Why did Hadrian give up Mesopotamia and Armenia?
>>360574
"muh natural borders"
It was actually a valid argument. That border was too hard to defend from Rome.
>>360599
Maybe a new capital, further to the East, would have helped with that
>>360620
I swear roman sculpting really deteriorated later on in the empire
I don't know much about Roman history. How much authority did Rome actually wield in the Caucasus and Mesopotamia?
>>360631
It was intended because muh transcendence
>>360620
Yeah because they did so much better at stopping Persia
He was a fag who needed the money to build his big wall so Celts wouldn't rape his AIDS-ridden pooper
>>360574
Too far away.
It was not feasable to defend for a longer time against another great power like the Sassanids.
Armenia remained a roman vasall afaik
>>360631
no shit
Too hot to handle
they'd rebel, make more noise than heavy metal
Trajan raised like 80,000, Hadrian should have just settled them all along the border
>>360644
They kinda did considering the Sassanians were leagues ahead of the parthians on the threat they supposed to Rome, and that Rome itself was in a worst situation.
>>360644
Yes, it did
>>360676
Trajan's army retreating after his death took massive causalities from the Parthians. on their way back to Roman lines Trajan overextended Roman territory, and Armenia was still as close as ever to its Iranian kin.
It wasn't ever going to work.
>>360689
Remind me, didn't Heraclius pulling all stops leave Byzantine as finanically and physically bleed out as Persia? He didn't do as much as Trajan against Parthian Empire, he just returned the war to the pre-602 boundaries and status quo.
Also to be fair, the Persians kicked the shit out of the Byzantines for 3/4ths or so of the last war. And the Persians had won the last two wars before that against the Byzantines.
>>360693
I think you're lost (if it's not me). The anon I was replying to implied that the Rome ruled from Constantinople was somehow worst than the Rome ruled from actual Rome defending the eastern border.
>>360701
Everyone's shit got fucked up in the last Persian-Roman war, but Byzantium won and came out the least harmed, to the point where they later lost most of their territories to the Arabs, but Persia was completely conquered
>>360726
No, I was referring to the part in your previous post about comparing the Sassanids with the Parthians. The Sassanids were a lot more aggressive, centralized, and what not but the Parthians were not pushovers.
That's why I brought up how Trajan's retreating army started getting fucked up after he died retreating from Iranian Mesopotamia.
>>360755
Oh, well, it was just a comparison. An accurate one, I'll say.
Without the comparison, the Parthians were indeed one of the biggest foes for Rome of their own time. Specially when they were not wasting time and men fighting each other.
>>360743
Not the point, the "win" was irrelevant. The Persians bleed the Byzantines for everything they had. Victory is irrelevant in my eyes because even Heraclius public declaration to the Persians and Byzantines was "return to status quo" i.e. ante bellum.
Hell even most articles refer to the Byzantine victory as "phyrric".
>>360743
Didn't Heraclius lose every battle he fought or almost every battle he had with the Arabs? Also as I recall despite being "winners" (in the most loose sense possible) the Byzantines were losing territory first to the Arabs before the Persians did.
>>360764
Phyrric victory is will a victory.
The fact that Persia was conquered after the war and Byzantium stood for another 700~ years should influence the verdict of who won.
>>360775
>Byzantium stood for another 700~ years
That's a very interesting claim since Byzantine was a shadow of itself in its last 300 years of existence and increasingly irrelevant after the 11th century as a regional power.
Also:
>The fact that Persia was conquered
Had more to do with a plague that wiped out over half its population then Heraclius' actions to be honest.
>Pyrrhic victory is still a victory
The worst possible victory one can have or obtain.
>>360631
What are you talking about, that statue's badass.
All you guys are mixing too much shit up. Sasanians were completely destroyed by the arabs because they had been spending the several years after the war sufferin civil wars, plague and natural disasters like floods. While the defeat against the romans played a part, it's just another leg in the table. Also they didn't have Constantinople, Eastern would've fallen too if the capital was in Antioch (a better equivalent for Ctesiphon than the new rome) and there was no bosphorus.
Anyways, Heraclius won, it's pointless to deny that. He is not to be blamed for the costs of the war, Phocas or any other would have not played better as far as we can know.
>>360775
Eh not him but Heraclius accepted Khosrau's son sue for peace because he was unable to move the last reserve of troops from Greece and Anatolia because he was deathly afraid of the repercussions of leaving Constantinople unguarded against the Bulgars and Slav hordes the Persians had previously employed. And secondly he had no siege engines or weapons or surviving engineers of any kind to take Ctesiphon.
His men were also exhausted so saying Persia fell to the Arabs because of his actions seems kind of murky given he was unable to do more then what he set out and while the Arabs did, even if it took them over 40+ years to pacify Persian Mesopotamia and the Iranian Plateau.
And that's not accounting 3 centuries of Iranian resistance.
>>360813
The Sassanids actively resisted the Caliphate forces for decades.
>>360784
>That's a very interesting claim since Byzantine was a shadow of itself in its last 300 years of existence and increasingly irrelevant after the 11th century as a regional power.
And your point? It is uncommon for Empires to survive centuries if they have no relevance or power. Weakened and inept as it became, it had another 400 years as a great power.
>plague
Equally devastating effect on the Byzantines though.
>Phyrric victory
And? Being a poor victory doesn't negate it, or turn it into a defeat.
After this 'Phyrric' victory they were able to retain a portion of their holdings (their core) for 700 years against the muslims who conquered all of Iberia and Persia at the same time.
>>360813
>Heraclius won
Phyrric victory isn't much of a win, that's the point here. That's why historians universally agree no one really "won" anything ultimately. Did the Persians lose their pre-602 boundaries? No, they didn't.
Neither side gained anything except a return to the status quo.
>>360822
>The Sassanids actively resisted the Caliphate forces for decades.
Yes, and only for decades, because they had not the natural defenses of Constantinople that allowed the romans to not only resist but survive. The iranian region that survived (at least the rasidun and the umayyads) was precisely the one defended by the Alborz.
>>360828
>And your point? It is uncommon for Empires to survive centuries if they have no relevance or power.
That's why Byzantine stopped being an effective empire and fell to the Turks after the 10th century.
>Equally devastating effect on the Byzantines though.
>Plague
There was no plague in Byzantine in the mid-7th century. The only recorded proof we have is actual accounts given about plague's effect by both Byzantine and later Persian sources, none for them.
>Being a poor victory doesn't negate it, or turn into a defeat.
Don't bullshit here. The entire point of a pyrrhic victory is "too costly" to be of use. The Persians were fighting for conquest, the Byzantines were fighting for survival. What territorial concessions did the Byzantines take from the Persians? None.
>>360842
>Only for decades
Wrong.
>>360829
He kinda defended his land and all that. Remember he wasn't the one to start the war.
>>360755
>the Parthians were not pushovers
Crassus and his legions would probably agree.
>>360847
>wrong
???
>>360828
>Equally devastating effect on the Byzantines though.
There was no plague in Byzantine territories in the 630s. Justin's Plague was over a century earlier.
>>360855
So would Trajan's.
>>360851
The war was actually exacerbated and caused more by Phocas then Khosrau Parviz.
>Byzantine and Greek sources make it clear cut that a ethnic Persian governor who was friends of the murdered Maurice attempted to negotiate with the Persian Emperor
>He also made things more diplomatically stable by agreeing to refuse to recongize Phocas as Emperor
>After being guaranteed safe passage back to Constantinople by the Persians who honored their word
>Phocas has him killed
Everything is Phocas's fault.
>>360855
Antony's too
>>360877
>Everything is Phocas's fault.
Well, yes, kinda. That doesn't really affect my point at all, though, Heraclius literally killed Phocas and all that. And the first time he did was to ask for peace.
I mean, I don't even expect Khosrow to stop at that point, but he and his court clearly had aggressive intentions. Vengeance was not the only reason they were attacking.
>>360909
Well it paints a picture that when Khosrau Parviz meets with a fellow Persian who is a Byznatine governor and respects the man who is also a friend of a guy who Parviz viewed as a father figure (Maurice), he was willing to consider stopping at what he had.
After Narsus is murdered, there was no more point to anything but aggressive actions. But before Phocas rising to power, Maurice and Khosrau Parviz relationship was extremely respectful and the Persian Emperor had never forgotten the services he had done in returning his throne to him and saving his life.
So it really depends there.
>>360928
Yes well but, I mean, Heraclius was asking for peace all the time until he got the upper hand.
I'm not even denying that Khosrau's personal feelings were involved here, but they clearly don't explain everything. Even if we were to suppose that Kosrau entered the war solely to avenge Maurice, we would have to look for a reason of why he continued the war, after all Phocas was killed before ten years of war had passed (and it lasted more than the double of that).
>>360574
2000 kms of distance, really. No way to quickly move armies.
Remember that military logistics were primarily by sea. That's why the germ and slav lands where hand to retain. Romans can't into inland administration
>>360955
Probably because his top commanders like Shahrabaraz and Shahin had already taken most of Anatolia, North Africa, Egypt, and the Levant. With that sort of momentum going, there was no point in stopping.
Have you ever tried to deal with Armenians? Simply awful.
