Early history…

thoughts of a roman gentleman landed in the north…..

Since the day of my arrival in the Netherlands (9/1/2008), my first wonder, as usual, was upon the history that brought to the present day situation in the country. I used a rather randomic research at TU Delft Library, in wich slowly but constantly names and dates started flowing to me. The latter verb describes clearly and better the most important element that joins them all together: water. With a certain pride I discovered that the first inhabitants of this region that managed water paths were the ancient romans. General Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo was the supervisor, in 47 A.D., of the construction of a Fossa (channel) that still links Voorburg (Forum Hadriani) a present day suburb of Den Haag to the Rhine’s ancient estuary. This is not strange if one may think that the roman’s core knowledge on water was passed over to them by the Etruscans masters of this art as far as the VIII sec b.C. The existing oldest monument, in my home town Rome, is unfortunately a not very known sewage system, an underground channel built by the Etruscan monarchs that ruled the city around the VI century b.C. Ends meet! Another channel was later built by the romans in a critical area of The Netherlands, we’ll see this one better in a later moment of this free discussion….

The region were the romans governed was mainly inhabited by germanic tribes known as Batavians. In the year 356 A.D. the Caesar Julian was forced to accept that the Salian Franks migration, freely entered the area, in an effort to restore land and water use, reinvigorate trade and strenghten the border defence.

Figure 1.0  Map showing the Roman Empire’s border along the old river Rhine’s course in The Netherlands (upper red line).