The barbarians drive us to the sea, the sea drives us to the barbarians; between these two means of death, we are either killed or drowned.
What you just read was part of a letter sent by the Roman citizens of Britannia to Aetius, a senior Roman military officer, sometime around 450 CE. The Britons' final recorded appeal to the Romans for military assistance against the "barbarian" raiders from the north. Unfortunately for Romano-Britons, no help would be sent. A few years earlier, the Roman emperor Honorius had famously told his British subjects to look to their own defence - effectively, severing Britain off from the Roman empire against its will. This ended the more than 350 years of Roman military presence on the island, which saw the rise of large towns such as Eboracum (York), Ratae (Leicester) and Londinium (London).
The decision-makers in Rome thought the soldiers stationed in Britain would serve the empire better elsewhere. Britain was extremely difficult for the empire to hold onto. A major reason for this was the British rural hinterland, which was a hotbed of rebellion. Here, outside the urban power centres of Rome, tribal loyalties held more sway than any imperial authority. Britain wasn't economically viable because the empire was spending more on defending it than it gained from the island.
When the last legionaries left the island, Britain entered an era of darkness. The sixth-century British clergyman St. Gildas wrote about the Scots and Picts who streamed down to the unprotected lowlands to wreak havoc on the Romano-Britons, in his "On the ruin of Britain".
The Roman legion had no sooner returned home in joy and triumph, than their former foes, like hungry and ravening wolves, rushing with greedy jaws upon the fold which is left without a shepherd ... and spread slaughter on every side, and like mowers cutting down the ripe corn, they cut up, tread under foot, and overrun the whole country.
Imagine if you were a person living in post-Roman Britain. How would you have felt?
Now imagine if these "ravening wolves" were driven by religious fanaticism and rode towards you in trucks, sporting black turbans and bearing assault rifles.
That sense of impending doom is what the people of Afghanistan feel today.
Like the Roman legionaries who left their posts at Hadrian's wall hurriedly, abandoning their cavalry swords and other equipment, the American soldiers in Afghanistan are leaving at full tilt. On July 2nd, the Americans slipped out of the Bagram airbase at night, after 20 years of occupying it, leaving their equipment behind.
Every day, since the American president told the Afghans to look to their own defence, the Taliban has been stretching its tentacles further and deeper into the country, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake.
You have the watches, but we have the time
Wherever the Taliban plants its flag, women are forced into their homes and the Hindus, Shias and other religious minorities are forced out of theirs. Every day we hear of new horrific incidents from Afghanistan. From the cold-blooded murder of 22 Afghan commandos trying to surrender to the Taliban, to demands made to local leaders to provide lists of unmarried women to be "gifted" to Taliban fighters.
If you look at a map of political control in Afghanistan you will see that a large number of districts are marked as "contested areas". A sobering reminder, that the Taliban still hasn't reached its peak. With the Taliban making territorial gains daily, the worst might be yet to come.
After the Romans abandoned it in the early 5th century, the British economy collapsed. Soon, the large cities of the island fell into disrepair. The sewers clogged up, aqueducts stopped bringing water, the buildings became dilapidated and fell into ruin. The Anglo Saxons who settled on the island later built their simple wooden villages next to these stone ruins. They were unable to comprehend, let alone match the knowledge required to build and administer such large urban centres.
If history repeats itself, this may well be the fate of whatever remains of Kandahar, Kabul, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif.
If you want to learn more about this period of British history, I highly recommend the first episode of the fall of civilizations podcast: Roman Britain - The Work of Giants Crumbled.
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