| > So .. easily confused with Swedes then? Maybe not Swedes (who weren't exactly typical Romans) but with someone from Iberia, Italy, Sicily or Greece? Sure. Northern Africa wasn't exactly an ethnically homogenous region either. Phoenicians were establishing colonies there for hundreds of years, there was significant contact with the Greeks and other areas in the Mediterranean (including extensive slave trade). By the time the Romans had conquered Britain many Italians had also settled there (and their descendants were likely significantly overrepresented in the legions recruited there, you had to be a citizen to join after all). > did they travel afar from their own land I'm not sure we have any evidence of that? But sure it's not impossible that a statistically insignificant number of people from there might have somehow ended up in Roman Britain (and considering how lucrative the Indian Ocean trade what incentives would they have had to travel to other side of the world?) > the Abyssinians, did they not once have "all the gold"? Maybe? Not sure how is that related? > there were certainly rich, powerful, and very dark traders from abroad along with no shortage of Mediterrian complexions. How is that certain? I agree about the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and the parts of the Middle East who were in close contact with the Romans with numbers of people from those areas exponentially decreasing with distance. Merchants/people from anywhere else? Extremely unlikely to end up in a distant backwater like Britain (unlike in Rome itself for instance). |