Who were the roman republic's worst enemies?

[Cyclops]

Ahem,
"You had best be trolling", sir.

I take mikil100's point about learning from your defeats, but the principle that "anything that doesn't kill me makes me stronger" is simply claptrap, and I believe Nietzsche (please forgive my clumsy variant spellings) did suffer from mental ilness, which is no laughing matter.

Also, how exactly do we define a "stand-up fight" if not on terms acceptable to the Romans? Just because some barbarians preferred (?) to fight from ambush does not guarantee that their method of warfare was inferior, only different; just as the parthians' predisposition to fight with bow from horseback doesn't make them less capable of winning wars than any other nation. A Roman loss from anything but a "stand-up fight" doesn't necessarily mean that their adversaries were "cheating" (although they no doubt chose to see it this way at the time, sore losers that they were), more likely it was a Roman inability to adapt its tactics.

Not that you don't raise a fair point here and there! but provocative statements like the above (accusation that barbarians "never won a stand up fight") probably do more to undermine your arguments than support them.

You're quite right and Frostwulf has correctly pulled me up on the same point, I went too far in saying the Germans never won a fair fight. I meant to say they never won a fair fight in the Roman heartland like Hannibal did. They did win fights against the Romans (fair and foul) on or beyond the Roman frontier, and were part of many wins under Roman leadership.

Now, I'm going to duck out of this Big Boys History Discussion humbly as I may, as I don't feel qualified to comment further... and for my bit, I vote Carthage for the Republic's greatest foe (Hanno, you bloody clart!)

In the end we all seem to agree, Hannibal is the big bad wolf. Whats a clart?