Roman Conquest of Germania or Parthia More Feasible?
- Thread starter hasdrubal barca
- Start date
True but Rome, ancient Rome, the Rome we are talking about here, one that is expanding, got its ass handed to them by mounted archers. It took centuries for them to be able to learn from those disasters.
Red Orm
Banned
Byzantium even conquering France or Mesopotamia, let alone Germania or all of Persia, is ASB, so it's a moot point.
Deleted member 97083
I disagree, since the city of Anshan was able to conquer the entire Middle East, and some obscure village near Veii was able to conquer the entire Mediterranean.
But nonetheless, my point wasn't that Byzantium could reconquer the former territories of the Principate. What I meant is that the Romans as a civilization were certainly capable of learning how to deal with horse archers. The late Dominate and Byzantine period prove it.
If the Roman Empire survives in one united piece instead of splitting apart, they will still eventually learn to employ horse archers, as well as how to counter them, through centuries of experience and evolution.
The Principate though was probably unable to adopt a proper cavalry army, it just clashed with their ideology. But there's more to Rome than the Principate.
Red Orm
Banned
I'm not so sure about that. Byzantium suffered so much against the Sassanids that it was either die or try, there was nothing but to learn how to effectively employ and counter horse archers. A stronger Rome spanning most of Europe, dealing with more far flung enemies but with more troops at their disposal, as well as better borders, in the east doesn't really have to learn.
Deleted member 97083
Germanicus already employed horse-archers against the Cherusci (Tacitus' Annals Book II Chapter XVI).
The Romans knew how to use horse archers, they just needed to change their attitude and proportion of forces, which would naturally happen as the emperors become more powerful and armies more regionally specialized. This evolution, political and military, was already happening during the Principate and was complete by the Dominate.
A stronger Rome would be no less adaptable. Adaptability, mobility, and willingness to use auxiliaries had always been a hallmark of the Romans, and individual generals would still face scarcity of resources, leading them to innovate. Even if the entire empire is better off, it doesn't change the fact that frontier generals will face constant challenges.
In fact a stronger Rome will have more coin to hire mercenaries, so it may actually advance faster. The Crisis of the Third Century did cause a lot of evolution, but that evolution resulted mostly from reformers like Aurelian and Diocletian, and rebels like Postumus and Zenobia. Less so from the chaotic emperors in between.
true. I am of the understanding that early Rome did not do well with mounted archers. I am maybe wrong.
Um, no. The Romans learned from Carrhae very quickly. Publius Ventidius already had reformed the Roman army in the east to better combat the Parthian tactics when the Parthians invaded in the late 40s BCE. Predictably, he annihilated the Parthian armies. With the exception of Marc Antony (who's botched campaign is due to his own failures as a commander more than anything else), the Romans pretty much ran the table with the Parthians militarily all the way up until the Parthians collapsed.
Like I said previously I was under the impression that they did poorly with mounted archers, I admit I maybe wrong.
That's a bad example. The Roman legions of the pre Marian era were levies who didn't have much experience or unit cohesion when they began a campaign. That's why the Romans almost always lost their first battle or two in a war during the early and mid republic.
Teutoburg forest disaster was an eternal question wether a glass half full or a half empty, I guess.
Were the Romans unlucky to loose Germany or were they happy to keep Gaullia, Illiria and have Italy uninvaided and unplundered?
That was part of a big game including Bellum Batonianum
Marcus Aurelius as a great conqueror... noooo... he suffered all his life fighting unruly barbarians in disastrous climate... protecting his empire... Including these undisciplined rascals who needed a constant watch over them into the Empire to border even more unruly barbarians living in even shittier climate? Spending imperial fortunes on that... With little hope of profit except for dubious glory...
What for?
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First of all, the Romans had to leave it...
So that's not the perfect counterargument I guess.
And that is exactly the answer why it's never a good idea conquering shitty places
But comparing to Marcomanni; Britain was very(!) rich in tin and at least for a few centuries it payed for itself, the climate (for agriculture) was much better because of Gulf Stream (that's important). And last but not least Britain was the center of Celtic Druid resistance against Roman influence - protecting Gaullia (the real gem of the Roman Empire) begged for crushing this druid wasps nest.
So sorry, bad example.
First of all, the Romans had to leave it...
So that's not the perfect counterargument I guess.
And that is exactly the answer why it's never a good idea conquering shitty places
But comparing to Marcomanni; Britain was very(!) rich in tin and at least for a few centuries it payed for itself, the climate (for agriculture) was much better because of Gulf Stream (that's important). And last but not least Britain was the center of Celtic Druid resistance against Roman influence - protecting Gaullia (the real gem of the Roman Empire) begged for crushing this druid wasps nest.
So sorry, bad example.
That wasn't a counterargument it was, just like you said, a argument to why conquering shitty places isn't a good idea.
Oh, I see, I see, I got it.
But, first, Britain is much, much(!) less shitty place than Marcomannii, Sarmatian places.
Britain is an island, and if totally conquedered (which was almost done several times) it would have stayed a diamond in a crown of the Roman Empire. (Which, I guess, was the initial idea).
Red Orm
Banned
And like you said, tin, and probably even better, coal that you could literally scoop out of the ground. No mining needed.
The main reason for invading Britain was to give Claudius a triumph. As the Romans had not been stuffed there in the last fifty years I guess that it was chosen as a soft option that was easy to reach. That it might also be valuable was secondary