Hi, on some maps I've seen (such as this one) contend that the Romans had direct military presence in the Western Black Sea, far north of the rest of the province of Moesia Inferior and actually having a direct province in Crimea alongside the Bosporan Kingdom. My question is basically does anyone have any information about the nature of this rule, and ultimately how it ended.
Also, on an unrelated note, the Garamantes look cool as fuck, living in the middle of a desert. What was the deal with them?
The Garamantes were cool as fuck, because they had one of the most striking agricultural systems in history. It was based on the use of foggares (also called qanat) that take advantage of the capillary action of mountains to create irrigation systems. This is more or less impossible today as the Sahara aquifer has sunk too low, and so they created cities where today are only deserts quite hostile to that lifestyle.
As for the Black Sea, in the north and east the control was essentially a sort of tributary alliance. The Romans did not, to my knowledge, ever send a military expedition there but cities, many of them being Greek colonies, expressed formal ally relationships to Rome. The Western part you specifically ask about, however, was firmly in the Roman provincial system and Tomis was an important city.
A side question: The map has Iberia and Albania where modern day Georgia and Azerbaijan are. How did these two names move to Spain and the Balkans?
The Romans did have a fort set up in what is now Georgia, a few kilometres of south of the city of Batumi, Gonio. At its peak it had about 2000 soldiers stationed there. A few other settlements dotted the Georgian coastline, all the way up to Abkhazia (the port city of Poti being another major example). A not insignificant amount of trade was conducted with the kingdoms there, as were military encounters.
I can't speak much more about it as its not really a time I'm familiar with, but will say that its touched upon in two surveys about the history of Georgia: Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia by Donald Rayfield (2008) and The Making of the Georgian Nation by Ronald Grigor Suny (1988, 1994). I don't have either copy available with me right now, but know that they mention some details about the Roman presence in the region.
Its touched upon a little bit in two survey's of Georgian hi
A side question: What is up with the small sea in southwestern spain? That doesn't seem to exist today.
A question about the map that TC linked to: Is it just me, or does Europe seem disproportionately large compared to Asia and Africa?
