Re: Who was the best Roman general?
None of which translate to a larger body of citizens. More people under your command? Yes. More citizens? No.The Romans emerged from the 2nd Punic War bloodied, but they gained plenty of land, wealth and former territories of Carthage.
For a classical society in which half the troops are being provided by one city (the other half being provided by the Italian Allies), a couple hundred thousand deaths is A LOT. Rome did have a large population, but I have no doubt that the frequent and bloody wars in which they were involved were making it progressively more difficult to supply troops.The Romans also always had a large population to begin with.
Those weren't failures. I think you misunderstand the purpose of those invasions: they weren't designed to conquer Germany or Britain, they were designed to send messages to the Germani and the Britanni to stay out of Gallic affairs and stop giving aid to the enemy. Why do you think Caesar built that bridge over the Rhine, crossed it, and marched around with his army a bit, not really fighting anyone and then marched back over the bridge and destroyed it? He wasn't attempting to conquer, but to persuade allies of the Gauls that they didn't want to get involved. And in that he succeeded eminently.Caesar had 2 failed invasions of Germany, 2 failed invasions of Britain.
No...by the time of the Vercingetorix revolt, virtually all (if not all) of Rome's Gallic allies had turned on her and Caesar was fighting the entire Gallic nation.Victory or not, Caesar's decision to destroy the last remaining tribes that resisted was more like euthanizing road kill that was already dying...not some grand conquest.
They criticized Caesar because most of them were aware that he had started that war and Rome traditionally liked to have some pretext for war. -MThe Romans at the time criticized Caesar for mounting an expensive and senseless Gallic campaign since most of Gaul paid tribute to Rome, and the Gauls were becoming Romanized anyways.
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