Then he definitely has. I find that far more credible than that Welles was a century off in his understanding of American history.
But, checking the original, again I find it less clear than that. Marlow imagines two Romans, the second a settler, but the first a military occupier who is not planning to stay ("keeping his eye on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by-and-by"). I do not, in general, think of the Romans as the settlers of Britain, though some obviously did, not the way the Anglo-Saxons were settlers, but as primarily the military occupiers.
And that's the parallel with Verazzano. Not a close one, to be sure, but the situations weren't the same. He was the first one to come by and airily declare that this land now belonged to one European monarch or another. If Conrad is intending for the reader to think of a parallel with the Europeans in Africa, the possessive aspect is what fits. I don't believe that Pytheas sailed with such a goal or attitude.
no subject
But, checking the original, again I find it less clear than that. Marlow imagines two Romans, the second a settler, but the first a military occupier who is not planning to stay ("keeping his eye on a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna by-and-by"). I do not, in general, think of the Romans as the settlers of Britain, though some obviously did, not the way the Anglo-Saxons were settlers, but as primarily the military occupiers.
And that's the parallel with Verazzano. Not a close one, to be sure, but the situations weren't the same. He was the first one to come by and airily declare that this land now belonged to one European monarch or another. If Conrad is intending for the reader to think of a parallel with the Europeans in Africa, the possessive aspect is what fits. I don't believe that Pytheas sailed with such a goal or attitude.