Explanation: In the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, a united Germanic force under the command of Arminius, a Germanic prince who had served the Roman Empire and then betrayed it, wiped out three legions (~15,000 men) under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus. Arminius took this as a prime opportunity to unite Germany under himself as king!
Unfortunately for him, while losing three legions was devastating to Rome’s long-term interest in Germany, in the short term, it absolutely enraged them. The future Emperor Tiberius, a dour and miserable son of a bitch, shored up the defences along the border and started making massive raids with total impunity - as the ambush of the three lost legions was due to being (unknowingly) deep in hostile territory - the Germanic tribes had little ability to retaliate into the borders of the Roman Empire itself.
After Tiberius was done raiding and pillaging, the Roman general Germanicus (a name inherited from his father, meaning ‘victor over Germania’, not a friend of it) went on a several years-long punitive campaign, in which the Roman Legions burned, pillaged, plundered, and generally devastated all of Germania, save for the tribes that had remained allied to them. In the process Arminius’s coalition was broken up, and he himself was killed by his countrymen.
Probably wasn’t according to Arminius’s plans.
And who is to say things would‘ve worked better for the germans if they just gave Rome everything they wanted? In the end of the day, Rome couldn‘t advance very deep into german lands and collapsed while germans of different kingdoms experienced a millennia of growing prosperity throughout the middle ages.
And who is to say things would‘ve worked better for the germans if they just gave Rome everything they wanted?
CENSOR, PROSCRIBE THIS BARBARIAN DOG
No, you’re right, but this is a Romaboo community so obviously the filthy barbarians were just resisting the glorious march of civilization
I’m going to unironically argue with the second part. Germanic houses fared relatively well in late antiquity, but quite often from within the Empire, and for ordinary Germans I’m guessing the collapse of western Rome sucked just as much as for the next European. The Carolingian renaissance happened, but then ended, and after that you get the depressing Medieval period.
depressng Medieval period
Oh please.
I mean, things happened and society+technology continued to evolve, but yeah, they were tough times, and people in Europe were poorer in goods and often (but not always!) lived leaner. You can argue about the political desirability of a shitty local warlord vs a greedy distant emperor, but a big empire is definitely better for industry and trade. And, while new technologies developed over time (punctuation, mechanical clocks ect.) a lot of technology was also lost in the transition; I’m going to go ahead and say new sewer systems and aqueducts would have made Medieval cities nicer to be in.
You can see this in reverse after the Mongol expansion, too. Eventually, the Greek Orthodox church packed up and moved to the booming cities under the Russian princes, subservient to a succession of various steppe hordes - despite the tough geography and climate, and the memory of the bloody expansion itself.
I’m not saying a giant self-interested autocracy is good, but I’m going to go ahead and say the end of it didn’t noticeably improve things, and democracy wouldn’t be an option for a long time. (The ancient republics were always of the elite)
