Who were Rome's greatest enemies?

>Byzantine Empire
>Roman

> Is it me or do Germans basically have a huge inferiority complex and ruin most empires through history?
Yeah, remember that one time one they managed to destroy 4 empires at once?

They are natural enemies like Carthaginians and Romans.

Or Persians and Romans.

Or Huns and Romans.

Or Romans and other Romans.

Damn Romans! They ruined Rome!

Christians

top kek

The Roman Upper Class and the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorians really fucked the Emperor's and Rome in general.

Hmmmmm yeah no, the praetorians were the heroes Rome needed, killing fucktard degenerate emperor since a very long time

The only answer is the Persians, the Germanics only became relevant because Rome was already long in decline. Also, without the Persians those Germanics are going to have a much worse time.

Moors, if you asked Shakespeare.

youtube.com/watch?v=4ztOV2wrrkY
Rome was a very valuable commodity

Germanics
>could not be conquered
>in turn conquered the western half of the Roman Empire

Brutus was Rome's greatest enemy.

Themselves. Romans always had a history of civil war. Romulus and Remus, the pre-Republic Kings were often killed by family members and obviously when the Empire split years later.

You know a major motivator of the Great Migration was pressure from the steppe peoples, right?

>Republic Period:
Carthage
>Early Empire
Germanics
>Dark Age:
Persia
>Early Medieval:
Arabs
>High/Late Medieval:
Latins
>The Bitter End:
TURKS

How did Germanics ruin the ERE?

Also the Germanics that invaded the WRE had nothing to do with Germans.

Romans

Etruscans, Samnites, Carthaginians, Gauls, various Germanic groups, Parthians, Sassanids, Huns.

But most of all this:

Rome's civil wars were very disastrous, especially later on in Roman history when they involved larger amounts of territory and more people. They often destabilized the frontier as well.

>Carthagianians
Stopped mattering after the second Punic War. The entire period from the first to the third (if we even call the third one a "war") lasted all of less then two centuries.
>Huns
A major threat but a short lived one. Attila's hordes were not permanent in the least and after his death and the death of his sons, they gradually became less of a problem.
>Persians
The greatest threat in antiquity to the medieval period until the rise of the Arabs and Turks.

get a load of this byzaboo

THIS. Romans damaged themselves internally more so than any external powers

Hubris.

>Great at exploitation and murder.

You literally just described every empire in human history.

Dumb

I know I'm coming a little bit late but...
>selling the empire to the higher bidder in 193
Seriously, fuck those guys.

Jews, as with other greater civilization

Dumb people who say that ERE was not RE

>Ctr + f Parth
>only one mention
What the fuck is wrong with you people

its not

That's because I was talking about every empire in human history.

Empire is rarely if ever good.

Why would the parthians get mentioned? Carrhae and Mark Anthony aside, theirs was a history of getting rekt by Rome. Their successors the sassanids were incomparably more dangarous to Rome.

How about with Ordates son and a certain traitor Roman nearly conquering all of the Roman East in the first proper Roman-Parthian War?

I'm kind of amused by this sort of view of the Arsacids. The first two engagements has Crassus legions completely annihilated with only a small fraction surviving to be routed back into Roman territory, and Mark Antony, whose far more calculated and supplied invasion, also fail catasrophically and the next war only barely supressed from Arsacids making permanent gains to almost the entirety of Anatolia because Antony's deputy, Ventidius, was far more capable then he was and the next war was a stalemate where the Arsacids get to impose their line on the Armenian throne while the Romans get to perform "coronation" of them before the wars with Trajan, Marcus Aurelias/Verus, and Caraclla. The latter which went from a promising invasion to a horrible retreat with heavy Roman losses again.

I mean sure, the Parnis didn't instigate as many wars with Rome as they did with them, but they weren't *always* getting their ass kicked and often had their own moments of glory.

What are you referring to? Orodes and Surena? They got fucking rekt aside from Carrhae. Getting repelled as soon as they entered roman territory (as opposed as client kingdoms) =/= nearly conquering all the roman east.

I see you've thoroughly skipped the context in all of these. Like how Crassus and Anthony's campaigns were filled of horrendous mistakes that totally alienated the generals from their legates, or how Trajan's campaign had to be stopped for reasons totally independent from the parthians. Or how you ignore that the romans only gained land after each conflict. Or the fact that they conquered the parthian capital 5 times, while the parthians themselves never even managed to get to the Mediterranean.

I mean, to me they don't look like any sort of existential threat whatsoever. But perhaps to you just raiding the borders and hassling the client kingdoms counts for more.

>Surena
Surena was dead.
>getting repelled
Wrong.
>The Parthians under Pacorus invaded Roman territory in 40 BC in conjunction with Quintus Labienus, a Roman erstwhile supporter of Brutus and Cassius. They swiftly overran Syria, and defeated Roman forces in the province; all the cities of the coast, with the exception of Tyre admitted the Parthians. Pacorus then advanced into Hasmonean Judea, overthrowing the Roman client Hyrcanus II and installing his nephew Antigonus (40–37 BC) in his place. For a moment, the whole of the Roman East was captured to Parthians.

>I see you thoroughly skipped context in all of these.
I didn't. Trajan's men were harried and took massive losses leaving Parthian lands due to raids and skirmishes which the Romans had no ability to neutralize or stop. Hadrian wisely pulled out.
>Caracalla
Entire legions were lost after he was assassinated due to constant Parthian ambush attacks again. I didn't leave out anything, I pointed out its not nearly as imbalanced a contest as you think it is.

I don't think your in a position to talk so smugly or act condescending when you've already fucked up with the fact Surena was already murdered by Ordoes several years before this war.

>I pointed out its not nearly as imbalanced a contest as you think it is.
It doesn't really get any more imbalanced than "the best we can do is raiding them when they retreat after burning our capital" outside of outright conquest really.
I honestly don't get how you people can consider the parthians such a valiant enemy of Rome when the closest they ever got to it was half a continent away.
They really have no place in this thread.

>skipped context
Not really, Crassus isn't really as inept a commander was pop history makes him out to be, Surena was simply vastly superior. The fact the Parthians had properly prepared for the battle, chose a battle site to engage the Romans on their terms to their advantages, and throughoughly brought entire baggage trains with replacement arrows speaks of how effective their military force was.

As for Antony, he not only had the entire Roman East to draw up supplies, manpower, legions, and financial backing but also his affair with Cleopatra gave him further resources with her fleet to aid his army. The entire affair in the Iranian hinterlands just goes to show the Romans had no idea what they were doing but pressed on and paid for that.

Stop downplaying them.

You're missing the point. They annexed almost all of the Roman East in the first major war, that is not simply "raiding".

They also killed benevolent, competent ones like Pertinax, and most of the truly insane emperors were killed by other courtiers, not by guardsmen.

They were the Roman emperor's secret police and personal army. They caused exactly as much trouble for the Romans as those things do for any society.

Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, Hannibal Barca marched his armies all over Italy, the Parthians by contrast had to fight the Romans on their own land and never got close to the imperial heartland.

Temporary overrun of a frontier is not some great and terrible threat. An enemy army outside your capital is.

So no rebuttal? Okay then sport.

gonna go full /pol/ and say multiculturalism

nice

Italic pottery

>They annexed almost all of the Roman East in the first major war
You have a weird concept of annexing. It took exactly as long as necessary for a roman army to arrive from Italy for all the gains to be lost.
By your logic, Rome annexed parthia multiple times.

>Crassus isn't really as inept a commander was pop history makes him out to be
True, but in that campaign he performed as bad as Varro at Teutoburg. He let himself be led into a trap and he panicked when under attack.
And Anthony literally left his back open to the armenians. He did more to put himself in trouble than the parthians could have ever hoped to do themselves.

And still you keep talking of how great the parthians were at not allowing the romans to conquer them. How about showing me when they actually threatened Rome instead? Oh right, they never even came close to that.

Carthage, Parthians, Huns, Vandals

And you still keep talking about how great the romans were at not allowing the romans to conquer them. How about showing me when they actually threatened Germania instead? Oh right they never even came close to that.

>Parthians
>not Persians

probably because you're an idiot that doesn't realize that multiculturalism was actually done right by the romans

Dude. The Romans burned the Parthian capital down, the Parthians never got anywhere near italy and only managed to temporarily occupy parts of the empire. Nice try but no dice. The Parthians were no where near Rome's greatest enemy.

Are you retarded? The romans never managed to hold onto Germany, but they routinely sent armies well into the heart of the region.

Eh either or. When I say parthians I include the Sassy Kids

Are you retarded? The romans never manged to defeat the Germanics, they routinely routed German armies in the heart of the region and sacked the Romans like the weaklings they were.

I never claimed the Parthians attempted to invade Roman Europe. I said the first major war had the Parthians annexing most of the entirety of the Roman East, which was its most lucrative, productive, and commercially successful provinces in the whole of the empire.

Nor did I claim the Parthians were the ultimate Roman enemies, I just corrected the retard who was claiming they were pushovers.

*they routinely routed Roman armies

>Annexed
Oh yeah they annexed the roman east just long enough for a few roman armies to arrive and kick their asses back out.

>>Nor did I claim the Parthians were the ultimate Roman enemies
Great, but the first post in this thread asked who Rome's greatest enemies were. I honestly don't see how the parthians qualify when Carthage managed to be far more of a threat in their time.

Now, if you were talking about the sassanids you might have something.

>>They routinely routed roman armies when the empire was already dying due to internal problems.
Fixed.

When the roman empire was healthy roman armies marched through germania killing anyone who looked at them funny.

>Carthage
Only lasted about a century and got rolled over after the 2nd Punic War.
>Parthia
Lasted just under 500 years. Even when Romans invaded, they overextended themselves, couldn't subjugate the Great King, and frequently were routed out of Parthian lands.
>few roman armies
Even Bassus, the Roman general besides Ventidus, suffered two early defeats and was forced to withdraw to inner Anatolia. Stop downplaying.

One of the worst defeats in Roman history by the Proto-Germanics happened in Marius' time, you dingus.

Yeah and then Marius proceeded to literally genocide them. So much for not being a threat to the barbarians eh?

>>Only lasted about a century and got rolled over after the 2nd Punic War.

Yeah because Hannibal Barca led an army into italy and scared the shit out of the roman government which made them smack the carthaginians down good and hard when the war ended.

>>Lasted just under 500 years. Even when Romans invaded, they overextended themselves, couldn't subjugate the Great King, and frequently were routed out of Parthian lands.

That's because Parthia was far away, not because they were one of Rome's greatest enemies. And frequently is weasel words. Rome reached the persian gulf and left because Parthia was too far away to administer properly. Parthia by contrast never did more then temporarily occupy parts of the roman east.

>>Even Bassus, the Roman general besides Ventidus, suffered two early defeats and was forced to withdraw to inner Anatolia. Stop downplaying.

Oh please, even the Gauls managed to defeat roman armies on occasion.

Just like how the Romans were never able to penetrate past the Elba or Rhine rivers? Just like how the Goths and Germanis were able to ransack Roman lands for over a deacade in the Marcomannic Wars all the way to Pannoia and parts of Dacia where entire legions were lost?

Just like how they "genocided" the Germanics by being so pissed scared they had to have most of their legions standing watch and built a metric fuck ton of fortifications and garrison outposts? Sure showed those Germanics who they could never conqueror and eventually got ruined by.

>Lasted just under 500 years.
Half of which they weren't even in contact with the Romans.
Besides, a century of threatening Italy >>> 250 years of getting invaded.

Yeah? What happened after that?

Hint: Germanic tribes didn't occupy italy until much much later then Marius' time.

>snip
So no rebuttal again? I'll accept that concession.
>snip
Romans never penetrated into the Iranian plateau, not once, against the Arsacid dynasty. Every single time they were sent retreating and were never able to suppress or defeat the Parthian military to the point they could exert any major influence.

So no.
>blah blah
Nah. You don't lose several veteran elite legions, most of your greatest standards of the oldest said legions and shake that off.

>96 BBC to 226 AD
>322 years
>half

>>Just like how the Romans were never able to penetrate past the Elba or Rhine rivers?

But the Romans did send armies over the Rhine, and they did launch a retaliatory campaign after teutoburg and they killed metric asstons of germanic people in that campaign.

You're talking about stuff that happened when the empire had reached it's peak and was just starting to decline in power. And also when the germanic tribes were starting to become more organized. And also threatening Dacia and Pannonia is not the same thing as threatening the existence of the Roman empire itself.

>all the way to Pannoia and parts of Dacia
Oh, you mean all the way to the border provinces? That's a big invasion for sure.
Jesus, if they didn't make it even there it wouldn't even have counted as an invasion at all.

>Just like how the Romans were never able to penetrate past the Elba or Rhine rivers?
They never provinced beyond the Rhine, but Germanicus and other generals went well beyond it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the germans were plenty pissed about thousands of romans coming into their land to rape and pillage fucking everything.

>96 BC to 226 AD mark the start and end of Roman-Parthian relations
>67.74% of Parthian dynasty existence
That's a lot more then half, no wonder your in /hist/ you suck at math.

>>a load of smug arrogant condescension because he can't accept the parthians weren't rome's greatest enemy.

Nice, I made somebody assmad by calmly disagreeing with them.

>>Nah. You don't lose several veteran elite legions, most of your greatest standards of the oldest said legions and shake that off.

Nah, you don't shake that sort of thing off, but you do wash it off, in the waters of the persian gulf for example. :^)

>Romans did send armies over the Rhine
Armies that frequently failed at conqeroring territory while Germanics frequently raided across the Elba and Rhine into Gaul which the Romans failed at stopping.
>reached its peak
When it was at its military greatest extent, largest size, and economically most powerful only hypes the Germanics up even more, same with the Persians in the East. The Romans were never a threat to the Germanics because they were never able to make any permanent gains beyond lower Germania and could not penetrate further north.

>I made somebody assmad
I'm not "assmad" but you can keep believing that if it makes you happy.
>in the waters of the Persian Gulf
Is that why Trajan's troops brought back a plague that killed over 7 million Roman citizens in one year?

The roman-parthian wars lasted 66 BC – 217 AD, that's 60% of the timespan. Close fucking enough, I'd say, certainly much much more accurate than saying they were a threat for 100+% of their existence. Especially when said threat was limited to the border, compared to the actual existential threat many other polities like Carthage posed.

Pannonia was where much of the gold coins issued in the Roman Empire were pressed and smithed. It was a pretty important province.

>less than 50% = 60%
>"close enough"

>>Armies that frequently failed at conqeroring territory
They weren't trying to conquer territory.

>>while Germanics frequently raided across the Elba and Rhine into Gaul which the Romans failed at stopping.
The point of the border garrisons on the borders of germanic territory was not about stopping raids at the border, it was about providing early warning to armies that would meet those raiders after they had crossed the border.

You can question the wisdom of this strategy if you wish, I know I do. But you don't seem to understand it very well.

>>only hypes the Germanics up even more
The only serious invasions that occured when the empire was at that peak threatened the border provinces, not rome itself.

>>persia
Sassanid persia was a problem, true enough.

Dude just admit you're awful at math which is why your hobby is armchair history.

This said by people who think 60% is closer to 100% than 50%.

>They weren't trying to conquer territory.
Yes they were.
>But you don't seem to understand it very well.
The purpose of the garrisons reveals the single largest concentration of Roman legions at the northern borders for the Romans, it wasn't just an early system of warning but their literal life line as the Germanics scared the ever living shit out of the Roman military.

I understand its purpose completely.

>The only serious invasions that occured when the empire was at that peak threatened the border provinces, not rome itself.
They feared it because the Germanics never stopped migrating and raiding, their displacement of other Celtic tribes placed a burden on the Roman provinces. It was going to have a domino effect, many of the wiser Roman Emperor understood this completely.
>Sassanid Persia was a problem, true enough.
Of course they were, they frequently inflicted some of the most humiliating defeats on the Romans, and Shapur the Great killed one Roman Emperor, captured a second, and forced a third to submit to him while taking permanent territories from the Romans. We can agree on that.

Yes, because democratic governments are always just, never corrupt, and never commit terrible atrocities!

Also, stop implanting modern morality onto the Romans, it just makes you look like a stupid sack of shit.

Go ahead and point where anyone said 67% of Parthian existence is 100% of their existence, strawman.

>Only border provinces
So we're just going to ignore in the Macromannic Wars a certain Ballomar with his Germanic tribes crossing the Alps and sacking several Roman cities in Northern Italy?

He was the greatest enemie of rome, he made them piss their pants

>Germanic peoples of antiquity
>same as modern Germans

Oh boy am I laffin'

The HRE was dismantled by Napoleon bud.

A war started by the Slavs. Keep pushing that propaganda all you want frog, won't change the fact that Serbia and Russia started the war.

>implying

Persia without a doubt. They were the only civilization that could challenge them militarily, culturally, and economically. The Roman-Persian wars (including Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628) drained both empires of invaluable soldiers and treasure in their intermittent conflicts.

This is why proxy war between 2 powers is far more preferable than outright conflict. If the Cold War had gotten hot between the US and USSR, humanity would be extinct.

>seleucid bully not so tough after being raped.jpg

Dude, it's like you didn't even link to the right post. I'm not judging anyone in particular. I'm just pointing the fact out that empire by definition is exploitative and often involves murder, more so than a lack of empire.

Empire
is
bad.

Rome was its greatest enemy.

It destroyed itself with its own failings, twice.

The bloatedness and corruption of the Senate allowed Sulla to destroy it, creating the precedent which would eventually lead to the Romans becoming willing to subject themselves to tyranny again.

Then they allowed foreign powers to constitute the greater part of their armed forces.

Bonus points for the Byzantine Empire crippling itself by senselessly fighting Persia over and over, allowing a bunch of sand people to sweep up a good deal of its outlying territory.

Came here to post this.

too true
yes allowing barbarian tribes into the empire and giving them military training definitely worked out well, does the name Arminus ring a bell

Okay great, what does that have to do with Rome's greatest enemies?