Who was worse for the Roman Empire?

>costly wars
See this is a mistake. War on the germs was an exquisitely expensive affair compared to the persians, because the loot doesn't compare, and as with all barbarians, the germs generally did not settle after losing a few pitched battles, they preferred engaging into guerrilla and other bothersome and time consuming activities. They were also extremely divided and internally unstable, which meant that the only real way to police them was by setting up a whole province with a heavy military presence, and on top of being a hideous expense that was very risky, because that's what Varus was there to do and we all know what happened to him.

The Persians of course didn't have the logistical capabilities to actually directly threaten the Western empire, but I do believe it's conceivable that they could have conquered the Roman portions of West Asia, maybe even Egypt, during this period.

Besides all that they smashed the Roman army in multiple battles (most notably Edessa) and were a major reason for the creation of the Palmyrene Empire, the existence of which came very close to dismembering the RE for good. Maybe not an existential threat but they were a major factor in the Crisis. And personally I think if Rome hadn't got guys like Aurelian and Claudius Gothicus they probably wouldn't have made it out of that period alive.

>The Persians of course didn't have the logistical capabilities to actually directly threaten the Western empire
Which literally means they weren't an existential threat. Also smashing a few armies don't really mean much, Rome did the same even more often, and for them to actually keep Egypt and Asia was about as doable as Rome keeping Mesopotamia. It's one thing to do it in thr 5th century BC, a whole another to do it with the roman empire breathing on your neck and waiting for the first civil war or coup (which lest we forget were about as common in the east as they were in the west) to take everything back.
Also I think you're severely overstating the importance of the palmyrene empire, in the end they were no better than yet another upstart general controlling a couple provinces. Less, even, since they weren't even trying to usurp all of Rome. They (and the gauls) seem grander because of the name, but really what was the difference between them and any other rebel?

That's because there was multiple peace treaties in the 400s between the Persians and Eastern Roman Empire and two very short wars that ran for about a year each. Also, both sides left historical records of an accord or mutually defensive alliance against the Hunnic threats stemming from the steppes of Central Asia, main reason why the Huns flowed into Western Europe and became a huge issue for both the WRE and ERE was because the Persians checked them twice in the Caucasus and the ERE paid them off after Attila and his brother's repeated failed sieges on Constantinople so they moved and displaced Germanic and Sarmatian peoples causing more problems in the Western half of the Roman Empire.

There was no sacking of Ctesiphon post-Arsacid dynasty/Parthian Empire period, user. The Romans (pre-division of the Eastern and Western halves of the empire), had the majority of their captures or sackings or sieges of Ctesiphon against the Parthian Empire.

Ctesiphon was also only 50 kilometers from the traditional Parthian/Persian and Roman borders of each other.

You seem to have little appreciation on the fact the Persian goal was the removal of Roman/Byzantines from Western Asia, they had no interest in going into Europe. The one time the Sassanids wanted to annihilate the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire for good, they nearly did.

>You seem to have little appreciation on the fact the Persian goal was the removal of Roman/Byzantines from Western Asia, they had no interest in going into Europe. The one time the Sassanids wanted to annihilate the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire for good, they nearly did.
What a silly thing to say, they had no interest in Europe because it was too far from their border. If they had conquered Anatolia, they'd have developed an interest for Europe, just like they did a few centuries before.
Also "nearly did" means "failed to", and well you know it.

Half-Persian here, I'd say the Germanic tribes were a bigger issue overall to the Western Roman Empire. But that's because the Germanic tribes were still "barbarians" in the sense that they only really understood the concept of peace from the threat of overwhelming Roman military might. The Persians and their predecessors, the Parthians, could be diplomatically entreated with on things like trade, commerce, mutual benefit of the Silk Road, shared alliances against nomadic peoples, and so on.

You can't really make treaties with tribal people who live in the periphery of your borders and have no united instituations of central government and lack a sedentary culture. But the Sassanids were the hugest problem from the Byzantines/Eastern Roman Empire.

The Persians had the logistical capabilities to overwhelm Roman held North Africa, Egypt, Levant, Mesopotamia, and Caucasus pretty easily. Also Romans/Byzantines had no capability to even extend their reach into the Iranian plateau. So it goes both ways.

Failed too? Barely. Also like it was pointed out before, even after the peace treaty signed in September 628 AD by the Sassanids, several Persian armies were still in Egypt and the Levant before moving out nearly a year later peaceably because Heraclius did not want to fight Shahrabaraz's independent force.

So don't give me that.

>Ctesiphon was also only 50 kilometers from the traditional Parthian/Persian and Roman borders of each other.
The traditional persian border included Syria and eastern Anatolia. All those eastern potentates (like Tigranes) the late republic conquered from Sulla onward used to be persian vassals.

>If they had conquered Anatolia, they'd have developed an interest for Europe.
Doubtful.
>just like they did a few centuries before
There's almost 1100 years between the mid-6th century and early 7th century, user.
He's referring to the traditional border. When Ardashir and Shapur I showed up after the start of the Sassanid dynasty, they basically took most of the Roman's holdings in the Caucasus and all of their Mesopotamian like Syria but Narses ass would lose it only 30 years or so later.

Traditionally though, the Sassanid capital was EXTREMELY close to the Persian-Roman/Byzantine borders.

>several Persian armies were still in Egypt and the Levant
Yes and Heraclius was fucking around Media and Mesopotamia with his army. Does that mean the ERE nearly did destroy the persians?

Heraclius was in Constantinople after the wars end. He had never even physically gone to Egypt in person at all during the 602-628 AD war. The peace treaty was signed in September of 628 AD, Shahrabaraz's armies did not leave occupied territories until July 629 AD.

These are coming directly from the Egyptian and Anatolian exarchs. The correspondence of financial aid and recognition of Shahrabaraz as the new Sassanid ruler is what diplomatically had him leave Byzantine lands and return them, not military force because Heraclius did not feel confident on fighting a guy who had stalemated him in battles twice before in the previous war.

>When Ardashir and Shapur I showed up after the start of the Sassanid dynasty, they basically took most of the Roman's holdings in the Caucasus and all of their Mesopotamian like Syria but Narses ass would lose it only 30 years or so later.
That's literally the same as Rome conquering Mesopotamia. Why are persiaboos so biased?

>Heraclius was fucking around Media and Mesopotamia
>629 AD
Nope.png
Rome never conquered Mesopotamia. The Levant ! = Mesopotamia, dude. Why are you so ignorant?

>Shahrabaraz in Egypt
>629AD
Nope, fighting for the throne.

Like I said earlier user, the Romans lost literally every single war with the first two Persian rulers for 30 years when the Sassanid dynasty replaced the Arsacid dynasty. Part of this including completely cediing over the entirety of Armenia into Persian hands and the capture of the provinces of Nsibis and Carrhae and most of Syria for that matter.

Wrong. That was in 630.

Cambridge history using Sassanid and Byzantine sources says Shahrabaraz didn't leave through the Cicilian Gates and depart Egypt with his soldiers until mid-July 629. This is after Shahrabaraz had his last face to face with Heraclius at Arabissos earlier.

Also given the fact Egypt remained largely untouched in terms of damage compared to the rest of Mesopotamia and the Levant along side Anatolia, it can be surmissed that it had more to do with diplomacy and the death of Khosrau II to the return of his freed son that motivated Shahrabaraz to take the throne and want to seal diplomatic relations with Heraclius, who would have mutually felt the same way.

This is really easily explainable though. Every time Rome was able to concentrate all of its power against the Sassanids, they won. Every, single time. Sassanids were only there to ensure Rome could never send men away from the East.

>Every single time.
Wrong blatantly and patently untrue.

The Persians.
The Parthians had been easy to deal with, but the more organized and professional Sassanid Persians were a handful. Sassanids took over for the Parthians in 224 AD, the exact time that the Roman empire started having problems protecting their borders. The resources and manpower used on keeping the Sassanians in check, weakened the Roman empire's ability elsewhere.

The loss of Syria and Egypt to the Arabs was also entirely the Persians fault. If the Persian hadn't buttdevasted those areas, the Arabs would never have taken them over with such ease. The Persians were also really strong in that late area as the shah had acquired a lot more royal power after the revolt of Mazdak.

>Persians fault
It was both the Byzantines and Persians fault. Many of the native peoples in those regions, other Iranics, Semitics, like Assyrians, Chaldaeans, etc...welcomed the Arabs because of how they were exhausted from the constant wars between the Byzantines and Persians as well as the heavy taxes imposed on them by both powers.

Trajan took Mesopotamia from the Parthians and held onto it until his death.

Trajan took a part Mesopotamia from the Parthians and held it until his death: for all of about a year. Big fucking whoop.

/thread

Trajan took it and took a shit on it while the Parthians couldn't do anything for an entire fucking year

1.) There was a civil war going on in the Parthian Empire
2.) Even after capturing and annexing Armenia and western Mesopotamia, there was multiple uprisings and Roman control was never stable
3.) He held onto it for a year and it taxed Rome severely in terms of manpower and finances
4.) His offensive ultimately crippled the Roman Empire because he used up spare manpower and reserve forces of legions from the western provinces of the Empire used to shore up and protect the northern borders from Germanic threats
5.) Hadrian had to give it up all officially as after Trajan's forces retreated from their holdings once he fell ill (two years into his campaign), the Parthian Empire started a series of offensive attacks that disposed of his puppet ruler of Parthia and attacking retreating Roman forces to the point that several legions were lost
6.) On top of this fiasco for an ultimate end goal of gaining nothing, the Roman soldiers brought some sort of plague or disease they had never encountered before in the Persian Gulf back to the Roman East, causing large scale deaths and what might've been the precursor to the Anatonian plague

You are an idiot. Look at the larger picture, not the small one.

There were a bunch of attested Parthian fortresses that the Romans weren't able to breach despite sieging them and several of Trajan's top commanders like Santra were killed when the Parthians started resorting to raids and guerrilla tactics.

And let's be serious here, Trajan's attempt to emulate Alexander the Great might've been on the surface pretty successful but in the reality of things, it was a wasteful and costly operation that netted the Romans nothing in the long run. Also there would NEVER be a single attempt at offensive conquest for the goal of annexing new territory by the Roman Empire in its remaining history after Trajan's invasion of the Parthian Empire.

Yeah but it doesn't matter because ultimately his conquests were never stable and he died within a very short period of time and Hadrian had to give it all up because it was impossible to hold the Empire together to the bloated size that Trajan made it.

Its the equivalent to Napoleon's campaign in Russia. Initially very successful and then afterwards ending in failure.

Germanic tribes.

Rome had a massive European border with dozens if not hundreds of separate political entities. We all know that conflict = diversity + proximity.

This creates one giant fuckload of problems that can spill over.

Remember Spain and Gaul being filled with many different tribes like Germany? Now remember how they did not exist anymore by the time of the Empire, and did not cause Rome serious damage like sacking its former capitol?

For peace, Rome should have subjugated Germany, then continued on to the Volga.

Most of this whole thread is pointless, if by worse you mean who contributed to destroy it more, since no external threat directly caused the empire to "fall". Rome (western rome) collapsed more or less alone and those who could took profit from it, who these peoples were is mostly irrelevant for the outcome of the disaster. Certainly the terrible costs of maintaining the defensive lines played an important part on the fall of the empire, but that's more related to overextension than the ferocity of any of rome's enemies.

People argue germans were more dangerous because they raided and conquered western europe and north africa. They fail to understand that the political institutions and the control of the state in the west were much weaker and that's what caused those raiders and rogue mercenaries to run free.

A lot also fail to understand the limitations of the time. Intelligence was a much harder work than today and romans had almost no way to foresee a german invasion. With their eastern foes it was different and it was impossible for the persians to prepare an invasion without being noticed. And vice versa, persians were able to foresee the romans coming. The only way for a roman/persian army to take their enemies in the middle east by surprise was to take an unusual route of invasion (often dividing forces) or trick the enemy into believing the army will not invade their lands but another region. For example Khosrow was able to take the romans by surprise in Lazica by telling Justinian his armies were just taking action in neighbouring Iberia.

The forests and swamps of Germania as well as its general other terrain being highly condensed and lacking generally open ended areas for large scale mobilization of Roman armies made that an impossible task, user.

Can't use the Anurshurivan as an example, the dude's entire existence was to troll Justinian as if God himself and fates mandated it.

Elaborate. Name one Roman-Sassanid conflict where Rome had to only focus one the Sassanids, and where the Sassanids won.

Sassanids first attacked Rome in 230's when the Romans had lost several battles against the Germanics and had to focus their efforts there.

Several of the most impressive Sassanid victories happened during the Crisis of the Third Century, and obviously the Romans were fighting several fronts. Despite your obvious persiabooism, the fact still stands: The Sassanids only beat the Romans when they were already focused somewhere else. In fact, the Sassanids rarely attacked if the Romans were stable. And every time the Romans could focus their full power on the Sassanids (even in the Byzantine times) they won the Sassanids.

Huns

Holy shit the excuses, Parthia got WRECKED and could not do SHIT.

>muh civil war
>muh fortresses
>muh stability

>an impossible task
>Huns

well looky there

What excuses? Tell us of the permanency of Trajan's invasion.

There was no Germanic factor in Ardashir war with Severus, it was a concentration of his legions and against Ardashir's forces and failed to dislodge the Persians from holding it. Same again with Shapur the Great, against Gordian III, Philip the Arab, and Valerian's massive entire veteran force of 70,000 Legionaries. Your lying and revisisionism isn't going to fly here.

>Despite your obvious persiabooism
No, I'm just not historically biased, my shitposting friend.
>The Sassanids only beat the Romans
Every time the Romans attacked the Persians, it was when their affairs were settled in the West. So do not bullshit.
>The Sassanids rarely attacked if the Romans were stable.
Not true in the least. Especially throughout the entirety of the 3rd century. You have no idea what you are talking about.
>And every time the Romans could focus their full power on the Sassanids (even in the Byzantine times) they won.
Is that why the Byzantines lost the majority of the wars against the Sassanids throughout most of the 5th and 6th centuries? Even when Persia was fighting two or three front wars against the White Huns, Huns, Goturks, Iberians, and others?

Stop lying.

Are Huns Romans now?

Are armies not allowed to do things because of their nationality now?

>Severus
Germanic tribes were dealt with when he decided to counter attack Ardashir in the first Persian-Roman war. Suffered a humiliating defeat right outside Ctesiphon and the Persians retook Armenia.
>Gordian III
First Roman Emperor ever killed in combat and by the Persians no less, Shapur the Great reign saw the defeat of no less then three Roman Emperors in consecutive order; Gordian III killed, Valerian captured after he stablized Rome politically in the West and reinforced the borders, Sassanid control pushed deeper in the Caucasus, and Philip the Arab forced to pay a massive hostage of the remnant skeletal force of legions after Shapur took over 50,000 as hostages permanently into Persia to return to Roman lines in Anatolia.
>Shapur II the Great
Multiple successive raids against Roman border towns, fortresses, and provinces; he looted and slaughtered garrison forces and completely annihilated Caesaera, a city named after Caesar in its founding just to spite the Romans even beat back Julian the Apostate despite fighting a two front war with a tribe of Scythians on top of dealing with an uprising by one of his brothers in Khorasan.

But condensing this what the other user said, you are being willfully stupid and ignorant if you think the Romans or Byzantines ever themselves didn't attack Persia when it wasn't convenient. Or that the Persians didn't have their own issues to deal with nomadic and barbarian threats from Central Asia, the Steppes, or Southern Asia.

The Huns are not the Romans so what does that have to do with the Romans being unable to deal with the Germanics in the sense of totally pacifying and annexing Germania while the Huns could?

Themselves.

The germanic tribes and the persians were only an issue after centuries of in fighting and political hamstringing crippled the empire's ability to fend off the threats any longer.

>Anatasian War
>Iberian War
>Lazic Wars
>Caucasus Wars
>Both sides have allies, both sides have multiple fronts to fight and vassals supporting each other in each conflict
Nice b8 though

>The forests and swamps of Germania as well as its general other terrain being highly condensed and lacking generally open ended areas for large scale mobilization of Roman armies made that an impossible task,

>... that terrain didn't stop the Huns though?...

>WOAH WHY DOES IT MATTER SO WHAT THEY'RE BOTH DIFFERENT OMG

retard

What the Huns can do doesn't mean the Romans can copy, retard.

Let's look at the difference:

>Huns; large confederation of tribal Hunnic people that assimilated and incorporated a shit ton of Iranic horsemen and Gothic calvary into its ranks and mainly operated as mobile horse archers and lancers
>Romans: heavy infantry predisposed to large scale mobilizations in set pieces and lacking the ability to operate effectively in closed-in areas like condensed forests

Super retard.

Germanic tribes were worse. Every so many years all the Persians went home to attend the latest dynastic civil war. Really made it easy for the Romans.

The Huns military worked because they were horsemen and they fought like skirmishers, the Romans didn't because they lacked the fucking mobility to run around. These are two VERY different militaries being compared here.

Are you going to next tell us that what the Mongols could conquer, so could the Romans too?

I used him as example because this specific one is a bit comical, but there's examples of romans tricking the persians too. See Heraclius attacking in winter or Alexander Severus dividing his forces (his plan failed though).

>Persians
>latest dynastic civil war
I believe you have late Western Roman Empire confused with the Sassanids. Because 90% of those "dynastic civil wars" happened after 602-628 AD final Roman-Persian War.

Severus like it was mentioned though got completely defeated outside of Ctesiphon and the Persians regained the initiative immediately after that. Heraclius sure, but lets not pretend even he didn't have his own problems, like Shahrabaraz and Shahin managing to elude his larger army in Anatolia to attack Constantinople.

And yeah, there are examples on both sides. Like during the Anatasian War when a Eastern Roman army garrison was tricked into chasing after a small force of Persian horsemen only to be annihilated to the last man by ambushing archers in a urban battle near Amida.

>Huns; large confederation of tribal Hunnic people that assimilated and incorporated a shit ton of Iranic horsemen and Gothic calvary into its ranks and mainly operated as mobile horse archers and lancers
>Romans: heavy infantry predisposed to large scale mobilizations in set pieces and lacking the ability to operate effectively in closed-in areas like condensed forests

LOL ... any other Veeky Forumstorian reading this shit?

*They also fought with short swords and rectangular scutums against the Huns right?

*They were all recruited from Roman citizens Italy while the auxiliaries were still getting their citizenship fighting the Huns, right?

*Goths NEVER fought for Rome, especially as cavalry against the Huns, right?

*Rome NEVER had a mobile army against the Huns or at all during the 4th and 5th centuries, right?

Thanks for outing yourself as another Veeky Forums idiot I flushed down the toilet. Holy shit. Fucking exposed. Stick to Persian history.

Romans
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_civil_wars

>Romans are Huns now
Excellent WE WUZISM

Not him, and I don't know if my comment is gonna be related or you were purely talking about armies, but i'ts quite obvious how huns cannot be used as an example of how romans could've subjugated the germans.

In case you didn't know, the empire of Attila wasn't anything similar to a modern state or a state like Rome. It was a confederation of unsophisticated peoples (politically I mean) and in a sense it was close to be a "mobster empire" where Attila controled the different peoples with threats, bribes and promises of profit. The roman state was unable to pull out this strategy effectively because they were playing a different game.

>Romans can't do that because Huns are already doing it

Another one BTFO. 2 ez. I'm the fucking king of Roman threads.

Diocletian and Constantine reformed the army, they were composed of soldiers with "lighter" equipment as well as more tradition weapons such as the Spatha (pre-cursor to the long sword) and the spear and focused heavily in defense and rapid deployment. The Romans had great emphasis on CAVALRY. Both light and heavy. This is the greatest change, the Romans now had unprecedented mobility and were able to match Persian armies with their own variants of horsemen. The Romans focused on small detachments of troops to fight raiders both German and Persian, the typical legion was now 1,000-1,200 troops on average. The Romans set the precedent for MEDIEVAL WARFARE of cavalry dominance due to their changes in late antiquity.

leave your replies, I'll get back to them later on.

gonna establish my fucking alpha male dominance on you betas today.

You didn't read my comment at all if your awnser is based around the roman army.

Patricians.

The issue is that by the time the Roman tactics and German wealth reached a point were Rome would want to conquer the Germans it was already too late.
Honestly I believe the Roman's could have conquered the Germans in the first century but it was far too poor and backwards to be worth it. It would just be amother Britain except without the mysticism.

That has nothing to do with Roman army operating like the Hunnic's own, you nig.
>The Romans set the precedent for MEDIEVAL WARFARE
Bullshit to the highest orders.

>King of roman threads
More like autism.

>Bullshit to the highest orders.

get the fuck outta my thread you retarded spazz, that shit did not appear out of thin air and the krauts did indeed copy or keep roman equipment which evolved into the middle age weaponry we see in the dark ages, besides heavy cav dominance which was a roman leftover.

>That has nothing to do with Roman army operating like the Hunnic's own,

MUH OPERASHUNZ

>mfw I found out that up until 450 the Romans were best buds with the Huns and the army sent to quell the unrest in Gaul was mostly made up of Huns
wtf I hate Flavius Aetius now

>my thread
>The Romans set the precedent for MEDIEVAL WARFARE

On top of this Germany had nowhere near the infrastructure of the east and so even if the Romans did manage to conquer Germany it would have taken several decades, longer even, for the province to become economically viable. In short; conquering Germany just wasn't worth the investment required.

There seemed to be some plans for further expansion into Germania as Germanic tribes with their various chieftains and princelings were being encouraged to serve in the Roman military by Augustus as well as the heavy influx of Roman colonia outposts and trading towns that predate Varus' destroyed legions.

Persians without a doubt, not militarily though economically.

They were the middlemen of the silk road and literally drained Roman coffers for centuries which basically destroyed the roman economy while keeping the Persians militarily relevant. If Persia got wiped out by a mix of Roman conquest and barbarian attacks from the East the empire either gets silk earlier or cheaper.

True, but I'd say that was more for the sake of conquest and a desire to shorten Rome's frontiers than for the nearly non existent wealth that Germany possessed.

The defeat at Teutoburg demonstrated that it just wasn't worth the effort. Better to pull out and protect what they had than to risk more lives and money for minimal reward.

It's dependency on Germanic mercenaries, unfathomable bureaucracy and the invasion of the Huns.

>Necessarily the Germans

You're vastly overestimated them.

lol, the half-blood thinks he has any relationship to our history. Pipe down, mongrel.
Let me guess, half Jew? Oy vey goyim.