At the beginning of the story Marlow tells a tale about the Romans coming to Britain, which foreshadows the main story's characters and the plot that will unfold. The unnamed characters and interactions with the natives included in Marlow's tale of the Roman invasion of ancient Britain foretells of the European men Marlow meets in Belgian-controlled Africa.
Marlow's tale of ancient Britain introduces the types of characters that are encountered later in his story of Africa. First, Conrad mentions the Roman who comes to Britain simply "to mend his fortune". Later, Marlow's companion on his trek to the Manager's African outpost is introduced into the story with similar characterization. However, Marlow also tells of the Romans who had come to Britain "to face the darkness. And perhaps… a chance of promotion to the fleet at Ravenna". Here Conrad first
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First, he relates the situation of the Romans as they penetrate the primitive landscape, finding "sandbanks, marshes, forests, savages, precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink" . Marlow foreshadows the story of the conquerors of Africa, as later the Belgians and Marlow will find the same primitive landscape in their journey into Africa. Marlow goes on to call the Romans not "colonists", but rather "conquerors…They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale". Marlow foretells of the maltreatment of the natives that the Belgians commit once they conquered Africa. By expanding on his description of Romans, Marlow also foreshadows Kurtz's fate. He says that a Roman will only have success "if he… survived the awful climate". Marlow's words are a foreshadow of Kurtz's death due to a native African