How come Rome never conquered Germania?

The iberians, celts and gauls didn't stand much chance against Rome. Caesar was able to conquer Gaul with only four legions, against unions of tribes that had the sole purpose of stopping him. In Britan and Iberia you see the same thing, a fast conquest and crushed uprisings. Even when the conquest of 'barbarian' land wasn't so easy, like in Dacia, the romans kept coming until they eventually pushed through. In Germania, however, they get repelled every time, and the germans seemingly migrated and raided with ease through roman lands way before the germanic invasions. How did that happen?

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Germania wasn't worth the effort.
Also Roman invade Gaul because they were a never-ending threath to Rome(Sack it more than once) and britania for it ressource, Germania wasn't as interresting.

>heavily forested
>unforgiving climate
>alpine barrier preventing shorter supply lines
>no centralized autorithy or cities one could conquer to end the war swiftly
>no clear cut defensible border area, just silly rivers after silly rivers

level of civilization and cost effectiveness I would guess. A country like egypt for example had roads, trade centers and industry, their integration was pretty cost effective. On the other hand northern Britain, Germania and Scythia, had sparse population centers, no infrastructure to speak of and an effective control over it would have been a logistical nightmare. For ever hamlet conquered few can pop up unnoticed. Not to mention there were no tangible riches to be had, other than slaves.

Of course the northern barbarian tribes were fierce and actively resisted subjugation.

And finally, the empire grew too large and unmanageable to muster the will and determination to go trough with it.

MY

They couldn't.

Because the Rhine was a good natural barrier for keeping the savages out. It's the same principle with Hadrian's wall in Scotland

Also: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanicus

SPARTA

>Caesar was able to conquer Gaul with only four legions, against unions of tribes that had the sole purpose of stopping him.

Caesar was more than a brilliant general, he was a great statesman. For every Gallic tribe that joined Vercingetorix's coalition there was another one whose leaders recognised the benefits of siding with Rome. Caesar didn't conquer Gaul with his legions alone, he won the local aristocracy's hearts and minds by promising them that they to could be Roman and reap the benefits of Roman civilisation.

The same thing almost happened in Germany. Augustus could claim he had authority over the Germans from the Rhine to the Elbe, and like in Gaul the Romanisation of the aristocracy. Then Arminius went native and threw all of that out the window. Roman authority collapsed, newly founded cities were abandoned and despite the campaigns of Tiberius it wasn't until Germanicus that the Romans could call Germania "stable" again.

What's important is the period directly after 4AD, because the Romans flipped their collective shit after Teutoburg. They honestly believed that the Germans were going to sack Rome and that kind of shock pretty much deterred all future expansion across the Rhine.

Rome wasn't hindered by geography and Caesar's account of Germania makes it clear the region was worth conquering. Realistically the Germans didn't stand a chance against Rome, because they were the masters of anti-tribal warfare and by 19AD the Germans had already been divided and were ripe for reconquest. What stopped them was fear and a preoccupation with self-preservation. Under the Republic a man could make himself impossibly wealthy by conquering new land for Rome, but the Emperors were encouraged to play it safe and preserve what they already had.

LEGIONS

>Arminius betrays the Roman general he pledged allegiance to and launches a surprise attack against the Romans
>Italy betrays Germany twice in WW1 and WW2 in revenge

really causes you to ponder

>The iberians didn't stand much chance against Rome.
Yeah cause 200 years it's not that much

The Germanics can't sack you if you BECOME Germanic

That was just Moortugal. The rest of Iberia was easily conquered because they were used to being cucked by the Carthaginians.

because they were btfo by arminius and later decided it was not worth the effort to conquer germany

The year used to begin on the Idus of March (15 March), cause that was the time when the Consuls were elected.This changed in 153b.c at the beggining of the Celtiberian wars to the day of Calendas (1 January). This was done to allow more time to the Consul to prepare the legions and move to Hispania to start the campaign in spring.

Which they did, and for the next ~20 years, Consul after Consul commanding ~30000 roman troops got btfo by the Numantines. Until Consul Publius Scipion finally managed to exterminate them.

It's just too bad the rest of the Celtiberians didn't move a finger to help the Numantines.

Rome never conquered the centre of Sardinia either
It was probably because they didn't need it in both cases

Why would you bother? You have the entire Mediterranean under your control. Why would you want to overextend your self and waste resources taking worthless land.

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>no pre-existing infrastructure
>forests, mountains, and dangerous wildlife
>every man, woman, and child of germania was ready to fight to repel attackers

It's not that Rome couldn't have conquered Germania, it's that it wasn't worth the effort. There would've been no payoff for what it would cost.