25 October 20XX+1
My Dear Lucilius:
Settlements: What are they? How do they come to be? How do they fade away?
For some reason, as I have given thought to this commitment I have made, two historical tracks come into my mind.
The first is of the Ancient Greeks, those hardy traders and adventurers of “the wine dark sea”, who sailed through the Mediterranean and beyond (you will remember the Athenian Empire imported wheat from the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea). What would it have been like to be the first ones to show up and essentially, ex nihilo, construct a settlement, a place to establish their lives? Not every place made it of course, and sometimes they chose poorly – for example, the founder of the Greek colony of Khalkedon (Chalcedon), who founded his colony on the Asian side of the Bosporus Straits missing the much better and more secure location that a later founder, Byzas, found on the other side which worked out slightly better as Byzantium – but they had a lot of success as well: Massalia (Marseillies), Tarantum (Taranto), Syracuse, the entire now-Turkish side of the Aegean Sea once called Ionia (if Turkey – or any country – still exists).
One wonders what amazement and wonder would fill the founders’ minds if they saw their humble beginnings in the modern world.
The other image is that of Anglo-Saxon Britain – but really, post-Roman Britain. What would it have been like to live amid a city or villa slowly falling to pieces (or being cannibalized by others for building materials), using stones and techniques that you had no idea how they were even possible? Carefully squared corners and plumb lines of stone walls, water running through pipes, constructions of walls and temples and buildings the size and scope of which you had no idea how they came to pass, delicate mosaics and paintings slowly fading or becoming buried with pictures of things you had never seen? At least one Anglo-Saxon writer wondered; the poem is called “The Ruin”. In the author’s reflections on the decaying buildings and the amazing works that must have happened there (but no more), he theorizes that it was the work of giants.
We, sadly, have neither hardy Greek adventurers nor giants, only ourselves.
A “nation”, as you may recall from your political geography courses, is a group of people that share a language, and culture, and a history or backstory. A “state”, as you may recall from the same course, is a term for a group of people has both territory and administrative power over that territory. The two are not synonymous of course: you can have a nation without a state or a state with many nations (or one nation).
As a small group, we seem to share a language and a sort of culture and in some ways a history, even if it is just a history of living together. We have a place we live, which (technically) counts as territory and at the moment, some level of administrative power, even if it is simply in the absence of the former governmental body that was in control of this part of the world.
So – maybe – we have something to start with.
We have local allies if we want them, Kentucky City of course, and Grant down the other way (although them seem far less interested). We have a citadel of sorts if we wanted to use it as such, the old Brick Schoolhouse from the early 20th Century. We have things like year round water and something of a growing season and a population – or at least what is left – that understands what the seasons and weather means here.
A population that is fragmented, of course. And a territory that cannot be encompassed by any means that I can think of.
But compared to the Greeks and the Anglo-Saxons, we have quite a lot: we do not have create a settlement from scratch and we still have living memory of how such things were done.
It is not a perfect equation, Lucilius. But it may be enough.
Your Obedient Servant, Seneca
Seneca and friends have a few more years of civilization beneath them that the Greeks and Anglo-Saxons didn't have, more knowledge to draw on perhaps TB. Having a few like-minded friends counts for something.
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - That is a good point; we have something like 2800 years or so of history and technology than the Greeks did for sure. At the same time, we are much more dependent on that technology to do so many tasks including basic ones that without it, one suspects we would be greatly hampered in our efforts.
DeleteLike minded friends do count. The divisions in the town are likely problematic for Seneca.
The Saxons of post Roman Era had limited knowledge of how to maintain the Roman systems.
ReplyDeleteYour village has very limited knowledge of how to make bricks to maintain your school fortress as age and damage occurs. Window glass once broken is but hope for salvage replacement.
I hope your village has a good garden seed selection, as well as gardening knowledge not to grow so many squashes together lest cross pollination creates poor quality hybrids. Same with carrots and wild Queen Anne's lace turning eating carrots into almost inedible ones.
Leadership in hard times is hard work.
Certainly there are no new replacements for things. Some learning will have to be on the fly, some through shared knowledge, some perhaps buried in books.
DeleteSadly, there is no alternative.
Seneca's group has something else in common - experience. They have all experienced a previous way of life, the event of it's collapse, and it's loss. Shared experiences can be a powerful way of binding people.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, that is a really good point. And like most small towns, there is likely a sense of community that a similar such event in an urban setting would not have.
Delete