Re:Mystery of Chedworth's 1,800-year-old Roman glass shard s...
by fapjacks on Tuesday July 30, 2019 @01:50PM
(#20567316)
There's basically zero chance that glass bottle belonged to anyone that wasn't super wealthy. Also, "middle level" "decision makers" were essentially all assigned to a specific legion, or e.g. veterans with land grants taking an administrative office. Id est mostly static individuals. Almost all travel within the Roman Empire was either military or trade. Or super wealthy people (and/or their entourage).
It stands to reason that the middle level important people who made strategic level decisions about things like military defenses, which roads to build up, etc, etc who's work was on the edge of the empire would move between the various points on its edge directly rather than traveling to/from Rome like a higher level person who reports to people in Rome would do. Some middle level political or military official probably bought the perfume around the same time they moved from the northeast to the northwest or had reason to travel there and brought it back as a souvenir or gift for their wife or something.
Sure, most rich people didn't travel or not that far but of those that did this is exactly the kind of place they'd wind up going to/from or passing through. The glass could have gotten there through a circuitous route as you described but I find it slightly more probable that it could have been transported there reasonably directly by its end user.