Writes Sean Corrigan:
"What the Romans did for us" is the title of Adam Hart-Davis' fascinating - if typically laudatory - telling of the engineering exploits which the Imperial mafiosi put together out of the wealth of the conquered peoples; the title a play, of course, on the famous 'Life of Brian' sketch on that same theme.Of course, no mention is ever made of tha fact that the Empire might have stolen a good few ideas from its victims, nor that many a great 'Roman' was in fact a non-Roman. Embarrassingly, for example, even the author of the Caesars' instant, to-order origin myth, Virgil (Fearghal), was probably a Celt from Cisalpine Gaul.
However, it seems we may have at least one less benign legacy for which to thank the hordes of Caligulae-shod, Gladius-wielding ruffians - the Plague - as Fred Vargas explains here.
We Celts can be therefore doubly thankful to Rome: not only did they spend the best part of a millennium trying to eradicate our advanced and decentralized culture, but the same, early 6th century epidemic, mentioned in the article, was referred to in the Welsh annals as the 'Yellow Plague'. After the disease was introduced through the Atlantic-Mediterranean entrepots of Cornwall and South Wales, this so weakened the maritime-trading, commercially-oriented British Celts - belatedly enjoying their independence after the Legions had scuttled homeward (and after Arthur had done his bit!) - that it allowed the barbaric, barter economy, dirt-grubbing Saxons (who were thus too backward to be exposed to it) to overrun most of Lloegr - the "Lost Lands" of England.
Who says Free Trade is ALWAYS a Good Thing!
