When I look at the migrant crisis, it is easy to imagine how quickly large groups of people can move northwards through Europe from conflicts in the middle East. The people who controlled the waterways and major routes could easily have become very affluent. Belgae is often referred to as the bulge from a celtic source and supposedly means angry etc, but I imagine this could equally mean a simple bulge of people desparate to find somewhere to go. Somewhere that could result in conflicts The Moselle and Meuse would have been great routes North, and perhaps a bit safer than the Rhine. The Meurthe (merthyr?), starts in la combe near Mulhouse. The Moselle travels through lots of Celtic sounding places - Nancy - Nant� - Liverdun - (if liver is a linked to aber and inver, then maybe similar to aberdeen?). or Ver a crossing and Dun a castle?. Treveri or now trier - Crossing Town - ferry town. links to livery - rental of boats and horses?
Well it looks like youâve all got there before me! Thereâs a lot of Roman sources, such as Caesarâs quoted, that remark on the connection between the cross Channel Belgae.
I have to say, it can be a bit of an affront when challenged to raise evidence from people who havenât themselves, yet have made equally bold statements in their own posts.
Oh I see! A really impartial account! Brings Alistair Campbell and Tony Blairâs dodgy dossier forcibly to mind, although, of course, it was AC and TB who learned from JCaeser et al, not the other way around!
Victoribus spolia
It can be, but the best way to deal with it and keep the forum as friendly as possible is to presume that the tone was unintentional - to believe in everyoneâs best intentions - and to help keep even low level niggle from getting a foothold in this lovely community⌠
JCaesar never was victorious in Britain! 1st landing - had to rush off virtually instantly. 2nd landing, found an ally. Result, âallyâ defeats his own enemy with Roman help, Caesar gains nothing except minimal bragging rights!! Alistair Campbell, eat your heart out, the Romans were better at spin than you will ever be! 
Pwynt teg dw iân siwr neb yn golygu un rhywbeth drwg!
Guilty as charged, Anthony bach, in that history is my hobby, not profession and I am very prejudiced against giving too much credence to Roman sources because they went unchallenged for so long, when having the advantage of being able to write when many depended upon word of mouth and of being the Imperial Power. I was raised in the days when most of my elders still saw the British Empire as âA Good Thing!â and the natural successor to Rome! With examples of wrong assumptions like the 33,000 year old remains of a young man found in Paviland Cave, Gower having been presumed to be a British prostitute working for the Romans because âsheâ had beads and William Buckland did not know that the Romans had basicaly by-passed Gower, certainly had not been into our coastal caves!
So, I am partial and sassy and generally overbearing! A real hen ddraig. Forum members are very kind to me - I think they think, âpoor old thing, sheâs too old to change now!â
Water under the bridge, no hard feelings on my behalf. It had prickled a bit but as Aran says, best to always assume the best.
I think I share similar feelings with regards Roman history. Iâll never underestimate the significance and importance of the Romans in history, but they were the original and most eloquent masters of propaganda and I want to know the things that they chose not to write about, but they were consistently the victors and wrote that period of history through their unique little lense. I guess its a bit of frustration that we havenât and never will have another contemporaneous perspective of of that time and the centuries immediately before and after they were in these isles.
[E,. Anglia and sout-east being Belgic, i.e. inhabited by Belgic tribes from the continent]
I have definitely read it. I think some evidence comes from Caesarâs Gallic Warâs, but from what Iâve read, he only really gives hints & perceptions, and I donât think we can make too many certain judgements about this.
I just wanted to say there have been some fascinating posts above. Iâm not an expert, so I wonât make any too specific comments about them; some tie in with what Iâve read in the past; others less so, but that doesnât mean they are wrong. A fascinating topic about which we will never have complete knowledge.
Much like the poor, women, and the illiterate throughout history. Weâre slaves to the literate when it comes to sources. They were so often male and rich.
I guess we should be grayeful of what we have. If the rpmans had been illiterate then we would have been left with nothing at all, well except perhaps for the Greek writers and explorers.
The gaulles are credited with destroing all recotds of early roman bistory when they sacked Rome and sometbing stzill niggles that maybe the Romans might have exacted some revenge.
FYI, I was just now reading issue 317 of âCurrent Archaeologyâ where it is stated on p.23 âIn Cornwall - once characterised as lying outside the Roman world - there are now three recognised Roman forts: at Nantstallon, Calstock, and Restormel.â So there must have been at least a degree of Roman settlement, if only purely military.
Thanks, Louis!
Looking into it, Roman influence seems to pop its head up there, doesnât it - a Romano British villa at Magor farm (Illogan),
Some Roman vases lying about here-
http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/archaeology/art36479
Stones with Latin writing on them from Roman times, often called âmilestonesâ but probably not- a short report on the resiting of one of them here -
with the very common âwe donât really know what this implies about the Roman occupationâ implication in their interpretation of it!
Itâs just unlikely that the resources in the area - mostly tin, of course - could have been mined and sold without the Romans taking effective control of it. (Itâs even normally cited as one of the reasons Britain was invaded by the Romans.) Though doing things like this through native clients was of course perfectly common, they always seemed to like to keep an eye on things.
The three roman forts (apparently Calstock was near to a silver mine, if that means anything) could be evidence of that.
With the Romans being so literate and orderly, you would have thought all their settlements and military establishments would have been fully documented (in a similar way to Domesday Book). Of course, they might have been, but the documents may not have survived.
Well the roman soldiers could have been from anywhere in the empire, Gallo-romans etc and may not have spoken or been able to write latin particularly well if at all. The elite were the literate ones and the texts that survived would have gone through rewrites over the centuries since many of the originals would have perished
A lot of writing of that nature was done on wood/clay tablets which have not survived, in the main. The recent finds in London of financial and administrative texts on such tablets are a lovely exception.
Vindolander tablets - everything from lists of stores to letters between ladies and kids (or soldiers) learning to write!
re-Cornwall, I certainly thought there was considerable evidence of tin export to the middle east before and after the Romans landed in Britannia. I thought control of that trade and also copper (Ynys Mon) and grain was what the Romans wanted, so one would expect Roman garrisons in the relevant areas! Of course, the invasion wasnât as successful as they may have hoped, with locals who fought back and side-shows like the Iceni objecting to the rape and beating of their Brenhines and Dywysogesau! So reaching the tin and copper took quite a while!
Re-literacy - most of the soldiers were from anywhere but Rome or Britain, the latter because they didnât want to train potential rebels and the former because no Roman in his right mind wanted to go to a barbarian place in the frozen north!
N.B. I know that sounds very definite but most of it is based on common sense rather than reading.
those, and also the ones recently discovered in London on the site of the new Bloomberg headquarters