A constant reminder of the larger epic struggles of the despotic East and the tyrannical West since the fall of a balanced Egyptian power during the Bronze Age Societal Crises, sparked by bad Mycenaean harvests and an abduction of a Spartan Queen by a prodigal Trojan prince.
@@TominusMaximus Oop, I was just trying to make a joke. The word is vandalism btw, and it's extremely common in the Anglophone world, normally it's the go-to word when something has been altered without permission
The term "Vandalism" came about in the 1700's. They were just one of the groups blamed for the fall of Rome and so they were used as a rhetorical device.
@@TominusMaximus Suppose that throughout all the parts you do Rome itself would be given it's own place as even Persian dynasties or Islamic Caliphates could only do so much damage compared to a rogue roman general or a up-and-coming Byzantine House.
@@Byzantine-Revolt The greatest foe Rome ever faced was Iran which is also reflected in the sources. Rome and Iran were called the two eyes of the world and at one point Iran forced Rome to capitulate.
The best story for understanding Rome, is how the Senate auctioned the land Hannibal was encamped on right after Cannae. That sheer will is pathological
I think feeling like a community is part of it, a lot of them knew of what their father, grandfathers etc did, who designed what, funded what, built what. All of that built stuff being within their borders of land controlled by their community. We don't have that in the modern day, with only a few exceptions.
"Brothers and sisters are natural enemies. Like Persians and Romans. Or Huns and Romans. Or Germanic tribes and Romans. Or Romans and other Romans. Damn Romans! They ruined Rome!" Willieanus Caledonicus
Well, I doubt it. They were certainly very belligerent and in 626 almost conquered the capital of Constantinople, but they weren't as bad as say Ottomans, Arabs (by that I mean Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates) or Crusaders.
There is n0 such thing as the Byzantiums or the Byzantine Empire. They were a direct continuation of Rome. The Sassanids were a serious threat to them, but they were ROMAN. Get that through your thick skull.
I personally think that the Vandals and the Persians were the greatest enemies of the empire. The Persians were a lethal threat under leaders such as Shapur, Khosrow I, and Khosrow II who during their final war with Rome nearly destroyed the entire empire. The Vandals basically delivered a key blow to the western empire's chances of survival by taking North Africa and then Geiseric smashed any attempt by the Romans to take it back.
Jews and Persians had good relations in antiquity. The Bible portrays them very favorably in the book of Ezra and they were usually very willing rebels whenever Persia attacked the Levant causing Roman retribution. Also good that you rank Goths and Vandals higher than the Huns/Attila. The Huns mostly did some raids and pillaging, they didn't do irreversible damage like the Goths and Vandals did. They even collapsed and fade away from history before the WRE did. Super overrated, important sure, but they were hardly the central cause of Romes demise like people seem to pretend.
The damage the Huns did to the Empire is seen as more indirect, but still significantly important and key to Rome's fall (at least for it falling as soon as it did). Because of the Huns, Germanic tribes had extraordinary cause to unite into larger confederations with the goal of settling in Roman territory.
Yeah I am thinking about not giving a damn anymore and finally showing my face on regular basis. It might be an identity breach but man, probably so easier than editing the audio and then video separately.
I couldn't help myself and skip forward to see if my assumptions that basically Germans, Huns and Persians were the greatest opponents, and indeed they were. Now, let's look at the whole video LOL
I would say that the huns were hugely overrated They only came for a short period of time and then got defeated They are miles away from the persians and germanics
@@AB-fr2ei their simple existence caused so much harm to the empire, they caused the mass migrations that lead to imperial territorial integrity evaporating, they devastated the lands and coffers of both halves of the empire and forced both halves to plan around them and their reaction. They were short lived but while they were there they were the issue everyone feared and had to consider, they were the existential threat that traumatised the Roman state like no other
Love to see you do one for the Eastern Roman/Byzantin empire. So many incredible enemies they fought against. The Arab Caliphates, the Bulgarians, the Lombards, the Kievan Rus, the Normans, the Crusaders, the Turks, Pechenegs, etc...
Why the sassanid don't conquer Syria or Egypt in the Crisis of Third Century? well Shapur I' campaigns were more for sack than conquer and after his death, in my humild opinion, the sassanid enter in a crisis for weak monarch until the Shapur II become in adult and after his death the sassanid have another crisis by weak monarch and the white huns attack in the East during the Five Century, when the Western Roman Empire collapse (but not the Eastern, more rich, urban and greek part). Sorry the bad english PD: I hope see a ranking of enemies of the Eastern Roman Empire (bad call "Byzantine").
Palmyrenes, bro... Apparently they're just that cool with a Syrian woman practically holding half of their ambitious historic claims (now mostly populated by Persian enemies)
Just as extra info, the Spanish region of Andalucía, which comes from Al-Andalus, in theory means “land of the Vandals” in arabic, because they crossed the straight of gibraltar to invade north africa, and so the people of the region thought Iberia was their land.
@@TominusMaximus Yes ofc but I never thought they got that voice in english especialy for Obelix, Asterix is good he sound clever, tiny etc It's one of the first cartoon/comic book I knew so imagine my surprise. Also I didn't knew it has a significant impact outside the triangle France/Switzerlanf/Belgium.
Between Crassus and Antony Parthia did invaded rome and took I think all of the levant and part of Anatolia, it was Ventidius who defeated them and killed the Parthian prince leading the invasion, Im surprised you did not mentioned that at all.
the anglo-*saxons* also made up quite a bit of the varangian guard after 1066 (many anglo-saxon warriors fled england after the norman invasion), but idk if you wanna include that for saxons because they are anglo-saxons
Salve, Tominus! I was looking for your video of early Roman stories but I'm assuming it was privated or taken down; I request you upload it cause I love that bit about Mucius Scaevola.
Loving these vids hope one there will be one for the Eastern Romans or atleast their earlier history cause the last 3 entries feel incomplete without that part of the story
Great video! I would just mention that the sack of Ctesiphon by Galerius is rather uncertain since no source confirms it and it's only based on the assumptions of one or more modern scholars, other scholars only mention Carus, so it's a debatable topic I guess.
If you tell Romanians today that the Roman Empire pillaged Dacia's riches, they laugh like idiots, they genuinely think Dacians were poor savages and that the Romans did nothing wrong.
This list only goes as far as the end of the West. If this were a Byzantine list, they'd probably still be at #2, as Turks or Saracens would also outdo them.
@@wankawanka3053Constantinople was impenetrable, it’s not a fair comparison. They sacked the majority of their major cities, like Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria.
For Dacia one should not forget the Dacians were fierce warriors that ended up making up one of the four Gladiator schools of Rome: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludus_Dacicus
As always, the Sassanids are underestimated so here's a list of their military victories against Rome Warning : It's long Ardashir Babakan defeated the Romans at the siege of Nisibis 235 and his forces raided Cappadocia along with Syria and reconquered Armenia He also defeated three Roman armies one lead by emperor Alexander Severus himself in Mesopotamia Based on a rock relief in Iran's Azerbaijan, the Roman army in Armenia was also defeated Severus lost the battle of Ctesiphon 233 to the Sassanids but before that, Ardashir crushed his vanguard before arrival of Alexander and it's likely that the third Roman army was also defeated after Severus loss and so Ardeshir was able to repel all three Roman armies marching against him Shapur I defeated 3 Roman emperors and even captured one of them Based on one of the Sassanid tablets, Gordian III also died in one of these battles Each Roman army had between 60,000-70,000 men outnumbering Shapur 2-1 He won the battle of Misiche (60,000 Romans), battle of Barbalissos (60,000 Romans), battle of Edessa (70,000 Romans), siege of Antioch 253, siege of Dura Europos 256, plundered 37 Roman cities in his second Roman campaign and plundered 36 Roman cities in his third, all of this while always being outnumbered 2-1 and yet he won all the wars Emperor Valerian was captured, emperor Philip the arab was humiliated and forced to pay heavy tribute while emperor Gordian III was defeated and probably killed in battle of Misiche against Shapur I according to Sassanid sources Odenathus didn't even fight Shapur's army in a battle he just attacked him from behind while he was already going back to Iran and still, Shapur kept most of his men, prisoners, plunders and loots He even had the time to raid Syria after this clash with Odenathus which means Odenathus army suffered heavy casualties and couldn't stop Shapur at the time even after that so called victory Odenathus failed to take Ctesiphon twice and was defeated at the battle of Ctesiphon 263 by Shapur and failed to conquer the city once again in 266 There's a lithograph/stone carving which scholars believe it shows the victory of Sassanid king, Bahram II over emperor Carus and his brother, the Kushan king, after a successful military campaign in the east against the Kushans Some scholars even say Carus might have been killed in a Sassanid counter attack or skirmish and not by a lightning like the Romans claim Before Narseh was defeated, he defeated Romans at the battle of Carrhae 296 and also in two other battles and inflicted heavy casualties on the Romans and if he had won one last time, the Romans would've been completely defeated that year One of Shapur II small armies defeated a much larger Roman army at the battle of Samarra 363 and a Sassanid killed emperor Julian by shoving a spear in his chest Shapur himself defeated the second Army in Armenia After that, the Sassanids retook Armenia, 15 fortresses and western Mesopotamia Check out Perso Roman peace treaty of 363 which was a humiliation for Rome and made up for the Sassanid defeat at Satala Before that, he sacked Amida and even though he was forced to retreat at the battle of Singara, he returned that same night and defeated the emperor in a night attack, retook his camp, routed the Roman army which was forced to retreat while suffering many casualties He successfully besieged Bezabde in 360 AD and in the same year, the Romans were defeated at Bezabde again when they tried to besiege it He also successfully besieged Singara at 360 AD He also made Manuel Mamikonian of Armenia submit to him in the year 378 AD and thus reconquered Armenia again like years before when he defeated the Armenian queen and her son Bahram Gur also defeated a Roman army but the war ended in a stalemate However, he was able to repel them from Mesopotamia Yazdegerd II raided Roman cities and the Roman emperor was forced to pay heavy tribute for him to leave Under the Kavad I and his Khosrow Anushiravan, the Sassanids defeated the Romans in three wars in a row The Anastasian war Iberian war Lazic war All won by the Sassanids with the Romans forced to pay heavy tribute each time at the end of each war and losing more battles or sieges than the Sassanids in each of them Khosrow destroyed the fortress of Dara in one of his campaigns which made Roman emperor go insane He raided the Roman provinces several times and each time got tribute from the emperor Khosrow even sacked Antioch Even Belisarius, the best eastern Roman general was defeated several times by the Sassanids Battle of Thannuris 528 (Sassanid victory) Battle of Mindouos 528/529 (Sassanid victory) Battle of Dara 530 (Roman victory) Battle of Callinicum (Sassanid victory) Battle of Nisibis (Sassanid victory) Siege of Sisauranon (withdrawal of Belisarius army) Two Roman forces that attacked Mesopotamia were also defeated before the battle of Thannuris Battle of Anglon 543 (4,000 Sassanids defeated 30,000 Romans) Bahram Chobin defeated Romans or Roman sponsored armies about three times or four times during the reign of Khosrow I and Hormizd IV Hormizd IV or his generals also won a series of victories in raids and sieges against the Romans in Mesopotamia and their borders Khosrow II generals, Shahrbaraz and Shahin, conquered half if not most of the Byzantine empire and held it for 10-16 years They even defeated Heraclius himself once at the battle of Antioch 613 when he had 68,000 men while the Sassanids had 40,000 The Sassanids took true cross from Romans for years and defeated Heraclius once or twice more after that victory near Antioch The war ended in a stalemate, not even a victory for any of the two
Ave Christus Rex!!! btw Tominus... I have family from around the Danube Delta. I took a DNA test and I got 4% Italian and 12% Greek which I'm super happy about, I've been called 'Italian Restaurant Owner' (my looks) by my mates and I take it as a complement.
Seeing the Dacians put in the same category with Huns makes me proud and grateful that you acknowledge the danger of Dacia at those times until sadly they lost in 106, remaining only the free dacians and the carpi outside Dacia Romana. And we were before the Huns, but not as great as them. We were good archers too though🤘🏻🐺🏹
He's only considering pre 468. If he wasn't the Lombards, Ostrogoths, Turks, Avars, Bulgars and Slavs would be on the list, and the Sassanids would be higher.
Great video,though I think Persia/Sassanid should be the top 1 enemy because how they kept defeating Roman army,captured an emperor,trolling Justinian and almost besieged Constantinople in 7th century. In the end,the Turks and themselves were the greatest enemy that destroyed the Roman.
I assume this pre 476 ranking because the Persians not the goths came to the closest to destroying the empire by 620.rhe situation was so desperate Heraclius wanted to become the client state of the Persians
Julians troops betrayed their Emperor and rebelled in Aquileia, an important Roman naval city in Italy. Hadn't Constantius "I am a survivor who is gonna kill everone in my way" II died, Julian would have been probably eaten alive by his troops.
The problem thw Jews had with the romans was mainly the way of taxing as in Judea people couldnt own land and the roman taxing system was land based so the romans forced the jews to own land which went against the jewish religion and the jewish roman relations started during seluecid rule and the hasmonean rebbelion when the jews allied the romans and together kicked out the seleucids
