Thread 17980272

"what if we combined the treachery and corruption of the Roman state with the infighting and pettiness of the Greeks" ahh empire

"ahh" should be an autoban

>>17980272 (OP)
Can you actually explain what corruption means in the Roman Empire without using buzzwords

>>17980352
not op, but the corruption of the military in where the armed forces of Rome eventually became the source of all power in the state and whoever held the biggest army, controlled the empire. This led to emperors having to live on campaign their entire rule as to not leave their army with any one general as they would soon march on Rome and declare themselves ruler in their stead.. which then led to whoever was left in Rome to raise an army themselves and stake claim to the empire, leading to a never ending spree of civil wars after the Julio-Claudian dynasty died out. This is not even touching on how corrupt even joining the military was and how you had to bribe soldiers to join your cause, all this autism eventually led to aspiring emperors just paying Germans to fight for them as they were cheaper and actually available because already existing Roman legionaries were blocking new citizens from enlisting because that'd eat into the bribes they got

>>17980365
>This is not even touching on how corrupt even joining the military was and how you had to bribe soldiers to join your cause
This is a Republican thing. Imperial generals couldn't afford to pay for their troops out of their own pockets.
>just paying Germans to fight for them as they were cheaper and actually available because already existing Roman legionaries were blocking new citizens from enlisting because that'd eat into the bribes they got
Emperors like Diocletian just enforced conscription to make people join the army en mass. The only real 'bribe' they got were donatives for ascension or a certain year for the emperor and that was paid at a fixed rate for each soldier, so more soldiers didn't mean less of it for the individual.

I guess you could still describe the tendency for soldiers to throw their weight behind their general as corruption, but that's not really uniquely Roman.

Some of the greatest military victories and the worst political collapses.

>ahh
ESL here, do Americans really talk like this?