Redpill me on the Roman Empire

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“We Romans,” claimed the great orator Cicero in a public speech, “are not superior to the Spanish in population, nor do we best the Gauls in strength, nor Carthaginians in acumen, nor the Greeks in technical skills, nor can we compete with the natural connection of the Italians and Latins to their own people and land; we Romans, however, outstrip every people and nation in our piety, sense of religious scruple and our awareness that everything is controlled by the power of the gods.”
thats what Cicero thought, but it was actually their military training, they trained the most and the longest, they had 25 year military service, they were like a nation of Spartans

WE

>What was it that made them so successful

At the root of all of it, was that its soldiers were forced to carry a shovel, pickaxe and wooden stake everywhere.

I'm not kidding.

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>Cicero
Oh please. Cicero Thought that he was richer than Crassus. He literally put more value in goybooks than golden shekels. It's silly put down your goybook and read something serious for once like the torah or Caesar's commentaries

It was a lot of things, medicine, sanitation, the roads, public order

that was just an example, ofc it wasnt piety

If the Mafia had a state, it would be similar to the Roman Empire, corrupt and nepotistic to the extreme. The only thing they really excelled at were law, masonry, and shaking down disorganized barbarians for slave labour and shekels.

This. The Roman army had more discipline then any before or after. Under proper direction of a competent leader the Roman legions were unstoppable. Watch a video of South Korean riot police using Roman combat techniques. You quickly see how autistic level organization is a force multiplier.

>o I would have you, as you say, adorn the place with the other objects also, and the more the better. The statues which you sent me before I have not yet seen. They are in my villa at Formiæ, whither I am at this moment thinking of going. I shall get them all transferred to my Tusculan villa. If I find myself with more than I want there I shall begin adorning Caieta. Please reserve your books, and don't despair of my being able to make them mine. If I succeed in that, I am superior to Crassus in wealth and look down on everybody's manors and pastures

Let's also not forget that Cicero bought land near Pompeii because he was a poorfag in comparison to real Romans and real Patricians. this is a man who obsessed over lawn ornaments and philospher memes

One thing which lead to their downfall was their relatively poor ability to find new metal mines. Thus, their wealth declined, which is clear in how they began debasing their currency.

Made them successful: roads
Made them.fall: degeneracy

Internet is modern roads

They killed jews.

Our struggle is life and death, "To be or not to be"

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It took only a few thousand blonde German forest niggers to take them out. They had a great culture, but had a meme army.

Cicero is a top 5 most famous Roman all these years later, meanwhile Crassus (if you've even heard of him) was just some rich asshole that got BTFO in some silly glory seeking adventure in Parthia

During the Pax Romana you could reasonably expect to walk the roads from Britannia to Egypt unmolested

they needed outside foreigners more and more because less and less Roman men were being born due to wealth obsession, opulence, sexual degeneracy, same as modern day problems

Classical warfare was all about infantry.
Rome had the absolute best infantry in regards to logistics, discipline, tactics, and organization.
They could field 80,000 men easily. Other nations couldn't field that many in three life times.
Roman diplomacy accepted no equals, only enemies and protectorates.
Ally the strong, break the weak, then break the strong, this was standard practice in foreign affairs.
Rome was also the first to truly take to heart the concept of total war, that everyone in a society is geared toward the utter destruction of another.
The Roman military is unique in that up until 1500 you could drop a legion anywhere in the world and it would dominate the local area with little resistance.

Their training was unmatched, their conditioning was impeccable, and their discipline was unbreakable.
These were super soldiers, well outfitted, well fed, and well trained.
They were proponents of career service as well, every legion had its 15+ year club of veterans.
Praetorians were an extension of the Roman military.
Varangians were always getting btfo by arab manlets.
Ariovistus fags need to go.
even when Germans outnumber Romans they can not best them, they must resort to bitchboi tactics like lying, betrayal, fleeing, and backstabbing.

Literally how?

He would have bled to death in seconds

Crassus and Caesar were both better speakers/rhetoricians/oraters than Cicero and you'd know that if you read any primary sources. Crassus was the best, Caesar was second only because of his time spent in the military, and Cicero was 3rd only after struggling decades with many expensive teachers. The other two had more natural talent. Also the Parthian thing wasa spying mission to get info on them, read the primary sources and youll see them admitting that ot whatever. hav esome respect Caesar borrowed all this money from Crassus with no interest added

>downfall of Rome was due to these things
no it wasn't.
Rome was destined to fall, as are all civilizations at the end of their imperium era which usually lasts no more than 250 years.
If not those problems, then she would have fallen due to other problems.
It's worth mentioning Eastern Rome became an offshoot civilization and carried on despite all of those things.

Jews

Rome fell because of the state,the state kept getting bigger and more taxing on the population,also after the Marian reforms everyone cloud enlist in the army instead of citizens and the soliders depended of their general,so they hold no loyalty to rome,so the soldiers followed whenever a general organized a military coup even if it was bad for rome,taxation,loyalty to the army and not rome and degeneracy bring rome down.

>successful
Homogeneous society of skilled people building a city, and then expanding due to superior minds with a goal of a free, and great society.
>fail
Moved into a multicultural, multiracial society run by despots totally degrading it.

Civic nationalism

>ignoring genetic evidence
>muh christianity
do you kikes ever stop?
based Cicero
It was literally piety, my nig.
Rome would have gotten stomped in her youth had she not been seen as the most pious city state.

Lol stormfags are pathetic

This hyped the shit out of me.
Race war now.
Mediterranean empire now
Forza Italia!

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World's first professional army (maybe not counting Sparta, but that's a bit complicated)

They had guys who were career soldiers invading places in which there was no such concept. The Roman fighters, who were trained soldiers and did it for a living, fighting peoples whose armies were made up of farmers etc who came to fight when they were called, then went back to their actually jobs after.

That's one of many reasons, of course, but having read a lot of the primary texts that's the sense I get. Start with the first five books of Livy if you want to get into this stuff--it's a terrific read. A village of huts on a hill takes over the entire Mediterranean world

>Literally how?
>get arm cut off
>get separated in combat
>sword breaks
>grab torch and cauterize wound
>see guy that cut your arm off
>pick up arm on the way to attack him

> romans wuz nordic n shieeet
Stop trying to nordwash everything, you're ancestors were living in mud huts while the Roman's were building aqueducts and Colisseums, and they continued to live in mud huts and pagan decadence until they became civilized and Christian

Read about the triumph and the pantheon of divinities if you want to find the way of the romans.
Simply put, they fell because the system was made for a city state, not an empire.

Christianity is literally Marxist universalism

>no empires
Pleb

other what has been said already, they also fielded some of the best local crack fighters in to their various auxilary regiments. romes best cavalry whas iberian, germanic and macedonian. their best ranged troops where syrian.

and these where not just rag-tag regiments, but equiped with the finest gear and horses.

but most auxilary where cannonfodder, which however kept legions intact for longer.

They were literally surrounded first by Germanic peoples and then Muslims. Nothing could withstand those two warrior peoples, it's amazing they held out as long as they did.

True, Crassus even got his own deserving triumph in Parthia.

> muslims
> people

>t.retard

Irony or autism--indistinguishable here

where the fuck did any roman or greek writer ever say that Caesar or Crassus were better speakers than Cicero?? I need authors, books and chapters.

Wealth isn't derived from currency, currency is only a medium for trade. What really happened was the welfare and various population sating games from large Roman cities and all the connected cities and Roman outposts everywhere stressed food production and the economy to the point where it bankrupted the state. The Roman war machine could no longer push out from where it was and conquer more rich lands as was the very core of its predatory system which spent lavishly for the state. If you cut off the source of the fresh carcass of a conquered kingdom to feed the beast it starved and you have various crisises resulting from Roman inability to push out into Germania due to the stress of up keeping the already established empire and suppressing revolts from within, which is a direct result from being too generous to societies it swallowed up and inevitably way too much reliance on foreign powers of slaves and conquered kingdoms to maintain it all. The real limiting factor was native born Romans to uphold and police the Empire and fill the army.

acording to tarcitus, german men actually where mostly full-time warriors as well. farming and such whas for old men and women. and he descibed german men as phlegmatic and work shy, but extremely explosive...

I think it was Plutarch in one of his lives, there are also lots of other places that probably mention this but that's the one off the top of my head. It's been a while

he used his other arm, durr

This is why I hate the nords. Between the barbarians, vikings, and now the nazis, they always ruin a good thing with their undisciplined savagery

Romans revolutionized combat in a way that none others had done before. Ancient and medieval warfare isn't the way it is depicted in the movies. Most of the casualties come from the army breaking formation and fleeing from the field. Other casualties usually came from people quite literally beating each other to death or getting lucky with a hit to an unprotected spot. They had all that armor and shielding for a reason. Combat was a long drawn out process that could even last an entire day. Romans were constantly training and practiced with heavier shields and swords than they'd normally use.

The most important piece of combat back then was the shields and Romans had the best. Not too heavy and large enough to get the job done and could also be an offensive tool. They would throw pilums at their enemies which were designed so that the tips would bend when they hit the enemy shields and they were barbed so they couldn't just be pulled out. Once enemies were hit with a barrage they had to get rid of their most important tool.

Sword use in combat was relatively new then and the Greeks were horrified at how versatile they were, the Romans had the ability to accurately hack at arms, necks, and legs which was harder to do with spears.

The typical Roman formation was a checkerboard pattern where the second line would fill in the gaps, and the outside wings would cover the right and left flank. Groups in the middle of those could push up and help whichever side needed assistance. It added a lot of flexibility and made them a fierce fighting force. If you have Rome Total War I suggest you try out their formation fighting style, you'll literally slaughter the enemy.

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On paper america sounds better than most of states there ever was. Yet in reality it fucked up on many levels. Same was with rome.

The weak should fear the strong, amiright

This. Not a sexy answer but the truth. The backbone of an organized military that the Romans laid down is still essentially in use today.

Also read Cicero's speaches, have you ever listened to them aloud? Here's how he speaks

1. Addresss the audience concern (usually Cicero is defending a guilty or seemingly guilty man)
2. Go on for ages about something slightly related but dont answer the question
3. Be boring and be wordy on purpose in this section
4. use fancy words to impress plebs and look like you know what you are talking about
5. While the audience is half asleep answer the question/concern of the audience in the middle of your wordy address.
6. Continue on like a pleb for hours
Caesar and Crassus were short and simple in their speeches and far more brutal

Romans were "short and stocky" manlets who got btfo by 6 foot Germanic chads.

Also if you want to see their formation in action this video is amazing.

>youtube.com/watch?v=zgywD3XJaWU

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yeah in the germania, that's a great read. I'd still hesitate to say that they were professional "soldiers" though--it seems that the Germans (at least as Tacitus describes them) were maybe professional "pillagers", but I don't think that they had any concept of soldier-as-career

I'd like to know which one if you remember, because Plutarch writes the lives of all three men in question. Really fun author though, his life of Cicero is actually quite moving (and his Caesar is a classic). The life of Crassus is great too--his destruction of the Sparticus slave rebellion is a good part, and Plutarch's account of his last battle is great too

libertarian detected. games and welfare wasnt a thing long before it went down.

regarding the bread and games times. read up on why marius got his(mass slaves stealing jobs and wealth consolidation crippling everything). look at the augustinian era, basically FDR on steroids.

lol libertarians

Romans consistently raped Germanics for centuries though

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I wouldn't trust the last battle with Crassus, Crassus had many enemies and his journey into parthia was why Augustus BTFOd them later on

SING TO THE SLAVES THAT ROME BURNS

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fucking savages lololol

>roman soldiers get lost in china and intermarry with the natives
>even today a village in china exists where the villagers have blue eyes and nordic features
You're wrong, faggots. The ancient Romans were Nordic by blood. We are the master race. Just accept it.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8154490/Chinese-villagers-descended-from-Roman-soldiers.html

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you want them to weir same coloured pointy hats?

they where soldiers...at least when you include spartans. who where not soldiers literally either.

I've read a lot of his speeches--I get what you're saying of course, but I really do think you're writing them off a bit. The first and second catilinarian orations and the Philippics against Mark Anthony are still taught in law schools today.

There's a moment in Sallust where Caesar and Cato have an argument in the senate--and if the real Caesar really spoke like the one in Sallust then I'm sure he would have been a force to be reckoned with

Caesar's commentaries are probably the most fun roman histories to read, because he's such a clear writer

> multi cultural multi ethnic multi faith empire
> very decentralized, slavery eventually got most romans kicked out of the workforce
> 5 foot tall bronze skinned manlets fighting in plains and taking names against stronger taller more hardy barbarians
> corruption and constant civil war
It's a wonder they lasted so long, their organization and bureaucracy was amazing

Why are there so many retards that think that people 2,000 years ago would have looked the exact same in certain areas as they do now? 2,000 years ago Italy was cooler, so was all of North Africa and France/German area was basically a cold ass place. The climate changes. We have descriptions of plenty of Romans with light hair and blue/green eyes.

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Why the Romans were great:

- The Legions were run by professional soldiers, and commanded by mature, experienced generals
- Aqueducts
- Sewer system
- Bathhouses for people to go and wash themselves
- Public toilets with running water
- Courts for settling disputes
- Laws
- Public games for entertaining the masses
- Welfare - Bread was distributed by the Emperors to the poorest people in Rome
- Coin
- Roads covering the whole empire

Pretty much the same things we have nowadays.

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>News article says villager with green eyes.
>This nigger says blue eyes.
All Europeans can have green eyes. Hell the Aryan Persians and Afghans have green eyes. There's Caucasian genes throughout central Asia and western China but they all got riced so they pop up every so often.

wel of course they are taught in law schools today, Cicero was a jew and talked like a Jew, avoiding answering real questions and then answering them when nobody is listening is one hell of a way to decieve a man by telling him the truth.
How much of the Philippics did you read actually and his other speeches. What poriton

>consistently
>one extreme example
POINT PROVEN

>people actually believe this shit
the absolute state of white people....

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But yeah I agree Caesar is the best writer for sure

>Romans consistently raped Germanics for centuries though

can confirm

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Romans fell due to 1) self made economic disaster 2) unchecked immigration

that would be germanboos and muh teutoborg, though
from cimbrian wars to the marcomannic wars, romans almost always raped germanics

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Straight from the article:
>Many of the villagers have blue or green eyes, long noses and even fair hair, prompting speculation that they have European blood.

lol

which whas after en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arausio

with 120.000 romans and auxilary dead, to 15.000 dead germans. on open field. 3 times cannae, but somehow this battle is not as well known as cannae.

rome whas on its back after that and had the cimbri marched for rome instead of spain, they could have finished it of much earlier.

but like i said rome whas on its back. the roman elites hiding behind muh republic, muh freemarkets andsuch gave the hated populaere marius the keys to the candy store, because they knew else the game would be up.

and marius resulted in caesar, who resulted in anthony and augustus, hence the end of the republic.

the cimbri did that

which explains why they never conquered most of german lands

>Christianity is literally Marxist universalism
Marxist universalism is literally marxist universalism.
By your reasoning so is Plato's Republic.
And Aristotle's Metaphysics.
Germans were probably full time squabblers, like every other Celt, Slav, Balt, Thracian, Iberian, and Gaul at the time.
Tacitus was kind of a meme then and is kind of a meme now.
He never actually went to Germania but got second hand information from a trader who visited the ancient Bavarians.
>Roman inability to push out into Germania
Aurelius had plans, he was going to genocide the Germans all the way to Nordland and Finland. The reason he did not is because he had to put down a more immediate threat from Irannic peoples and then he died shortly after. His life was defined by btfo Germans and forging tens of thousands of veterans ready for a final solution.
Another reason for not invading Germania was that it was rich only in cows.
Gaul had silver, Iberia had land, men, and horses, Persia had gold and trade networks, Greeks had philosophy and general culture which was popular with Romans, Carthage was a general nuisance and as well had large trade networks, Britannia had silver, Egypt had wheat.
The list goes on. What did Northern Europe have? Cows, decent auxiliaries but they were untrustworthy, not much else.

also explains why goths sacked rome

The collectivist roman (who fights for a pay and has a more urban background) vs the more individualistic barbarian (germanic, gallic, iberian etc.) who fights for individual glory and to obtain a higher status within a tribe? Would that be accurate?

Some central asian tribes have light features

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"Wouldn't trust" as in wouldn't trust Plutarch's account?

Nahh, just saying that the Roman concept of "choosing to make a living as a soldier" seems different from the way the Spartans and ancient Germans did it. In Sparta all citizens were automatically soldiers (their farming etc were done by the "Helots"--non-citizen slaves) and the Germans at least as Tacitus describes them hadn't really elevated the art of war to an actual profession involving discipline, training, strategy, etc. They were, as you said, warriors (and among the most brutal the Romans ever encountered), but i'd hesitate to call them soldiers as we understand that term

still won the war, despite being vastly outnumbered

Crassus Got BTFO'd so hard it just got sad

No Plutarch is generally fine just know that Plutarch is a gossip rag but a better one. It's because Crassus had SO MANY enemies you have to take anything on him with a grain of salt. this has been accepted by historians in many historical accounts know who you're dealing with

they were worth shit, might as well push into africa
completely different period, by the time they sacked rome there were hardly any "romans" in the roma army

Except they did.
Everytime Rome would take a village the Germans would just retreat back farther and farther.
There was no incentive to push further for the reason listed hereGermania sucked, Germans produced no wealth or any great works that were worth trading for.
I'm sure you're going to reference some Nordic iron age helmet or some shit, but that stuff was generally run of the mill for barbarians. Gauls, Scythians, Britons, Gaels, Iberians, Etruscans, Ligurians, Balkanites, and Thracians/Dacians all produced objects of equal quality.

Teutobod is Gallic name, m8.
Those weren't Germans by the time they reached Italy.
Also most of those slain Romans were militia, Cannae was the defeat of seasoned legionaries.

Goths weren't Germanic or German, they were Polish, genetically speaking Gothic DNA can be traced back to Poland and overlaps with Modern Poles.
The Goths also needed to use the usual backstabbery that is so popular with barbarians posing as real soldiers.

rome fell because christcucks freed women which has been the downfall of every "enlightened" society

Classical oratory was never as interesting to me as the histories/poetry, so I admittedly don't know as much about it. But I'd hesitate to say he's bad based on our modern conceptions of what makes a good speech--Roman oratory had its own rules, a number of which would seem waaaay out of place in any court today. Maybe look into what those rules were, and the extent to which the things Cicero does that you don't like are just him participating in those traditions.

Read all the Phillips, all the Catilinarians and other misc speeches and treatises (three of the penguin books worth of his words, plus a few of the loeb classical library books for the stuff penguin doesn't publish

Definitely. Check out:

amazon.ca/Landmark-Julius-Caesar-Complete-Alexandrian/dp/0307377865

nope. german boys where trained from age and acually had classes depeding on talents.

germans hadall sorts of formations including long pike phalanx. they had crazy horsemen tactics, combining hit and and run together with mounted infantry.

caesar had his germanic cavalry in greece against pompei, basically playing navy seals. they where among the 500 men caesar took with him to alexandria and the siege there of. they where at thapsus. caesars flanking winning battles...guess why? and yes they where also at alesia.

>blue eyes
most have green eyes, like in your pic.
>nordic features
yes, the famous epicanthic eyed brachycephals of Norway and Sweden lmfao
If you actually read your own article and did more research into it you would see they were descended from Auxiliaries, not actual Latin Romans. Probably just Tocharian admixture that leads people to conclude a post-hoc ergo propter hoc.