Quote Originally Posted by Tiberius Nero
Just a note, when we talk of "Romanization", one shouldn't think this happened at the tip of a sword; the Romans couldn't care less about the culture of the people they subjugated, most of the Romanization for the conquered was really adapting to a new governmental structure and the processes by which Roman authority was expressed.

The only cultural aspects Romans forcibly suppressed were 1) human sacrifice by the druids (and probably everywhere), not because of religious grounds but simply because it was considered plain homicide under Roman law, 2) religio-political movements, because these in their experience tended to lead to revolts, like the movement of Eunus, prophet of the Syrian Goddess (Atargatis), in Sicily (135 BC); again this wouldn't lead to religious bans, as the cult of Atargatis for example was never outlawed.
Indeed as long as a peoples admitted defeat after a victorious war, paid tribute and then taxes, and subjected itself to Roman law and government the Roman state didn't much care what they did. Often as far as religion went, "new" gods would become a fad amongst the idle rich at Rome.

The harshness towards religio-political movements is also why Jews and later Christians suffered under Roman rule. Not because of the god they chose to believe in, but because of their denouncement of all other gods as false and the frequency with which agitators would appear and foment trouble.

It's worth reinforcing what MAA said about many "conquests" just changing who you paid taxes to, in many Hellenic conflicts all that really happened after a set piece battle or two was a peace treaty where alliegances of settlements were changed. Until the next war when everyone had recovered. Total war was never the object, and major loss of life was to be avoided by both sides.