Forgotten Wars - The Roman Invasion of Nubia (24 BC) DOCUMENTARY

the romans fought many wars across the realms of antiquity with the most prominent of these being featured over and over again in mainstream documentaries however there are many forgotten wars that are just as fascinating and well worth exploring they introduce us to overlook cultures and especially make us question just why these wars were forgotten in the first place in this video we'll be exploring the roman invasion of cush the kingdom beyond egypt which had claimed the head of augustus this video was sponsored by magellan tv they're an awesome documentary streaming service run by filmmakers with the selection of over 3000 videos to choose from among the categories of history science nature space and more when it comes to history documentaries magellan tv has the richest and most varied content anywhere ancient modern current war biography and even related genres like science and crime which are historical in nature you can learn more about the fascinating intersection of roman and african history in their documentary on leptus magna which dives deep into the history and archaeology of this incredible city which birthed an emperor tv is compatible with roku amazon fire tv apple tv google play and ios which means you can watch it anytime anywhere on your television laptop or mobile device sign up today to get 30 off an annual membership which starts with a two-week free trial that's less than 350 a month for access to thousands of documentaries the offer is available for both new and returning users so be sure to click the link in the description below or go to try.magellantv.com invicta enjoy let's begin by examining the kingdom of kush located in modern sudan it was a region with a rich history dating back thousands of years virtually to the birth of human civilization itself as with its neighbor to the north much of its development would be driven by the life-giving presence of the nile geographically speaking the nile starts narrow and winding as it meanders its way over hard rock forming a series of cataracts before eventually straightening out and widening as it eventually fans out into a delta that merges with the mediterranean the differences between these various stretches of river would have huge implications for the early civilizations that sprouted roots along its banks in lower egypt for instance the river routinely overflows into a wide flood plain that makes irrigation easy at the same time wide flat stretches of the nile with north flowing currents but south-blowing winds may travel easy this supercharged the agriculture and trade of early egypt propelling its first dynasties to great heights upper egypt 2 benefited from these geographic boons though perhaps to a slightly lesser extent however once one hit the first cataract things began to change the narrower nile had a much reduced or non-existent floodplain while the winds blew less favorably and rapids or waterfalls made continuous waterborne travel difficult the potential for agriculture and trade were therefore diminished and a natural break occurred between the lands of the north and south yet that isn't to say they were completely separate in fact their histories were long intertwined while egypt of the 3000s bc was first united in the early dynastic period the lands of nubia played host to a variety of tribal kingdoms chief among these was the kingdom of karma which eventually gained control of the vast lands extending from the first to the fourth cataracts it appears to have been a highly centralized state which drew wealth from agriculture pastoralism animal products mineral processing and trade with the african interior they were a force to be reckoned with boasting a formidable army of footmen skirmishers chariots and at times even elephants which frequently clash with their neighbors but it was their archers in particular armed with massive 2-meter bows and cane arrows that gained a fearsome reputation across antiquity the egyptians knew this well referring to their southern neighbor as tasetti or the land of the bow and making frequent use of nubian archers as auxiliaries and mercenaries the later acamenades would also recognize their prowess and drafted them into their imperial army thus we see that these lands of the southern nile were not to be overlooked generations of northern pharaohs had to respect the threat from nubia which would raid or invade their lands during times of weakness but the relationship cut both ways and when egypt was strong it would be the one to push the offensive beyond the first cataract it is these ebbs and flows in history that would over time mix the cultures of these two regions that were otherwise geographically distinct for instance in the 1900s bc middle kingdom egypt extended its boundary south to the second cataract to establish new trading outposts and mining operations we hear of many border wars and raids during this era while also seeing a substantial uptick in the development of heavily fortified towns along the contested frontier later in the 1500s bc the unparalleled supremacy of new kingdom egypt would see it push all the way to the fourth cataract swallowing virtually the whole of the kingdom of kurma but leaving much of the heartland regions further south untouched during these key centuries of direct pharonic rule new cities and temples were built while the local ruling class adopted many aspects of egyptian culture including their architecture religion language and writing following the fall of the new kingdom though nubian rulers would return to the helm as the kingdom of kush centered around napara its king slowly gained wealth and power and came to see themselves as the true guardians of the thus when the northern pharaohs once again fell into a state of collapse the kings of cush pushed north they first solidified their hold on lower nubia before taking upper egypt and eventually challenging the princes of lower egypt finally following the hard campaigning of king pier the entirety of egypt would belong to the nubians forging one of the largest territorial powers of its day yet they were not seen as some occupying force of alien outsiders the ways of the nubian rulers were quite familiar to the egyptians and the heirs of king pie ruled as the official 25th dynasty as a testament to their legitimacy they were the traditional double crown of upper and lower egypt worshiped egyptian gods had their names inscribed in the official records and temples and by most accounts were seen as fair benevolent rulers who did much for the people eventually however their fortunes also waned in the face of the rising neo-assyrians that launched several invasions against the levant and africa after many bloody bouts the kings of cush were eventually forced to pull back to their traditional lands of nubia yet they still kept a substantial sphere of influence over the lands of egypt through trade diplomacy and of course war making the resurgent powers of egypt though grew tired of this interference launching fresh offensives that managed to sack the capital at napata in 529 bc as a result king espelta would move his administrative center to the more southern city of marawi from here the cushites would rebuild themselves they would do so in a slightly different environment than before the lands around merreway were far from the lush flood plains of the nile but that did not doom them agriculture here instead drew life from tropical rainfall productive farming could therefore still take place but required new practices and the use of more sophisticated tools at the same time there were also plentiful lands to graze vast herds of cattle while rich mineral deposits made for the lucrative extraction of copper iron and gold meanwhile the adoption of dromedaries vastly expanded trade routes through the region while merchants increasingly tapped into the shipping lanes along the red sea the kingdom of cush was thriving as proof of this when the accumulated empire conquered egypt in the 520s bc cambises would send spies to assess the strength of the southern lands herodotus reports that when the king of cush discovered these men he replied by sending back a bow with a simple message quote when the persians can draw a bow of this greatness as i do only then should they bring overwhelming odds to attack the long-lived ethiopians but till then they should thank the gods for not giving the sons of the ethiopians of mind to win more territory than they currently have apparently this enraged cambises who sent a force of over 50 000 to confront them however his campaign would ultimately end in disaster when supplies ran out and a huge contingent of the army was swallowed in a sandstorm eventually though some advances may have been made by his successors as it seems the area between the first and second cataract were part of the ethiopian satrapy listed by herodotus while nubian rulers were said to send regular gifts to the king of kings over the following centuries though the heartland of the kingdom of kush at merreway would remain unconquered and rose to new heights as it did so the local culture slowly came into its own melding with and superseding the previous egyptian dominated one we see this in the addition of new religious sites and deities such as the lion god epitome as well as with new styles of art architecture government and language it was all a fascinating mix that we sadly don't know enough about and can only really begin to scratch the surface on in this video suffice to say the kingdom of kush was no mere backwater territory by the first century bc it was a power on the rise ready to march out and expand its reach up to the first cataract and beyond this would put them on a collision course with rome but let's first rewind a bit here to see how the romans even came into the picture in the first place while the nubian kings and queens had been undertaking their millennia-long struggles back and forth across the nile against egypt rome had been born and was expanding its way across the mediterranean and what by comparison must have seemed like the blink of an eye by the first century bc the italian power had become involved in egypt over the course of the civil war which saw pompey flee the country and are pursuing caesar get involved in the ongoing civil war in the aftermath rome would find itself backing the ptolemaic rule of cleopatra who in turn supported mark anthony in his contest against octavian when the pair lost the battle of actium in 31 bc a victorious octavian finally established control over the whole roman empire in the process he would annex the lands of egypt and begin to impose a new administrative regime cornelius gallus was appointed as the province's first prefect he set to work restoring order by revamping programs like the local police force dealing with fractious tribes and putting down a revolt in thieves further military expansion brought upper egypt under roman control and also led to the establishment of a protectorate in the border area around the first cataract however his ambitions drew the ire of augustus who had him removed and replaced by the more amenable elias gallis this new prefect would now be given orders from the emperor to undertake fresh campaigns in his name that would bring gold and glory to the empire according to the historian strabo the targets would be arabia and ethiopia we previously covered the first of these campaigns in another video which featured an invasion force of some 10 000 men and 130 ships its departure weakened egypt's defenses which now emboldened the kingdom of cush its current ruler was a kandake or queen by the name of amanda rennis whom strabo describes as quote a masculine sort of woman blind in one eye we know little of her rule but from the few descriptions that remain and her following actions it seemed that she had a fierce reputation with bold militaristic ambitions around 25 bc amenorrheanist launched an expedition with some 30 000 troops against the romans [Music] these surged past the first cataract invading the region of the the bayes and attacking the three cohorts stationed there the cushites took filai then saeen and elephantine the inhabitants were enslaved the surrounding lands raided and a statue of augustus was even pulled down its head reportedly being later discovered by archaeologists at the site of merreway in 1910 under the ceremonial path which led to the altar of victory such humiliation could not be tolerated and rome soon prepared to respond the disgraced prefect eliascalis had been recalled by augustus and it would now be up to gaius petronius to take action his punitive campaign called for the mustering of ten thousand foot and eight hundred horse likely made up of two local legions the third cyrenaica and the 22nd deod tariana in 24 bc these now set out for vengeance after several weeks they had finally advanced to the lands of upper egypt and confronted the lingering remnants of the 30 000 strong army of queen amanoranis the romans here seem to have had the upper hand whilst operating alongside the navigable portions of the nile and the cushites justifiably pulled back behind the first cataract to regroup at the city of celcus from here a brief stalemate ensued as ambassadors were exchanged i'll now pass you on to strabo for the story quote petronius sent ambassadors to demand what they had taken as also to ask the reasons why they had begun war and when they said that they had been wronged by the nomarchs he replied that these were not the rulers of the country but caesar and when they requested three days for deliberation but did nothing that they should have done he made an attack and forced them to come forth to battle petronius quickly turned them to flight since they were badly marshaled and badly armed for they had large oblong shields and those two made of raw oxide and as weapons some had only axes others pikes and other swords now some were driven together into the city others fled into the desert and others found refuge on a neighboring island having waded into the channel for on account of the current the crocodiles were not numerous there among these fugitives were the generals of queen aminarenas these one and all he captured alive having sealed after them in both rafts and ships and he sent them forthwith down to alexandria and then he also attacked celcus and captured it and if the multitude of those who fell in battle be added to the number of the captives those who escaped must have been altogether few in number from celcus he went to premise a fortified city after passing through the sand dunes where the army of cambises was overwhelmed when a windstorm struck them and having made an attack he took the fortress at the first onset after this he set out for napata this was the royal residence of amanerenas and her son was there but though she sent ambassadors to treat for friendship and offered to give back the captives and the statues brought from cyene petronius attacked and captured napata2 from which her son had fled and raised it to the ground and having enslaved its inhabitants he turned back again with the booty having decided that the regions further on would be hard to traverse yet while petronius may have recovered roman honor with this expedition he had done little to actually weaken the strength of the cushites whose lands around marie remained untouched in fact it seems that their invasion may have actually helped queen aminarenas rally the locals to her side this was a threat identified by petronius who made sure to establish a check against the enemy upstream of the first cataract at the cliffside fortress of premise overlooking the nile he set up a force of 400 men with enough supplies to hold out for two years satisfied he then set off back to alexandria once there he delighted in his victory selling off loot and captives and even sending one thousand prisoners of war to augustus however queen amanda rennis remained undeterred and now marched back with a new force of many thousands of men to re-establish control of the lands to the north ward got back to petronius of her advance and a race was underway for the fortress of premise luckily the romans got there first new troops reinforced the garrison and set about bolstering its fortifications their position proved so strong that it was enough to force the enemy to halt before it skates queen of menoranas perhaps considered an assault but resisted she had shown her people that she was a strong ruler and convinced the romans that she would not be ignored this was enough of a geopolitical win for her to now send ambassadors as a sign of the leverage she held these were not dismissed outright by patronus but were actually sent ahead and given an escort to bring them all the way to emperor augustus himself who was in samos once there they were given an audience and treated quite favorably strabo tells us that augustus granted them everything they wished for and even revoked the tributes which had previously been imposed upon them these were extremely favorable terms but why would rome offer them well it seems that some of this had to do with short-term considerations by augustus who wished to conclude a piece while otherwise dealing with a delicate situation in neighboring parthia there were also the more long-term considerations where rome realized it would have a quite difficult time exerting control beyond the first cataract as we mentioned lands to the south had less agricultural yield and were difficult to traverse by boat militarily there was also not much the romans could do in lands that quickly thinned out into desert or were host to all kinds of tropical diseases which could decimate an army that stayed too long in the end it proved best for both powers on either side of the nile to settle into the usual balance of power that had existed for thousands of years the peace which followed proved prosperous to both and the kingdom of cush would rise to new heights as a valuable economic partner in the region in fact the cooperation developed to such a degree that when nero later sent an expedition to find the source of the nile the king of mary would assist them in their journey that perhaps led them as far as modern ethiopia and uganda i'd love to talk more about this and other stories involving ancient africa but for now this is where we will end our episode let me know if this is something you'd like to see us cover more of in the future a huge thanks to the patrons for funding the channel and to the researchers writers and artists for making this episode possible be sure to like and subscribe for more content and check out these other related videos see you in the next one

Channel: Invicta

Views: 520,553

Rating: 4.918704 out of 5

Keywords: invicta, invicta history, forgotten wars, roman invasion of kush, roman invasion of africa, roman invasion of arabia, kush, kingdom of kush, kingdom of kush documentary, nubia, history of nubia, egypt history, history documentary, kandake, candace, Amanirenas, amanirenas queen of kush, amanirenas movie, african history, egytian army, new kingdom, middle kingdom, old kingdom, roman army, rome documentary, ancient rome, roman empire, ancient history, history of egypt, meroe

Id: 5u6oQ6rI74Y

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 31 2021

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[u/m0thmanNfriends]

I love invicta. They put a lot of work into their videos and the narration is pretty calmly mg ngl

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Thank you!