Roman conquest of Italy timeline video.

Does it even really make sense to depict Rome as a big red blob spilling outwards? My understanding of Roman expansion was that it was a much more complex affair, involving a whole range of vassals, allies and tributaries as well as outright subjugation, but this just folds it all into a one-dimensional question of "in or out".

Yes, and said vassals, allies and tributaries regularly fought wars against Rome itself until the first century BC.
 
Wasn't that what the Social Wars were about?
 
Wasn't that what the Social Wars were about?
That is precisely what the Social War was about. Also, a big chunk of the Hannibalic War.
 
Which is sort of impressive, if only because while it sees a lot of Rome's allies go over to Hannibal, there were tons more that, even in Rome's darkest days, seem to have remained sure that You Do Not Bet Against Rome.
 
I don't see how that's all that impressive. Rome had a much worse record of attracting Qarthadast's allies; virtually no Phoenician cities came over, and the Romans had to intervene in a Numidian civil war to even allow Massinissa's faction to survive.
 
Yet we look back and get the impression that the outcome of the fight between those two cities was never in doubt.

Perhaps it is just because our sources are all pro-roman and the romans liked to believe they werre destined to win?
 
I don't see how that's all that impressive. Rome had a much worse record of attracting Qarthadast's allies; virtually no Phoenician cities came over, and the Romans had to intervene in a Numidian civil war to even allow Massinissa's faction to survive.

Uttica defected in the Third Punic War, if I'm not mistaken. The writing was on the wall then, though.
 
Yet we look back and get the impression that the outcome of the fight between those two cities was never in doubt.

Perhaps it is just because our sources are all pro-roman and the romans liked to believe they werre destined to win?
Oh, the outcome was in doubt. But once it became obvious that Hannibal could never take Rome itself the issue was simply how long it would take Rome to win. If Hannibal had sued for peace after the panic caused by Cannae, he may actually have come away with a victory.
 
Historians have claimed that. Marhabal allegedly believed that. However, given the Roman attitude for the rest of the war, I still have trouble believing it. For starters, even they agreed it required a march on Rome. If he did that, it would have become apparent he lacked siege equipment, which would have required building some. Given the time for that, would Rome still be in a state of panic?

The history of the Second Punic War shows such a determined resolve that my thought is they'd fight to the bitter end. When Hannibal crossed the Alps, Scipio sent his army to Spain. When Hannibal ravaged southern Italy, they told him they would not negotiate with an army on Italian soil and then sent an army to Illyria. Even in Rome's darkest days, they expanded their territorial acquisitions. I still don't think even Cannae would have been enough regardless of what happened immediately after it.
 
Rome wasn't run by imperialist fools. They understood that Barka family had build a personal empire in Spain and that in order to crush Carthage they needed to conquer or paralyse their dependent territories. Same could be said about fighting Macedon - Rome simply always had strength to sufficiently defend itself on all fronts. "Divide and rule", "always block, conquer only when you can" sort of policy.
 
I'm not sure that it's correct to speak of 'Rome' as following any sort of policy - that's perhaps a not-totally-unfair description of what actually happened, but it's misleading to suggest that 'the government' did this deliberately with a grand strategy in mind.
 
I'm not sure that it's correct to speak of 'Rome' as following any sort of policy - that's perhaps a not-totally-unfair description of what actually happened, but it's misleading to suggest that 'the government' did this deliberately with a grand strategy in mind.

Thats why I was talking about "policy" and not "strategy". One of conclusions that some (most?) historians make is that Rome didn't have a grand starategy of conquest, at least not overtly. Still every new Roman neighbour became their enemy sooner or later and was subjugated with the help of new Romen allies (neighbours of Rome's enemies). Then new allies would became Roman neighbours and then swifly also enemies. Then history would repeat itself over and over...
 
I see - I took 'policy' as its usual meaning of a formally-expressed statement of intention, but it seems that you're describing something which works as a (reasonable) rule if applied backwards but which was not applied at the time.
 
Sort of. Lets just say that Romans had a "policy" of neutralising all threats and leave it at that.
 
Actually, in the Imperial period the emperors, if anything, took pains to ensure that their generals did not go on campaigns to take the fight to actual or potential enemies. Augustus' gradual prohibition of officers from celebrating Triumphs and the eventual doctrine that a major military operation had to be led by the emperor were both aimed at reducing the number of vainglorious campaigns which risked stretching the empire beyond defensible and governable limits: Trajan, as I recall, formally declared 'thus far and no further' on the empire's frontiers. Certainly, Germany and Persia were never 'neutralised', despite causing the Romans no end of bother. During the crisis surrounding the end of the Republic, Persian troops were spotted on the Mediterranean coast - they frequently menaced the Near East throughout the lifetime of the empire - and we all know what the 'barbaric' German tribes went on to do.
 
Yes, and said vassals, allies and tributaries regularly fought wars against Rome itself until the first century BC.

We are talking about Roman Republic aren't we?
 
Your post didn't make that clear, but I apologise if that's what you meant - if you're talking specifically about the quoted post, I should point out that the Social War (91-88BC) was well within the Republican period: the consensus date for its demise is 27BC, which was the date of Augustus' constitutional settlement with the Senate, but some scholars reckon it as early as 44BC, being the date of Caesar's appointment as Dictator for Life.
 
Yet we look back and get the impression that the outcome of the fight between those two cities was never in doubt.

Perhaps it is just because our sources are all pro-roman and the romans liked to believe they werre destined to win?
I think that that is spot on, really.
Uttica defected in the Third Punic War, if I'm not mistaken. The writing was on the wall then, though.
Yes, the Hannibalic War and the Third Punic War were different things.
Historians have claimed that. Marhabal allegedly believed that. However, given the Roman attitude for the rest of the war, I still have trouble believing it. For starters, even they agreed it required a march on Rome. If he did that, it would have become apparent he lacked siege equipment, which would have required building some. Given the time for that, would Rome still be in a state of panic?

The history of the Second Punic War shows such a determined resolve that my thought is they'd fight to the bitter end. When Hannibal crossed the Alps, Scipio sent his army to Spain. When Hannibal ravaged southern Italy, they told him they would not negotiate with an army on Italian soil and then sent an army to Illyria. Even in Rome's darkest days, they expanded their territorial acquisitions. I still don't think even Cannae would have been enough regardless of what happened immediately after it.
Once Hannibal had an army with siege equipment, he could have marched on Rome, taken it, and then he would've been master of Italy regardless of the Roman aristocracy's "resolve".
Rome wasn't run by imperialist fools. They understood that Barka family had build a personal empire in Spain and that in order to crush Carthage they needed to conquer or paralyse their dependent territories. Same could be said about fighting Macedon - Rome simply always had strength to sufficiently defend itself on all fronts. "Divide and rule", "always block, conquer only when you can" sort of policy.
This seems almost like an ethic of success sort of thing. Rome always won in the end, therefore the Romans always picked reasonable targets and stayed relatively limited in their short-term ambitions. But that only makes sense if the outcome of all Rome's wars was decided from the outset.

Yet this is not all that clear. The Hannibalic War, for instance, was an immense strain on Rome's resources, especially when considered in conjunction with the other conflicts the Romans were fighting at the same time in Greece and northern Italy. Even in that war, Rome did not face the full measure of some of its opponents' strength, and got lucky in other ways (e.g. the Metaurus campaign, when Hannibal failed to act, or the bad weather that kept Philippos V's lemboi fleet in port). It does not seem particularly unreasonable to say that Rome could well have lost that war, although what a "loss" would entail would obviously have to remain up in the air.

And then, if one wants an even more blatant example of Roman military overreach, look at the scenario a decade after Zama. Roman control of formerly Qarthadastei Iberia was collapsing, the Romans were facing the most serious Celtic threat in northern Italy since Telamon, and then the Romans picked a fight with Antiochos III in Greece for essentially no reason at all. And then the Romans expanded that war by pursuing Antiochos into Asia, because...well, it's hard to explain that any way other than an almost Napoleonic imperialistic overreach. Rome was badly suffering from over a generation of constant, large-scale, high-stakes warfare - ever since the Italian crisis of the 220s, really - and Roman manpower was at a nadir. The Romans had to bully recently insurrectionist southern Italy into supplying the troops for their Greco-Asian expedition. John Grainger has made a very persuasive argument that this was, effectively, Rome's last real army, and that if it had been destroyed at Magnesia the Romans very well might have faced a failure cascade throughout their entire empire. But the Romans got lucky, Antiochos uncharacteristically led his cavalry off the field instead of rolling up the Roman-Pergamene forces from the rear, and they were able to keep their army intact.

I just can't view that as evidence that Rome "wasn't run by imperialist fools" and "always had strength to sufficiently defend itself". It's true that republican Rome's great advantage was in its nearly limitless manpower reserves, and the dispensability of that manpower, compared to the forces of most of its opponents. But even so, Rome still at times was on the knife's edge of running out of that manpower due to the infinite wars in which the republic involved itself. Rome faced those problems, and pulled through out of a combination of luck, the mistakes of its enemies, and the individual successes of Roman officers and Roman armies.
 
Yes, the Hannibalic War and the Third Punic War were different things.

Fair enough.

Once Hannibal had an army with siege equipment, he could have marched on Rome, taken it, and then he would've been master of Italy regardless of the Roman aristocracy's "resolve".

If that's the criteria, I don't disagree. Most of the sources seem to say that mere appearance at the walls would have overcome Rome's resolve. That's the thing I have doubts about. I'm also not convinced that Hannibal was in a position for a long siege. He certainly had effectively sieged cities in Spain when he had his Spanish and African troops, but it might have been different when relying on Celts - especially when he had to leave friendly Greek territory and go into Latin territory. Granted, we know how history actually turned out so it might still have been better, from our perspective, to try it (there were other moments too where the outcome could have been different, but this is probably the most stark so it's usually the most discussed), but I think taking Rome was far from guaranteed had that actually been his goal (and I don't think it ever was, his goal was to weaken Rome and restore Carthaginian territories, not occupy Rome).
 
Occupying Rome need not imply that Hannibal would destroy Rome and try to turn Italy into a Qarthadastei satellite. It would simply offer him an overpowering position from which to dictate peace terms to the conscript fathers.
 
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