Is there any ACTUAL good reason Rome stopped conquering after becoming an Empire?
>>18282487No. It was over after Caracalla hollowed out the Roman spirit and Thrax usurped power and undermined the senate.
Augustus reduced the army he inherited by half. That's basically it.
>>18282487When did it became an empire?
>>1828250127 BC
Think of it this way, the soldiers are the closest it gets to shareholders of the regime they fight for. In the republic they were dirt cheap and assembled themselves so they were available to grind down Spain town by town. With the empire they are pampered by generous donatives etc so that you get multiple references to how say Britain is a net drain unable to pay for the garrison troops stationed there, undoubtedly also the case for all the tribal border areas which is everything but the parthian border.
>>18282502why isn't ceasar an emprah?
>>18282487>WestOcean>SouthDesert>NorthPoorly developed expanse inhabited by people who will fight you forever. Expanding there would be costly, and bring few benefits.>EastWealthy and developed, sure, but the Persians exist and covet it just as strongly. Expanding there would require throwing a generation of men into the meat grinder.Rome had already taken the Mediterranean basin. What was within their reach which would've brought them more wealth than it would cost to take and hold?
>>18282510>multiple references to how say Britain is a net drain unable to pay for the garrison troops stationed thereNot just that, it was geographically cut off by a German-Aryan (Alani in Latin) revolt in Armorica.
>>18282487>Rome in Iraq, Scotland, Hungary, Crimea and most of GermanyWhat a shitty map
>>18282524>NO >Amalek is too big you can't just add in several foederati
>>18282518>OceanSail across it>DesertAqueducts>Poorly developed expanse inhabited by people who will fight you forever. Expanding there would be costly, and bring few benefits.There are massive untapped resources, genocide and/or/ Romanize them, and it'd block off the nomadic invasions>Wealthy and developed, sure, but the Persians exist and covet it just as strongly. Expanding there would require throwing a generation of men into the meat grinder.A worthy noble sacrifice in the long term
>>18282530>Sail across itTech's too primitive for that, try again in 15 centuries.>AqueductsTech's too primitive for that, try again in 20 centuries.>There are massive untapped resources, genocide and/or/ Romanize them, and it'd block off the nomadic invasionsMassive untapped resources that would require similarly massive labor pools to tap. The investment alone would take centuries to pay off.>A worthy noble sacrifice in the long termAn ignoble method of cultural suicide in the long term.
>>18282487Imagine battling the tall, more animal than human, savage scandinavians in a freezing barren snowy arctic wasteland
>>18282551>Tech's too primitive for that, try again in 15 centuries.You're a low iq fag>Tech's too primitive for that, try again in 20 centuries.Low iq fag>Massive untapped resources that would require similarly massive labor pools to tap. The investment alone would take centuries to pay off.Low iq fag>An ignoble method of cultural suicide in the long term.Low iq fag
>>18282501241 BC with the first province of Sicily. If you don't want to count island provinces for whatever reason, then 197 BC when the made Hispania a province. Just because the government was Republican, doesn't mean they weren't an empire.
>>18282487Ran out of viable territory to conquer.
They reached their logistical limit.
>>18282557He's right about the culture thing. PERSIAN culture is that powerful even Alexander fell under its silky allure. Oh and there would be 10x the Elagabalus's
>>18282487logistics
>>18282529Rome never owned these states
>>18282501When sulla took power
>>18282487Expanding past the already huge borders would have been impossible (and proved to be). If you have a plate full of food and you know you can't eat more, stop shoveling food onto it.
>>18282487If the Romans had managed to fully pacify and Romanize Pannonia and Dacia, as well as conquering Magna Germania up to the Vistula and modern region of Galiciai (Ukraine) they wouldn’t have been susceptible to Eastern invasion, but instead they decided to be retarded and waste time trying to conquer the useless, unprofitable, and indefensible Mesopotamia
>>18284120This. The further away the frontier was from Rome, the harder it was to keep it supplied
>>18284466They understood it too. Hence moving the Western capital to Milan after things got rough on the Rhine-Danube. Moving it to Ravenna though was ill-advised
>>18284267>If the Romans had managed to fully pacify and Romanize Pannonia and Dacia, as well as conquering Magna Germania up to the Vistula and modern region of Galiciai (Ukraine)Impoverished, backwards regions with nothing to plunder.
>>18282487Politics. The Roman Republic had a political system where military glory was a big part of getting elected. The Empire didn't have elections - at least not fair ones - and a Roman general conquering provinces was if anything a security threat, what if he revolts?
>>18284525>The Roman Republic had a political system where military glory was a big part of getting elected.Cicero did not come from a well connected, old, or wealthy family, was not of senatorial rank, and never held a sword during his political career yet he was elected to the highest available office in each year it was available to him.
>>18284533Yeah but Caesar and Pompeii also had successful political careers, and a dude as rich as Crassus still felt the need to fight Parthians and get himself killedOratory was one route to political success but not the only one and not the one which many Romans took.
>>18284540>Pompeiiai post
>>18284482My point is that those regions could’ve been developed, and that it’s about strategically advantageous territory. If Germania was pacified, like actually, and they were made loyal, the land would not be a threat. If the whole Carpathian range and the lands immediately East of it were conquered and incorporated, they’d be able to fend off Eastern invasion. Germania had many forests, you could use that for many things, while clearing away cover for any potential insurrection… two birds with one stone. It’s not so much about the profit.
>>18282487Material Conditions. Rome was an imperial system that funded new conquests through plunder, it had more or less reached the maximum extent possible given the constraints of contemporary logistic technology and geography. It had essentially run out of lands that wouldn't cost more to conquer than they brought in. They could fiddle with the edges a bit like Claudius taking Britannia and Trajan taking Dacia, but even by the time of Augustus they had taken everything they could physically reach that was worth conquering. Even super rich regions like Mesopotamia that would simply too far away to be held. For all the maps like to put Mesopotamia as part of the empire at its "greatest extent" under Trajan, they couldn't hold it for even five years.
>>18284267>>18284553Agreed
>>18282524>IraqBriefly occupied by Romehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia_(Roman_province)>ScotlandScotland south of the Antoine wall was part of the empire for a good whilehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonine_WallOther areas may refer to agricola's campaigns. That said, the exact boundary where the Roman empire in Britain ended is disputed, and it is often suggested the walls had more to do with controlling trade and limiting the Brigantes on both of it's sides than anything else. >HungaryPart of the empire for a good whilehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PannoniaOr did you mean Dacia? >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_DaciaNot as long, but still a century, long enough that the modern day inhabitants still speak a Roman language and call themselves Roman(ian). >CrimeaThe Bosporan Kingdom was a Roman client state for a while, with it's kings even gaining Roman citizenship and adopting Roman names. However after a falling out between that kingdom and Nero Rome attempted to establish direct control over the areahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charax,_Crimea>most of GermanyBriefly occupied by Romehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_Antiqua
>>18284898If you're gonna count Iraq because of a brief military expedition that lasted 2 years then the Ummayyads ruled half of france, these maps are all absurd and obviously made by Romaboos
Germania was a bigger setback than we think, they got demoralized after they failed and stopped expanding, only reason they got Britain at all was a personal push by nero/Claudius.
i guess there were hostile people for themhttps://files.catbox.moe/9ouac3.mp4
Augustus got his spirit broken by the Germans and gave up ever spreading north and northeast. Sahara desert was impassible to the south. Persia was too mighty to hold in the east, no matter what short-term gains they made in Mesopotamia.
>>18282487Try to walk from Paris to Berlin and you will understand why they did stopped conquests.
>>18284267>UGH they should have wasted hundreds of thousands of Roman lives conquering the desolate wastes of the Eurasian steppe!>the vast riches of ancient mesopotamia? who needs money, art, and taxpaying subjects?
>>18285715border checks and terrible, mazelike road systems?
>>18285718Replace border checks with barbarian tribes and terrible road systems with uncertain terrains.
>>18285730Germany west of the elbe has identical climate and landscape to northern france, people make germania out to be frozen hyperborea instead of a run off the mill northern euro landscape. "But muh forests" just cut them down lmao, it's not like roman economy couldn't use the wood
>>18282487The Roman legions were equipped to fight chiefly in the mild year round weather of the Mediterranean, they had no winter clothes or other stuff to handle central to Eastern Europe where real winters occur.
>>18285766it's full of tribes who can use the forests for cover to wage guerilla warfare and they know the landscape while the Romans don't
>>18285775Maybe if they weren't boy fucking faggots and took of the skirts (gay) and put on some fucking pants (normal) they would've seen more success>>18285782>it's full of tribesNo it wasn't
>>18285766>Germany west of the elbe has identical climate and landscape to northern franceIn modern times, after the land has been thoroughly tamed through centuries of concerted effort to clear forests and fill in bogs and mires. Gaul used to be forested hinterland for the most part, but the Gauls at least did practice agriculture and so there was already some productive land in Gaul when the Romans conquered it. It just wasn't nearly equal to the eastern provinces, especially Egypt or Anatolia. Gaul was "uncivilized" by Roman standards, but they had agriculture and cities. Germania had no cities to speak of, it hadn't tried to make its hinterland productive at all, it was truly wild.
>>18285795the same also applies for Spain. they were backward in some ways like not having writing but there were towns and a functional economy there.
>>18285782The real problem was the lack of any urban infrastructure. The Romans were, at their heart, urbanists. They swiftly conquered Italian city states who, like them, based their civilization around centralized administrations for agrarian economies. Even the thalassocratic Carthaginians still depended upon cities as administrative centers and economic hubs, so their territory could be seamlessly integrated into the Roman system.Gauls also had walled towns and cities, they farmed, they used towns and cities as hubs to gather in agricultural product. This was something the Romans could exploit.Something people don't realize is how difficult the logistics of the Roman military are if you DON'T have reliable sources of food via agricultural hubs that your army can loot or occupy. When your economy is based around centralizing farming product, having an invading army move in and occupy the place where the grain silos are sort of captures your entire society by the throat. or stomach, as it were. What do you do if there's no centralized farming economy, no major economic hubs your army can besiege and occupy? You wander around from village to village, tribe to tribe, trying to make some kind of impact, but people just melt away into the wilderness at your approach, until suddenly they ambush you all at once. You're forced to slaughter them in their thousands hoping by sheer bloodshed you can pacify them, but there's no way to cripple their society because there's no capital city to capture or threaten, no economic engine to disrupt.
>>18285775Should add that England also usually has mild winters and doesn't get cold that much. Winter there is just an extended fall.
>>18285822It is miserably rainy and cold by Mediterranean standards, and we have plenty of written evidence to suggest that legionaries stationed in Britain were miserable. Granted the locals contributed a lot to the misery.
>>18285806It's true for a lot of the "barbaric" areas Rome conquered. Even Britain, for all that Roman generals and statesmen deplored of the savagery of the place, still had cities and agricultural economy, even if it was extremely primitive by continental standards.
>>18285828>most of Germany past the Rhine is on par with the fucking ALPS for harshness>the same Alps the Romans treated as an impassible natural barrier for generations
>>18282557No response. You LOST the internet slap fight, maggot. Back to your bbc threads, shoo
>>18282518Not conquering Scotland and Ireland was a major strategic mistake that bit them in the ass from the 3rd century onward but you’re right about everything else
>>18285822>>18285823Europe including England was warmer back then
>>18282487Slavs. Seriously
>>18286264Ancestors of Slavs, Venedi/Wends, were in the Baltics living in the forests and sustaining on slash-and-burn farming back then.Until the poat-Hunnic power vacuum, the presence of the Slavs was almost non-negligible, they were just another Baltic tribe among others.
>>18286269correct. thank you for correction. I tried to use simple words. We are on 4chan after all
>>18282487OPicrel map is fake. The Imperium NEVER had that extension.
>>18285828Hardiness zones are a bit complicated to decode because they only refer to winter not summer temperatures. Coastal England and southern Spain absolutely do not have similar climates despite both being Zone 9, it only means they have about the same average winter temperatures.
