A roman colony might have been better able to resist the vikings. Then again, probably not. After centuries of isolation, I suspect the fighting skills would have been pretty athropied. Unless we got a lot of internal strife.
What I don't see is a reason for the Romans to settle there.
A roman colony might have been better able to resist the vikings. Then again, probably not. After centuries of isolation, I suspect the fighting skills would have been pretty athropied. Unless we got a lot of internal strife.
What I don't see is a reason for the Romans to settle there.
I suppose the other issue might be Roman sailing skills. I seem to remember JC ships had a lot of problems even with the English Channel and even though later fleets did transverse the British Isles on occasion, I'm not sure the Romans were really confortable operating in the rougher seas that they were have to cross.
Julius Caesar wasn't exactly a sailor in the blood, though. The Roman navy operated mkostly in ships that would have had big problems making the crossing, but that is because they relied on large crews and oars for combat operations. Cargo ships, on the other hand, were perfectly seaworthy. Any vessel that safely can cross the Bay of Biscay or navigate the Irish Sea can make a summer journey to Iceland (and only a madman would have tried in winter). You wait for good weather, pray for no storms and lose a couple every time - that's how the Vikings did it, too.
Which leaves the problem how the Romans find out the place exists and what they could possibly want there. I was going to say eider downs, but sadly, in the first millennium AD eider ducks were still widespread in Germany.
Good point, don't know much about the Roman merchant shipping of the period though I assumed it had the same problmes as the navy.
Thought-the Romans liked a strange (and I think revolting) fish sauce, used as a food flavouring (or was it a drink?). If we could imagine a change in fish stocks (perhaps similar to during the 18th C when I undestand fish stocks in the Baltic dropped dramatically, forcing fisherman to go further out into the North Sea and North Atlantic), could the Romans have to search for fresh fishing grounds to get hold of the sauce? In the search for new fishing grounds, they come across Iceland-and for reasons best known to themselves, decide to establish an outpost there to produce the suace as well as moke fish caught to preserve them before taking back for selling in markets (did the Roman smoke fish like this, I have no idea).
Maybe the Roman upper classes develop a fashion for giant cod? If you are going to have salt fish (poor man's food in Rome), then at least make it very special, honking big salt fish. That could do the trick - cod grow a lot bigger in the North Atlantic than the North Sea or Baltic.
Even if Iceland was inhabited by Roman descendants after a few hundred years in isolation up there they would more closely resemble otl Icelanders than Romans.
Would be cool but nothing much to happen except perhaps Norse expansion that way is slowed quite a bit.
I agree that this is one of the extremly unlikly Time Lines, this one is way out on the bell. But still possible.
?Would Expansion have been slowed or speeded?. A larger Base in Iceland, after it's capture by he Norse, may lead to a larger base in Greenland.
100 years later.