What motivated them to build such vast empires? They weren't capitalist so it couldn't have been business interests like the Anglo.
Was it stoic übermensch philosophy and patrician patriotic values?
It wasn't boy pussy (18+). Was it? I refuse to believe it was anything so base and crass, but if you are already the ruler of a sizeable polity, what would make you want more instead of focussing on self-preservation?
greed and power, and various perks or regional controll like traderoutes and acess to resources and manpower and having buffer zones to danger
also once you start that game you cant technically stop because each time you expand your borders theres someone on one or the other side that does not like that one bit and you have to continuously campaign against other expanding entities around you and put local populations down and kick out invaders and then you simply need the empire cause you need a large enough system to deal with all the shit you brought upon yourself by building a empire in the first place
also, empires have massive official subsystems like beurocracies, nobilities, army etc, etc, and all of these have a inertia of their own and their survival depends on the empire, so even if a emperor notices the fact its all a hyperfunctional clusterfuck of positive reinforcement loops going nowhere they just off him and put one of their respective own on top till someone offs him and so on
>They weren't capitalist so it couldn't have been business interests like the Anglo.
Sure it could. Conquest and plunder was pretty important part of late republic/early empire's economy.
Why not expand to natural easily defensible borders and call it quits?
define natural easily defensible borders
only example of that would be china, and maybe india in some moments
actualy no, the only example of that would be austrian empire, since they only got to keep the parts they could actualy defend, so the whole eastern border was geographicaly determined by defense positions, like mountain ranges, rivers and massive swamps
Rome was forced to expand because the city was rapidly growing in population and eventually became unsustainable to feed from their initial sources of grain. When Augustus became Emperor he defined the Empire's frontiers which was crossed only once by Trajan.
Alexander wanted to rule the (known) world.
Empires were usually about more than just the emperor, border regions had their own resources and interests and could rally some support from other factions looking to keep their military muscles flexed and demonstrate their martial prowess.
Have you ever heard of the word "Glory", OP?
I mean that's not even the whole story, but please never ask such a dumb inane question on this board ever again.
I can't speak to the Persian empire but for Rome it was a combination of things
Primarily it was pure ambition for glory. Every Roman wanted to go win a heroic war and return to a Triumph. This was the ultimate aspiration. Wars were made up when no valid ones could be found to fill men's ambition.
It also had to do with the idea of Terminus the Roman God of boundaries. It was savreligous to cede territory or give land. (People hated Hadrian for that) this meant that if you expanded a little, you then expanded a lot until you reached a defensible natural border
Rome did expand to natural borders.
Sahara to the South in Africa
Tigris / Euphrates to the East
Danube to the East \ North
And Rhine to the Northeast
The empire expanded continuously after Augustus. Even the notion of them stopping after Trajan is a meme. It continued to expand into the third century. With the exception of Trajan's momentary conquests, the empire was at its largest extent during Septimius Severus.
Isn't glory a patrician value?
It didn't really expand much beyond Octavian borders.
Any land gained was temporary and eventually ceded.
Their natural borders were to control trade in the med. Going further would be an expensive risky military campaign just for wattle huts and barley cakes.
This ain't nothing.
All the land gained by Trajan was abandoned within a generation or two.
....
You'll also notice a ton of shit not gained by Trajan that lasted for centuries.
>Greed
No
>Power
No, more like "love and desire to protect your own people. In the case of Greeks and Romans, they were tired of being pushed around.
>rome expanded because of "glory"
never answer a question again
not a valid rebuttal
what motivation did they have beyond wattle huts and barley cakes, if not boy pussy
only in the very short term and if things go well
>never answer a question again
Let me guess, everyone was some underhanded motive? People can't be genuine guided by abstract principals?
Historians who think this way are only projecting themselves onto the past.
The majority of that land was gained by Octavian or was previous a client kingdom.
Which goes back to my original point that the empire didn't not expand much past his ordained borders.
You are dumb
it was literally glory
Rome was born as a empire out of necessety, first it was etruscans, then gauls, carthagians and greeks
Then egypt, the east and many barbarians, after that point tough they had grown large enough so we no longer consider their growth out of need
>greeks
magna graecians maybe but there was little reason to step foot into mainland greece and especially greek anatolia
thisSomething doesn't add up, there must be some superfluous factor.
What could it be? What were Greeks and Romans renowned for that set them apart from other cultures? What did Rome give up shortly before its decline?
Things happen due to various factors of many different people but mostly it was just complete control of the Mediterranean was the uniting force.
business existed before capitalism, you know
It was a long expansion process with eaxh part happening for its own reasoning
>Italia
Needed to secure Rome from nearby threats
>Hispania and Africa
Occupations leftover from the punic wars
>Southern Gaul
Needed to connect Hispania to Italia
>Asia Minor
Was given to them by Pergamum
>Greece
Occupation leftover from the macedonian wars
>Syria
Pompey got it because it was weak and rich
>Gaul
Caesar wanted to become a famous general
>Dalmatia
Octavian needed to secure the route to the east
>Egypt
Occupation left over from the civil war , also huge grain suplier
I could go on, but the point is not all places were taken because of pure greed
And when they absorbed them they made new client kingdoms further out. Regardless of how they pushed the borders outwards, they clearly didn't a shit about where Augustus stopped expanding.
can't read shit from that
>Who is Pyrrhus of Epirus
his was a pyrrhic victory only
Booooo!
Ask yourself. What is the main export of empires?
Beans?
Who did they trade with?
That's just empirically false
Looks up a time lapse of the borders or something retard
>Was it stoic übermensch philosophy and patrician patriotic values?
>>>/edgy14yearolds/
its not something a gay anime watching soyboy could ever understand.
humans are inherently capitalist and some of that territory was taken to secure resources
a good example is the conquering of that city with the big salt plains in early rome
I'm not particularly well versed in iranian history so I'll stick with Rome:
The roman economy was based on slavery which combined with military successes being the single most efficient way for an individual to increase his political capital in the hyper-competitive climate of the roman ruling elite meant that expansionism was the name of the game.
Another thing, which some anons have already mentioned, is that outside forces will always try to have a piece of your cake. As such you'll either swim or drown as an empire. A common, if highly reductionist statement about Rome is that by defending itself it conquered the world.
The concept of Rome losing territory was also, well into the reign of Hadrianus, seen as tantamount to blasphemy.
we make war so that we may make peace, heard of pax romana?
>>Gaul
>Caesar wanted to become a famous general
i don't know about that, but you forgot about the fact that they thought they could feed the entire empire with all those gaulish fields + there was tons of gold and other precious metals + vengeance (they were still butthurt about the gaulish invasions)
and the aedui confederation called for help too i think
You say it wasn't capitalist; but many of the typical institutions of capitalism did exist in the ancient world. There were banks, credit, large business institutions etc etc. They just didn't have the capitalist culture that is prevalent in the west today - that doesn't mean that conquest doesn't equals wealth, and that is what they were after.
There was a small invasion of Celtic and Germanic peoples in Southern Gaul at the very beginning that gave Caesar the reason the leave.
After that It was literally all because Caesar wanted to pay off his debts and gain more political power.
He also needed to stay as the governor of Gaul so he couldn't be brought up on bribery charges in Rome.
I already showed you a map of post-Augustus expansions.
>starting a war because you want peace
What motivates me to bump this thread?
How did Roman banks work?
autism
Mostly by adding copper and such to debase the gold currency, creating hyperinflation coupled with an over extended military with competitors at the borders resulting in paradigmic collapse. Sort of what like the american empire coupled with the interconnected system of global debt we currently have is stairing down the face of the barrel of.
Mostly just large money lenders grouping together, a lot of it went down in temples. There were private depositories as well where people kept their wealth. It was not as organized as modern or early modern banking at all and was a much more loose type of system; its still recognisable though.
boredom
>What is Galicia and Lodomeria