Surviving Roman civilization in Wales post 500 AD

[Namayan]

Could a Roman civilization survive in Southern Wales? Like if the Roman Penydarren fort is still manned by Romans until one issue led to them being the military force the local Briton tribes asking for protection or forced as vassals or tributaries.

If they could, can the Romans take advantage of the natural resources like water?

Are the coal and iron shallow for the Romans to discover and mine in South Wales?

If the Romans survive in Southern Wales, will they expand or be isolationists?

How will this affect post 500 AD Britain? How would they react to their Brytonic neighbors and Angles, Saxons and Jutes?

 

[Andristan]

Honestly, I would argue that the Britons circa AD 500 are a Roman civilization: Fluency in Latin to extraordinary degree at the height of Late Imperial style, evidence of Roman legal style education (St Gildas exhibits stylistic usages reminiscent of late Imperial rhetors), the widespread existence and adherence to the Roman Religion-Christianity, construction of large structures in late Roman architectural styles (the hall in Viroconium) granted in wood not stone, Late Imperial military organization and tactics albeit on a (much) smaller scale, the possible maintenance of the Roman legal system (some evidence exists in a few of the Llandaff charters).

 

[Hearkener]

Could a Roman civilization survive in Southern Wales? Like if the Roman Penydarren fort is still manned by Romans until one issue led to them being the military force the local Briton tribes asking for protection or forced as vassals or tributaries.

What do you define as 'Roman civilization'? If you mean a purely political continuity, that already happened IOTL. There were loads of small "Roman" polities in Britain from 400 CE pretty much until the last of them were absorbed by the Normans nearly a millennium later.

If you mean a military continuity, that is pretty much impossible. Britannia was never that useful to the SPQR - its conquest was politically motivated to boost a few emperors' prestige. And the Crisis of the Third Century hit the islands hard, wiping out most of the Roman progress there. By 400 CE, the Roman colonies had collapsed, and the island is the posterchild for the Decline and Fall narrative.

Here (and only here), there was a genuine and almost total collapse of urban civilization. This is the one part of the empire where life really did become nasty, brutish and short when the dark ages hit. If there ever was a Mad-Max style apocalypse in human history, Britannia circa 350 to 550 would be a top contender.

The reason the Romans pulled out because there really wasn't a whole lot left to protect.

 

[Namayan]

Honestly, I would argue that the Britons circa AD 500 are a Roman civilization: Fluency in Latin to extraordinary degree at the height of Late Imperial style, evidence of Roman legal style education (St Gildas exhibits stylistic usages reminiscent of late Imperial rhetors), the widespread existence and adherence to the Roman Religion-Christianity, construction of large structures in late Roman architectural styles (the hall in Viroconium) granted in wood not stone, Late Imperial military organization and tactics albeit on a (much) smaller scale, the possible maintenance of the Roman legal system (some evidence exists in a few of the Llandaff charters).

What do you define as 'Roman civilization'? If you mean a purely political continuity, that already happened IOTL. There were loads of small "Roman" polities in Britain from 400 CE pretty much until the last of them were absorbed by the Normans nearly a millennium later.

If you mean a military continuity, that is pretty much impossible. Britannia was never that useful to the SPQR - its conquest was politically motivated to boost a few emperors' prestige. And the Crisis of the Third Century hit the islands hard, wiping out most of the Roman progress there. By 400 CE, the Roman colonies had collapsed, and the island is the posterchild for the Decline and Fall narrative.

Here (and only here), there was a genuine and almost total collapse of urban civilization. This is the one part of the empire where life really did become nasty, brutish and short when the dark ages hit. If there ever was a Mad-Max style apocalypse in human history, Britannia circa 350 to 550 would be a top contender.

The reason the Romans pulled out because there really wasn't a whole lot left to protect.

Yes, I am thinking of a Roman successor state, that speaks Latin, with all the tech of ancient Rome that could possibly use the resources in Wales. The coal, the iron and water. Isolated at first but survives and if ever it would expand.

The Roman forts in Penydarren or Caerleon or Nidum/Neath creates a successor state that assimilates the Welsh population with literacy(reading, writing), education, citizenship. Roman Engineering still existing and continues rather than declines. Like Roman roads, roman buildings made in local stone, with concrete mixed with limestone instead of volcanic ash from Sicily continues to be built hundreds years post 500 AD.

It would be mostly a Roman state with some Brytonic/Welsh elements.

Essentially a Roman successor state that takes over the Silures or the area of Glywysing.

So, by the time 7th to 10th century happens, Kingdom of Morgannwg is essentially a Roman state instead of a Welsh state. So by that time, with people and resources, could they used the resources of the area like Iron which was essential to the army or a Roman Legion continuing to be armed and supplied.

 

[Andristan]

So, by the time 7th to 10th century happens, Kingdom of Morgannwg is essentially a Roman state instead of a Welsh state

Probably it would just get crushed by the much larger Saxon kingdoms nearby, expanding Wessex or Mercia like in OTL. It would be too small to resist the Saxons, just like Wales was in OTL. Also its not like the Welsh didnt use the iron, the Forest of Dean has iron extraction continuing from Roman times till the recent past. You would need a larger land mass to survive and do better, maybe if the whole of Wales was united and remained that way, including the Roman fort at Segontium and the Roman base in Dyfed that i cannot remember the name of, then you could have a decent chance to have a Septarchy as opposed to the Heptarchy, a 7 kingdom system versus the OTL 6 kingdom one. Though it probably would suffer under viking raids, just due to the slower response time of land movement to that of waterborne movement.
The Welsh were basically as literate as the Roman population before them, not much, but still some. The Welsh were christians, a religion of the book, the clerics would be literate and the upper nobility as well, which we can see with the remaining literature, from the monks and the bards.

 

[Enigmajones]

I may be wrong on this subject, but aren't the Welsh the remnant of the Celtic Britons?

 

[Andristan]

The language is, yes. The Welsh people are the same Roman citizens who lived as mostly content Romans for 400 years or so. I would argue it is a similar situation to the Gallo-Romans in Gaul, who were the descendants of the Gauls but ended up speaking a Romance language. The interesting thing about Britain is that Welsh adopted the latin influenced Welsh as opposed to the Celtic influenced Latin like the Gallo-Romans.

 

[Analytical Engine]

A big problem with this was that Wales was one of the least Romanised parts of Roman Britain.

I may be wrong on this subject, but aren't the Welsh the remnant of the Celtic Britons?

Technically, we Welsh are a remnant - the Cornish and the Britons of Cumbria and Strathclyde also survived a long time.

 

[Raferty]

Roman identity was tenable only as long as the polity had access to Roman economic life via a large interconnected trade network, as well as Roman administrative and military institutions. All of this had to support cities, and without cities there is nothing to base this upon. Wales was not well urbanized, its long tenured Roman forts were if anything a sign that Romanization was not taking hold nearly as effectively as they would have wanted.

Once those went away, it was only a matter of time before Roman identity withered away into first a local creole form and eventually altogether.

Italy in OTL may have had a chance for this if the Gothic Wars were not so destructive and the Lombard did not invade, but basically everywhere else, it just wasn't feasible

 

[Evil Crusader]

Even if the Romans remain and try to hold on to their identity, chances are with the overall isolation from other Romance groups, they eventually get subsumed into the local proto-Welsh, Celtic descendant element.
Agree with others on the unfeasibility from a pure power/resource/demographic standpoint of the survival of said polity, regardless. It's the kind of thing that really requires lots of PODs or sixes in a row.

 

[Enigmajones]

A big problem with this was that Wales was one of the least Romanised parts of Roman Britain.

Technically, we Welsh are a remnant - the Cornish and the Britons of Cumbria and Strathclyde also survived a long time.

That's what I thought, and I remembered the Cornish but not the Britons in Cumbria and Starthclyde

 

[Andristan]

Well, up till around the 550s/600s there was a booming trade between the ERE and the west of Britain. Archaeologists have found evidence ( boat loads of greek pottery) of a large trade network carrying wine and refined goods to Britain and taking tin, silver and iron back, tin being the biggest. So there is trade with Rome and the Roman east that could help with keeping a Roman successor state alive, though it could also bring down a slightly more successful justinian to their shores . We know from Prokopius that there was interest at the court for doing something about "Constantines line of tyrants holding Romes farthest possession." In OTL belisarius offered britain to the ostrogoths in exchange for sicily so its possible if not probable that the ERE could come knocking.

 

[Namayan]

Well, up till around the 550s/600s there was a booming trade between the ERE and the west of Britain. Archaeologists have found evidence ( boat loads of greek pottery) of a large trade network carrying wine and refined goods to Britain and taking tin, silver and iron back, tin being the biggest. So there is trade with Rome and the Roman east that could help with keeping a Roman successor state alive, though it could also bring down a slightly more successful justinian to their shores . We know from Prokopius that there was interest at the court for doing something about "Constantines line of tyrants holding Romes farthest possession." In OTL belisarius offered britain to the ostrogoths in exchange for sicily so its possible if not probable that the ERE could come knocking.

I like this that it would give a Roman state a chance to exist. Isolated but connected to the Roman world. Roman buildings and practice would continue to exist at that part but would decay in other parts of Britain.

How much population can a Roman state in what OTL be kingdom of Morgannwg support? Will it be larger than OTL or same? 20,000 or 50,000? Or can a Roman state support 100,000 people in that area of Wales?

What could be the largest town in this medieval Roman state? OTL Cardiff? OTL Newport? 5,000 people or is it too much? I assume since most of the trade coming from ERE would enter at that part of this Roman state in Western Britain.

Or would it be easier if the Roman port is in Milford Haven due to its natural harbor? While the Roman City state in Milford Haven trades with the rest of Britain instead?