Romans Found America: American Copper Fueled the Empire

If you didn't already know, the Romans needed copper badly and they knew just where to get it. The Phoenicians had found the source centuries earlier and called America Ophir. The Egyptians used the Phoenicians to find the Americas and some of them stayed. The Greeks took a more northerly route, Island hoping from Britain, to Iceland, to Greenland, and to North America. They called America Ogygian. Rome was to do the same around 50 BC, but there was a problem. The people of Britannia would ...