> Anyway... I think Rome's limiting factor in germania and the european frontier was barbarism. NW europeans didn't have civilization: states, monarchies, templ

> Anyway... I think Rome's limiting factor in germania and the european frontier was barbarism. NW europeans didn't have civilization: states, monarchies, temples, senates, roads, nations. The germans didn't even know they were germans until Romans told them. Rome's empire was based on assuming political control over existing political institutions. I think you could get a job writing excuses for Roman emperors ;) The Romans might have assimilated some sophisticated civilizations like Greece and Carthage, but outposts like Britannia were nothing like that, and Romans built their own roads and cities and villas to extract wealth from the land and set up their own institutions everywhere they went. Germany had no shortage of potential as a source of agricultural produce and slaves, but what made it uneconomical compared with other fringe parts is the pesky Germans kept fighting back, and in particular wiped out the three remaining legions in Germania after eight others sent there to pacify it had been withdrawn to stave off rebellions elsewhere. (They lost a legion to Boudica in Britain too, but they'd built roads and cities there by that time and had a different emperor calling the shots).