Rome's Strongest Enemy

[Lysimachus]

With all of the Roman :wub: going on in the superpower thread, I felt like getting you guys thoughts on this. Who do you think was Rome's strongest adversary? The Celts? Germans? Dacians? In this thread i'm referring to once Rome had been established as an empire by the way, not its entire history. So uhm yeah, opinions? By the way it would be nice if you would back up your opinion rather than giving one word answers too.

[HansDuet]

Arsacids and Sassanids.

[hellheaven1987]

Sassanid.

[Poach]

Yep, the Parthian and Sassanid Empires were a powerful enemy that were capable of going up against the Empire.

The Sassanids were, though, the superior of the mesapotamian Empires.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

Attila the Hun

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

I am going to say the Sassanids as well, but if your timespan extends that far, then it's definitely the Arabs. To me the real transition from Rome to Byzantium happens after and due to the crippling losses to the early Islamic armies, namely the fall of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Northern Africa. Apart from the unparalleled in Roman history string of decisive defeats, in the aftermath of this war the demographic composition of the Empire had been altered and a heavy cultural shift had occured de facto, the status quo of the Rome as a superpower had been brought to ruins, as was the old doctrine of the Mediterranean being a Roman lake, the dominance of the Roman navy would be put to the test and a new system of military and political organisation would be introduced.
No other enemy or coallition of enemies ever came close to inflicting so much damage and exerting so profound influence upon the character of the Empire itseelf.

[asianboy]

I would have to agree with almost everyone as well: the Parthians and the Sassanids would be my choice.

I would also like to add the Huns as a contender.

[Flavius Nevitta]

Sassanides imho

[Primvs Sextvs Loverlord]

The war-like and powerful confederation of Germanic tribes that lived north and north-east of the Danube as well far above the Rhine were another major military threat to the Romans. Indeed, the Visigoths sacked Rome in 410AD, the Vandals sacked it in 455AD and the Lombards in 568AD - they were all Germanic tribes or nations. They also annihilated Varus' legions. Not bad for a people without the empire, civilization and resources of the Persian Sassanids and Parthians.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

The Sassanid Empire never really threatened the very existence of the Roman Empire, not even of the Eastern Roman Empire (well, only at the time of Heraclius when Constantinople was besieged but that was later).. Besides the golden age of the Sassanid Empire was when the Roman Empire had been already divided into West and East Roman Empire.. The Huns are responsible for the dislocation of the German tribes which forced them to move towards the Roman territory and after a few years the Western Empire fell.. Also the Huns and their allies threatened the Eastern half of the Empire..

[cenkiss]

Huns threatened the existence of roman empire.

[Golden Hawk]

It's relitively hard to determine the strongest enemy of the Roman Empire, mainly because of it's fall into two seperate factions. For the Eastern Roman Empire(I guess Byzantine is fitting, though infact, the Eastern Roman Empire never used such a name. It was created over a centure after the fall of Constantinople), it's definetly either Sassasinid Empire or arguably Turks/Ottomans(Arabs?), call them whatever you like. Although it has to be said that the cold relations with the west contributed to the downfall of the Eastern Empire. One could argue that even though it were the Ottomans that ultimate conquered Constantinople, it was infact the western Europe that was the true enemy.

As for the Western Roman Empire, it's harder to determine the strongest enemy(unless you can call economic system an enemy). One could say it were the Ostrogoths, Visigoths and Vandals. But then again, Huns also ravaged through the central Europe. Nonetheless, I'd still say that Vandals played the biggest part in the Western Empire's downfall(along with the rebellions, corruption, economic system and whatnot).

[CiviC]

Romans.

[{II}Sovereign]

Romans.

Or rather the roman senate is what you meant by this.

[CiviC]

Or rather the roman senate is what you meant by this.

The Senate, that impotent institution ... ?

No, if we are to choose one institution, that is the Roman Army who was the greatest enemy of Rome.

[Lysimachus]

The Senate, that impotent institution ... ?

No, if we are to choose one institution, that is the Roman Army who was the greatest enemy of Rome.

Do I really have to add "(excluding herself)" in to the thread title?

[CiviC]

Do I really have to add "(excluding herself)" in to the thread title?

Yes

The Empire's worst enemy were his own legions.

[Gestalt]

I'd go for the Arascids(Parthians),the Sassanids,and the Huns.This thread is quite interesting since I just Purchased Peter Heather's The Fall Of the Roman Empire.A new History of Rome and the Barbarians. I'm only half way through the book now,but so far he asserts that the Romans were far more scared of the Parthians,and later the Sassanids than even the Germanic threat.Also the Huns, because the Goths for example came swarming into the Empire which actually caused the battle of Adrianople,because they were seeking refuge from them.I knew that already,but I kind of figured the Germans were always a far more serious a threat than they really were. The Romans only had serious problems with them when they actually united in mass and weren't waging wars amongst themselves as was almost always the case.Expending vast amounts of troops, resources in the east,plague,made it difficult to counter threats on their northern borders.When Alaric came to siege Rome,the Romans pretty much forced his hand because of their betrayals,and widespread atrocities against the Goths in the empire,which drew many angry Goths formerly in Roman service into Alarics ranks

[Babur]

Sassanids:

[KngGilgamesh]

Carthage at the early stage, Hannibal basically paraded his army across Italy.
Then the Sassanids, which probably could have defeated the Roman Empire