WI: Trajan annihilates Parthia

How many more years does Rome last?

  • Less than 50

    Votes: 21 24.7%
  • Less than 100

    Votes: 14 16.5%
  • Less than 150

    Votes: 26 30.6%
  • Forever...

    Votes: 24 28.2%

  • Total voters
    85

PhilippeO

Banned
But Eastern threat wouldn't just disappear : Media, Elam, Nomad / semi-nomad from Iranian plateau would cross Zargos every few years.
 
But Eastern threat wouldn't just disappear : Media, Elam, Nomad / semi-nomad from Iranian plateau would cross Zargos every few years.

Well, Elam was Persis by this point.

The Zagros is a pretty good border, but the sheer wealth of Mesopotamia will bring in invaders, certainly. However, if the Kushan have invaded Persia's easter hinterlands, suddenly the would-be conquerers of Mesopotamia have other problems and Rome may just be able to avoid conquest for a few centuries, at least, before the Kushan finally fall apart and/or get centred further around India.
 
But Eastern threat wouldn't just disappear : Media, Elam, Nomad / semi-nomad from Iranian plateau would cross Zargos every few years.

Which makes a very useful source of slaves ;) I only half-jest. Persia has shown itself more than capable of defending itself against this problem - Mesopotamia being hardened and the rest of the plateau used to soften an invasion - whilst also not having to defend against Rome, makes it arguably easier.

The Zagros is a border, but just like you'd want Mesopotamia to secure Syria, Mesopotamia (and the Zagros) will want the Iranian Plateau, which would want the Hindu Kush, etc.

The Romans would want a short border, and a way to defend in depth for moderately little cost. The Zagros is a great frontier, for this reason. It can protect Rome proper (Mesopotamia), whilst turning any Persian state into a small client state. Keeping the Plateau divided but under Roman rule ensures that the region isn't strong enough to rebel - but is also expendable. Iranian troops defending the frontier under different client kings slows down any invader. The key is that the Romans need to ensure that these client kings earn enough from Rome to make loyalty worth their while.

Or, you set up the Roman Empire in the East. (But I'd be repeating myself).
 
A positive side-effect of a Roman dominition of Persia would be to save Hellenic culture in Asia. Sadly, the Greo-Indian kingdom had already fallen in 10 CE, but some Greek pockets survived the 2nd century at least, since the Greek language was still alive in India when Kanishka abolsihed it as official language of the Kushan Empire in c. 120 CE.
 
A positive side-effect of a Roman dominition of Persia would be to save Hellenic culture in Asia.

In Persia, Hellenic culture had all but died, for the revival of old Persian culture under the Parthians was underway since around the dawn of the Common Era. There's some evidence that some Greek plays were performed in the Parthian courts after the revival of old Persian culture, but not much more than that.

but some Greek pockets survived the 2nd century at least, since the Greek language was still alive in India when Kanishka abolsihed it as official language of the Kushan Empire in c. 120 CE.

It was only really alive among the elite, and other than them, traders with the West only really knew of it. And even among the elite, it was growing bastardized, as shown by many mispellings on Kushan coinage, and it was dying. It took a single decision by the Kushan court to finally throw it away. As a sidenote, even though the Greek script is horrendous for the Kushan language, it was used despite lots of ambiguity between vowels (O was used for the short a, the u, and the o sound) and letters being ignored in inscriptions (Vasudeva is known as "Bazudeo" in Kushan inscriptions), and was used right up until Islam rose. Certainly a lot of longevity for a script that really should have been replaced by better scripts.
 
I think the oddest thing is how the OTL Roman Eastern border is portrayed as some great formidable boundary instead of an awkward one that would bleed the Romans dry trying to fortify and hold as soon as it was seriously contested by a state stronger by the Parthians. The Roman Empire already had an incredibly expensive to maintain eastern border.
So would the zargos be better or not?
 
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