Our Roman and Viking ancestors

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 20

Our Roman and Viking ancestors

Roman Britain. By Peter Salway. Oxford University Press, 1984. 752 pp. Bibliography and index. $24 approx, (paperback). A History of the Vikings. By Gwyn Jones. Oxford University Press, 1984. 430 pp. Illustrations. Bibliography and index. $l5 approx, (paperback). New Zealanders in recent years have taken to making much of this country’s Polynesian origins. In art, in language, in culture generally, matters Maori have come to be accorded a high place. Perhaps this does no more than restore a balance after years of neglect. Yet only about one sixth of New Zealanders can trace any Polynesian connection in their past. For almost all the rest, the origins of family, and culture, and language lie in Europe. The Scandinavian Vikings, and the Roman settlers in Britain before them, are as much part of New Zealand’s past as any Polynesian society. Latin and the Norse languages are still far more important sources of New Zealand English than is Maori. These two books should be reminders that, however important the Polynesian roots of twentieth-century New Zealand, other sources have at least an equal claim to attention.

“Roman Britain,” especially, manages to combine a sense of authority, of enormous scholarship lightly worn, with an eminently readable text. From Julius Caesar’s first faltering landings in England in 55 B.C. to the departure of the last legion 500 years later, Salway has a good story to tell and he tells it well. Almost half the book is narrative history; the remainder deals with particular themes — the economy, religions, the relations of town and country, and Britain’s place in the wider Roman world. Britain was Rome’s most remote colony — just as New Zealand was the most remote fragment of the British Empire nearly 2000 years later. In both, the peculiar tyrannies of distance gave a special flavour to the imperial connection. And those 500 years of Roman rule in Britain laid foundations that still affect New Zealand — two millenia and half a world away. “Roman Britain” deserves reading and reflection. Salway’s book is intended to be a replacement, in the light of the vast new archaeological researches cf the last 50 years, for the old standard “Roman Britain and the English Settlements,” by Collingwood and Myers, published in 1936.

“A History of the Vikings” is a revised edition of a book that appeared in 1968. It is no lightweight book, however absorbing the theme of the Norsemen bursting out of the cold confines of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Given a choice between keeping his narrative moving, or seeking precision, Jones opts for scholarly detail. Most of his book concentrates on the period 780-1070 A.D., the period of the Vikings’ movement overseas. Most contemporary records of the Vikings come from European chroniclers in places that suffered from Norse depredations. Jones accepts the Vikings’ delight in plunder, but he wants also to explore the societies they came from and their enormous contributions to trade, discovery, colonisation, and the arts throughout much of Northern and Western Europe. After all, countries as far apart as Russia and Britain once had Viking rulers. Societies from Egypt to, perhaps, the eastern seaboard of America, felt their impact. Like the Romans in Britain, these Vikings are there in the family trees of a good many New Zealanders. They deserve more than a passing glance.— Literary Editor.