Roman Deportations

[DominusNovus]

What if the Romans applied that Assyrian policy of deporting populations in conquered areas, to better Romanize them? Could they pull it off effectively? This would work pretty well in conjunction with their colonies, I would think. I know that the colonies didn't do as well as was hoped sometimes (most colonies in Greece got Greekified, instead of Romanizing the natives).

You spread the bulk of the population throughout predominately Roman areas. Then, do the colony schtick, and send in the citizens. Within a generation or two, you've assimilated the population, and can go on to the next group. There'd be a snowball effect, as each population assimilated gives you more people to assimilate the next population. Any thoughts?

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

They did occasionally do that, didn't they? Like the Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem? It didn't really work very well. And in any case, seeing as most of the former empire still speaks Latin languages, and our legal and religious systems are still Roman, I think they did a pretty good job of assimilating, at least the areas without developed civilizations to begin with. In any case, those pesky Germans would still have shown up and blown it all away.

[DominusNovus]

Occaisionally, yeah. Yet, Latin never really made inroads in the well populated east. The west was pretty thinly populated, so taking a bunch of the village folk as slaves pretty much sealed their fate in regards to assimilation. I'm thinking that as the Romans conquer the eastern cities, they deport whole populations and spread them around the empire. Could they have pulled it off?

[jkay]

Evil and cruelty have bad consequences in realityland.

I expect they would've lasted at longest 'til the Carthaginians at the very latest; OTL that was a close match, and your scheme would've weakened them for it.

Turbodeportation'd mean high population loss and immiseration rates. That means fewer, poorer people to pay taxes or be labor like the slaves building roads. Nobody'd want to be their spy, because then it's all downside if they win. That means their empire would've been poorer and wimpier.

Kinda like how torturing for information just brought more lies like about Iraqi WMD, eh?

[ImmortalImpi]

What was the point of this bump???

[Zioneer]

Wow, if you would've waited 21-22 days, it would've been 8 years since this thread went dead. Impressive.

[jkay]

Oopsie! I've been looking at early threads for the last few days, and forgot this was one.

Sorry !

[CalBear]

Oopsie! I've been looking at early threads for the last few days, and forgot this was one.

Sorry !
Luckily you posted an apology.

I had the kick half done.