean stream and to the Kimmeri kith, kin, and town all wrapped in a mist that never parts to let the sun shine on. This budged not when starry heaven comes around, neither rising from the ground, nor when urged sinks back down. Likewise by design thrust in deathly darkness cower mortal men bound aboard a driven craft, that as goats grasped in hand, yanked aside the ocean’s flow and run aground, ... all as Circe had fore-said.

[Sakkura]

Lol, no wonder the odyssey took so long if they went all the way to Denmark. Way to get lost in the Aegean and end up in the North Sea.

[Watchman]

...and how the Hell would one of those ships actually have survived the sea-trip through the rather... unwelcoming Bay of Biscay and North Sea ? The vast majority of Mediterranean vessels were teh suck for Atlantic sailing; the Phoenicians and Greeks going beyond the Pillars of Hercules AFAIK used designs rather heavier and more robust than was the norm for Med shipping.

[runes]

we all know how much those greeks loved going beyond the pillars of hercules.

[Watchman]

Merchants go where there's profit to be made, and the British Isles were known as "tin isles" for a reason. You gotta hand that to merchants everywhere; they don't give up easily.

[Sakkura]

...and how the Hell would one of those ships actually have survived the sea-trip through the rather... unwelcoming Bay of Biscay and North Sea ? The vast majority of Mediterranean vessels were teh suck for Atlantic sailing; the Phoenicians and Greeks going beyond the Pillars of Hercules AFAIK used designs rather heavier and more robust than was the norm for Med shipping.

More likely they would have gone upriver. But you'd have to be more than a little lost to think a river was part of the Aegean and that Ithaca was just around the corner.

[Watchman]

Granted, given the way Odysseus' lot failed to find their way home in a pond as easily navigated as eastern Med, it can be assumed they're guilty of repeat offenses of "sailing under the influence"...