this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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Rough Roman Memes
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A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)! Byzantines tolerated! The HRE is not.
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Explanation: While, contrary to popular belief, Roman conquests were generally not particularly profitable for the Roman state, there are notable exceptions - one of them being the Emperor Trajan's conquest of Dacia.
A bit of background - the Roman Empire raised the majority of its taxes in two forms - tariffs (including an internal tariff known as the portaria), and government monopolies. There are other taxes imposed for various reasons, but it's estimated that upwards of 70% of the Empire's revenues were raised by these two sources.
As such, conquering even wealthy lands would not necessarily result in profit for the central government... unless there was some resource that was easily controlled by a small number of bureaucrats. In Iudea, it was Balsam trees for perfume. In Dacia, it was gold! Precious metals mines were owned by the Empire, and either ran directly or rented out to private businesses, depending on the mine. When Trajan conquered Dacia, he not only enriched the men on campaign, but ensured that the treasury was full for the rest of his reign as well!
This little curiousity is a contributor as to why Emperors generally did not occupy defeated foes after most successful wars - it simply would not be profitable to bring the barbarians civilization!