Rome never conquered Parthia, (except briefly under Trajan), Scotland or Ireland either . Over extending the Empire to include territories that were a liability was never the Roman way. It is good to remember that the Germanic Tribes opposing Rome in the Fifth Century were different peoples than the Romans faced in the First Century. We think of Germany in today's terms as a certain group of people, a nationality sharing a common language, that was not the case in Roman times. Defending the Rhine and Danube was far easier than the north German plain and the bogs of the south Germany. Great Series Invicta!
Actually defending Elbe and Danube river frontier would have been easier. Mike Duncan explained this in an interesting way, that Augustus was so pissed off with Teutonberg because he thought the Romans should have been better defended with Germania west of Elbe as its provincial frontier.
They didn't have a common language but they still mostly understood each other in their mother tongue just like Scandinavians don't have a common language but they still mostly can get along in their native languages.
But the Germans, along with the Sarmatian peoples, posed a difficult military challenge at the height of the Roman Empire, with the various wars under Marcus Aurelius (and Commodus a little), from 166 to 182. Granted Rome was diverted by military conflict with the Parthians in the Middle East, as well as by debilitating pandemics. So by the accounts of the Romans themselves, certain Germans (and Sarmatians), presented a serious threat about 150 years after Germanicus' campaigns, which is not bad. Maybe that alone validates the approaches adopted in diplomacy that the video reviews. But then the Germans would be a big factor in catalyzing the Crisis of the Third Century, from warfare on the Rhine that led to Alexander Severus getting overthrown in AD 235, on through the appearance of the Goths (with one leader, Cniva, managing to kill a Roman Emperor in AD 250). And it seems the Germans presented really serious threats, even an existential threat, from AD 234 - about 50 years after Commodus' peace (218 years after Germanicus had to call off his effort). And then the threat never really went away. Events seem to suggest that defending the Danube was not easy after AD 166, and that it may have made sense for the Romans to try to advance the frontier to the Elbe and Bohemia (Marcus Aurelius supposedly was considering establishing provinces over what is now the Czech Republic and parts of Slovakia and Hungary, as Marcomannia and Sarmatia). After AD 240 it was maybe too late for the Romans.
@@michaeldunne338 The Germanic tribes did pose a continuing threat to the empire. Whether it was was an existential threat (any more so than, say, Parthia was) is a topic that historians will always discuss. The later (fourth and fifth century) Germanic invasions of the Empire across the Danube (the Goths) were more about the tribes wanting to enter the empire and settle. They could have, indeed, desired to, become Romanized and become productive citizens. Unfortunately a series of incompetent emperors totally screwed that up. In the latter stages of the Western Empire, the Romans were suffering from underpopulation, corruption, incompetence and a fragmentation of the Imperial system. The Roman cycle of catastrophe and recovery, finally ended in just catastrophe. You make some excellent points! Thanks
@@michaelporzio7384 I would say various tribes/groupings started representing something that looked like an existential threat in the Third Century, from 230s to early 270s. And they were closer to Italy, versus the Parthians, and later the Persians, representing a threat to the eastern Mediterranean, albeit including some of Rome's richer provinces. Now as an aside, the Persians in securing outright wins against large Roman armies, as well as forcing other Roman expeditions into expensive draws may have helped exacerbate an existential financial threat to Rome, in terms of having resources to rebuild after defeats (regenerate). The Goths represented a significant part of that military problem for the Rome during the Third Century Crisis. Seems even if representative of oversized raiding the incursions were attriting Roman strength in the Balkans. As for the fifth century, well you had the invasion of Radagaisus as well as the bursting of the Rhine frontier around 406, involving forces and people with different agendas than that of the Goths under Fritigern, Alaric, Ataulf, etc. (who entered Thrace, and won the battle of Adrianople). Some may have wanted similar goals - a means of existence in the Roman world, with an accommodation with Rome - like say the Franks, but details are sketchy and others seem more intent on classic invasion and/or destructive raiding on a big scale.
If Rome would have known that the Harz was packed with gold, silver, copper and lead and the south (Upper Palatinate) was rich in iron ore the history would have been different. Magna Germania was not that sparsely populated as people today often think. There were millions of germanic people (that's why they were able to replace the killed warrios so easily). In small hamlets but lots of those. This manpower plus the mineral riches might have been the small extra needed for the Roman Empire to survive.
Since they had large isolated families and were very tribal in their loyalty, killing one member meant that you would have pissed off everyone and this perpetually brought up entire generations that hated the Romans.
"Magna Germania was not that sparsely populated as people today often think." I believe it largely depends on the region. To my knowledge the North Sea coast wasn't that populated because of the dangers the sea posed with the not yet existing sea defenses.
If you've ever been to southern/Western Germany, particularly the Schönbuch or Schwarzwald, you can see how unbelievably dense & tall the forest is - very Jungle-like, with 60ft trees, bushes the size of your car, & grass taller than your head. Even though today much of the land has been repurposed for farming, it is easy to see how the forest, combined with the incredibly steep hilly landscape, made it near impossible to conquer and hold (much like rome's repeated failures in scotland). The smartest strategy would have been to just leave the border the Rhine and not let your ego get the best of you. It is a great natural border creating a wide fence from Switzerland to the marshlands in southern holland. Rome was already stretched thin, it is much easier to monitor & communicate along the banks of a giant river, than to cross it & be surrounded by dense forest in hostile territory with no great supply method and difficult communication methods. In other words - not worth it. Wasting countless gold & lives in one of the few areas of your empire you actually have a decent natural border is incredibly dumb. Such is the hubris of the ancients however.
in other words - if they could conquer Germania - then it would be worth it, but they could not, so it's not worth it?) "not worth it" because of campaign's failure, not campaign's failure because of "not worth it".
@@sidjoosin6549 no... His point is even if you conquer it, the territory makes it incredibly hard to hold. Guerilla warfare, ambushes etc would make it untenable. May as well use the natural barrier and use your resources/troops elsewhere. Arguably not worth the investment and blood anyway, as the Germanic tribes were not hoarding resources like the Aztecs had for the conquistadores
@@Keeno3331 considering surprising geography - Romans knew about forests, hills, inhabitants, Rhein and snow before campaign, even Caesar crossed Rhein with army, walk through forests to hills, burned some villages, observed that weather, and wrote everything down in "Notes on Gallic wars". Let put it another way - is there any possible theoretical situation of "Rome attacked and defeated", as possibility or there are only "Rome won" and "Rome lost interest" possibilities? by what way Germanic tribes should beat Romans, to say "Rome invaded and lost" ? if "invader fled" is not counted as defender's victory, what could? I am not saying even that result of centuries long clash - occupation of Gallia, Britannia, Spain, North Africa including Carthage, Italy including Rome - and Germanic kingdoms in ruins of Romans provinces. We always can say "Invader lost interest", ex. - Ottomans didn't took Vienna and occupy Austria because it become not worth - mud, walls, rain, then Polish cavalry charging, - it become not worth ofcourse. Also many underestimate real wealth of "barbarians", but archeology shows us items from Germania at least not behind Roman not technologically and not aesteically, and from pre-Roman Gallia and, especially, Britania - superior, some swords and helmets are jewelry by all standarts, and quality of blades better. And according to Rome itself - the biggest amount of loot in Rome's hystory they gained not from Carthage, not Syria or Egypt (and all 3 was wealthier than Rome according to Romans), but from barbaric Dacia.
@@sidjoosin6549 I wouldn't call Dacia "barbaric". It was regarded as such by many contemporary sources but then again they considered most "non-Roman, non-Greek" countries barbaric. Modern historians and archeologists claim Dacia to be pretty advanced. Now to the quality of German production, I think you are extrapolating the BEST creations of the ancient Germanic tribes discovered by the modern scientists to the overall quality of their products. It's a pretty long stretch. Of course Romans were able to produce much more advanced pieces of equipment/jewelry/technology, there can't be any doubt there.
@@Henry_the_Eighth_ I wouldn't call anyone "barbaric", yet seems Greeks called any Indo-European folk except themselves - "barbaroi". even Persians not an exception. And yes, I am not talking who could produce 100 000 decent kits of armour or weapons per year, (tribes was lacking of everything of course) I am talking about technological level, level of sophistication in production, which can be demonstrated by best examples, and I don't think Romans hade same level of metalworking as Gauls or Britain, yet Roman glass working was second to none
4:00 The problems started at Step 3: 3. No clear power center 4. Opposition can not be completely defeated 5. No place to install governors 6. No way to extract profits Lack of power centers ripped up the entire playbook. Rome would have had to build powercenters, similar to what they did in Britain. But even in the "easier" Britain, they got exhausted eventually.
A good tactic could have been to encourace the forming of germanic cities close to the roman border and to take them over once they were suffiencently grown, repeat this and slowly but continously expand their territory and also 'civilise' germania to make it more profitable. Same goes for the british isles once they had settled
@@timmlanghals154 the Romans actually did this west of the Rhine in places that are now Trier, Bonn, Cologne, etc. It just wasn’t worth the effort and never safe and stable enough to continue.
I remember before reading into it, my instinctive layman theory was simply the geographical argument. Heavy, dense woodland, bogs and marshes, asymmetrical hills and mountains. The logistics must've been a nightmare, maneuvering properly against its indigenous people even more so. That, and the Germanic people more so than others had a uniquely fierce fighting spirit, much like the Picts who drew Rome's territorial line in Britain below their land. Of course there's always more nuance, and this video explained it superbly as always.
Everything said about Germania in terms of geography and culture could be said about Gaul and Britannia. The Germans were smart and a little bit lucky at Teutoborg, which was essentially one gigantic ambush. Once they fought the Romans in pitched battles, they got slaughtered just like everyone else. Confronting the Romans in pitched battles were tried by the Gauls and they got destroyed. And yes the Gauls had much more interaction with the Romans before they were conquered by Caesar. The Romans wisely opted for mostly soft power, but they needed their revenge wars in order to restore their reputation among other provinces, as an enemy which it costs more to revolt against than to obey.
@@SAarumDoK affluent people have more to loose. They are also more often located in cities. Cities have a known location and their populations can't easily be relocated.
Not wanting to offend, but that is a naive argument. You know how warrior-like tribes in the Iberian peninsula were or how rough the Iberian landscape is? It took Roman more than 200 hundred years to fully pacify the province of Hispania. I believe that was the longest of any of Rome’s provinces to be ‘pacified’. Rebellion after rebellion Rome thought it had finally conquered the peninsula only to have another rebellion suddenly sprung up and ‘kick them’ out for another generation. As the video points out, biggest difference between Rome’s invasion of Hispania and Germania was simply the amount of resources it (Rome) had when confronting each of these regions; with Hispania it had plenty to spare, with Germania it didn’t.
If I remember correctly, Augustus once said that such conquest would be too costly in economic means because it would require huge investments which Rome could not afford at this moment.
@UCZqOmHLQuBIiRt_8fngb-xQ You've got a bunch of soldiers and only a finite amount of "Desirable" territories/land with other areas under treaties/offering taxes. Do you A. order them to sit on their hands. B. Try to give them some crappy land in a conquered province that likely will hate their guts for generations. Or C. order them to just keep the ball rolling and raid neighboring territories at mostly their expense. The question really is when you have an iron age military industrial complex but no real standing armies/cities to crush and pillage resulting in a net loss what do you do? Often times this results in civil war.
Yet Augustus did back a series of campaigns against various German territories, notably those of Nero Claudius Drusus. I would not be surprised if he adopted that view though after AD 9, until his death in AD 14, following both the costly suppression of the revolts in the Balkans and loss of three legions by Varus in Germany.
It's worth remembering that the 'Limes' were east of the Rhine, so Rome did establish a successful border against Germanic incursion. Germania just wasn't worth the candle economically so there was no point in pushing further. As for Britannia, it was relatively easy to control with client kingdoms, despite Boudicca's brief kickback against the Romans.
They couldn't handle Germania militarily either. As for Britannia, there weren't any client kings. Boudicca wasn't the only one that mauled the Romans.
Britain was a bit of an expensive venture too though, with a set of campaigns spanning about 40 years, running from 43 AD to 84 AD (or to maybe 79AD, when Agricola moved against the Brigantes). And the Brigantes and Picts and/or other peoples remained a thorn in the side of the Romans off and on afterwards. Maybe the Romans kept at it because they sensed Britain was an island? Although Agricola supposedly was the first to have a fleet circumnavigate the island in the early 80sAD, maybe others had done something similarly earlier on? ... And maybe Britain offered some economic benefits, like exploitation of tin and lead, to make the effort appear worthwhile?
@@bobfg3130 Gotta disagree. Rome at this point was virtually unbeatable if led by a general worth his weight. IE: Germanicus rather unimaginative campaigns even brought victories. As for Boudicca, she ransacked a couple Roman towns, ambushed a small Roman force and then was promptly handed her ass in a battle where she not only out numbered them *vastly* but had the moral high ground. Simply put, the only reason Germany wasnt conquered was because of *economics.*
@@CrazyNikel You have a very interesting outlook on history. How many generals had gone into Germanic territory and lost? Are we to assume that ALL of them were just inefficient generals? I'm honestly not sure what to make of your stance on Boudicca.
@@CrazyNikel No, you don't have to. You still do it and you're wrong. Rome was not unbeatable by a general worth his weight. You know who would be unbeatable by a general worth his weight? The Germans. The gains that Germamicus were lost just as fast as he made them. For every victory Germanicus had, he had at least one defeat. As for Bouddica, she didn't have much of an army, nice try. Boudicca wasn't the only issue Romans had in Britannia. Simply put, Rome was weak. You only had to find the weak spot. Simply put, you don't know what you're talking about. Simply put the main reason why Rome couldn't conquer Germania was because it didn't have the military power.
*Could* Rome have conquered Germanía? I mean, sure, it *could* have. Dump enough time, treasure, and troops into the meat grinder, and eventually something will break. *Should* it have? Probably not. What would have been the point? Economically, Germany was poor and difficult to govern; turning it into a profitable province would have been prohibitively expensive, if possible at all. Strategically, subduing the German tribes might have shortened the border, but it also would have brought the Romans into contact with what lay beyond: the Slavs, the Goths, or, worse yet, steppe tribes of horse archers. At best, the Empire has swapped one enemy for another, and placed far greater strain on its logistical system. At worst…well…remember what Attila did to Rome in the 400s A.D., or the Pechenegs, Cumans, and Turks to the Eastern Empire? Imagine the Empire facing that in its early days. Not a pleasant thought. TL;DR there was almost no tangible benefit to staying in Germanía, and a whole host of reasons to quit while ahead. Leaving might be humiliating, but it was sensible.
Dont forget Rome fought these kind of enemies all the time, like Parthia. And completely dominated them way more often than not. The problem was that they had relied on the germanic tribes to basically protect romes borders from what lies beyond. And with all the crisises going on the economy did not survive the migrations. Really stagnation from corruption lead to romes fall. When you stop expanding you give others the opportunity to rise up. Its why big corporations operate at a loss if it means they can drive out smaller competitors.
@@bobfg3130 Dude you REALLY made it your job to defend the germanic tribes here. Let me tell you this though - No, Rome probably could not have conquered a united Germania. Also the germanic tribes were very unruly and difficult to govern. Those facts were not pure advantages though - The unruliness of the tribes in combination with the tendency to break alliances and treaties ultimately prove to be their own undoing, since not a single tribe that defeated Varus at Teutoburg was alive or existent a couple of generations later. They all got killed off by other tribes. IF Germania was a worthy province to hold, Rome could have easily swept in at one of the multiple times the tribes were at war and annihilating each other. It just simply did not - Mostly because ressources and manpower were needed elsewhere since the empire was already overstretched at that point. But like other people have said: Germanicus was a rather sub par General and even he managed to devastate the germanic coalition in open field battles. Imagine if Tiberius never went back to Rome a couple of years earlier...
@@kazam3527 No dude, I'm just pointing out that Rome is massively overrated. If there are enough Romans...the tribes will unite. Germania was a province worth holding. You honestly think that Rome didn't try to sweep in when the tribes were at war with eachother? 😆 Pal, you're not coming up with anything new here. This is a strategy that has been used since the dawn of humanity. This strategy has been used before times that were ancient to the Romans. It did not because it would have lost all the men they would have sent in there, not because they needed soldiers somewhere else. Yes, other ignorant people have said that....and you want to show your ignorance too. Germanicus was a pretty good general. As for Tiberius, the guy never managed to achieve anything. Germanicus might have devastated the Germans in open field but the Germans devastated the Romans lead by BOTH Germanicus and Tiberius in open field. Why do you think they had so many losses?
@@bobfg3130 If Rome was so weak, how did they conquer Gaul??? Rome could have conquered Germania, but unlike Gaul it was poor with terrain that was horrible. But it was conquerable.
I imagine Germania as a heavily forested land with fierce indigenous peoples without a central government. Difficult to map, with cold and mountaineous terrain. As seen in the video, no developed roads, prior trade relations with Rome (as the Gauls) and no urban infrastructure that could be adapted or use by the romans. It was colonization as the modern sense, difficult to implement. It was like the Romans were facing native americans with iron weapons. To compare europeans (powder technologies and horses) in the 16th century conquering native americans is not the same as comparing Romans (Iron Age) with german tribes (Iron age). Their technological differences were not so great. The romans had superior logistics, command, organization and training. But to face iron Age tribes in their own territory, with guerrilla warfare, should be a nightmare.
Not only that, but their populations were not THAT different in the effective force that could be applied. Rome could not send 100% of it's legions as shown in the video, so it'd always have to be fighting without full force, against a people who could muster every last man, woman, and child to fight, and DID.
Not only that, the roman described the Germanic tribesmen as much taller and stronger than the Romans, so yes fighting a big heavy man that have been fighting all his life in his own terrain was probably hell. I'm North Germanic myself so ofc im on the germanic side. But I have to give it to the Romans, they were great men and very good soldiers
More like, imagine a swamp populated by barbarians who eat horses rather than rides them. What is there to conquer? They are already slaves to backwardness.
I think that even if Rome had conquered Germania, it would have proven to be such a volatile province that it probably would have been more trouble than it was worth.
Not to mention that it would have collapsed eventually anyways due to political and economical so it would have been all for nothing. Ambition, greed and death is what eventually killed Roman empire.
I dont know about that. On on hand the province of hispania, which took some 200 year to fully conquer had, un the height of empire was so peaceful and secure it only need half a legion to garrison it. On the other hand Britinnia need 15,000 or more at all times, supplied from legion drawn from other places, (include spain), just to keep the peace. As Germania would had became weathy enough to worth conquering, the question changes. If the area become pacified enough for the small garrison to handle rebels and guard the frontier, then it would worth keeping. Or like Britian be abandon at first. opportunity....
That's what the Romans said about the place. It's also what I discovered about pixel Germania while playing Europa Barbarorum as the Romans. There's almost no infrastructure or any other sort of economically meaningful capital accumulation there, and the locals are warlike and really don't take kindly to your being in their turf. Trying to conquer Germania in that game meant fighting war constantly, which is a drain on finances, while also having to plow huge sums of money into developing the region's economy, all of which comes at the expense of using those resources to more productive ends elsewhere.
@@woaddragon Hispania had lots of mineral wealth, particularly relatively easily accessible metal ores like silver, that made the cost of conquering it worth paying, especially since the infrastructure investment needed to extract it in many instances had already been made by the Carthaginians and the native Celtiberians.
@@JackieWelles "Ambition, greed and death is what eventually killed Roman empire". Wrong. It was sustained mass migration into the Roman Empire that hollowed it out and undermined the core principles that allowed it to become a great power in the first place - exactly like is what is happening today in 'the west'. “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Nice video as usual. It was a very good idea to point out the differences between Gaul and Germania. While Caesar had to make sieges like Alesia or Avaricum. We never heard anything like that in Germania
The Gauls had settelmente and could write they were way more advanced and united…Vercingetorix, there was not much to gain in Germania.And there was not unity,not a common language not big settlements.Simply very many tribes. Gaul was more advanced than England, Germania,Continental eastern Europe . And there where Asterix and Obelix
@@sebastienraymond9534 Well Caesar committed a real terrible genocide in Gaul …unlike inflating a nobody like Arminius for political propaganda Uderzo tried to create a nice fantasy far away from the cruelty of the real story the sad historic materialism. Way more enticing than the de bello Gallico written by Caesar very down to earth . By the way Tacitus who wrote De situs Germanorum was born in Gaul .That could have been the right book for the German political propaganda . Very kind with the German tribes and incredibly antisemitic.
@@nazarenoorefice2104 loll first of all Caesar was a master of propaganda and his bello gallico was a masterpiece in latin culture. Even his bitter enemy Cicero who was the best orator and writer of his time praise Caesar style . There is no way Caesar could have make a genocide.And about Asterix and Obelix if i am right it was a metaphor to boost the french resistance under nazi occupation.
@@sebastienraymond9534 A genocide intending that he probably eliminated more tham a million gauls.Let s say enemies.I don t think he wanted to eradicate a race.Romans were nor racists but they did not like barbarians,Gauls were not barbarians The de bello gallico was easy to understand but i never liked it ,minimalist . Like a logbook.Facts are properly understandable but with no ornaments and with simple philosophical remarks. Latin were very wise but our taste evolved.Especially the sense of humor ,latin jokes are very elementary.Life was simple. Caesar was an incredible general. The month July come from Julius,Kaiser from Caesar. And furthermore a clever politician.I didn t like the the bello Gallico probably because i had to read it at school. Bad memories🙃
very interesting video, i live the Netherlands (just inside Germania on the map on 15:23 ) my village was a farmers town since the bronze age. with earth walls to keep out boar. i just did my daily hike and passed one such wall and a grave hill. (tumulus) they're still visible. i wonder how daily life looked like...
Great video. I had often wondered why Gaul was conquered but not Germania. Yeah it makes sense if Rome was having supply and man power shortages, the economic value was so low and cost high, it seems irrational to keep fighting when diplomacy proved so effective. I wonder if Rome had exercised this approach more often if it might have survived as the issue of being overstretched seems quite apparent, you mention the value of Gaul, but do you think it was in the long run, alongside Britannia worth all the resources they consumed and would Rome have been better served taking similar diplomatic actions there also?
You could argue that the lands of Gaul, France today, are some of the best in Europe, in terms of holistic utility. Open farmland, plenty of rivers, access to the Atlantic and Mediterranean. After Rome, France was always a power player, so I think it was worth it to take it. Plus, it had the effect of securing the Roman border. Britain doesn't make sense for me, because it is so far, and divided from Europe. Heck, the northwest of Spain took a lot to fully pacify. The Romans could have taken the Mediterranean coast, and use soft power on the rest. But generally, I believe that the Romans conquered everything it made sense to conquer.
Gaul and the Celts had attacked Rome again and again. Rome was just fighting back against bullies so did the Greeks they attacked Rome with the Phyrrhic wars. With the Germans it was completely unjustified war of conquest. It was holly Roman empire aka medieval Rome that conquered the German tribes.
@@obobobobobi The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was just "roman", because of fear of the apocalypse in bible texts "when the third empire fall, than xyz"
Germanian soil was too heavy to be productive before the invention of better plows and harness, which only happened in the Middle Ages. That's why it was populated by small scattered village forts in the endless forests. In Roman times it would make much more sense to complete the conquest of Dacia and Pannonia, and establish safe borders on Carpathian Mountains. The soil there was much easier to cultivate and thus civilize the province and reap benefits (food, wine, taxes, manpower) in reasonable time-scale. Such productive and defensive province would improve Roman demographic and economic power, and maybe make the wars in Germania more manageable.
Also a significant chunk of the population are enslaved in Rome. A more freer society would make colonization much easier. A poor freeman will be much more eager to colonize these lands than a Roman of means. who doesn't want to waste his slaves in Germania when they can be in sicily making him easy money.
Amazing series, I would say the only way Rome could hold the region was to develop better ships that could handle the North Sea waters and to make a series of costal forts and colonies to take advantage of trade opportunities. Else I would say not worth it going into the interior.
I think the concept of using diplomacy to play off internal power struggles was the only way to go, and instead of trying to have a huge "victory" to score points at home settle it one bit at a time. Then again, the reluctance of Emperors to put more than several legions under one commander for fear of revolt hampered things too.
Empire must pay for empire. Rome - or any of the other expansionist countries throughout history - was quite willing to conquer and annex regions that would repay the effort. For Rome, this included Gaul, Hispania, the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and north Africa. Southern Britannia was pretty much a break-even situation; northern Britannia (present-day Scotland) was definitely not worth the cost of conquest. Similarly, the region of Germania held no resources that would have repaid its conquest and incorporation into the Empire. As other commenters have noted, to conquer or not to conquer is primarily an economic consideration.
The thing is, it wasn't known at the time of the various protracted conquests that half of Hispania (northern coast and Basque areas, northern Portugal, Galicia, the Pyrenees), or a huge swath of the Balkans/Danube valley region (modern day Bosnia, Serbia, western Hungary and Austria) would pay for itself. But, the Romans invested substantial forces repeatedly at great cost, over time. Same to a lesser degree with the Alps region, but that mountain range held obvious strategic value to an Italy that had witnessed prospects of Celtic/Germanic invasion in the past. Nice alias by the way (would like to see a representation of a canine interpretation of Schroedinger's thought experiment).
The south, southwest, and west of modern-day Germany were part of the Roman Empire, the rest was not. I addition, the region the Romans referred to as Germania included modern-day Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, too. Thus some parts of Germania were a Roman Province. Anyway, the influence of the Romans still was felt further north and east than their actual borders.
I think the Romans should have found somewhere near the middle of all the tribes and built them a major city, by offering them a major city it would help create a centralized power in the region, which could eventually be an ally or used to change thier culture. Naturally chieftain would fight for that city and a head would rise leading to a clear and strategically more recognizable enemy that they are aware of, on how to conquer. It would take a few generations but it would help set a hub for germania to focus on.
The successors of Alexander The Great learned the hard way, that you can't just build a city anywhere you please and expect it to function, much less govern an entire region. Cities have to be supported by a huge rural base that ensures a steady supply of food and resources as well as manpower. What most people seem to forget is, that until modern times the living conditions of a city are such, that the population is very seldom sustainable and is often entirely dependant on immigration to replenish itself and grow. That's the reason why Rome itself shrank so drastically during the early Middle Ages; not because people moved away but simply because people stopped moving into Rome. A huge city in the middle of Germania would not last. There would be no stable rural community willing (or able) to support the city. The first time the city was taken by a rival king, it would be plundered of anything of value (especially food) and the population left to starve. In parctical terms the Romans would need to pour huge resources into sustaining such a city, if it was to have any chance at all. They did that with the Roman towns in the much more peaceful and developed Britain, and in the end that proved to not really be woth it either. Also: It is very doubtful, that a city out in the middle of nowhere would even result in the region becoming better organized or centralized. A city is only really valuable as a center of administration, because it can support an administrative class of people. Otherwise there is little benefit to governing from one big center - especially in ancient societies. This is why medieval Europe was so decentralized. All-in-all I don't think this would work at all, and it would likely be an even worse drain on manpower and resouces than pouring even more legions into Germania would.
Lol I don’t think Germans 2000 odd years ago really wanted to be colonized by Rome… neither did the Gauls or anyone else… in any case it’s nice to see that the end result was the fall of this evil empire
I'm so glad this was covered, I'm tired of fighting with people in the comments about the extent of Roman infrastructure across the Rhine. Even though they failed and didn't properly adapt to the region, they were there for quite some time. As usual, great video.
The Romans didn't "fail" in "Germania". They thoroughly destroyed every "germanic" tribe they fought. They gathered up all the widows and daughters and then went back home to Rome to orgy.
Love the series, as a German history nerd this conflict has always been fascinating to me. I do think Rome could have been successful, but I believe it would have either taken massive resources (which wouldn't have been worth it for Rome) or an entirely different approach. Seeing as how their later strategy of projection of soft power and romanization (take the Ubii for example) worked incredibly well I do think Rome could have slowly romanized much of Germania through slow diplomatic efforts, but that obviously wasn't Rome's Modus operandi.
As the video already discussed, Rome decided that a soft power projection was far more profitable than a hard invasion. And the results proved that they actually made the right choice.
I mean Britain was alot more centralized politically, and Rome was able to engage in its politics so I guess it was the obvious answer despite its geographic difficulties compared to Germania.
Always loving your videos! There's just one detail that would be awesome to see, and that would be more accurate maps of the Netherlands. There's quite a lot of land on your maps that didn't exist back then. It's not so relevant for the content of your videos but it would be so cool for this random Dutchy to see it historically accurate :)
It should be noted that Germania wasn't a massive farmland back then like it is now. The terrain was harsh, marked with bogs and forests. Like the gauls had been the danger beyond when the Italian peoples were conquered, so were the germans the danger beyond the gauls. Beyond the Germans would be the Norsemen and the Danes to the north, and Slavs to the east. Beyond the Slavs were then the steppe tribes. Germania would be hard to conquer, quick to revolt, and would require massive investments into infrastucture before anyone could gain anything out of it. And after all that, there's just something worse beyond.
Agree. Always thought of Germania as a buffer that could deal with the external "danger beyond". Also the contrast from the Roman Empire directly into let's say the steppe tribes would be quite stark - instead better have a gradual conglomerate of more similar germanic tribes in between.
@@cc0767 Good question. IMHO, politics brought Rome down, not unused potential. Even if Rome could industrialize I’m sure some politics would have stopped that as well. Maybe it was just too big for it’s time and surroundings.
I wish that the movie 'Gladiator' started with a caption explaining the Marcommanni invasion and the reason for the harsh Roman retaliatory counterinvasion north of the Danube... I think 'The Decline of the Roman Empire' 40 years before was better in explaining Aurelius' attempts to annex Marcommanni & Quadi lands.
The reason Rome was never able to conquer Germania is primarily because that the germanic tribes were strong enough to defend their lands that went against typical Roman warfare. The tribes were never capable of beating time in a pitch battle in the 1st century, and since only 5 tribes under Arminius proved to suffer only light defeats against Germanicus, it’s clear that Germany would have been conquered if Rome was capable of it. But the romans were not, germania was the equivalent of America’s Vietnam, would they have been powerful enough to defeat them? Most likely yes, but the terrain, guerilla warfare and tough resistance proved they couldn’t last an assault.
Well the Romans tried to use the sword. They should have sent the Augures or the Pontofices first, then at the end of the day the Germans would have forgotten Valhalla and they would have gotten the land. Oh wait. That did happen. Only 500 years later, another 500 for the rest of the known world and another 500 for the rest of it.
Awesome video! One small mistake I see in almost all maps. The border (Limes) was the old course of the Rhine river. That river flows much further north. The river flowed into the sea 10 km above nowadays The Hague. The city Utrecht was once the place of a fort on the Limes.
Probably the same reason the Spanish integrated the central Mexico valley and not the South Western US. Spanish, or better said Catholic civilization was brought to remote regions by the Church, hence why from Mexican jungles to the AZ desert, the natives are not mestizo (mixed Spanish ancestry) as celibate priests don't exactly impact the gene pool. An empire conquering another empire, say Alexander in Persia or Rome in the hellenistic era, is a change in management over existing infrastructure and administration. For the Spanish, they killed the priest class, married into the landed nobility and just like that, the Aztec empire was now a part of the psuedo Diocletianic Roman mercantilist model of the Spanish empire. The Celts were somewhere between the village dwelling Germans and the city dwelling Mediterraneans, and thus it took decades to civilize them, but it was doable. Germania at this time was not a land of dozens of cities or hundreds of towns, but a land of thoasands of villages. By comparison, I think the Gauls and the coin minting chariot riding Britons were alot easier to integrate into a civilization via a civic nationalist ethic; FFS, the Gauls had senators by the time Ceasar got back to Rome, where as the Cheruski princes had a 50% treason rate.
Funny enough, i was going to mention the similarities between this and the British conquest of the US. The tribes they faced were spread out confederations with little large scale oversight. It took the Brits quite some time to actually establish a foot hold, and further push west to the point of establishing the 13 colonies. And they had the advantage of plagues killing off many of the natives for them, and a large technological advantage over them. But from the time that Jamestown and Plymouth were established until a small area was self sufficient enough to rise up in revolt, it took over 100 years and a lot of resources, and a ton of time for resources to be sent back to England. The Romans could have done much the same in Germania, but the tribes were incredibly fierce and would have fought the whole way, the Romans didnt have a significant tech advantage or a plague to wipe out the Germanic peoples for them, and didnt have the time or resources to spend to take it over and turn it into a profitable province, especially after a costly civil war, enemies at the gates in many regions, revolts, and more profitable areas to conquer.
I know I've seen it I was just seeing if Invicta would do their version I also recommend checking out ripped lincoln and whatifalthist for more alternate history.
@Leo the British-Filipino Yeah but his fan base is pretty cancerous. Like some dude on there was trying to explain to me why the apartheid was good an justified.
I really hope so, by now there are a dozen channels with roman history and they basically repeat each others content over and over, the what if series was something unique.
It took centuries to subdue and Romanize Iberia bit by bit. So it certainly wouldn't have been impossible to do the same with Germania if that had been a priority.
That was until they were conquered by other more ferocious tribes in the east and began chipping away at the border, just as the empire itself was in terminal decline and faced unrest and civil wars.
Until the 230s AD, and maybe earlier, say in Marcus Aurelius' time, around AD 166. For a number of reasons various Germanic groups (maybe including others, like various Sarmatian peoples) felt inclined to have a go with the Romans when Rome still held substantial resources and power. Now maybe they were being opportunistic, and maybe some invasions really represented supersized raids of mega scale (for the second and third centuries) but something changed in Germania and on the Danube, and Rome face serious military threats/difficulties.
I think Gaul as a province is the exception. Just look at the shape of Roman Empire? It was the empire of the coastal areas of the Mediterranean, the med was the logistical highway that made it all possible.
The same can be said about Spain. Both Spain and Gaul had large interiors not part of the Mediterranean. But both still had large parts that were. And rivers that allowed for easy transport into their deep interior. And in the end how do you protect the Mediterranean coastal parts from attacks from the deep interior? That's why they established the borders on the Rhine and Danube. Only Britannia is truly not part of the Roman Mediterranean world.
I disagree, I think it makes sense to conquer these inland parts, because of their rich farmland and providing better frontiers. I think that it's way hard to conquer and actually maintain these bodies of land as provinces, and the Romans were super lucky (or the gauls/spaniards were unlucky) to have Caesar. And Varus was hardly a genius, even if he was deliberately framed as an incompetent superidiot (which I think he probably was), he almost certainly wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 You protect the Mediterranean coast by being able to transport large armies there quickly by sea. And then supplying your large professional armies by sea. As for Spaiin, large part of it is accessible by sea. It is simply part of Mediterranean world, always has been. Saying that Spain and Germany are equally not mediterranean is, uhu, not a very good argument.
@@Realtimehammer Germany did not have rich farmland until the Carruca plough was developed in the 7th and 8th centuries, making the heavy clay soils of the central European plain fertile. That Germany looks like a nice, rich and fertile place now is due to the hard work of the Germans. It did not look like that in the beginning of the 1st century.
@@martinan22 true, I'm just saying, if it wasn't for Caesar, Spain and Gaul would've proved much much harder to pacify and it is very possible the Romans wouldn't have come further than the alps and the coastal areas of Spain. Caesar had his desperate moments during the Gallic wars, but he had amazing resolve, so this is why I think they needed another Caesar if they wanted to conquer Germania. Irregardless of the use of the land. Also I disagree with the notion that Gaul is an exception. To me it makes sense the Romans wanted to occupy Gaul.
I don't agree with your title and I think is wrong. Rome didn't fail to conquer Germanic tribes, they just didnt want to conquer them. Fail would mean that Rome was defeated or forced to retreat but it wasn't. Julius caesar, Drusus, Tiberius and especially Germanicus and Marcus Aurelius defeated Germanics in 100+ battles and if Tiberius wouldn't have ordered Germanicus to retreat , after 1 year all Germania up to Elbe would re become Roman land. Even Marcus Aurelius in 160 - 180 AD defeated Marcomani and could have expanded Roman territory to today's Munchen and Czechia but he didn't. Rome considered Germanic lands as rubbish lands not worth conquering. However they were right at the moment but wrong in the future. Conquering entirely Germania , would have taken Rome away a great burden.
@@gerogemichaels7580 Only ignorants and dumbs might have the " logic" and argumentation you have. I don't know if you have watched any of the documentaries that Invicta has uploaded to see how endless times Germanic tribes were killed and humiliated. Julius Ceasar, Drusus, Tiberius, Germancius all defeated Germanics endlessly. Drusus made Germania a Roman province and Germanicus was going to finish his father's job once and for all but Tiberius ordered him to come back to Rome. Germancius forced almost 2/3 of what remained of Germanic tribes to migrate east of river Elbe.
@@flyingstock5979 It was much more of a decisive conquest than what was previously thought. Thrax had penetrated deep into the heart of Germania and concluded with a conglomerate of tribes, also was respected by the warlords there for his size and power. The reason it didnt stick was because he was killed later, nulling it
About the only way I could see them succeeding would be if they took it slow. Rather than fight against various tribes every time they go on campaign, work on subduing one or two tribes at a time, and make sure their hold was secure before moving on. It would take a really long time though, and undoubtedly not be profitable at all.
I think the only problem with that line of thinking would be that the Germanic tribes would form Confederations, the temporary unification of multiple tribes at a time of war. Of course the Romans had faced unified tribes in the past, but Germany’s geography was a unique obstacle
And what makes you think that those Germans wouldn't rebel again? Also, how exactly can you just think that other German tribes would be just fine with the sight of other German tribes being conquered? They will quickly see that as Romans attempting to slowly conquer all of Germania. As a result, all of the German tribes would band together which will make your "Conquer one tribe at a time" strategy a fantasy.
I don't think so, the reason Rome feel wasn't because of a lack of really anything specific the main reason was that anyone could become emporer by virtue of conquest. It made the military too powerful and let to many costly wars. If Augustus had managed to establish a official imperial succession system with rules and laws that maybe would survive one or two generation you get traditions and laws and legitimacy. You don't just need an army but blood, political backing etc. If you look and china vs Rome that is the main difference, in China the succession was only ever at threat when the state was at crisis, in Rome every emporer that died left them in a civil war, at leats more or less.
I have to disagree here. This shift presnted short term gain for a longterm issue. And more importantly a mentality shift in the roman mindset. No longer were justice and casus belli and ideals the reason and the mentality of the romans, as it was during the republic. Profit and cost now became how rome would see its operations, a carthaginian mindset that is shared by Byzantium
@@mathiasbartl903 this is actually an interesting point to consider: since the emperors were always paranoid about their generals, it wasn't wise to afford them too many opportunities for glory. This careful mindset may have helped stop Roman expansionism alongside other, more practical concerns.
Well as a German I must said I am very sad that they not DID. I understand very well why they did not - the price seems not worth the cost. But I think for Germania/Germany If you compare the regions west/south of the border to the Empire with Germania Magna, than you could see that they have a much longer tradition of towns etc., which in some degree even survived the terrible results of the fall of the Empire. Imagine what would have been if the policy of urbanisation would (to some degree) come in effect in the rest of Germania west of the Elbe, too. The Romans had already begun to build towns, and over a few generations those very likely would have been populated by a mixture of former soldiers and their local wives, Germans who had served as auxilia and become Roman citizens, local civilians who lived from the army and from the slowly expanding industry. Surely the Empire would have been fallen too, maybe a few years later or sooner than in our reality, but the result of their influence in Germania Magna would have lasted at least to some degree for the dark centuries after the fall. We would have a complete different Germany in the middle ages and the modern times, much sooner urbanized and cultural more bound to the Roman culture and the other sucessors. The language would be more influenced by Latin etc... Well you would have a completely other land. And I do not think that would be a worse land, maybe even a much better one.
@@vladthelad4653 As I said, I think in the long term the areas would have benefitted if things like urbanization started many centuries befor they did in reality.
@@marcbartuschka6372 Well how much behind were Germany to France and England in the middle ages?? Not much or not at all and still Germany was not colonised by Rome. Germany still have cities that was created by Romans but many cities that was not created by the Romans became very important cities with great history. So it doesn't matter.
@@octodaddy4494 That is a question you could argue about. First and foremost it depends highly what you mean with "middle ages". Great parts of Germany (and mostly those parts who were part of former Germania Magna) in the 8th and 9th century (for example) were far behind France in the same time. The Empire of Charlemagne was expanding into German areas, but many of its core parts were former Roman areas - and those beyond that were surely not the best developed. So it DID make a difference for centuries. That in our modern world these differences vanished is true, but that does not mean that they were not there or were not important.
Payback is the key. You are right. Rome was an military and administration giant but an economic dwarf. It’s business model was not based on trade but on taxation and slave trade. Germany did not fit that model, Rome wanted to milk large empires with big economic and agricultural surpluses like Egypt.
As I live near the Limes (Black Forest) I learned it was simply because the dense Woodland. The Romans couldn't battle the Germanic tribes like they did with the other tribes across the western Rhine River. The Germanic tribes had the advantage of the enviorment and used it against the Romans, they simply did build a wall to cut off any raids or at least to lower the chances of raids.
No one wanted Germania. That's the only reason the "germanic" tribes could live there. If someone else wanted it, they would have taken it. It wasn't worth having.
My impression was that one valuable factor to Roman rule was the cultural similarity between most of the mediterran regions. They had religions that were compatible. They were used to Syncretism and able to reinterpret the other guy's religion as just a translation of their own. And as you said, Romans just eliminated the local kingpins and put their own at their places, allowing for a continuous rule with just the name plates on the door switched. It didn't work with the Germans, who didn't have the same fixed Pantheon, and especially, Germans would not consider a ruler a material representation of their most superior god. They had no temples where you just could give the main god the face of the Emperor. And they had no monetary system for trade and taxation as the Mediterrans had. (Interestingly, the syncretistic approach didn't work with the Jews either, as they also refused the idea of a ruler being the avatar of their god. And Christianity only was incorporated in the 4th century when the idea of the Divine right of a king materialized.)
Not realy true: Tuesday/ Mardi- Tiu/ Mars, Wednesday/Mercredi- Wodan (Odin)/Merkur ( Wodan was mistaken for Merkur, because he traveled to See things, he didn' t knew), Thursday/Jeudi- Thor ( Donar)/Jupiter- both could threw flashes of lightning, Friday/ Vendredi- Freia/ Venus- beautifull godesses.
Germania was poor it didn't had the grains of Haul, gold of Dacia, or trade of Egipt, this and cold climate didn't encourage a strong colonisation in Germania, and made Germania secondary as interest compared with other conquest. Diplomacy was the best solution.
Its funny to see how much pop culture affect people. Germania is always seen as a dark foggy and cold place but in reality Germany is a beautiful place with sun and not that cold. Have you also heard about the Roman warmth period? During the Roman age there was higher temperature than usual. Germany is not colder than other places that Rome conquered either like Britannia or Dacia. For the resources i don't know but i guess there is was much resources there.
@@nikolaspappas1282 Well, yes, my first thought as well. There are of course similarities. But that would mean that the American Empire just tried to „incorporate“ A. which as we all know is not true. In a sense, of course, the ancient Germans ( Germanics) were „ terrorists“ to the Romans.
There was quite literally barely any hands on American battles toward the end of the Afghanistan conflict. Sure the terrain was less than ideal but attrition was not even close to the main problem considering the U.S only ever used a fraction of a fraction of its military might in the region. It was very simple, your senile leader simply didn't want to risk a PR disaster of potentially losing American contractors after pulling out so he forced them to leave. No contractors means the barbars we have in charge can't maintain their shiny high-tech equipment which means they then prepare to surrender or escape or to profit by selling equipment.
If the arguments are that the Germanic peoples were too decentralized and the lands they inhabited were too sparsely populated, why did Claudius then choose to invade Great Britain? From what I know, it wasn't better in those regards than Germania.
Germanicus failed and didn't want to admit it. I think his cavalry was wiped out. Not only that but he lost infantry too and needed reinforcements. It was becoming well known that the Romans can't beat the Germans and other enemies were preparing to fight and provinces were preparing to rebel. If they continued sending troops there when another enemy attacked they wouldn't have enough troops to defend themselves. If a province rebelled they would not have enough troops to defeat the rebellion and would have lost the province. This would have lead to more provinces rebelling.
It's actually kind of weird why the Romans even bothered to conquer the territory. When they tried to do so, they still had so many more lucrative places to conquer and subdue such as Numidia, the Black Sea area, Dacia, Thrace. Why would they waste so much money, resources and manpower to subdue a poor and complicated area when they hadn't yet conquered all these very lucrative areas yet? So in the end they realized exactly that and changed priorities. It's like invading Afghanistan.
Really nice work. Now you just should practise a bit not to read a full stop at the end of a line, but where the full stop is. And don't forget the question marks ;)
I think the Varus disaster just revealed how tenuous Rome's hold on the region was. If Varus had survived then eventually some other setback or even just an emergency elsewhere in the empire would have likely caused the occupation to collapse. Rome was playing whack-a-mole on a shaky table, I think it's highly likely that it would have collapsed eventually.
Even if the massacre in the to the Teutoburg forest did not occur, the cost to Rome of maintaining the military in Germania and getting low, if any, ROI there would have eventually caused the Senate to rethink cost and gains.
It's so interesting to see how Rome conquered and expanded their territory. They didn't conquer just because they could, they wanted to get people to their level of "Romanization". Culture, infrastructures, games, cities... everything should have looked like Rome. That's what happened in many other provinces, like Britain, France, Spain, Northern africa and Eastern regions. Germany at the time was too far beyond, under developed, and didn't want to get into Rome's culture. Everytime they tried brute forcing, they succeded, but in the long way, the province would have been unstable and revolting, not exactly the way to keep a long term region in your empire. I think that's one of the greatest aspects of Roman Empire that only a few understand.
Rome probably could have done better trying to leverage Rome-friendly tribes (building roads and urban centers and opening trade, employing Roman legions in their defense, supplying with Roman goods, weapons and armor). However, history also shows that this can backfire badly (imagine legions of Roman armed German tribes using Roman tactics turning on Rome.) Not only that, but some of those tribes may not have cared to get that cushy with Rome, but instead just wanted to avoid conflict and large tributes. Also, to set up that kind of infrastructure could be insanely difficult and expensive, and as the video essentially states: for what gain? Ultimately, I would have drawn the border at the Rhine and called it a day. No need to get dragged into a Vietnam or Afghanistan-like conflict for no benefit.
But what if the Germans were all midgets? Or what if Rome had machine guns? Or what if Rome had just unloaded a shipload of bar soap on the banks of the Rhine, so that the Germans could understand what bathing was about? Maybe a week later, the Romans could drop off a shipload of shampoo? All of the women would move across the river, and the germans would have gone extinct.
Yeah, I think the social structure of Germania made it very difficult to accomplish the sort of victory the Romans normally went for. There were no overarching power centres they could usurp to control the region. And massacring one tribe didn't so much intimidate the rest as embolden them -- half of them were bitter enemies and were delighted to see their enemies destroyed, and the rest would view the freshly vacant land as an opportunity for expansion.
Well they were similar to the celts, so they would make a similar war effort, whit a genocidal objective. Pretty expensive and than you have to repopolate the region, whit added costs
It's the same everywhere. The Pilgrims fighting the Powhatan, didn't cause the Delaware to surrender. And fining the Catholic church didn't end child sodomy amongst the priests, did it?
Rome might have conquered Germania, but what would they have gained by that? There was no more defensible frontier on the other side. The shape of Asia was going to keep funneling nomads at the Empire until it broke, or it came up with gunpowder. There's no reason to think a few hundred more miles of forest would have changed anything in the long run.
In the long term it would have proven beneficial to the Empire. For starters you pacify an otherwise hostile people avoiding what would otherwise have been centuries of costly wars with no other solution. Next you shorten the border meaning you decrease the manpower requirements for the empire i.e. you can decrease military spending saving money in the long term. Finally you add another recruiting ground for the Empire which also helps with manpower problems. I have heard that Germany is actually fairly rich in ores but I don't know enough to comment on that
This makes sense logically from the perspective of the governing elite but from the perspective of the citizenry and lower level officials it would be a waste of money and resources that would greatly diminish the current regime. Not to mention that it would have to be a very longterm goal as Germany and its tribes are incredibly resilient.
Well the germans that would invade Italy and the rest of the empire were different from them, so this would had some buffer space, but would worth the Money? Remember Rome was spreed thin, and their biggest enemy was partia and then the sasanids
A very important factor, although sort of fallen out of favour in recent years, is simply the chaotic nature of Germanic tribes in the region. Wandering peoples were not a thing the Huns had magically triggered, it was normal in the region. Once you had pacified or allied a tribe one year, it could have moved on, been defeated by a rival is joined a new rebellion the next. Keeping up with this shifting situation where new, untamed tribes could emerge at any time, was basically impossible.
You fail to mention the primary factor, namely that Rome had expanded too far, meaning the extent of the empire was too great for a pre-industrial culture. I find this fairly obvious.
I could see it *maybe* being possible with an expanded senate and governance system, but simply no haha, Caesar made sure that wouldnt ever happen as well
@@crownedpleb9747 Never said that but it's was far from a wasteland and not any less inefficient than other regions that Rome conquered. A few million lived in Magna Germania and Rome had trade with many of them even Scandinavia, It was an civlization there not a wasteland. Charlmagne even conquered Germania. Rome could have done more but they choose not to and one reason is clearly that the Germanic people were powerful and often unruly but im not saying that is the only reason.
@@octodaddy4494 I'm sorry but saying that Magna Germania wasn't less inefficient than other regions is just insane. The La Tene culture of Gaul had complex social and religious institutions which could only arise from having a massive food surplus. They had coinage, some literacy, villages and oppida. At the time of Christ's birth, the Jastorf culture of Magna Germania had no coinage, no literacy, no specialized economic activity, low food surplus and no substantial settlements. And why are we bringing up Charlemagne? That's 800 years in the future!! Western Rome had been dead for hundreds of years by this point. Of course German civilization would have sprouted into something worthy after so long, especially having so much time to copy the Gauls and the Romans. Even then, Charlemagne's Saxon wars were less about the riches of Germany and more about punishment for their relentless raiding in his territory. Emperor Tiberius knew it and modern historians know it - Germany was worthless at the time.
People often forget that Germans still speak German because of this very thing. And since English people are German, same goes for them. And that would also mean Americans would be speaking a Latin language if our ancestors didn't stand their ground. And that'd mean the international language would've been a Latin language too.
*Rome fell victim to its own "immoderate greatness" as Edward Gibbon so eloquently put it.* As for what the Romans could have done differently, here is my two cents: Step 1) Don't yeet Julius Caesar. Step 2) Give Caesar a large army and send him over the Rhine into Germania. Step 3) Sit back, relax, and enjoy the wanton destruction and genocide.
@@theholyinquisition389 Nowhere in my game-plan does Caesar have a choice in the matter. But, yeah. The fact that Caesar noped Germania should have been a clue for Augustus.
Its ironic how the region that once strongly resisted Roman occupation and generally kept itself independent of Roman influence would in the next thousand years or so will become known as the "Holy Roman Empire", and regarded as the only legitimate successor of the Roman Empire by the Catholic Church.
tbf first holy roman empire come from frank empire which come from frank old roman fodetrari. it only after the sillyness of gravel suscession that the guy from german go "me rome now"
@@darthceasar3690 Didn't the Franconian/Carolingian empire come into existance out of the older Frankish kingdoms the Frankish tribes founded in Gaul after crossing the Rhine?
Germanic politicians in Rome also called themselves Consol, if you went and conquered a land like Japan for example, wouldn't you want to take on the name Emperor to add to your legitimacy? The Holy Rome Empire included Italy.
Yes,and to me seems that was really Charlemagne that put Rome in Europe after Diocletian moved the pole to Constantinopole.Rome was the mediterranean sea until the the holy Roman empire set Rome in Europe. After Charlemagne the city of Rome was unquestionably in Europe. A big mental shift . And Barbarossa was very proud of having his latin title,Imperator romanorum semper Augustus.
In short it's because the Roman army was overstretched after they conquered mainland Gaul and mainland Illyria. During the Cimbrian war the Romans lost multiple battles to the Germanic tribes. But despite the losses the Romans still had enough soldiers to defend the empire
Personally to conquer Germania. Rome needed to use cultural influence. Get the locals to see the benefits of cities. Give them aid to construction roads. Advise on how to better use the land. Over several generations transform the culture of the Germans to be more workable for Rome. + The land would be more ready for exploitation. Problem though is unifying a people like the Germanic into one province would not have ever worked well. Giving them a unified identity would have been terrible. A recipe for a revolt like those seen on the British isles. But several small groups that were instructed on how to build city power centers would have been wise. But we'll all these ideas are pie in the sky. The Germans needed to buy in. + When the enemy that tried to suppress you through military force suddenly turns a leaf and wants to give you gifts of knowledge? I expect at least for quite some time the Germans were quite skeptical. But eventually these power centers could likely be found. Problem is that as sometimes happens when you give your barbarian neighbors gifts they tend to get violent ideas on how to use those gifts. The fun piece of the vid is that how the Romans governed by sitting at the top and pulling off the tax revenue. That pretty much what the invaders did when the western Roman empire fell.
The Germanics were eventually Romanified. As the empire continued, they served in the military. They picked up Roman ways. And when Rome could no longer govern, the Germanics picked up where they left off.
I agree the Romans shouldn't have destroyed all the infrastructure they built up in Germania when many settlers began fleeing across the border back into Roman territory post Teutoburg Forest. I'm sure it would have been better in the long run had they left all the bathhouses, public latrines, amphitheaters and marvelous forums intact, as the Germanians who would enjoy such amenities may become more enticed into assimilating into Roman culture when considering the cultural and technological benefits people in the empire get to enjoy.
Roads were build primarily for military movement, much less for trade. Why would German's ever want roads that would make it far easier to move Roman Legions in their lands?
One thing I really wanna learn more about is the consolidation of Germania from this era to the early medieval period, how they urbanized and formed into the polities that would eventually become the many states of the HRE.
Rome may have failed to conquer Germania, but they succeeded in conquering my heart 🥰
by germanic steel the romans get conquered but by roman words arr germans moved
😂😂 thanks for making me chuckle
Perhaps in the end the real conquest was the friends we made along the way.
Once you use a Roman toilet sponge you can never go back. Long live the Republic.
@@obobobobobi long live the Empire!
Rome never conquered Parthia, (except briefly under Trajan), Scotland or Ireland either . Over extending the Empire to include territories that were a liability was never the Roman way. It is good to remember that the Germanic Tribes opposing Rome in the Fifth Century were different peoples than the Romans faced in the First Century. We think of Germany in today's terms as a certain group of people, a nationality sharing a common language, that was not the case in Roman times. Defending the Rhine and Danube was far easier than the north German plain and the bogs of the south Germany. Great Series Invicta!
Actually defending Elbe and Danube river frontier would have been easier. Mike Duncan explained this in an interesting way, that Augustus was so pissed off with Teutonberg because he thought the Romans should have been better defended with Germania west of Elbe as its provincial frontier.
They didn't have a common language but they still mostly understood each other in their mother tongue just like Scandinavians don't have a common language but they still mostly can get along in their native languages.
But the Germans, along with the Sarmatian peoples, posed a difficult military challenge at the height of the Roman Empire, with the various wars under Marcus Aurelius (and Commodus a little), from 166 to 182. Granted Rome was diverted by military conflict with the Parthians in the Middle East, as well as by debilitating pandemics.
So by the accounts of the Romans themselves, certain Germans (and Sarmatians), presented a serious threat about 150 years after Germanicus' campaigns, which is not bad. Maybe that alone validates the approaches adopted in diplomacy that the video reviews.
But then the Germans would be a big factor in catalyzing the Crisis of the Third Century, from warfare on the Rhine that led to Alexander Severus getting overthrown in AD 235, on through the appearance of the Goths (with one leader, Cniva, managing to kill a Roman Emperor in AD 250).
And it seems the Germans presented really serious threats, even an existential threat, from AD 234 - about 50 years after Commodus' peace (218 years after Germanicus had to call off his effort). And then the threat never really went away.
Events seem to suggest that defending the Danube was not easy after AD 166, and that it may have made sense for the Romans to try to advance the frontier to the Elbe and Bohemia (Marcus Aurelius supposedly was considering establishing provinces over what is now the Czech Republic and parts of Slovakia and Hungary, as Marcomannia and Sarmatia). After AD 240 it was maybe too late for the Romans.
@@michaeldunne338 The Germanic tribes did pose a continuing threat to the empire. Whether it was was an existential threat (any more so than, say, Parthia was) is a topic that historians will always discuss. The later (fourth and fifth century) Germanic invasions of the Empire across the Danube (the Goths) were more about the tribes wanting to enter the empire and settle. They could have, indeed, desired to, become Romanized and become productive citizens. Unfortunately a series of incompetent emperors totally screwed that up. In the latter stages of the Western Empire, the Romans were suffering from underpopulation, corruption, incompetence and a fragmentation of the Imperial system. The Roman cycle of catastrophe and recovery, finally ended in just catastrophe. You make some excellent points! Thanks
@@michaelporzio7384 I would say various tribes/groupings started representing something that looked like an existential threat in the Third Century, from 230s to early 270s. And they were closer to Italy, versus the Parthians, and later the Persians, representing a threat to the eastern Mediterranean, albeit including some of Rome's richer provinces. Now as an aside, the Persians in securing outright wins against large Roman armies, as well as forcing other Roman expeditions into expensive draws may have helped exacerbate an existential financial threat to Rome, in terms of having resources to rebuild after defeats (regenerate).
The Goths represented a significant part of that military problem for the Rome during the Third Century Crisis. Seems even if representative of oversized raiding the incursions were attriting Roman strength in the Balkans.
As for the fifth century, well you had the invasion of Radagaisus as well as the bursting of the Rhine frontier around 406, involving forces and people with different agendas than that of the Goths under Fritigern, Alaric, Ataulf, etc. (who entered Thrace, and won the battle of Adrianople). Some may have wanted similar goals - a means of existence in the Roman world, with an accommodation with Rome - like say the Franks, but details are sketchy and others seem more intent on classic invasion and/or destructive raiding on a big scale.
If Rome would have known that the Harz was packed with gold, silver, copper and lead and the south (Upper Palatinate) was rich in iron ore the history would have been different.
Magna Germania was not that sparsely populated as people today often think. There were millions of germanic people (that's why they were able to replace the killed warrios so easily). In small hamlets but lots of those. This manpower plus the mineral riches might have been the small extra needed for the Roman Empire to survive.
Well said. Not economical to conquer them because of resistance and lack of knowledge of the various regions.
Since they had large isolated families and were very tribal in their loyalty, killing one member meant that you would have pissed off everyone and this perpetually brought up entire generations that hated the Romans.
"Magna Germania was not that sparsely populated as people today often think." I believe it largely depends on the region. To my knowledge the North Sea coast wasn't that populated because of the dangers the sea posed with the not yet existing sea defenses.
This entire series has been fantastic.
🍿
I second this motion.
I third this motion
This series and the channel at large are spectacular in presentation and content.
The pictures of Romans as light skinned is Germanic propoganda and it's going to get you in trouble again
If you've ever been to southern/Western Germany, particularly the Schönbuch or Schwarzwald, you can see how unbelievably dense & tall the forest is - very Jungle-like, with 60ft trees, bushes the size of your car, & grass taller than your head. Even though today much of the land has been repurposed for farming, it is easy to see how the forest, combined with the incredibly steep hilly landscape, made it near impossible to conquer and hold (much like rome's repeated failures in scotland).
The smartest strategy would have been to just leave the border the Rhine and not let your ego get the best of you. It is a great natural border creating a wide fence from Switzerland to the marshlands in southern holland. Rome was already stretched thin, it is much easier to monitor & communicate along the banks of a giant river, than to cross it & be surrounded by dense forest in hostile territory with no great supply method and difficult communication methods.
In other words - not worth it. Wasting countless gold & lives in one of the few areas of your empire you actually have a decent natural border is incredibly dumb. Such is the hubris of the ancients however.
in other words - if they could conquer Germania - then it would be worth it,
but they could not, so it's not worth it?)
"not worth it" because of campaign's failure,
not campaign's failure because of "not worth it".
@@sidjoosin6549 no... His point is even if you conquer it, the territory makes it incredibly hard to hold. Guerilla warfare, ambushes etc would make it untenable.
May as well use the natural barrier and use your resources/troops elsewhere.
Arguably not worth the investment and blood anyway, as the Germanic tribes were not hoarding resources like the Aztecs had for the conquistadores
@@Keeno3331 considering surprising geography - Romans knew about forests, hills, inhabitants, Rhein and snow before campaign, even Caesar crossed Rhein with army, walk through forests to hills, burned some villages, observed that weather, and wrote everything down in "Notes on Gallic wars".
Let put it another way - is there any possible theoretical situation of "Rome attacked and defeated", as possibility or there are only "Rome won" and "Rome lost interest" possibilities? by what way Germanic tribes should beat Romans, to say "Rome invaded and lost" ? if "invader fled" is not counted as defender's victory, what could? I am not saying even that result of centuries long clash - occupation of Gallia, Britannia, Spain, North Africa including Carthage, Italy including Rome - and Germanic kingdoms in ruins of Romans provinces. We always can say "Invader lost interest", ex. - Ottomans didn't took Vienna and occupy Austria because it become not worth - mud, walls, rain, then Polish cavalry charging, - it become not worth ofcourse.
Also many underestimate real wealth of "barbarians", but archeology shows us items from Germania at least not behind Roman not technologically and not aesteically, and from pre-Roman Gallia and, especially, Britania - superior, some swords and helmets are jewelry by all standarts, and quality of blades better. And according to Rome itself - the biggest amount of loot in Rome's hystory they gained not from Carthage, not Syria or Egypt (and all 3 was wealthier than Rome according to Romans), but from barbaric Dacia.
@@sidjoosin6549 I wouldn't call Dacia "barbaric". It was regarded as such by many contemporary sources but then again they considered most "non-Roman, non-Greek" countries barbaric. Modern historians and archeologists claim Dacia to be pretty advanced. Now to the quality of German production, I think you are extrapolating the BEST creations of the ancient Germanic tribes discovered by the modern scientists to the overall quality of their products. It's a pretty long stretch. Of course Romans were able to produce much more advanced pieces of equipment/jewelry/technology, there can't be any doubt there.
@@Henry_the_Eighth_ I wouldn't call anyone "barbaric", yet seems Greeks called any Indo-European folk except themselves - "barbaroi". even Persians not an exception.
And yes, I am not talking who could produce 100 000 decent kits of armour or weapons per year, (tribes was lacking of everything of course) I am talking about technological level, level of sophistication in production, which can be demonstrated by best examples, and I don't think Romans hade same level of metalworking as Gauls or Britain, yet Roman glass working was second to none
4:00 The problems started at Step 3:
3. No clear power center
4. Opposition can not be completely defeated
5. No place to install governors
6. No way to extract profits
Lack of power centers ripped up the entire playbook. Rome would have had to build powercenters, similar to what they did in Britain. But even in the "easier" Britain, they got exhausted eventually.
A good tactic could have been to encourace the forming of germanic cities close to the roman border and to take them over once they were suffiencently grown, repeat this and slowly but continously expand their territory and also 'civilise' germania to make it more profitable. Same goes for the british isles once they had settled
@@timmlanghals154 the Romans actually did this west of the Rhine in places that are now Trier, Bonn, Cologne, etc. It just wasn’t worth the effort and never safe and stable enough to continue.
@@timmlanghals154 Wrong. Cities are founded around economies, not because there is a border. Stay awake in class.
@@teutonalex It never paid off. "Germania" was a swampy shithole.
I remember before reading into it, my instinctive layman theory was simply the geographical argument. Heavy, dense woodland, bogs and marshes, asymmetrical hills and mountains. The logistics must've been a nightmare, maneuvering properly against its indigenous people even more so. That, and the Germanic people more so than others had a uniquely fierce fighting spirit, much like the Picts who drew Rome's territorial line in Britain below their land. Of course there's always more nuance, and this video explained it superbly as always.
Also it wasn't a very profitable land (for the tech that the Romans had)
Everything said about Germania in terms of geography and culture could be said about Gaul and Britannia. The Germans were smart and a little bit lucky at Teutoborg, which was essentially one gigantic ambush. Once they fought the Romans in pitched battles, they got slaughtered just like everyone else. Confronting the Romans in pitched battles were tried by the Gauls and they got destroyed. And yes the Gauls had much more interaction with the Romans before they were conquered by Caesar.
The Romans wisely opted for mostly soft power, but they needed their revenge wars in order to restore their reputation among other provinces, as an enemy which it costs more to revolt against than to obey.
Weirdly enough the more fierce the fighting was, the less rich the people were. ^^
@@SAarumDoK affluent people have more to loose. They are also more often located in cities. Cities have a known location and their populations can't easily be relocated.
Not wanting to offend, but that is a naive argument. You know how warrior-like tribes in the Iberian peninsula were or how rough the Iberian landscape is? It took Roman more than 200 hundred years to fully pacify the province of Hispania. I believe that was the longest of any of Rome’s provinces to be ‘pacified’. Rebellion after rebellion Rome thought it had finally conquered the peninsula only to have another rebellion suddenly sprung up and ‘kick them’ out for another generation. As the video points out, biggest difference between Rome’s invasion of Hispania and Germania was simply the amount of resources it (Rome) had when confronting each of these regions; with Hispania it had plenty to spare, with Germania it didn’t.
If I remember correctly, Augustus once said that such conquest would be too costly in economic means because it would require huge investments which Rome could not afford at this moment.
Yeah, it would basically be a huge resource drain to "Roman"-ify Germania, and for what benefit? Just to say you did it?
@UCZqOmHLQuBIiRt_8fngb-xQ You've got a bunch of soldiers and only a finite amount of "Desirable" territories/land with other areas under treaties/offering taxes. Do you A. order them to sit on their hands. B. Try to give them some crappy land in a conquered province that likely will hate their guts for generations. Or C. order them to just keep the ball rolling and raid neighboring territories at mostly their expense.
The question really is when you have an iron age military industrial complex but no real standing armies/cities to crush and pillage resulting in a net loss what do you do? Often times this results in civil war.
@@shorewall I mean, that’s basically what the Romans did with Britannia… They had tin, but was there really that much else?
Yet Augustus did back a series of campaigns against various German territories, notably those of Nero Claudius Drusus. I would not be surprised if he adopted that view though after AD 9, until his death in AD 14, following both the costly suppression of the revolts in the Balkans and loss of three legions by Varus in Germany.
Huge cost for very little reward. The classic.
It's worth remembering that the 'Limes' were east of the Rhine, so Rome did establish a successful border against Germanic incursion. Germania just wasn't worth the candle economically so there was no point in pushing further. As for Britannia, it was relatively easy to control with client kingdoms, despite Boudicca's brief kickback against the Romans.
They couldn't handle Germania militarily either. As for Britannia, there weren't any client kings. Boudicca wasn't the only one that mauled the Romans.
Britain was a bit of an expensive venture too though, with a set of campaigns spanning about 40 years, running from 43 AD to 84 AD (or to maybe 79AD, when Agricola moved against the Brigantes). And the Brigantes and Picts and/or other peoples remained a thorn in the side of the Romans off and on afterwards.
Maybe the Romans kept at it because they sensed Britain was an island? Although Agricola supposedly was the first to have a fleet circumnavigate the island in the early 80sAD, maybe others had done something similarly earlier on? ... And maybe Britain offered some economic benefits, like exploitation of tin and lead, to make the effort appear worthwhile?
@@bobfg3130 Gotta disagree. Rome at this point was virtually unbeatable if led by a general worth his weight. IE: Germanicus rather unimaginative campaigns even brought victories. As for Boudicca, she ransacked a couple Roman towns, ambushed a small Roman force and then was promptly handed her ass in a battle where she not only out numbered them *vastly* but had the moral high ground. Simply put, the only reason Germany wasnt conquered was because of *economics.*
@@CrazyNikel
You have a very interesting outlook on history. How many generals had gone into Germanic territory and lost? Are we to assume that ALL of them were just inefficient generals? I'm honestly not sure what to make of your stance on Boudicca.
@@CrazyNikel
No, you don't have to. You still do it and you're wrong. Rome was not unbeatable by a general worth his weight. You know who would be unbeatable by a general worth his weight? The Germans. The gains that Germamicus were lost just as fast as he made them. For every victory Germanicus had, he had at least one defeat. As for Bouddica, she didn't have much of an army, nice try. Boudicca wasn't the only issue Romans had in Britannia. Simply put, Rome was weak. You only had to find the weak spot.
Simply put, you don't know what you're talking about.
Simply put the main reason why Rome couldn't conquer Germania was because it didn't have the military power.
*Could* Rome have conquered Germanía? I mean, sure, it *could* have. Dump enough time, treasure, and troops into the meat grinder, and eventually something will break. *Should* it have? Probably not. What would have been the point? Economically, Germany was poor and difficult to govern; turning it into a profitable province would have been prohibitively expensive, if possible at all. Strategically, subduing the German tribes might have shortened the border, but it also would have brought the Romans into contact with what lay beyond: the Slavs, the Goths, or, worse yet, steppe tribes of horse archers. At best, the Empire has swapped one enemy for another, and placed far greater strain on its logistical system. At worst…well…remember what Attila did to Rome in the 400s A.D., or the Pechenegs, Cumans, and Turks to the Eastern Empire? Imagine the Empire facing that in its early days. Not a pleasant thought.
TL;DR there was almost no tangible benefit to staying in Germanía, and a whole host of reasons to quit while ahead. Leaving might be humiliating, but it was sensible.
No, it couldn't have. What will break is Rome.
Dont forget Rome fought these kind of enemies all the time, like Parthia. And completely dominated them way more often than not. The problem was that they had relied on the germanic tribes to basically protect romes borders from what lies beyond. And with all the crisises going on the economy did not survive the migrations.
Really stagnation from corruption lead to romes fall. When you stop expanding you give others the opportunity to rise up.
Its why big corporations operate at a loss if it means they can drive out smaller competitors.
@@bobfg3130 Dude you REALLY made it your job to defend the germanic tribes here. Let me tell you this though - No, Rome probably could not have conquered a united Germania. Also the germanic tribes were very unruly and difficult to govern. Those facts were not pure advantages though - The unruliness of the tribes in combination with the tendency to break alliances and treaties ultimately prove to be their own undoing, since not a single tribe that defeated Varus at Teutoburg was alive or existent a couple of generations later. They all got killed off by other tribes.
IF Germania was a worthy province to hold, Rome could have easily swept in at one of the multiple times the tribes were at war and annihilating each other. It just simply did not - Mostly because ressources and manpower were needed elsewhere since the empire was already overstretched at that point. But like other people have said: Germanicus was a rather sub par General and even he managed to devastate the germanic coalition in open field battles. Imagine if Tiberius never went back to Rome a couple of years earlier...
@@kazam3527
No dude, I'm just pointing out that Rome is massively overrated.
If there are enough Romans...the tribes will unite.
Germania was a province worth holding. You honestly think that Rome didn't try to sweep in when the tribes were at war with eachother? 😆 Pal, you're not coming up with anything new here. This is a strategy that has been used since the dawn of humanity. This strategy has been used before times that were ancient to the Romans.
It did not because it would have lost all the men they would have sent in there, not because they needed soldiers somewhere else.
Yes, other ignorant people have said that....and you want to show your ignorance too. Germanicus was a pretty good general. As for Tiberius, the guy never managed to achieve anything. Germanicus might have devastated the Germans in open field but the Germans devastated the Romans lead by BOTH Germanicus and Tiberius in open field. Why do you think they had so many losses?
@@bobfg3130 If Rome was so weak, how did they conquer Gaul??? Rome could have conquered Germania, but unlike Gaul it was poor with terrain that was horrible. But it was conquerable.
I imagine Germania as a heavily forested land with fierce indigenous peoples without a central government. Difficult to map, with cold and mountaineous terrain. As seen in the video, no developed roads, prior trade relations with Rome (as the Gauls) and no urban infrastructure that could be adapted or use by the romans. It was colonization as the modern sense, difficult to implement. It was like the Romans were facing native americans with iron weapons. To compare europeans (powder technologies and horses) in the 16th century conquering native americans is not the same as comparing Romans (Iron Age) with german tribes (Iron age). Their technological differences were not so great. The romans had superior logistics, command, organization and training. But to face iron Age tribes in their own territory, with guerrilla warfare, should be a nightmare.
Not only that, but their populations were not THAT different in the effective force that could be applied. Rome could not send 100% of it's legions as shown in the video, so it'd always have to be fighting without full force, against a people who could muster every last man, woman, and child to fight, and DID.
@@benemuel3916 when did the german tribes have women and children fight the Romans?
Not only that, the roman described the Germanic tribesmen as much taller and stronger than the Romans, so yes fighting a big heavy man that have been fighting all his life in his own terrain was probably hell. I'm North Germanic myself so ofc im on the germanic side. But I have to give it to the Romans, they were great men and very good soldiers
More like, imagine a swamp populated by barbarians who eat horses rather than rides them. What is there to conquer? They are already slaves to backwardness.
I think that even if Rome had conquered Germania, it would have proven to be such a volatile province that it probably would have been more trouble than it was worth.
Not to mention that it would have collapsed eventually anyways due to political and economical so it would have been all for nothing. Ambition, greed and death is what eventually killed Roman empire.
I dont know about that. On on hand the province of hispania, which took some 200 year to fully conquer had, un the height of empire was so peaceful and secure it only need half a legion to garrison it. On the other hand Britinnia need 15,000 or more at all times, supplied from legion drawn from other places, (include spain), just to keep the peace.
As Germania would had became weathy enough to worth conquering, the question changes. If the area become pacified enough for the small garrison to handle rebels and guard the frontier, then it would worth keeping.
Or like Britian be abandon at first. opportunity....
That's what the Romans said about the place. It's also what I discovered about pixel Germania while playing Europa Barbarorum as the Romans. There's almost no infrastructure or any other sort of economically meaningful capital accumulation there, and the locals are warlike and really don't take kindly to your being in their turf. Trying to conquer Germania in that game meant fighting war constantly, which is a drain on finances, while also having to plow huge sums of money into developing the region's economy, all of which comes at the expense of using those resources to more productive ends elsewhere.
@@woaddragon Hispania had lots of mineral wealth, particularly relatively easily accessible metal ores like silver, that made the cost of conquering it worth paying, especially since the infrastructure investment needed to extract it in many instances had already been made by the Carthaginians and the native Celtiberians.
@@JackieWelles "Ambition, greed and death is what eventually killed Roman empire". Wrong. It was sustained mass migration into the Roman Empire that hollowed it out and undermined the core principles that allowed it to become a great power in the first place - exactly like is what is happening today in 'the west'.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Nice video as usual. It was a very good idea to point out the differences between Gaul and Germania. While Caesar had to make sieges like Alesia or Avaricum. We never heard anything like that in Germania
The Gauls had settelmente and could write they were way more advanced and united…Vercingetorix, there was not much to gain in Germania.And there was not unity,not a common language not big settlements.Simply very many tribes.
Gaul was more advanced than England, Germania,Continental eastern Europe .
And there where Asterix and Obelix
@@nazarenoorefice2104 love the part Asterix and Obelix
@@sebastienraymond9534 Well Caesar committed a real terrible genocide in Gaul …unlike inflating a nobody like Arminius for political propaganda Uderzo tried to create a nice fantasy far away from the cruelty of the real story the sad historic materialism.
Way more enticing than the de bello Gallico written by Caesar very down to earth . By the way Tacitus who wrote De situs Germanorum was born in Gaul .That could have been the right book for the German political propaganda . Very kind with the German tribes and incredibly antisemitic.
@@nazarenoorefice2104 loll first of all Caesar was a master of propaganda and his bello gallico was a masterpiece in latin culture. Even his bitter enemy Cicero who was the best orator and writer of his time praise Caesar style . There is no way Caesar could have make a genocide.And about Asterix and Obelix if i am right it was a metaphor to boost the french resistance under nazi occupation.
@@sebastienraymond9534 A genocide intending that he probably eliminated more tham a million gauls.Let s say enemies.I don t think he wanted to eradicate a race.Romans were nor racists but they did not like barbarians,Gauls were not barbarians
The de bello gallico was easy to understand but i never liked it ,minimalist . Like a logbook.Facts are properly understandable but with no ornaments and with simple philosophical remarks.
Latin were very wise but our taste evolved.Especially the sense of humor ,latin jokes are very elementary.Life was simple.
Caesar was an incredible general. The month July come from Julius,Kaiser from Caesar.
And furthermore a clever politician.I didn t like the the bello Gallico probably because i had to read it at school.
Bad memories🙃
very interesting video, i live the Netherlands (just inside Germania on the map on 15:23 ) my village was a farmers town since the bronze age. with earth walls to keep out boar. i just did my daily hike and passed one such wall and a grave hill. (tumulus) they're still visible. i wonder how daily life looked like...
Wow, that’s pretty cool! I wonder how people spoke with each other
Great video. I had often wondered why Gaul was conquered but not Germania. Yeah it makes sense if Rome was having supply and man power shortages, the economic value was so low and cost high, it seems irrational to keep fighting when diplomacy proved so effective. I wonder if Rome had exercised this approach more often if it might have survived as the issue of being overstretched seems quite apparent, you mention the value of Gaul, but do you think it was in the long run, alongside Britannia worth all the resources they consumed and would Rome have been better served taking similar diplomatic actions there also?
You could argue that the lands of Gaul, France today, are some of the best in Europe, in terms of holistic utility. Open farmland, plenty of rivers, access to the Atlantic and Mediterranean. After Rome, France was always a power player, so I think it was worth it to take it. Plus, it had the effect of securing the Roman border.
Britain doesn't make sense for me, because it is so far, and divided from Europe. Heck, the northwest of Spain took a lot to fully pacify. The Romans could have taken the Mediterranean coast, and use soft power on the rest. But generally, I believe that the Romans conquered everything it made sense to conquer.
Gaul had centers of powers the romans can conquer i.e. towns and cities. Germania was different. Its all villages scattered throughout forests.
Gaul and the Celts had attacked Rome again and again. Rome was just fighting back against bullies so did the Greeks they attacked Rome with the Phyrrhic wars.
With the Germans it was completely unjustified war of conquest.
It was holly Roman empire aka medieval Rome that conquered the German tribes.
@@obobobobobi nope, the holy roman empire were the germans themselves. The byzantines were the medieval romans.
@@obobobobobi The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was just "roman", because of fear of the apocalypse in bible texts "when the third empire fall, than xyz"
Thank you Germanic folks for you’re lovely Jager Meister 👌🏻
What about Hitler? The biggest cable T.V. star of all time.
Germanian soil was too heavy to be productive before the invention of better plows and harness, which only happened in the Middle Ages. That's why it was populated by small scattered village forts in the endless forests.
In Roman times it would make much more sense to complete the conquest of Dacia and Pannonia, and establish safe borders on Carpathian Mountains. The soil there was much easier to cultivate and thus civilize the province and reap benefits (food, wine, taxes, manpower) in reasonable time-scale. Such productive and defensive province would improve Roman demographic and economic power, and maybe make the wars in Germania more manageable.
Also a significant chunk of the population are enslaved in Rome. A more freer society would make colonization much easier.
A poor freeman will be much more eager to colonize these lands than a Roman of means. who doesn't want to waste his slaves in Germania when they can be in sicily making him easy money.
Correct.
@@joeywheelerii9136 Correct.
2 millennia later we are still learning from the lives of these people. Never ceases to amaze me!
Did they want Germania or did they want to beat down their neighbors so they weren't strong enough to raid roman towns?
Amazing series, I would say the only way Rome could hold the region was to develop better ships that could handle the North Sea waters and to make a series of costal forts and colonies to take advantage of trade opportunities. Else I would say not worth it going into the interior.
I think the concept of using diplomacy to play off internal power struggles was the only way to go, and instead of trying to have a huge "victory" to score points at home settle it one bit at a time. Then again, the reluctance of Emperors to put more than several legions under one commander for fear of revolt hampered things too.
Did you have a point?
Empire must pay for empire. Rome - or any of the other expansionist countries throughout history - was quite willing to conquer and annex regions that would repay the effort. For Rome, this included Gaul, Hispania, the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and north Africa. Southern Britannia was pretty much a break-even situation; northern Britannia (present-day Scotland) was definitely not worth the cost of conquest. Similarly, the region of Germania held no resources that would have repaid its conquest and incorporation into the Empire. As other commenters have noted, to conquer or not to conquer is primarily an economic consideration.
The thing is, it wasn't known at the time of the various protracted conquests that half of Hispania (northern coast and Basque areas, northern Portugal, Galicia, the Pyrenees), or a huge swath of the Balkans/Danube valley region (modern day Bosnia, Serbia, western Hungary and Austria) would pay for itself. But, the Romans invested substantial forces repeatedly at great cost, over time.
Same to a lesser degree with the Alps region, but that mountain range held obvious strategic value to an Italy that had witnessed prospects of Celtic/Germanic invasion in the past.
Nice alias by the way (would like to see a representation of a canine interpretation of Schroedinger's thought experiment).
Correct.
The south, southwest, and west of modern-day Germany were part of the Roman Empire, the rest was not. I addition, the region the Romans referred to as Germania included modern-day Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, too. Thus some parts of Germania were a Roman Province. Anyway, the influence of the Romans still was felt further north and east than their actual borders.
I think the Romans should have found somewhere near the middle of all the tribes and built them a major city, by offering them a major city it would help create a centralized power in the region, which could eventually be an ally or used to change thier culture. Naturally chieftain would fight for that city and a head would rise leading to a clear and strategically more recognizable enemy that they are aware of, on how to conquer. It would take a few generations but it would help set a hub for germania to focus on.
The successors of Alexander The Great learned the hard way, that you can't just build a city anywhere you please and expect it to function, much less govern an entire region.
Cities have to be supported by a huge rural base that ensures a steady supply of food and resources as well as manpower. What most people seem to forget is, that until modern times the living conditions of a city are such, that the population is very seldom sustainable and is often entirely dependant on immigration to replenish itself and grow. That's the reason why Rome itself shrank so drastically during the early Middle Ages; not because people moved away but simply because people stopped moving into Rome.
A huge city in the middle of Germania would not last. There would be no stable rural community willing (or able) to support the city. The first time the city was taken by a rival king, it would be plundered of anything of value (especially food) and the population left to starve. In parctical terms the Romans would need to pour huge resources into sustaining such a city, if it was to have any chance at all. They did that with the Roman towns in the much more peaceful and developed Britain, and in the end that proved to not really be woth it either.
Also: It is very doubtful, that a city out in the middle of nowhere would even result in the region becoming better organized or centralized. A city is only really valuable as a center of administration, because it can support an administrative class of people. Otherwise there is little benefit to governing from one big center - especially in ancient societies. This is why medieval Europe was so decentralized.
All-in-all I don't think this would work at all, and it would likely be an even worse drain on manpower and resouces than pouring even more legions into Germania would.
Lol I don’t think Germans 2000 odd years ago really wanted to be colonized by Rome… neither did the Gauls or anyone else… in any case it’s nice to see that the end result was the fall of this evil empire
When you become an emperor, feel free to go ahead and try that.
I'm so glad this was covered, I'm tired of fighting with people in the comments about the extent of Roman infrastructure across the Rhine. Even though they failed and didn't properly adapt to the region, they were there for quite some time. As usual, great video.
The Romans didn't "fail" in "Germania". They thoroughly destroyed every "germanic" tribe they fought. They gathered up all the widows and daughters and then went back home to Rome to orgy.
Love the series, as a German history nerd this conflict has always been fascinating to me. I do think Rome could have been successful, but I believe it would have either taken massive resources (which wouldn't have been worth it for Rome) or an entirely different approach. Seeing as how their later strategy of projection of soft power and romanization (take the Ubii for example) worked incredibly well I do think Rome could have slowly romanized much of Germania through slow diplomatic efforts, but that obviously wasn't Rome's Modus operandi.
The soft power approach, while it made sense, took time and didn’t result in triumphs for generals who hoped to become emporers in their lifetime.
As the video already discussed, Rome decided that a soft power projection was far more profitable than a hard invasion.
And the results proved that they actually made the right choice.
Yes because the Germans raided Gaul for centuries and eventually conquered most of the empire. Definitely the right choice
@@rickrozen2341 They weren't "Germans". "Germany" didn't become a country until the late 1800's.....A.D.
Awesome stuff. Would love to see a similar series on Rome's expeditions into (and partial conquest of) Caledonia
Forgot to mention the 4 legions permanently stationed in Britain. Rome had a choice Germany or Britain.
I mean Britain was alot more centralized politically, and Rome was able to engage in its politics so I guess it was the obvious answer despite its geographic difficulties compared to Germania.
@@heptex4785 Britain could be supplied by ship. Germania was just a swampy shithole.
Always loving your videos! There's just one detail that would be awesome to see, and that would be more accurate maps of the Netherlands. There's quite a lot of land on your maps that didn't exist back then.
It's not so relevant for the content of your videos but it would be so cool for this random Dutchy to see it historically accurate :)
Why don't you make your own? It would probably be better because you care more.
One of the best video on the subject i ever seen, congrats!
It should be noted that Germania wasn't a massive farmland back then like it is now. The terrain was harsh, marked with bogs and forests. Like the gauls had been the danger beyond when the Italian peoples were conquered, so were the germans the danger beyond the gauls. Beyond the Germans would be the Norsemen and the Danes to the north, and Slavs to the east. Beyond the Slavs were then the steppe tribes.
Germania would be hard to conquer, quick to revolt, and would require massive investments into infrastucture before anyone could gain anything out of it. And after all that, there's just something worse beyond.
Agree. Always thought of Germania as a buffer that could deal with the external "danger beyond". Also the contrast from the Roman Empire directly into let's say the steppe tribes would be quite stark - instead better have a gradual conglomerate of more similar germanic tribes in between.
you have to ask, was it worth it not to do it? It clearly backfired when the germans decided migrating was easier than fighting of enemies for rome.
@@cc0767 Good question. IMHO, politics brought Rome down, not unused potential. Even if Rome could industrialize I’m sure some politics would have stopped that as well. Maybe it was just too big for it’s time and surroundings.
Wow. It sounds like you know about maps. How fun!
I wish that the movie 'Gladiator' started with a caption explaining the Marcommanni invasion and the reason for the harsh Roman retaliatory counterinvasion north of the Danube... I think 'The Decline of the Roman Empire' 40 years before was better in explaining Aurelius' attempts to annex Marcommanni & Quadi lands.
If only Marcus never got a son and adopted Pertinax...
Both presumptions are wrong.
The reason Rome was never able to conquer Germania is primarily because that the germanic tribes were strong enough to defend their lands that went against typical Roman warfare. The tribes were never capable of beating time in a pitch battle in the 1st century, and since only 5 tribes under Arminius proved to suffer only light defeats against Germanicus, it’s clear that Germany would have been conquered if Rome was capable of it. But the romans were not, germania was the equivalent of America’s Vietnam, would they have been powerful enough to defeat them? Most likely yes, but the terrain, guerilla warfare and tough resistance proved they couldn’t last an assault.
Well the Romans tried to use the sword.
They should have sent the Augures or the Pontofices first, then at the end of the day the Germans would have forgotten Valhalla and they would have gotten the land.
Oh wait. That did happen. Only 500 years later, another 500 for the rest of the known world and another 500 for the rest of it.
Awesome piece for tomorrow's travel to work!
Awesome video! One small mistake I see in almost all maps. The border (Limes) was the old course of the Rhine river. That river flows much further north. The river flowed into the sea 10 km above nowadays The Hague. The city Utrecht was once the place of a fort on the Limes.
Probably the same reason the Spanish integrated the central Mexico valley and not the South Western US. Spanish, or better said Catholic civilization was brought to remote regions by the Church, hence why from Mexican jungles to the AZ desert, the natives are not mestizo (mixed Spanish ancestry) as celibate priests don't exactly impact the gene pool. An empire conquering another empire, say Alexander in Persia or Rome in the hellenistic era, is a change in management over existing infrastructure and administration. For the Spanish, they killed the priest class, married into the landed nobility and just like that, the Aztec empire was now a part of the psuedo Diocletianic Roman mercantilist model of the Spanish empire. The Celts were somewhere between the village dwelling Germans and the city dwelling Mediterraneans, and thus it took decades to civilize them, but it was doable. Germania at this time was not a land of dozens of cities or hundreds of towns, but a land of thoasands of villages. By comparison, I think the Gauls and the coin minting chariot riding Britons were alot easier to integrate into a civilization via a civic nationalist ethic; FFS, the Gauls had senators by the time Ceasar got back to Rome, where as the Cheruski princes had a 50% treason rate.
Funny enough, i was going to mention the similarities between this and the British conquest of the US. The tribes they faced were spread out confederations with little large scale oversight. It took the Brits quite some time to actually establish a foot hold, and further push west to the point of establishing the 13 colonies. And they had the advantage of plagues killing off many of the natives for them, and a large technological advantage over them. But from the time that Jamestown and Plymouth were established until a small area was self sufficient enough to rise up in revolt, it took over 100 years and a lot of resources, and a ton of time for resources to be sent back to England. The Romans could have done much the same in Germania, but the tribes were incredibly fierce and would have fought the whole way, the Romans didnt have a significant tech advantage or a plague to wipe out the Germanic peoples for them, and didnt have the time or resources to spend to take it over and turn it into a profitable province, especially after a costly civil war, enemies at the gates in many regions, revolts, and more profitable areas to conquer.
Hey are you ever going to continue the what if Julius Caesar was never assassinated series?
I know I've seen it I was just seeing if Invicta would do their version I also recommend checking out ripped lincoln and whatifalthist for more alternate history.
He will never complete it
@Leo the British-Filipino Yeah but his fan base is pretty cancerous. Like some dude on there was trying to explain to me why the apartheid was good an justified.
@@unclesam5230 Never say never ;)
I really hope so, by now there are a dozen channels with roman history and they basically repeat each others content over and over, the what if series was something unique.
Another amazing episode. Thank you for your thorough work.
This video is a masterpiece...
It took centuries to subdue and Romanize Iberia bit by bit. So it certainly wouldn't have been impossible to do the same with Germania if that had been a priority.
Wasn't worth it.
Turns out keeping them divided and trading with favoured tribes works far better.
That was until they were conquered by other more ferocious tribes in the east and began chipping away at the border, just as the empire itself was in terminal decline and faced unrest and civil wars.
Until the 230s AD, and maybe earlier, say in Marcus Aurelius' time, around AD 166. For a number of reasons various Germanic groups (maybe including others, like various Sarmatian peoples) felt inclined to have a go with the Romans when Rome still held substantial resources and power. Now maybe they were being opportunistic, and maybe some invasions really represented supersized raids of mega scale (for the second and third centuries) but something changed in Germania and on the Danube, and Rome face serious military threats/difficulties.
Appreciate the shout-out to the Durant's. Love their history series.
What a fantastic video. Great job!!
I think Gaul as a province is the exception. Just look at the shape of Roman Empire? It was the empire of the coastal areas of the Mediterranean, the med was the logistical highway that made it all possible.
The same can be said about Spain. Both Spain and Gaul had large interiors not part of the Mediterranean. But both still had large parts that were. And rivers that allowed for easy transport into their deep interior. And in the end how do you protect the Mediterranean coastal parts from attacks from the deep interior? That's why they established the borders on the Rhine and Danube. Only Britannia is truly not part of the Roman Mediterranean world.
I disagree, I think it makes sense to conquer these inland parts, because of their rich farmland and providing better frontiers. I think that it's way hard to conquer and actually maintain these bodies of land as provinces, and the Romans were super lucky (or the gauls/spaniards were unlucky) to have Caesar.
And Varus was hardly a genius, even if he was deliberately framed as an incompetent superidiot (which I think he probably was), he almost certainly wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.
@@chaptermasterpedrokantor1623 You protect the Mediterranean coast by being able to transport large armies there quickly by sea. And then supplying your large professional armies by sea.
As for Spaiin, large part of it is accessible by sea. It is simply part of Mediterranean world, always has been. Saying that Spain and Germany are equally not mediterranean is, uhu, not a very good argument.
@@Realtimehammer Germany did not have rich farmland until the Carruca plough was developed in the 7th and 8th centuries, making the heavy clay soils of the central European plain fertile. That Germany looks like a nice, rich and fertile place now is due to the hard work of the Germans. It did not look like that in the beginning of the 1st century.
@@martinan22 true, I'm just saying, if it wasn't for Caesar, Spain and Gaul would've proved much much harder to pacify and it is very possible the Romans wouldn't have come further than the alps and the coastal areas of Spain. Caesar had his desperate moments during the Gallic wars, but he had amazing resolve, so this is why I think they needed another Caesar if they wanted to conquer Germania. Irregardless of the use of the land.
Also I disagree with the notion that Gaul is an exception. To me it makes sense the Romans wanted to occupy Gaul.
I don't agree with your title and I think is wrong. Rome didn't fail to conquer Germanic tribes, they just didnt want to conquer them. Fail would mean that Rome was defeated or forced to retreat but it wasn't. Julius caesar, Drusus, Tiberius and especially Germanicus and Marcus Aurelius defeated Germanics in 100+ battles and if Tiberius wouldn't have ordered Germanicus to retreat , after 1 year all Germania up to Elbe would re become Roman land.
Even Marcus Aurelius in 160 - 180 AD defeated Marcomani and could have expanded Roman territory to today's Munchen and Czechia but he didn't. Rome considered Germanic lands as rubbish lands not worth conquering.
However they were right at the moment but wrong in the future. Conquering entirely Germania , would have taken Rome away a great burden.
@@gerogemichaels7580 Only ignorants and dumbs might have the " logic" and argumentation you have. I don't know if you have watched any of the documentaries that Invicta has uploaded to see how endless times Germanic tribes were killed and humiliated. Julius Ceasar, Drusus, Tiberius, Germancius all defeated Germanics endlessly.
Drusus made Germania a Roman province and Germanicus was going to finish his father's job once and for all but Tiberius ordered him to come back to Rome.
Germancius forced almost 2/3 of what remained of Germanic tribes to migrate east of river Elbe.
Thank you torikeqi, you are 100% correct, 0% wrong. It's as simple as that.
Great work!
A superb analysis! Thanks.
Hope you included the lesser known third century conquest of Germania with emperor Maximinus Thrax
It wasnt a conquest but a punishment mission. Rome wasnt able at this point to conquer Germania, even if it wanted to
@@flyingstock5979 It was much more of a decisive conquest than what was previously thought. Thrax had penetrated deep into the heart of Germania and concluded with a conglomerate of tribes, also was respected by the warlords there for his size and power. The reason it didnt stick was because he was killed later, nulling it
About the only way I could see them succeeding would be if they took it slow. Rather than fight against various tribes every time they go on campaign, work on subduing one or two tribes at a time, and make sure their hold was secure before moving on. It would take a really long time though, and undoubtedly not be profitable at all.
I think the only problem with that line of thinking would be that the Germanic tribes would form Confederations, the temporary unification of multiple tribes at a time of war. Of course the Romans had faced unified tribes in the past, but Germany’s geography was a unique obstacle
And what makes you think that those Germans wouldn't rebel again?
Also, how exactly can you just think that other German tribes would be just fine with the sight of other German tribes being conquered? They will quickly see that as Romans attempting to slowly conquer all of Germania. As a result, all of the German tribes would band together which will make your "Conquer one tribe at a time" strategy a fantasy.
That's probably why you are not a General. You don't understand how these things work.
Amazing video and hopefully even a fraction of your viewers will understand your words as a guide to new perspectives.
Excellent video, thanks!
Could Rome have continued if Augustus managed to have the border at the Elbe instead of the Rhine?
I don't think so, the reason Rome feel wasn't because of a lack of really anything specific the main reason was that anyone could become emporer by virtue of conquest. It made the military too powerful and let to many costly wars.
If Augustus had managed to establish a official imperial succession system with rules and laws that maybe would survive one or two generation you get traditions and laws and legitimacy. You don't just need an army but blood, political backing etc.
If you look and china vs Rome that is the main difference, in China the succession was only ever at threat when the state was at crisis, in Rome every emporer that died left them in a civil war, at leats more or less.
Unlikely. The Elbe ist shallow and therefore more difficult top defend than the Rhein
It would have swallowed men and money until the border was moved back to the Rhine I think.
What if Rome was in Australia? Could they have conquered Borneo?
@@gitgut4977 Was it as shallow as it is today?
I have to disagree here. This shift presnted short term gain for a longterm issue. And more importantly a mentality shift in the roman mindset. No longer were justice and casus belli and ideals the reason and the mentality of the romans, as it was during the republic. Profit and cost now became how rome would see its operations, a carthaginian mindset that is shared by Byzantium
In the Republic conquest increased the political power of the commander, that's why it was so relentless.
@@mathiasbartl903 this is actually an interesting point to consider: since the emperors were always paranoid about their generals, it wasn't wise to afford them too many opportunities for glory. This careful mindset may have helped stop Roman expansionism alongside other, more practical concerns.
@@Oxtocoatl13 Why’d didn’t Augustus do it then? All of his competent generals were apart of his family and were potential heirs anyways.
Oh. Hmm.
Great coverage!
Nice video 👍🏻 keep up the good work
Well as a German I must said I am very sad that they not DID. I understand very well why they did not - the price seems not worth the cost.
But I think for Germania/Germany If you compare the regions west/south of the border to the Empire with Germania Magna, than you could see that they have a much longer tradition of towns etc., which in some degree even survived the terrible results of the fall of the Empire. Imagine what would have been if the policy of urbanisation would (to some degree) come in effect in the rest of Germania west of the Elbe, too. The Romans had already begun to build towns, and over a few generations those very likely would have been populated by a mixture of former soldiers and their local wives, Germans who had served as auxilia and become Roman citizens, local civilians who lived from the army and from the slowly expanding industry.
Surely the Empire would have been fallen too, maybe a few years later or sooner than in our reality, but the result of their influence in Germania Magna would have lasted at least to some degree for the dark centuries after the fall. We would have a complete different Germany in the middle ages and the modern times, much sooner urbanized and cultural more bound to the Roman culture and the other sucessors. The language would be more influenced by Latin etc... Well you would have a completely other land. And I do not think that would be a worse land, maybe even a much better one.
Why are you sad that they did not?
@@vladthelad4653 As I said, I think in the long term the areas would have benefitted if things like urbanization started many centuries befor they did in reality.
@@marcbartuschka6372 well, we were colonised by the Romans and we're still FAR behind Germany today🤷🏻♂️
@@marcbartuschka6372 Well how much behind were Germany to France and England in the middle ages?? Not much or not at all and still Germany was not colonised by Rome. Germany still have cities that was created by Romans but many cities that was not created by the Romans became very important cities with great history. So it doesn't matter.
@@octodaddy4494 That is a question you could argue about. First and foremost it depends highly what you mean with "middle ages". Great parts of Germany (and mostly those parts who were part of former Germania Magna) in the 8th and 9th century (for example) were far behind France in the same time. The Empire of Charlemagne was expanding into German areas, but many of its core parts were former Roman areas - and those beyond that were surely not the best developed. So it DID make a difference for centuries. That in our modern world these differences vanished is true, but that does not mean that they were not there or were not important.
Payback is the key. You are right. Rome was an military and administration giant but an economic dwarf. It’s business model was not based on trade but on taxation and slave trade. Germany did not fit that model, Rome wanted to milk large empires with big economic and agricultural surpluses like Egypt.
Thx brother
Love your work, friend. Hail
As I live near the Limes (Black Forest) I learned it was simply because the dense Woodland. The Romans couldn't battle the Germanic tribes like they did with the other tribes across the western Rhine River. The Germanic tribes had the advantage of the enviorment and used it against the Romans, they simply did build a wall to cut off any raids or at least to lower the chances of raids.
No one wanted Germania. That's the only reason the "germanic" tribes could live there. If someone else wanted it, they would have taken it. It wasn't worth having.
The Germans fought by their costumes and families. They showed to the Romans that their will to be free are stronger than the cold Roman discipline.
Nicely informative video.
Awesome series !
My impression was that one valuable factor to Roman rule was the cultural similarity between most of the mediterran regions. They had religions that were compatible. They were used to Syncretism and able to reinterpret the other guy's religion as just a translation of their own. And as you said, Romans just eliminated the local kingpins and put their own at their places, allowing for a continuous rule with just the name plates on the door switched.
It didn't work with the Germans, who didn't have the same fixed Pantheon, and especially, Germans would not consider a ruler a material representation of their most superior god. They had no temples where you just could give the main god the face of the Emperor. And they had no monetary system for trade and taxation as the Mediterrans had.
(Interestingly, the syncretistic approach didn't work with the Jews either, as they also refused the idea of a ruler being the avatar of their god. And Christianity only was incorporated in the 4th century when the idea of the Divine right of a king materialized.)
Not realy true: Tuesday/ Mardi- Tiu/ Mars, Wednesday/Mercredi- Wodan (Odin)/Merkur ( Wodan was mistaken for Merkur, because he traveled to See things, he didn' t knew), Thursday/Jeudi- Thor ( Donar)/Jupiter- both could threw flashes of lightning, Friday/ Vendredi- Freia/ Venus- beautifull godesses.
I’m still pissed at the outcome of the Second Punic War!
Praise Hannibal Barca! Glory at Cannae!
Interesting to see the owerview of the Empire and the strains on the supplyes and the people that did supply the supplyes :)
Awesome query for a video, thank you 😊
Germania was poor it didn't had the grains of Haul, gold of Dacia, or trade of Egipt, this and cold climate didn't encourage a strong colonisation in Germania, and made Germania secondary as interest compared with other conquest. Diplomacy was the best solution.
Its funny to see how much pop culture affect people. Germania is always seen as a dark foggy and cold place but in reality Germany is a beautiful place with sun and not that cold. Have you also heard about the Roman warmth period? During the Roman age there was higher temperature than usual. Germany is not colder than other places that Rome conquered either like Britannia or Dacia. For the resources i don't know but i guess there is was much resources there.
Honestly, I’m an American and I feel this story harder than probably most people in history. I’m sure we all know what I am referring to
Sorry, no, no idea at all.
@@lowersaxon same
@@lowersaxon maybe he is reffering to afghanistan.
@@nikolaspappas1282 Well, yes, my first thought as well. There are of course similarities. But that would mean that the American Empire just tried to „incorporate“ A. which as we all know is not true. In a sense, of course, the ancient Germans ( Germanics) were „ terrorists“ to the Romans.
There was quite literally barely any hands on American battles toward the end of the Afghanistan conflict. Sure the terrain was less than ideal but attrition was not even close to the main problem considering the U.S only ever used a fraction of a fraction of its military might in the region.
It was very simple, your senile leader simply didn't want to risk a PR disaster of potentially losing American contractors after pulling out so he forced them to leave. No contractors means the barbars we have in charge can't maintain their shiny high-tech equipment which means they then prepare to surrender or escape or to profit by selling equipment.
Good Video! when's the next part of what if Caesar didn't get assassinated series going out?
Corruption, cowardice, and cold
debate is about the extent and importance of each of these three factors, only.
If the arguments are that the Germanic peoples were too decentralized and the lands they inhabited were too sparsely populated, why did Claudius then choose to invade Great Britain? From what I know, it wasn't better in those regards than Germania.
Britain contained useful resources (lots and lots of tin, which was worth its weight in gold at the time), whereas Germania was basically a wasteland.
Great Britain was also a lot weaker, plus Rome had been purchasing tin (mined in Great Britain), invasion would have provided more secure tin.
It was a protganda thing for Claudius really
@@BoxStudioExecutive ahh, the enormous tin deposits at Cornwall, that's very true. I thought that tin wasn't used so much anymore by that time though.
@@MohamedRamadan-qi4hl yeah pretty much.
Germanicus failed and didn't want to admit it. I think his cavalry was wiped out. Not only that but he lost infantry too and needed reinforcements. It was becoming well known that the Romans can't beat the Germans and other enemies were preparing to fight and provinces were preparing to rebel. If they continued sending troops there when another enemy attacked they wouldn't have enough troops to defend themselves. If a province rebelled they would not have enough troops to defeat the rebellion and would have lost the province. This would have lead to more provinces rebelling.
It's actually kind of weird why the Romans even bothered to conquer the territory. When they tried to do so, they still had so many more lucrative places to conquer and subdue such as Numidia, the Black Sea area, Dacia, Thrace. Why would they waste so much money, resources and manpower to subdue a poor and complicated area when they hadn't yet conquered all these very lucrative areas yet? So in the end they realized exactly that and changed priorities.
It's like invading Afghanistan.
Really nice work. Now you just should practise a bit not to read a full stop at the end of a line, but where the full stop is. And don't forget the question marks ;)
IF Varus had NOT fallen into the Trap, things would have gone quite differently. THAT was the pivot point.
I think the Varus disaster just revealed how tenuous Rome's hold on the region was. If Varus had survived then eventually some other setback or even just an emergency elsewhere in the empire would have likely caused the occupation to collapse. Rome was playing whack-a-mole on a shaky table, I think it's highly likely that it would have collapsed eventually.
Even if the massacre in the to the Teutoburg forest did not occur, the cost to Rome of maintaining the military in Germania and getting low, if any, ROI there would have eventually caused the Senate to rethink cost and gains.
Irrelevant, except on cable T.V. Just ask George Armstrong Custer.
It's so interesting to see how Rome conquered and expanded their territory. They didn't conquer just because they could, they wanted to get people to their level of "Romanization". Culture, infrastructures, games, cities... everything should have looked like Rome. That's what happened in many other provinces, like Britain, France, Spain, Northern africa and Eastern regions.
Germany at the time was too far beyond, under developed, and didn't want to get into Rome's culture.
Everytime they tried brute forcing, they succeded, but in the long way, the province would have been unstable and revolting, not exactly the way to keep a long term region in your empire.
I think that's one of the greatest aspects of Roman Empire that only a few understand.
Excellent.
Rome probably could have done better trying to leverage Rome-friendly tribes (building roads and urban centers and opening trade, employing Roman legions in their defense, supplying with Roman goods, weapons and armor). However, history also shows that this can backfire badly (imagine legions of Roman armed German tribes using Roman tactics turning on Rome.)
Not only that, but some of those tribes may not have cared to get that cushy with Rome, but instead just wanted to avoid conflict and large tributes. Also, to set up that kind of infrastructure could be insanely difficult and expensive, and as the video essentially states: for what gain?
Ultimately, I would have drawn the border at the Rhine and called it a day. No need to get dragged into a Vietnam or Afghanistan-like conflict for no benefit.
But what if the Germans were all midgets? Or what if Rome had machine guns? Or what if Rome had just unloaded a shipload of bar soap on the banks of the Rhine, so that the Germans could understand what bathing was about? Maybe a week later, the Romans could drop off a shipload of shampoo? All of the women would move across the river, and the germans would have gone extinct.
Yeah, I think the social structure of Germania made it very difficult to accomplish the sort of victory the Romans normally went for.
There were no overarching power centres they could usurp to control the region. And massacring one tribe didn't so much intimidate the rest as embolden them -- half of them were bitter enemies and were delighted to see their enemies destroyed, and the rest would view the freshly vacant land as an opportunity for expansion.
Well they were similar to the celts, so they would make a similar war effort, whit a genocidal objective. Pretty expensive and than you have to repopolate the region, whit added costs
It's the same everywhere. The Pilgrims fighting the Powhatan, didn't cause the Delaware to surrender. And fining the Catholic church didn't end child sodomy amongst the priests, did it?
Rome might have conquered Germania, but what would they have gained by that?
There was no more defensible frontier on the other side. The shape of Asia was going to keep funneling nomads at the Empire until it broke, or it came up with gunpowder. There's no reason to think a few hundred more miles of forest would have changed anything in the long run.
Good job guys👍🏿. Could you make a video on why Roman manpower decreased so heavily?
Could you make a video on medieval England?
In the long term it would have proven beneficial to the Empire. For starters you pacify an otherwise hostile people avoiding what would otherwise have been centuries of costly wars with no other solution. Next you shorten the border meaning you decrease the manpower requirements for the empire i.e. you can decrease military spending saving money in the long term. Finally you add another recruiting ground for the Empire which also helps with manpower problems. I have heard that Germany is actually fairly rich in ores but I don't know enough to comment on that
This makes sense logically from the perspective of the governing elite but from the perspective of the citizenry and lower level officials it would be a waste of money and resources that would greatly diminish the current regime. Not to mention that it would have to be a very longterm goal as Germany and its tribes are incredibly resilient.
Well the germans that would invade Italy and the rest of the empire were different from them, so this would had some buffer space, but would worth the Money? Remember Rome was spreed thin, and their biggest enemy was partia and then the sasanids
Actually, Humphrey, you don't know enought to comment on any of this, but did that stop you?
A very important factor, although sort of fallen out of favour in recent years, is simply the chaotic nature of Germanic tribes in the region. Wandering peoples were not a thing the Huns had magically triggered, it was normal in the region. Once you had pacified or allied a tribe one year, it could have moved on, been defeated by a rival is joined a new rebellion the next. Keeping up with this shifting situation where new, untamed tribes could emerge at any time, was basically impossible.
great work
Awesome as series alright mbro 🤔
You fail to mention the primary factor, namely that Rome had expanded too far, meaning the extent of the empire was too great for a pre-industrial culture. I find this fairly obvious.
I could see it *maybe* being possible with an expanded senate and governance system, but simply no haha, Caesar made sure that wouldnt ever happen as well
I mean the Germanic's won in the end with the fall of Rome I like the idea that Rome couldn't beat northan Europe
You can't defeat a wasteland
@@crownedpleb9747 Says the ignorant.
@@octodaddy4494 No you're right, Northern Europe in 19 AD was basically as rich as Egypt or Anatolia
@@crownedpleb9747 Never said that but it's was far from a wasteland and not any less inefficient than other regions that Rome conquered. A few million lived in Magna Germania and Rome had trade with many of them even Scandinavia, It was an civlization there not a wasteland. Charlmagne even conquered Germania. Rome could have done more but they choose not to and one reason is clearly that the Germanic people were powerful and often unruly but im not saying that is the only reason.
@@octodaddy4494 I'm sorry but saying that Magna Germania wasn't less inefficient than other regions is just insane. The La Tene culture of Gaul had complex social and religious institutions which could only arise from having a massive food surplus. They had coinage, some literacy, villages and oppida. At the time of Christ's birth, the Jastorf culture of Magna Germania had no coinage, no literacy, no specialized economic activity, low food surplus and no substantial settlements.
And why are we bringing up Charlemagne? That's 800 years in the future!! Western Rome had been dead for hundreds of years by this point. Of course German civilization would have sprouted into something worthy after so long, especially having so much time to copy the Gauls and the Romans. Even then, Charlemagne's Saxon wars were less about the riches of Germany and more about punishment for their relentless raiding in his territory.
Emperor Tiberius knew it and modern historians know it - Germany was worthless at the time.
You should do a video on the Nero Parthian war and why it failed
People often forget that Germans still speak German because of this very thing. And since English people are German, same goes for them. And that would also mean Americans would be speaking a Latin language if our ancestors didn't stand their ground. And that'd mean the international language would've been a Latin language too.
This is not true at all.
Switzerland and austria were conquered but still don't speak latin
*Rome fell victim to its own "immoderate greatness" as Edward Gibbon so eloquently put it.*
As for what the Romans could have done differently, here is my two cents:
Step 1) Don't yeet Julius Caesar.
Step 2) Give Caesar a large army and send him over the Rhine into Germania.
Step 3) Sit back, relax, and enjoy the wanton destruction and genocide.
Well Caesar did campaign into Germania, decided it wasn't worth it and left.
@@theholyinquisition389
Nowhere in my game-plan does Caesar have a choice in the matter.
But, yeah. The fact that Caesar noped Germania should have been a clue for Augustus.
Its ironic how the region that once strongly resisted Roman occupation and generally kept itself independent of Roman influence would in the next thousand years or so will become known as the "Holy Roman Empire", and regarded as the only legitimate successor of the Roman Empire by the Catholic Church.
tbf first holy roman empire come from frank empire which come from frank old roman fodetrari.
it only after the sillyness of gravel suscession that the guy from german go "me rome now"
Ya never appreciate what you have till it's gone
@@darthceasar3690 Didn't the Franconian/Carolingian empire come into existance out of the older Frankish kingdoms the Frankish tribes founded in Gaul after crossing the Rhine?
Germanic politicians in Rome also called themselves Consol, if you went and conquered a land like Japan for example, wouldn't you want to take on the name Emperor to add to your legitimacy? The Holy Rome Empire included Italy.
Yes,and to me seems that was really Charlemagne that put Rome in Europe after Diocletian moved the pole to Constantinopole.Rome was the mediterranean sea until the the holy Roman empire set Rome in Europe. After Charlemagne the city of Rome was unquestionably in Europe. A big mental shift .
And Barbarossa was very proud of having his latin title,Imperator romanorum semper Augustus.
9:18 - typo on "neded"
Yeah, I'm that grammar guy... Great video regardless
I love this! I just finished the first draft of a historical fiction that takes place in this exact setting! haha!
In short it's because the Roman army was overstretched after they conquered mainland Gaul and mainland Illyria. During the Cimbrian war the Romans lost multiple battles to the Germanic tribes. But despite the losses the Romans still had enough soldiers to defend the empire
Personally to conquer Germania. Rome needed to use cultural influence. Get the locals to see the benefits of cities. Give them aid to construction roads. Advise on how to better use the land. Over several generations transform the culture of the Germans to be more workable for Rome. + The land would be more ready for exploitation.
Problem though is unifying a people like the Germanic into one province would not have ever worked well. Giving them a unified identity would have been terrible. A recipe for a revolt like those seen on the British isles.
But several small groups that were instructed on how to build city power centers would have been wise.
But we'll all these ideas are pie in the sky. The Germans needed to buy in. + When the enemy that tried to suppress you through military force suddenly turns a leaf and wants to give you gifts of knowledge?
I expect at least for quite some time the Germans were quite skeptical. But eventually these power centers could likely be found.
Problem is that as sometimes happens when you give your barbarian neighbors gifts they tend to get violent ideas on how to use those gifts.
The fun piece of the vid is that how the Romans governed by sitting at the top and pulling off the tax revenue. That pretty much what the invaders did when the western Roman empire fell.
The Germanics were eventually Romanified. As the empire continued, they served in the military. They picked up Roman ways. And when Rome could no longer govern, the Germanics picked up where they left off.
Germanic cultures still are ambivalent about cities
I agree the Romans shouldn't have destroyed all the infrastructure they built up in Germania when many settlers began fleeing across the border back into Roman territory post Teutoburg Forest. I'm sure it would have been better in the long run had they left all the bathhouses, public latrines, amphitheaters and marvelous forums intact, as the Germanians who would enjoy such amenities may become more enticed into assimilating into Roman culture when considering the cultural and technological benefits people in the empire get to enjoy.
Roads were build primarily for military movement, much less for trade. Why would German's ever want roads that would make it far easier to move Roman Legions in their lands?
And better yet, when the various Germanic tribes fought amongst themselves, Rome could offer assistance & alliances to one side.
Even the greatest empires must fall.
One thing I really wanna learn more about is the consolidation of Germania from this era to the early medieval period, how they urbanized and formed into the polities that would eventually become the many states of the HRE.