Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "What If Rome Conquered Persia? | Alternate History" video.

  1. I think the real problem for Rome is that the empire was so big and successful that with the tech at the time, it made it difficult to deal with far off land powers and Persia was on the frontier as being a bit too far to really be worth taking over even thought many did try, if Persia was closer to the heartland of Rome, I think the Romans would have taken them over and I do have to wonder if Rome and China had more direct contact if both would have put the squeeze of Persia because Rome and China did a lot of trade with each other that went through Persia and that was very lucrative for Persia, Rome and China likely would have wanted to cut out the middle men and trade more directly with each other. How history would have turned out, good or bad is hard to say, much of the Middle East might have been Westernized but it's hard to say with how much history has gone by if that would have stuck. Another factor for Rome, you always got the impression that something came up just at the time Rome was going to take Persia on and you have to wonder if Persia had anything to do with that because it happened a lot and I could imagine that Persia didn't want war with Rome so creating problems back in Rome was in Persia interest, it also wouldn't surprise me if Caesar got killed just before leaving Rome because they knew if Caesar was successful in taking out Persia, he would look like a god to Romans and the idea of changing the system back would have been difficult, so it was now or never for the assassins.
    1
  2.  @NJ-eo2oc  I don't know about that, it looked like Rome was able to give them a beating at any time and did many times but had little incentive in fully taking over them because of the size and distance from Rome, remember that Rome mostly cared about making sure there were no enemies connected directly to Rome, hence when they tool over all the surrounding areas. So yeah, I think if they wanted, they could take them over but there was little point in doing so, Rome was getting difficult to manage at the size it was, it would have almost been impossible if they took them over going off the tech they had, so Rome settled for giving them a bloody nose now and then.
    1