ABSTRACT
No part of Scandinavia was ever conquered by the Romans, but their influence nevertheless reached far into the north, and in Scandinavian archaeology the first four centuries AD are commonly called the Roman Iron Age. Imports from the Roman Empire have been found in many areas, especially in eastern Denmark, mostly as grave-goods but sometimes in what appear to have been votive offerings deposited in marshland. The artefacts that reached Scandinavia were generally luxury goods, made by craftsmen rather than mass produced. There are many glass bowls and beakers, cauldrons and other large bronze vessels, jugs, bowls, ladles of silver or bronze, jewellery, fine pottery and weapons. Some may have been brought back by people who had spent some time in the Empire as servants, soldiers, or even honoured guests, and it is likely that some of the best pieces were diplomatic gifts. There is, however, no reason to doubt that at least some reached Scandinavia by way of trade, in exchange for the northern goods such as amber and furs that were in demand in the Roman Empire. Pliny describes how a Roman knight, commissioned to obtain amber for a gladiatorial display, travelled to the Baltic from Carnuntum in Pannonia and collected ‘so plentiful a supply that the nets used for keeping the beasts away from the parapet of the amphitheatre were knotted with pieces of amber, and the arms, biers [for the dead gladiators] and all the equipment used on one day, the display each day being varied, had amber fittings’ (Nat. Hist. xxxvii.45). The largest piece was said to weigh 13 lb. This anecdote not only shows how Roman extravagance could create a demand for large quantities of such commodities, it also implies that direct contacts of that kind were unusual; the amber was collected by a knight not a merchant. The normal mechanism of trade seems to have been through a series of middle-men. That is certainly suggested by Jordanes who wrote, in the sixth century, that the Svear, ‘famed for the dark beauty of their furs’, sent ‘sapphire-coloured skins through innumerable other tribes for Roman use’ (Mierow, 1915, p. 56). The Roman conquest of Gaul and Britain opened the way for trade by ship, and the very large quantities of Roman material found in Frisian settlements suggests that that area was already a key centre for contact between western Europe and the north (Eggers, 1951, karte 8).
