Rome's last real opponent was Carthage, the Gallic Wars essentially amounted to a colonial war and Caesar's tactics would have earned him a prompt reality check against an equal opponent.
Overrated empire that only conquered weaklings
Rome's last real opponent was Carthage, the Gallic Wars essentially amounted to a colonial war and Caesar's tactics would have earned him a prompt reality check against an equal opponent.
>Caesar's tactics would have earned him a prompt reality check against an equal opponent.
t.Cato the Younger
Based.
"Barbarians" did not cause the dark ages, Rome did by turning the most advanced civilisations on Earth into shitholes. They did not civilise, they did the opposite. By the end conquering this failed state was as easy for Germanics as kicking in the door and sending the whole rotten house crashing down.
t.Baal worshipping punic merchant
>Rome did by turning the most advanced civilisations on Earth into shitholes
Ah yes the super advanced Iberian tribes and deliberately suppressive Hellenistic Kingdoms
Reminder that when the Roman Empire ended, the world was no more advanced than when the Roman Empire began.
When the Middle Ages ended, the world was more advanced than it had ever been before. Think about this.
That's not completely true, legal, administrative and religious structures from the Roman Empire were far more advanced than what came before them and would be until the Later Middle Ages unsurpassed. But yes, in general, monopolistic Empires stifle innovation. It's less a 'Roman' problem but more a 'Competition' problem.
Read Spengler.
Germanics asked to live in that house and then destroyed it because Germans are horrible roommates. At least one half of the house survive
>Rome's last real opponent was Carthage
>kept fighting barbarian hordes and Persia
the main reason they couldn't fight anyone stronger is they had simply taken care of any meaningful opponent in their backyard by then. China was just too far away and Persia was a tough nut to crack, that's pretty much it, who else could possibly have been a fair match?
Their empire was built on conquering weaklings, that's the whole point moronbro
Conquering the weak is just simply nature's best thing next to conquering forces that are just as strong.
Besides, you would have respect for strong forces rather than weak ones anyway.
That's the thing, they weren't strong. Destroying Persia? Nah, think I'll just conquer statelets and disunited tribes.
They did destroy Persia, many times.
China conquered nothing. Rome conquered real civilizations. It took plagues to bring them down and even then that was only half and it still took centuries. Rome ruled three fricking continents for nearly 500 years. The most the Chinese could do is get nominal fealty from parts of Korea and Vietnam.
>three fricking continents for nearly 500 years
In ancient China, China consisted of four continents. In addition, the Han dynasty in its heyday was much larger than RE, not to mention Han conquered Rome's nightmares—— the steppe.
>conquered
>was ruled by steppeBlack folk multiple times throughout history
>very last dynasty was steppeBlack person that mismanaged the country so badly China became a third world shithole for two centuries and counting
The British and French colonial empires were fairly shit
Both got BTFO by Spain and the Dutch, both lost their major New World colonies and both only had a loose hold on the remaining ones.
empires are always built by beating up lesser people. You can't create an empire by engaging in hundred of years of warfare for a few inch of land with your equals
Ptolemaics had a monster navy and the most culturally advanced city on Earth at the time
Macedonians had previously conquered the largest empire in the world
Same goes for the Seleucids
All these Hellenistic Kingdoms developed the most advanced siege and military technology ever seen on Earth
The Celts were fearsome enemies Who had previously expanded as far as Central Anatolia, and had sacked Rome in the past, they had good iron weapons, armors, cavalry, and even navies with huge ships
Illyrians were fearsome pirates, Romans adopted the Liburnia from them
Iberians were Sought after everywhere as mercenaries they were anything but weaklings
So no, many of their enemies were anything but weak
>Ptolemaics had a monster navy
Outdone by the Carthaginians and Middle Republican Romans after the Punic wars
> most culturally advanced city on Earth at the time
This doesn't mean anything
>Same goes for the Seleucids
The Seleucids didn't conquer shit
>All these Hellenistic Kingdoms developed the most advanced siege and military technology ever seen on Earth
They hardly advanced since Alexander and were thrashed by smaller Roman armies
You’re an ignoramus, a lot of seiege technology was developed AFTER Alexander’s death during the war among the Diadochi
>Outdone by Carthage
Lol no, the biggest ship ever built in antiquity was that built under Ptolomey, the second biggest was built by Syracuse, either way neither by Carthage nor by Rome, and the quinquireme too which Carthaginians and Romana used was developed by Dionysus the elder of Syracuse
>it doesn’t mean anything
It means that that type of army was able to conquer most of the known world in a matter of a few years
Try having a deeper knowledge of the ancient world than just the Punic wars, are you in 4th grade?
>Lol no, the biggest ship ever built in antiquity was that built under Ptolomey
That doesn't mean that they had a 'monster navy'. It clearly didn't matter all that much after the deterioration of their naval capacity.
>It means that that type of army was able to conquer most of the known world in a matter of a few years
And it didn't. So it's pointless to say something that absurd.
>Try having a deeper knowledge of the ancient world than just the Punic wars, are you in 4th grade?
Not an argument. Try again.
Statelets, rump states, empires beyond their prime, and disunited tribes.
>Caesar's tactics would have earned him a prompt reality check against an equal opponent
You mean like when he destroy Pompey's larger army during the Roman Civil War?
so you're saying Celts were savages?
bump
>weaklings
What? Hellenistic kingdoms regularly fielded armies against Rome in the high tens of thousands. Mithridates had like 120,000 soldiers, a number of whom were trained by Roman turncoats
>trusting ancient, let alone Roman, sources on the opponent's number of troops
I take it you also believe 10000 Romans defeated 230000 Britons during Boudicca's revolt.
How the frick are you coming to the conclusion they were weak if you are completely rejecting the sources of the period? Even then most modern estimates do not blindly accept Roman numbers as fact but they do estimate armies in the high tens of thousands.
Which modern estimates are you referring to? The logistics of the period simply didn't allow for 230000 men to start a rebellion in a backwater.
>Mithridates
>Hellenistic Kingdom
I think you got the wrong one bruh. He was not a Greek King.
NTA but you're moronic. The Kingdom of Pontus was as Hellenised as it could get, Greek was the official and administrative language, as well as the native language of the most important cities in the kingdom. It was ruled by a Basileus and was thoroughly part of the Greek civilisation that covered an area spanning from Southern Italy to Northern India.
As for Mithridates himself, he was indeed part of a Persian dynasty, but claimed descent from both Greek and Persian figures.
Rome never "fell" (At least not until the 15th century). What you call the "decline and fall of the western empire" was in reality the one and only Roman Empire divesting itself of its unprofitable holdings in the west in order to focus on its far more lucrative territory in the Balkans and the near east.
>At least not until the 15th century
The direct Roman state ended in 1204 and you are just picking and choosing you favourite meme empire afterwards
The British Empire