How Much Did Rome and Sub-Saharan Africa Know About Each Other?

Everything Everywhere Daily

Gary Arndt | Glassbox Media

History, Education

4.8 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Romans were familiar with Africa. At one point, they controlled everything on the north coast of Africa from Morocco to Egypt. However, below their African territories was the vast Sahara Desert, which was extremely difficult to cross. For all practical purposes, it served as a permeable barrier between the people above and below the desert. As such, historians have wondered just how much the people above and below the Sahara knew about each other. Learn more about Rome and Sub-Saharan Africa, and what contact they had with each other on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Newspapers.com Get 20% off your subscription to Newspapers.com Mint Mobile Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Stitch Fix Go to stitchfix.com/everywhere to have a stylist help you look your best Tourist Office of Spain Plan your next adventure at Spain.info Stash Go to get.stash.com/EVERYTHING to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. Subscribe to the podcast! https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Romans were familiar with Africa, or at least part of it. At one point, they controlled everything
0:05.6	on the north coast of Africa from Morocco all the way to Egypt. However, below their African
0:11.0	territories was the vast Sahara Desert, which was extremely difficult to cross. For all practical
0:16.8	purposes, it served as a permeable barrier between the peoples above and below the desert.
0:22.2	As such, historians have wondered just how much the people above and below the Sahara knew about
0:27.9	each other. Learn more about Rome and sub-Saharan Africa and what contact they had with each other
0:33.7	on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
0:49.1	Music each other on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Planet Money.
0:52.2	Tariffs, meme coins, girls' scout cookies, what are they all
0:55.3	have in common? Money. Economics is everywhere and everything fueling our lives, even when we
1:01.8	least expected. If you're a fan of everything everywhere daily and are curious to learn something
1:06.0	new and exciting about economics every week, I recommend you listen to the Planet Money podcast
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1:40.8	Tune in to Planet Money every week for entertaining stories and insights about how money shapes our world
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	...

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