Quote Originally Posted by Majd il-Romani View Post
oh and dont forget Hadrian. You may think I'm wrong but hear me out. Trajan greatly extended the borders of the empire, and Hadrian could have followed in his footsteps and totally conquered Britain and possibly even Persia, but he didn't, and those 2 borders ended up being the most problematic in the Empire. He couldve at least stayed where Trajan left the borders but he RETREATED! 200 MILES!
Thing is, Hadrianus couldn't have conquered Persia. He had to deal with Hatra in his rear (Traianus forgot about that minor little city, and as the story goes it cost him his life) and the Jewish revolt of Bar-Kochba was just getting started, making logistical support for any army in Mesopotamia or Persia completely impossible. Mesopotamia isn't really a viable conquest for the Romani anyway until after Christianity spreads there in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries BC, so they have a reasonable portion of the population supporting them. (And then the financial circumstances of the Empire twice prevented them from taking advantage of it - when Maurikios had put Khosrau II back on the throne for one, and when Herakleios had won the Last Persian War for another.)

As for Britannia; who really wants a rocky, useless peninsula like Caledonia? There's no money in it, and the barbarians there are awfully annoying and insist that people differentiate between a burr and a brogue. It's sort of like the reason the Romani never expanded into the old Jastorf cultural zone: it's not cost-effective, and the new territories would take forever to be properly Romanized and start making money. Look how long it took with Gallia.